“No Harp for My Angel”
“Booty for a Babe”
“Eve, It’s Extortion”
3 by Carter Brown
Stark House Press
298 pgs
Once again Stark House Press
delivers a package of reprint classics. This time featuring three Detective Al
Wheeler mysteries by Australian scribe Alan Geoffrey Yates writing as Carter
Brown. As with all such collections from this wonderful publisher, the stories
themselves are preceded by an informative essay on Yates and his life as a
paperback writer by Rick Ollerman; itself worthy of the price of the book. As a
child growin up in the 50s, we had an uncle who devoured paperback mysteries as
if they were popcorn, reading a minimum of six per week. His nose was always
buried in one of those little tomes; all of them featuring tough guy and hot
babe covers. The one name we distinctly remember appearing over most of this
sexy images was that of Carter Brown and for good reason. In his writing career
he wrote hundred of them.
“No Harp for My Angel,” has Det.
Wheeler on vacation in Florida when he runs afoul of a casino thug named Johnny
Lynch with serious ambitions rise in the criminal underworld. At the same time
lovely young socialites, daughters of prominent families, begin disappearing
and the local cops believe Lynch is involved. Whereas Wheeler is a new face in
town, he is recruited to go undercover as New York crook and learn not only
what is happening to the missing girls but how it connects to the mobster.
Naturally, in all such adventures, Wheeler not only has to contend with several
deadly bruisers while mainting his disguise, but also a raven haired femme
fatale who might very easily spell his doom if he becomes infatuated with her
charms.
The second short novel is called
“Booty for a Babe.” The guest speaker at a small weekend science-fiction club
is murdered in the middle of the grand hall when a dart is shot into his heart.
Eighty-five eye witnesses and all of them instant suspects. To solve the case,
Commissoner Lavers sends in Det. Al Wheeler because of his unorthodox methods.
Of course part of that includes flirting with every good looking dame on the
scene. The problem is once the convention ends, the attendees get to go home.
It’s Wheeler’s job to see the killer isn’t set free with them. This one is
breeze and fun, with Wheeler’s wisecracking par for the course and early sci-fi
takes a serious shellacking.
“Eve, It’s Extortion,” is the third and
final book in the collection and our personal favorite. When a drunk is the
victim of a hit and run, he leaves his beautiful widow a tidy sum of cash. Moss,
the insurance agent, suspects foul play and convinces Police Commissiner Lavers
to investigate. The commissioner assigns Al Wheeler to the case. As ever, the
cocky, wise-cracking lieutenant soon finds himself elbow deep in beautiful, but
deadly women; from Eve, the widow to a claims hunter named Edna Bright and a
mischievous redhead named Natalie. Amidst this bevy of beauties he finds
blackmailers and killers all intermingle in a pretzel like affair that will
take all his unorthodox luck to solve. This is a breezy, fun caper that doesn’t
disappoint. Wheeler even gets the girl in the end.
All in all, Stark House Mystery
Classics delivers another great package celebrating the glorious days of
paperback mayhem. This is one all mystery loves will appreciate.
