Discovering new writers is always a highlight of attending a
Bouchercon. Discovering new old writers is just as exciting
to me. I do have a bad habit of going from zero to 60 very
quickly on a limited knowledge about a writer. More than
twenty years ago I listened to Mike Nevins sing the praises
of William Ard and afterwards raced young Billy Crider to the
book room to search this forgotten master out. Back home I
found and bought more copies including the ones completed by
Lawrence Block and John Jakes (which were pricey due to the
hot covers). Unfortunately, I finally read a couple and found
Mr. Ard to be a tad mediocre. Boring even. I will say that I
liked his Buchannan westerns, a series he started. But that's
about it.
So I am standing at dealer's table admiring recent purchases
which included a very nifty Dell Mapback of WHERE THERE'S
SMOKE a reprint of a 1946 novel by Stewart Sterling. Art
Scott, paperback cover art expert extraordinare, came along
about this point and I showed him the Dell and he nodded in
appreciation at the condition. At this point I raised my
other hand that held Ace Double D-415 with the side featuring
Sterling's FIRE ON FEAR STREET, a reprint of a 1958 novel.
"Apparently," I said, "It's a series."
Art gave me a quick surprised glance. "You've never read any
of the Fire Marshall Pedley series?" My confession of
ignorance clearly caused his estimation of me to sink. Oh I
had seen the name and somewhere had a novel by him that had
never tempted me to read. Art patiently explained to me that
Sterling came out of the pulps and specialized in specialty
detectives. His best known character was Fire Marshall Pedley
with a career that began in the pulps, jumped to hardback
novels in the 1940s and continued into the 60s. Art said
Sterling also had a series featuring a "house dick" by the
name of Gil Vine. I flipped the Ace Double over and there was
DEAD CERTAIN on the other side featuring two Gil Vine
novelettes.
I barely got home before I hit Abebooks.com and ordered more
by Sterling. But before I went too far, I settled in to read
the Ace Double. First up, Gil Vine. This is a first person
series and the hotel background feels authentic.
I have just today received a Pyramid Books edition of I
WAS A HOUSE DETECTIVE by Dev Collans with Stewart Sterling,
so I know he did research.
The Vine stories feature a tabloid style manner of expression
that seems far more real to me than so many of the attempts
to produce this sound. After stopping a woman's suicide
attempt, Vine says: "She tried to fly," I briefed him. "Tim
grabbed her before she spread her wings." Here's another
randomly chosen example: "Larry's cagey enough not to let
everything he knows leak out through his mouth..." I tire
quickly of the Damon Runyon-type chatter but I had no problem
with this.
There is one aspect of the stories that bothered me. I can
suspend disbelief with the best of them in order to enjoy a
story. But both these Vine stories had him delaying notifying
the police of very serious crimes even while additional
crimes were committed. Vine's job is to protect the hotel's
reputation, and while he generally will not let a criminal go
free, he will do most anything to protect the hotel.
Understanding that this was a different era, I cannot believe
that the police in either of these stories would not have
thrown him in jail for numerous crimes, even if he did solve
the murder. It is one thing for a private eye to withhold
evidence or obstruct investigations but an employee of a
luxury hotel could not do this without serious repercussions
with the authorities and with lawsuits.
Maybe I am too picky or getting to be a whimp in my old age
because these stories, despite a sometimes breezy manner, are
quite tough. And while in the real world the stunts pulled
could not possibly be as overt as Vine's, his character is
otherwise believable and remarkable for being openly amoral.
He is not traveling these mean streets to right wrongs. His
only concern is protecting the image of the hotel that
employs him.
The first story begins with a woman guest saying she was
raped and describing one of the hotel's richest and best
known guests as her attacker. This is a hotel's worst
nightmare. Vine calls in the House doctor who asks "Am I
supposed to verify this assault?"
Vine answers, "No. Knock her out. Slip her a mickey. Enough
to keep her asleep while I do some investigating."
So Doc slips her the mickey and within a few minutes (and
about three pages) the woman dies of an overdose. Doc's shot
was too strong or, more likely, she had something else in her
system that made the additional narcotic lethal.
