Friday's Forgotten Books - THE CORPSE MOVED UPSTAIRS - Frank Gruber

Another offering for the Friday's Forgotten Books series masterminded by Patti Abbott and The Rap Sheet.

Every now and again I dip into my pile of old Gold Medal and Bantam paperbacks, crack open the fusty, musty, dusty pages and hope that there isn't a squashed spider lurking inside. This time there wasn't a squashed spider, just a great romp - 'rip-roaring' as it says on the cover.

THE CORPSE MOVED UPSTAIRS (originally called THE MIGHTY BLOCKHEAD) is the seventh in a series of fourteen books published between 1940 and 1964 which feature Johnny Fletcher and Sam Cragg - dodgy characters, book-salesmen, occasional PIs. Johnny is the quick-thinking, smooth talking charmer; Sam is the big lug who acts as the muscle in the partnership. Johnny and Sam always have an eye out for the main chance - there's always a scheme on the go, always a body or two, and invariably a hot dame. Their main way of earning income is for Sam to show off his strength while Johnny hawks a book called 'Every Man A Samson' which apparently tells you how to be as strong as Sam.

In THE CORPSE MOVED UPSTAIRS, Johnny and Sam come back to their regular flophouse in New York, their books in a trunk, waiting for their next scam. Unfortunately, somebody thinks their trunk is the ideal place to dump a dead body.

The back cover copy says:

"Johnny Fletcher tried to find a clue to the million dollar secret that caused the brutal murder of the too-friendly corpse. The corpse may have been friendly, but everyone Johnny met among the living proved to be deadly enemies:

Beautiful, blonde Jill - the curvy cartoonist who knew all the wrong people.

Langford, a three hundred pound dealer in rare books, who was anything but cultured.

Lascivious Lulu - the two-timing wife who always knew where the money was.

Murphy, a shrewdie who managed more than his girlie movie theatre.

Johnny was sure it would be a cinch to solve a small case of murder and fraud, until one murder became two and the fraud was worth one million dollars."

Wisecracks, good fun, a fast-paced plot and some endearing and entertaining characters. If you like Richard S Prather's Shell Scott series, you'd like this, I think.

Friday's Forgotten Books - Eddie Muller - SHADOW BOXER

Here's my first offering for the wonderful Friday's Forgotten Books series masterminded by Patti Abbott and The Rap Sheet. This one is more of an underappreciated book than a forgotten one, as it's only a few years old.

Eddie Muller - SHADOW BOXER

San Francisco's "Mr Boxing" - sports writer Billy Nichols - is begged by ex-promoter Burnell Sanders to get him out of a hole. The hole is a jail cell he's languishing in for a murder he says he didn't commit. On the face of it, Sanders has picked the wrong person to help him - Billy played a big part in Sanders being arrested in the first place, and Billy has more than a couple of secrets relating to the whole sorry episode that he would prefer remain hidden. However, Sanders' choice of slightly tarnished white knight is shrewder than even he realises. Billy's nose for a good story, his innate sense of justice, and the temptation of a beautiful and mysterious dame lead him inexorably down the mean streets to truth and danger, as he shadow boxes his way through the book - unsure of who's telling the truth and who's putting up guards.

The outstanding appeal of this book for me is the character of Billy Nichols. His tough, cynical outer shell hides a vulnerable interior. He's not the typical macho noir protagonist. He's a sensitive, perceptive, flawed man. He's a storyteller - a chronicler of fact and, sometimes, a creator of fiction. But he's an honest liar, unlike many of the other characters in the book. Because Billy doesn't have that cold, self-destructive, caring for nothing and nobody streak that is the territory of a noir protagonist, the book is suffused with warmth, light, passion and heart.

The characters have a cinematic quality about them. Eddie Muller is a very skillful writer and so good at descriptions that, within a few sentences, the characters come to life in front of you. None of them are stereotypes - each one is capable of surprising the reader. None are all good or all bad. Muller turns the conventions of noir and hard-boiled fiction on their heads - the women in this book are the tough ones. The female characters in SHADOW BOXER are particularly well drawn. Even those who only have bit parts inspire strong emotions.

SHADOW BOXER is very much a sequel to Eddie's first book - THE DISTANCE. If you haven't read that, read it first. If you have, and are saving SHADOW BOXER for a rainy day, don't wait any longer - read it now; you won't regret it.