This is Kent Murdock #3.
About the author: George Harmon Coxe (1902-1984) began writing in the nickel and dime pulps for pennies a word. He was a particularly prolific author, writing a total of 63 novels, his last published in 1975. The Mystery Writers of America named him a Grand Master in 1964. (condensed from fantastic fiction)
Major characters:
- Kent Murdock, news photographer
- Joyce Murdock, his wife
- Nora Pendleton, Joyce's friend
- Dana Pendleton, Nora's father
- Jerry Carter, gossip columnist and blackmailer
- Johnny Gowen, Kent's associate photographer
- Lew Novak, cheating private detective
- Gordon Thorndike, cheating socialite
- Wilfred Witherbee, an embezzler
- Robert Ostrum, a.k.a. George Brown
Locale: Boston
Synopsis: Newspaper photographer Kent Murdock comes home to find his wife's friend, Nora Pendleton. She is upset and reveals she has just shot a man, columnist Jerry Carter, who has been blackmailing her. Kent's wife, Joyce, urges Kent to help her out. Kent goes for a look-see. In front of Carter's office building, Kent first sees a man on stilts wearing an advertising sandwich board followed by a troop of kids. Sensing a human interest photo, Kent takes a photo of the scene, with several other passers-by in the background.
Kent enters the building and finds the body as advertised, but Nora's gun is nowhere to be found. He takes photos of the body and scene. Nora finds the gun - in her father (Dana Pendleton)'s drawer, in his attempt to cover the murder up.
Kent returns to his office to have the photos developed. Soon a number of people show up wanting to get the photo of the sandwich-board man. It seems they were in the background of the photo and don't want it published. Things get pushy and someone slugs Kent's associate, Johnny Gowan, who dies.
Kent now has two goals: exonerate Nora, and avenge the death of Johnny Gowan.
Review: This one takes a great deal of suspension-of-disbelief. There is Kent's rush into a murder scene without notifying the police, there is the buddy-buddy relationship between them, and there is the crowd of cheaters, crooks, gamblers and embezzlers who just happen to wind up in the background of an innocuous photo.
That said, this is a nonstop not-quite-hardboiled action book with lots of action, a cast straight out of Guys and Dolls, and provocative descriptions of the dames involved. Repeated recitations of the list of possible suspects should give the reader a clue that the murderer is "none of the above".
I enjoyed the specific descriptions of the streets of Boston (being familiar with them first-hand), and was surprised how little has changed from 1937 to today.
Please also see this review by Bev Hankins on My Reader's Block.
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