There is a fleeting moment when Doc feels a bit bad about it
but that's about it on the regret front. I love Gil Vine's
reaction. "My first instinct was to figure it a break for the
house. After nine years on security, it's second nature to
keep the hotel's name from being plastered with guk. Offhand,
this seemed like a perfect opportunity to keep it clean." He
continues to muse on the fact that the girl had only told the
doc and himself about the rape. That fact need never come
out. Finally, he decides that it would eventually have to be
reported. "It wasn't conscience; I haven't had my conscience
out of mothballs since '08. Call it pride. It griped me to
have some bastard get away with something as raw as that,
right under my nose." Still a little later Vine asks Doc if
he could certify the death as being from natural cause but
Doc ansers "Of course not."
My bottom line on Gil Vine is that these two stories were
above average in many ways but I need to read a few more to
make a firm judgment on the series.
As for Fire Marshall Pedley, he is the real deal and I will
follow him into many more burning buildings. Told in the
third person, Pedley is a big bulldog of a guy who moves
forward in a straight line as he pursues arsonists.
"Moves" is the action word here and he not only moves, he
plunges. In FIRE ON FEAR STREET Pedley gobbles bennies to
keep going as he works around the clock to catch an arsonist
trying to torch a tenement neighborhood. What I like about
old Pedley is that Sterling allows him to be human. Trying to
collar an old man, Pedley's ear is bitten and torn and bleeds
for half the book. About the time it stops bleeding a
patrolman mistakes the Fire Marshall for a prowler and slugs
him with a nightstick, which starts the bleeding anew. As
Pedley pops the bennies and forces himself to go on, it is
evident that he is no longer operating at full capacity and
eventually makes a major mistake. But nothing will stop him
from working through his mistakes and eventually stopping the
arsonist. I like this big guy!
Skipping to my other Pedley novel WHERE THERE'S SMOKE, there
is this description of his method: "He knew only one way to
go at a thing like this. Keep asking questions. With his
eyes, when he could. With his mouth, when he had to. If you
kept on asking questions and getting answers, the right one
would be among them sooner or later."
The most notable aspect of the Fire Marshall Pedley novels is
the pace. I love a writer who knows how to keep a novel
moving and Sterling (real name Prentice Winchell) is one of
the best at this I've ever read. Today's mail brought me a
couple of additional Sterling novels and on the cover of one
Anthony Boucher compares the pace to Erle Stanley Gardner's,
who was renowned for his fast-paced narratives.
Stewart was not known as a stylist but he can be graphic in
descriptions, such as this of a fire victim. "Blackened lips
curled back against the teeth in a clown's grimace--a man
whose face looked as if minstrel make-up had cracked and
peeled from his skin, whose head was covered with charred
fuzz where there had been hair."
When Pedley knelt down in a puddle of water to examine the
body there is this: "Pedley put a palm to the dead man's
chest, pressed gently. A tiny feather of smoke trailed from
the blackened lips."
And while the prose rarely soars, there are moments when
Stewart captures a gritty city feeling.
"He stood up, looked at the sky. The ugly glow was gone from
the underside of the low-hanging clouds; the smoke drifting
upward had little heat beneath it to give it wings. The boys
had the blaze in hand.
"The pumpers were uncoupling. Soot-smudged men were taking
up--handling the ice-sheathed canvas as cautiously as if they
were juggling butcher knives. Gongs clanged the recall for
hood-and-ladders. Motors roared. Police whistles shrilled.
Sirens began their warning wail....The crowds at the fire
line were already thinning. Hose trucks and combinations were
rolling out from the curb, sliding away into the early dusk
with bloodshot eyes."
So I now have another Vine mystery in hand thanks to the
mail. ALIBI BABY in an Avon paperback from 1955. What a
cover! Picking up the nearest edition of TWENTIETH CENTURY
CRIME AND MYSTERY WRITERS I wasn't surprised to find a
comprehensive write-up and publication history. I wasn't even
surprised to see that it was written by Art Scott...and this
is just about the spot where I entered this story.
Richard Moore
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