Review: The Passionate

The Passionate by Carter Brown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Detective Al Wheeler encounters hot and horney twins, a dead body in a horror TV show host’s coffin, and some brutes to get beat up by. Carter Brown novels can always be counted on for plenty of wisecracks and silly sexist humor. Admittedly his plots can sometimes fall flat - the guy wrote one novel per month. Fortunately here we have a cracking good plot, a whodunit that had me as puzzled as Wheeler as the suspects and red herrings pile up. Top notch Cater Brown for sure and good one to introduce readers confused about the hundreds of CB novels of various quality. This was recently republished by Stark House Press with a couple of other titles at http://starkhousepress.com/brown.php


View all my reviews

Review: Angel!

Angel! by Carter Brown
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

These Carter Brown novels always annoyed me when I first read them back in junior high because they all had the sexy Robert McGinnis cover art and then, unlike the sleazers they were made to look like, they never delivered. That's what we have with Angel. Lieutenant Al Wheeler, the cop on the beat here, spends a lot of time describing sexy women, but never gets to partake. He does solve the crime, however, and in typical mystery novel convention, the wrap up comes, after quite a few red herrings, in the last ten pages. This is a quick and easy read with plenty of interesting characters and a decent plot. Some of the Carter Brown dialog stylistics get slightly annoying, the too clever repartee, and particularly the speech tags (he growled, he snarled, he said laughingly, etc), but this is a beach read, so who cares.

View all my reviews

Review: Walk Softly, Witch

Walk Softly, Witch by Carter Brown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Danny Boyd, the annoyingly smug and misogynistic private eye, accepts his first case assisting a gorgeous broad to get her sane stage actor husband out of the way by getting him institutionalized. This sets off a chain reaction that spills the blood of various folks attached to the production and Boyd discovers that he’s the sucker. Pretty typical Carter Brown fare with a convoluted plot that I’m not quite sure that I fully understand, and plenty of dialog whose purpose is to set up Boyd for one of his outrageous wisecracks. Despite some faults the short novel is immensely readable and enjoyable. It can be read in a sitting or two and is good for some laughs and an entertaining, albeit somewhat silly, story. The Carter Brown books are not known for their consistency. I thought that this was a good one and give it four stars.

View all my reviews

Review: The Wayward Wahine

The Wayward Wahine by Carter Brown
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In this the third of 28 books featuring private investigator Danny Boyd, the action and the double-crosses drive the narrative at a fast pace and Boyd is resourceful enough to survive car chases, gun battles, and a burning yacht. Not as much pointless banter compared to other Carter Brown books I've read as Boyd actually does some investigating, but let's not kid ourselves that he's actually solving anything, as one by one the conspirators confess their roles. Not a spectacular crime/noir, but there's still plenty of activity and the story moves relentlessly forward without too much annoying dialog to bog it down.

View all my reviews

Review: The Jade-Eyed Jungle

The Jade-Eyed Jungle by Carter Brown
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This is the fourth of 35 in the Rick Holman series and the second one that I've read. Plot here is pretty much the same as Murder in the Key Club: Holman is hired and the jerk who hires him spends the whole book doing an end-around Holman, which begs the point of why hire him in the first place? Never explained. Throughout, Holman snarls a lot of dialogue that goes nowhere, investigates without investigating, and, spoiler alert, but not really because there are 31 more of these Holman books to follow, he wins the concluding gun battle, which is the only action in this 125 page book. Carter Brown (pseudo for Alan Yates) had a gazillion books in print in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. I've yet to hear from a true fan, so keep trying these out to see what the excitement was all about. Answer not found in The Jade-eyed Jungle.

View all my reviews

Review: The Temptress

The Temptress by Carter Brown
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

If you've read any of the other books in the Lieutenant Al Wheeler series (there's 51) you know what to expect from this one, which is number fifteen. Wheeler is tough talking and a smart ass and takes the piss out on everyone he interacts with, although less so the women he beds in his apartment equipped with the "hi-fi machine" and booze. Not a lot of action here. Couple of murders, but minimal police procedural, if that is your thing. Wheeler roughs up a couple of bad guys, but that's about two pages of description total. Mostly it is pages and pages of "witty" repartee and questioning leading up to a quick and thin whodunit reveal of the blackmail plot and the murderer. For collectors, the cover art in this third printing is by Ron Lessor, which was the first of four Carter Brown covers he did. The first edition (S1817) has cover art by Barye Phillips. Not certain on this, but there does not appear to be an edition with cover art by Robert McGinnis, who did most of the Carter Brown covers between 1961 and 1972.

View all my reviews

Review: Angel!

Angel! by Carter Brown
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

These Carter Brown novels always annoyed me when I first read them back in junior high because they all had the sexy Robert McGinnis cover art and then, unlike the sleazers they were made to look like, they never delivered. That's what we have with Angel. Al Wheeler, the cop on the beat here, spends a lot of time describing sexy women, but never gets to partake. He does solve the crime, however, and in typical mystery novel convention, the wrap up comes, after quite a few red herrings, in the last ten pages. This is a quick and easy read with plenty of interesting characters and a decent plot. Some of the Carter Brown dialog stylistics get slightly annoying, the too clever repartee, and particularly the speech tags (he growled, he snarled, he said laughingly, etc) which is a don't do as far back as creative writing 100.

View all my reviews

Review: The Mistress

The Mistress by Carter Brown
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This Al Wheeler novel finds the amorous police lieutenant in typical form, he’s irresistible to women, has conflicts with his superiors, and offers an endless barrage of wise cracks. Even though Wheeler is a cop, this is not a police procedural, but rather falls squarely into the “whodunit” mystery genre. Here Wheeler’s police captain finds a dead woman on his porch at home after being threatened by a Las Vegas casino owner that wants to move his operation to Pine City. Turns out that the dead woman is the captain’s niece, the irascible captain assumes a vendetta, and puts the screws on Wheeler to bring in the suspect. Under pressure, Wheeler finds an ally in a stacked stripper named Gabrielle to track down the killer as the bodies pile up. Nicely plotted, snappy dialog, and a quick and easy read like every Carter Brown book I’ve ever read. Three stars.

Now available in paperback or ebook in an Al Wheeler collection from Stark House.