Desmond Reid - High Heels and Homicide - Sexton Blake Library 4/405 1958

DESMOND REID - HIGH HEELS AND HOMICIDE - SEXTON BLAKE LIBRARY 4/405 1958

Two beauty contestants are kidnapped and Blake is asked to investigate. Along the way he uncovers an espionage ring and encounters again a face from the past.

This story, actually written by John Purley and revised by George Paul Mann (aka Arthur MacLean), is another example of the `Reid` name being attached to work by (one presumes) an unknown writer. It is interesting in that it marks the return of one of the pre-war Blake villains, Huxton Rymer.

Criminally-inclined former surgeon Huxton Rymer, the creation of writer G H Teed, appeared in various Blake stories 1913 - 36, with a short break while Teed served in the army during World War One. Some question whether the last of the Rymer stories was Teeds` work but as he died in 1938 we can`t very well ask him.

I have done a bit of checking and find that an earlier SBL, the Mansion on the Moor (3/43), was credited to John Purley and during that year Collectors Digest magazine described him as a 43-year old Worcester-based freelance journalist contributing on a one-off basis.  

The return of Rymer enables Blake to expand on the mans` character and attitudes ;

"If you`d blundered in on him he would have killed you. You know that as well as I do ! He`d have done it regretfully, but he`d have done it just the same. I think he`s fond of us - both of us - in his own odd way, but if it was your life or his liberty, it would be your life !"

On that cheerful note the investigation begins in earnest.

Does it work ? Not 100%. There is considerable humour to be extracted from the opening chapters, in which a bevy of petulant starlets and their over-ambitious parents and managers descend on a long-suffering hotel manager, but that joke is soon run into the ground.

There are one or two changes of pace and mood, all of which seem to breeze in out of nowhere. Various fruitful directions are indicated, particularly as Blake and Tinker begin to show signs of strain, and even to despair of saving the kdnapped girls, but none is really explored. The story lasts well under the usual 64 pages but still seems over-long.

It`s not too bad, but one wonders why George Paul Mann couldn`t have ironed out a few faults.

It`s certainly not the worst story I`ve read, but equally, it`s not the best either.

Desmond Reid - Witch Hunt

Desmond Reid - Witch-Hunt - Sexton Blake Library - Series 4, Issue 452 - May 1960

Note : In this instance, `Desmond Reid` was in fact a writer named Rosamond Mary Story, though Ms Story`s story was revised before publication by George Paul Mann aka Arthur Kirby. The cover art, incidentally, was by an artist known as Caroselli.

A Blake story with something for everyone, as Sexton travels to rural but less-than-idyllic Little Bede to investigate a death with apparent supernatural overtones.

I know nothing about Ms Story. One obvious possibility is that she was a relative of Jack Trevor Story. I did at one time ask Guy Lawley of www.jacktrevorstory.co.uk but he was unable to cast any light on the question.

The writing style adopted here varies as the book progresses, most likely by design rather than by accident.

In one of the earlier scenes, a mysterious death during a thunderstorm does seem a little overdone ("Lightning flashed and thunder rolled in triumph.") whereas later we encounter patches of very good writing ("Dusk hung over the land like a smoke-grey curtain. The scent of pine and leaf mould enveloped him.") Towards the end we are in pulp-fiction territory, with rather over-emphatic use of words ("Blake jerked open the glove compartment...grabbed at a road-map. His finger stabbed along the Essex coastline." ). Personally I am not too keen on this style of writing, ( It reaches it`s nadir with "A shot smashed past Blake`s head. A second spanged against a rung of the ladder." The verb "to spang"was sadly missing from my education ! ) but it does help maintain pace and tension.

 There are also some excellent  flashes of humour, notably when Blake is threatened by an armed butler ; 

"Frankly portly, the man held a sporting rifle as if he were balancing a tray loaded with delicate china."  

