Murder Trouble

by Louis Trimble

Recuperating from a hospital stay for lung trouble, Tom Hallam, a former reporter for a San Francisco paper, had decided to take a job as a reporter on a small, rural Washington state weekly, mostly for the fresh air. Arriving in the small town of Vinson, things had been going pretty much as he had expected, excluding, of course, the woman whom he had never met that claimed to be his wife, that is until he discovered a body in his cabin. Despite the fact that the body had disappeared before the local sheriff could investigate, Hallam has founds himself in a world of trouble - Murder Trouble.

Paperback

First published January 1, 1945

About the author

Louis Preston Trimble (2 March 1917 - 1988) was an American writer and academic. His published work included science fiction, westerns, and mysteries, as well as academic non-fiction. He generally wrote as Louis Trimble, but used the pseudonym "Stuart Brock" for some of his work.

Reviews

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trimble begins this story with a reporter, Tom Hallam, on the loose after two years in a sanitarium, off to take a job with a small town newspaper. The story then gets far more complicated from there with a rude chauffeur, a headstrong hitchhiker who seems to know Hallam's business, a one-legged hotel caretaker, and an all but deserted and haunted town.

But that's only the beginning with the plot thickening as a woman shows up claiming to be Tom Hallam's wife with a marriage certificate and everything, Hallam falls for another woman, and a headless corpse is traipsed all over the county. It is a rather odd and fantastic tale that at times feels dreamlike or as if the narrator hasn't quite got all his marbles.

The haunted town in the country and all the mysterious characters turning up are puzzling and lends a rather bizarre touch to this pulp mystery. In the end, I found the plotting to be hopelessly complex and like running through an endless maze. Not Trimble's best work, but still interesting at points.

[Chris Stephens · Rating 2 out of 5]

Think he might have been drunk or something while writing this one.