That time of year when I turn to mysteries. This time, an oldie, Fast Company by Marco Page, first published in 1938 and just recently reissued in the U.S. in the American Mystery Classics series edited by Otto Penzler.
A very 1940s evocation of New York City as well as male/female interactions, and light-hearted, but not without menace to the main characters, Joel and Garda Glass (Glass within the book; Crisp on the back cover). Joel is a book dealer hit hard by the Great Depression. He has changed course with his expertise, becoming an expert insurance agencies turn to for recovering stolen, rare books. Seems there's been a lot of stolen rare books in the recent past. Abe Selig, a questionable dealer is killed, and the search all the stolen books he may have involved with, draw Joel in, looking for a sizable payday.
The reason I bought and read this is that Page was the pseudonym of screenwriter Harry Kurnitz, whose name I'd come across when reading a selection of Groucho Marx's letters. Given that correspondence, I expected a comic novel with snappy '30s-40s dialog and wisecracks, which this delivers. Kurnitz writes brisk sentences packed with information and occasionally attitude. The book has scenes that feel cinematic, no doubt because of Kurnitz's screenwriting background (script-doctoring, also scripting, for example, The Witness for the Prosecution in 1957) and the book was filmed in 1938. Kurnitz also delivers some interesting insights into the book dealers market of the late 1930s. Rare books had been one of the most highly regarded luxury items during the 1920s, with many market-rich people building collections, and one of the first things sold off when the stock market crashed and stayed crashed.
There are echoes of Dashiell Hammett in this, mainly The Thin Man, but also maybe a tip of the hat to The Maltese Falcon late in the novel. And like The Thin Man, especially the movies, booze flows freely as do wisecracks. On the whole, if you like that sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you'll like. I did.
A very 1940s evocation of New York City as well as male/female interactions, and light-hearted, but not without menace to the main characters, Joel and Garda Glass (Glass within the book; Crisp on the back cover). Joel is a book dealer hit hard by the Great Depression. He has changed course with his expertise, becoming an expert insurance agencies turn to for recovering stolen, rare books. Seems there's been a lot of stolen rare books in the recent past. Abe Selig, a questionable dealer is killed, and the search all the stolen books he may have involved with, draw Joel in, looking for a sizable payday.
The reason I bought and read this is that Page was the pseudonym of screenwriter Harry Kurnitz, whose name I'd come across when reading a selection of Groucho Marx's letters. Given that correspondence, I expected a comic novel with snappy '30s-40s dialog and wisecracks, which this delivers. Kurnitz writes brisk sentences packed with information and occasionally attitude. The book has scenes that feel cinematic, no doubt because of Kurnitz's screenwriting background (script-doctoring, also scripting, for example, The Witness for the Prosecution in 1957) and the book was filmed in 1938. Kurnitz also delivers some interesting insights into the book dealers market of the late 1930s. Rare books had been one of the most highly regarded luxury items during the 1920s, with many market-rich people building collections, and one of the first things sold off when the stock market crashed and stayed crashed.
There are echoes of Dashiell Hammett in this, mainly The Thin Man, but also maybe a tip of the hat to The Maltese Falcon late in the novel. And like The Thin Man, especially the movies, booze flows freely as do wisecracks. On the whole, if you like that sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you'll like. I did.
