CASE OF THE LAUGHING VIRGIN by Jonathan Craig SIXTH PRECINCT
THRILLER #6
When discussing CASE OF THE PETTICOAT MURDER earlier this
month Bill Crider informed us that "The book opens, as nearly
every Selby/Rayder case with the discovery of a beautiful
nude murder victim". LAUGHING VIRGIN begins with a twist:
"The naked girl on the roof was no longer screaming. But she
was trying to." The nude girl is alive.
Good start. Unfortunately, it's all downhill from there. I
thought Craig telegraphed the procedural elements and the
plot hinged on unlikely events. LAUGHING VIRGIN is also a
whodunnit, which put me off even more. And, the most serious
flaw: there is no tension. I haven't read a book in a long
while which was as flat as this. A couple of reasons for
this, I think. The viewpoint and the whodunnit aspect. The
viewpoint is first person, yet the reader discovers little of
consequence about the remarkably dull Pete Selby (maybe
because it's not his story). And if Craig had scrapped the
whodunnit in favour of telling us who the murderer was, there
would at least have been some tension when Selby and the
murderer were in the same room. Speaking of which...
LIE DOWN, KILLER by Richard Prather
(my copy claims to be a Gold Medal original copyright 1958,
but according to abebooks Lion printed it in 1952 - Mr
Crider?)
Not a Shell Scott novel. Here's the plot. One fine morning
without having done anything wrong Steve Bennett is arrested
for murder. The police believe he has killed his partner, Jim
Clay. Steve is dumbstruck when the evidence is laid out in
front of him. Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to make
him look guilty (the book bears more than a passing
similarity to Woolrich's PHANTOM LADY). He's thrown in
prison. His only hope is dashed when the girl he spent the
night with refuses to provide him with an alibi. What does he
do? He sets about proving his innocence. But first he has to
get out of jail.
Prather could have attempted to write a mystery (a la
Jonathan Craig). In fact, although most of the book is
written from Steve's viewpoint (third person), Chapter Four
is written from the murderer's point of view. So no mystery.
The fact that the reader is aware of who's responsible for
setting Steve up, just makes the whole experience even more
intense. The only slight criticism I have is that Steve jumps
to correct conclusions a little bit too frequently.
Previously I've noticed that Prather's fight sequences tend
to be explicit and drawn out. He does it again here. One
scuffle lasts for several pages. And why not? He obviously
believes in doing what he's good at. And there's no doubt
he's good at it. Maybe even one of the best.
Al
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