Product Description

Bill rock went to the burlesque show, on a hunch that he could gather a little information his boss, the District Attorney, needed in his fight on the vice ring. The fourth girl from the left was a likely looking one to Bill. He made a date to see her, though going backstage led to a row with Mullins, the manager. Bill had to knock him out, which was going to be the start of plenty of trouble for this "D. A.'s dick." So, when Bill went to the stripteaser's room and found her dead, he wanted a crack at solving the crime in his own way. The vice squad men arrived at the same time, however, took Bill away, booked him for the girl's murder. Written by Cleve F. Adams and Robert Leslie Bellem under the pen-name Franklin Charles. A Pulpville Press book.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5030648 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-18
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Customer Reviews

Not a lot tangible going for it, it just works somehow.
Cleve Adams was a respected writer of the hard-boiled school in the 40's, who has come under harsh criticism in recent years for a racist attitude and humorless, dull prose. I can't comment on those knocks, as this is his only work I've read. But I am a big fan of the prolific and famous (infamous?) Robert Leslie Bellem, he of the roscoes that spat ka-chow! And I had heard some good things about this collaboration of the two under the pseudonym of Franklin Charles, so was anxious to read it.

The Vice Czar Murders took a while to grab me, and I still can't say why exactly it did, but I enjoyed it. I postulate that the strengths of each writer worked well together. Bellem gave Adams a sense of humor, and Adams provided Bellem a more realistic toughness. Consequently, there is a snappiness to the banter between the principles that Adams likely could not have provided on his own, and more depth to the situations and people than is characteristic in Bellem's oeuvre.

However, the hero is still a larger-than-life figure, a muscular but smart guy named William Rock. Rock is about 32, graying a little, and is a special investigator for the DA's office, looking into the vice rackets in an unnamed town that felt like Nevada but was probably California. There's really nothing that separates Rock from any other hard-boiled type, but he is basically honest and likes a dame he plans to marry, if she could figure out her past. See, she doesn't know who her parents are and wonders about the half-million bucks in her bank account. The DA, seedy cops, a wealthy prostitute, Rock's whiny sister, her newshound husband and his unsympathetic Publisher all figure in. Rock-s investigation begins with the questioning of the least stupid-looking showgirl at a club. Then she winds up dead, and Rock is on the run for the rest of the novel, uncovering several more bodies and making a few more of his own. All the fuss is over a missing packet of names which tie together a couple of the characters in the rackets and in a 30-year-old secret. The mystery is not so much about murders, although there is that element; it took a while for even Rock to figure out what precipitated it all. So Rock's quest become simply about surviving long enough to figure out the long-ago pasts of a few of the characters. It's a short novel, and moves quickly. Maybe not believably all the time, but quickly.

Compare this to Hammet's Continental Op, and it's found wanting. Weigh it against other early entrants from the Black Mask school, such as Roger Torrey and Raoul Whitfield, and the comparison is more apt. Although the presence of (I assume) Bellem's wry dialogue could make me throw Nebel and Latimer into the pot for comparison's sake.

This is perhaps an example of a book being more than the sum of its parts- I can't break down exactly what I enjoyed about this book. I just did, that's all. But it's a pulpy trip down hard-boiled lane.

And maybe that's enough of a reason.