Editor
John Pelan and publisher Ramble House have set out to restore the long
obscured history of Day Keene in the pulps, embarking on a multi-volume
series inspired by Dennis McMillan's amazing Fredric Brown pulp series.
The first volume in their Day Keene in the Detective Pulps series is League of the Grateful Dead and Other Stories. Released in 2010, it gathers eight tales and an insightful introduction by Pelan.
The eight stories in League of the Grateful Dead
show classic crime pulp at its finest. Tough-as-nails private eyes
navigating twisty (and twisted) capers, engaging in blazing shootouts
with ruthless gangsters, and trying to keep their necks out of jail—all
while making it home for supper without compromising their wedding vows.
They're paced so quickly that it's nearly impossible to keep up or
follow all the clues—but it's sure fun trying. While the private eye
cases are fabulous and most indicative of Keene's characteristic style,
my favorite was actually "Nothing to Worry About," a vicious quickie
tale about a husband's plot to murder his wife that features a wicked
twist ending.
Fans of Keene
will be especially interested in this volume for several reasons. Two of
the stories were later expanded into novels. "Marry the Sixth for
Murder!" was later turned into the novel
Love Me—and Die! (1951, Phantom Books), and "Dance with the Death-House Doll" became half of an Ace double called
Death House Doll
(1954, Ace). This collection also features two of Keene's series
characters: Private Eye Tom Doyle appears in three stories, while
another P.I., Matt Mercer, appears in one.
The adaptation of "Marry the Sixth for Murder!" to
Love Me—and Die! is a mystery of its own.
James Reasoner
writes on his blog that, "According to Gil Brewer’s stepdaughter,
Brewer ghosted this novel for Keene, expanding one of Keene’s pulp
stories to book length. . . . This seems pretty feasible to me. Keene
and Brewer were friends, and since Keene was already an established
writer as the Fifties began, with more than ten years as a popular pulp
author under his belt, I can easily see him farming out this expansion
to Brewer." I've yet to read the novel, but I'm looking forward to doing
so now that I've read the original story.
Here's a run-down of the stories.
"League of the Grateful Dead" (
Dime Mystery Magazine,
February 1941) — Mummified corpses are popping up all over Chicago—and
some of them had already been dead for weeks! After seeing a B-girl turn
into a mummy right before his eyes, journalist Tim Murphy follows her
tip and heads to a cemetery to watch a performance by a local con artist
calling himself Satan and who claims he can raise the dead.
(And, yes, according to Pelan this is the story that inspired the name of Jerry Garcia's band.)
"As Deep as the Grave" (
Detective Tales,
January 1946) - Chicago Private Eye Tom Doyle gets a call from a woman
offering him $10,000 to kill a man that deserves it. She hangs up before
he can find out who. Then he gets held up and taken to notorious
gangster Red Faber who offers him $2000 to track down his wife and
daughter, whom he abandoned years ago before they could find out about
his true identity, in order to leave his daughter a piece of land before
he is caught and executed by the state.
"Fry Away Kentucky Babe!" (
Detective Tales,
December 1947) - Private investigator Tom Doyle has a soft spot for
veterans in a jam, seeing as he's a vet himself. So when Larry Reagan's
wife pleads with him to look into her husband's case, he agrees. Larry
is a journalist accused of murdering his editor, Ernie Jackson, over a
dispute about a young woman named Ruby Thiels. As soon as Doyle arrives
in Larry's hometown, however, someone takes a shot at him at the train
depot, and then a "Mr. Big" calls his hotel and warns him to get out of
town. Before he knows it, Doyle is knee-deep in a local organized crime
racket.
"Crawl Out of That Coffin!" (
Detective Tales,
September 1947) - Private Eye Matt Mercer and his wife, Sherry, are
grabbing drinks after a performance of Hamlet when a drunken young woman
falls into Matt's lap—and with her comes a $10,000 contract to keep her
alive for seventeen days until she turns 21 and can collect her
multi-million dollar inheritance.
"Marry the Sixth for Murder!" (
Detective Tales,
May 1948) -- Johnny Slagle is a troubleshooter for Consolidated, a
Hollywood studio. He gets a call in the middle of the night from Steve
Millet, one of their contract stars, who thinks he killed someone in a
hit and run on the night before he is supposed to marry a young actress
named Cherry Gamble. When Slagle goes to investigate, there's only a
dead dog. Millet thinks he dodged a bullet—but soon enough a body is
found, Laura Jean Jones, another aspiring actress who moved to Hollywood
hoping to be discovered. It looks like a cut-and-dried case, but when
gambler Paul Glade offers $10,000 for Slagle and his wife, Sally, to
skip town for a few weeks, Slagle knows there's more to the story.
"Nothing to Worry About" (
Detective Tales,
August 1945) - Assistant State's Attorney Brad Sorrel has a fool-proof
plan to murder his wife: witnesses to prove he's somewhere else, and a
planted car so he can sneak away to commit the murder and be back before
his alibi is broken. He'll be a free man in half an hour—if only
everything goes according to plan.
"Dance with the Death-House Doll" (
Detective Tales,
May 1945) - Sgt. Mike Duval on vacation leave from military goes to
Chicago to visit the widow and child of his brother, who died in WWII.
He finds that Mona is in prison and due to be executed in five days,
accused of murdering a jeweler, but no jewels were ever recovered, and
no mention was ever made of any child. First the cops pick him up and
work him over, and then Mona's alleged gangster boyfriend, LaFanti,
picks him up and works him over again, and both the cops and LaFanti
want to know the same thing: where are the diamonds?
"Dead—as in Mackerel!" (
Detective Tales,
February 1945) - Private eye Tom Doyle's wife is expected to go into
labor at any minute, when into his office walks burlesque dancer Dolly
Adoree wearing a mink coat and not much underneath. She offers him $500
to listen to her story, and $20,000 if he takes the case. Mr. X, a
wealthy 83-year-old man has offered to leave her $200,000 because she
reminds him of his deceased daughter, only Dolly expects that his heirs
will challenge this in court, if they don't try to kill her before. But
before she can reveal who Mr. X is, Dolly drops dead in Tom's office.
***
Author
Frank Kane created P.I. Johnny Littell in a short story for the pulps
in 1944 and went on to write twenty-nine novels featuring him, plus an
unknown number of short stories. According to his granddaughter, he
claimed four hundred, though she believes that an exaggeration. And Bill
Crider said in 2000, if it’s a Frank Kane book, chances are “it’ll be a
competent straightforward P.I. story.” DUE OR DIE certainly was all
that. I quite enjoyed my first Kane book.