The story is eventful, to say the least. At one point Blake is subjected to an attempt on his life (he survives), discovers a corpse and returns to the house where he is staying only to learn that the lady of the house has been murdered in his absence ! Even his presumably case-hardened assistant Tinker comments with alarm on the startling death-toll.

Easy though it is to poke fun, this is a very promising debut indeed from Ms Story, and I fully intend to seek out her other works, if any exist.

If anyone does know anything about her, I`d be fascinated to hear from you.

Desmond Reid - Murder by Moonlight

Desmond Reid - Murder by Moonlight - Sexton Blake Library - 4th Series, Number 482 - August 1961

One of the attractions of books by `Desmond Reid` is seeing if you can guess who really wrote it.

In this case, I guessed at W Howard Baker and was wrong - it`s by Wilfred McNeilly.

This is what I would call a `mid-Blake`; there`s nothing really wrong with it - I enjoyed reading it and will no doubt read it again with pleasure -  but somehow I don`t think it will ever become a personal favourite.

In part, the problem is that a couple of very imaginative early chapters - including a dolphin`s-eye view of a corpse in water - raised my expectations a little.

Truthfully, I probably shouldn`t `damn it with faint praise`. The plot is ludicrous, certainly, but I`m prepared to enter into the spirit of things, and in any case, the way in which the story unfolds means that the reader is roughly half-way through before the scenario becomes apparent.

There is no very bad writing (though after the first couple of chapters, no very good writing either). It is exciting, and humorous in places, but all in all I have to say I like it but I don`t love it.

Book Review : Desmond Reid - The Corpse Came Too (Sexton Blake Library)

Desmond Reid - The Corpse Came Too - Sexton Blake Library - 4th Series, Number 486 , October 1961

One of the first things I did on acquiring a computer for the first time was to look for sites relating to Desmond Reid. I was disappointed not to find any. You can imagine my surprise on eventually learning that there was no such person, and that `Desmond Reid` was an Amalgamated/Fleetway `house pseudonym`, used for the work of a number of writers.

Somewhat better informed now, I can tell you that the `Desmond Reid` who wrote this particular story was A A Glynn, information I found on the Blakiana website IIRC.

It is a superior effort in many ways. The story begins with Blake and secretary Paula Dane finding a corpse in the back of his car. Before long our intrepid sleuth is en route to Mexico, in hot pursuit of homicidal archaeologists.

No-one is going to mistake Glynn for a literary genius, but generally, despite occasional lapses, his writing is pretty capable. I notice that whenever one character, Inga Martinside, appears we get an attack of dumbed-down writing. While it may be that the writer experienced a rush of blood to the head when contemplating Scandinavian beauties, I suspect she was added-in as an afterthought, particularly since the tale can be told fairly readily without her.

There is one other section that I suspect was added in at a later stage, but as that brings us the marvellous simile "Professor Martinside clutched the edge of the passenger seat like a rooster trying to ride out a storm", I am prepared to forgive this.

This SBL has one or two shortcomings,  but the basic plot is pretty damn good, and there is an effective twist in the tale for added spice, which counts for a lot.

All in all, well worth a read.



Footnote #1 - I`ve since learned that 4th series editor W Howard Baker was fairly `hands-on` and much given to either asking for changes to an author`s work, or simply adding in extra passages of his own. He also relied heavily at times on SBL writer `Arthur MacLean` (George Paul Mann), who acted as de facto Assistant Editor. We may never know for sure whether either of these made any changes to A A Glynn`s story  - the ever-reliable Blakiana credits the work to Glynn alone - but it is a possibility.

Footnote #2 - My understanding us that the Reid name was used whenever the editor had a story from a regular writer to use, but felt that the name of the writer in question had been cropping up a bit too frequently. It was also used sometimes for the work of writers new to the SBL, since the non-existent Reid had acquired something of a following. Not as daft as it seems when you come to think about it, since the Reid name would necessarily have been attached to the work of the SBL`s most prolific and experienced writers more often than not.