Bullet Proof

Johnny Liddell #4

by Frank Kane

She was as pretty a mantrap as Liddell had ever set up. Five-feet-six. Black hair. One hundred and twenty-eight lusciously distributed pounds. Very, very nice . . .Liddell looked at his watch. The rackets boss was late in coming. Liddell didn’t mind. Let Frankie Capolla be as late as he wanted. Liddell knew a very good way of passing the time . . .

Genres: Mystery

191 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1951

About the author

Frank Kane, Brooklyn-born and a lifetime New Yorker, worked for many years in journalism and corporate public relations before shifting to fiction writing. At the time he was selling crime stories to the pulps he was also sustaining a career writing scripts for such radio shows as Gangbusters and The Shadow.

In addition to the Johnny Liddells, Kane wrote several suspense novels, some softcore erotica, and (under the pen name of Frank Boyd) "Johnny Staccato", a Gold Medal original paperback based on the short-lived noir television series, starring John Cassavetes, about a Greenwich Village bebop pianist turned private detective.

Reviews

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Frank Kane published a grand total of 29 Johnny Liddell novels between 1947 and 1967 plus countless short stories some of which were published as early as 1944 . Bullet Proof is one of the earlier novels in the series, the fourth one. If you like fifties-style private eye novels, the Liddell stories fit right in the middle of the pack. They perhaps don’t stand out as something unique and different, but they include the standard hardboiled detective working out of a one-man agency with an attractive, built secretary (Pinky), a sometimes friendly police detective, and a confounding series of events. In this novel as in many of the Liddell novels, he also has a gal pal, Muggsy, a redheaded, leggy cub reporter and, in between drinks and things, they often kick around the mysteries he is dealing with. It is a fine, enjoyable series.

This particular novel starts off with a furious pace of gunfire and action that almost makes you think this is a Spillane novel. It features a mysteriously disappearing client (but one who actually pays her bills in advance), gangster-movie type rub-out attempts complete with tommy guns and the like, police detectives who find it suspicious that Liddell keeps showing up with corpses and smoking guns. It is well-paced and a quick reading. While it may not stand out too much from the mass of fifties-era PI novels, you will never go wrong picking up a Liddell story and certainly will not go wrong with this one.

[JustEvan · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like a fun, noir, read for a lazy afternoon, Frank Kane's Johnny Liddell is your guy. 50s NYC with hoods, dames, and trash talk.

[Zharel Anger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set during WW2, Kane plays loose with the facts of the time such as ignoring the National Firearms Act of 1934 in order to give an edge to the story. It is a typical action story of the time with the hero dodging hailstorms of bullets and being given a batman-like slack with hardnosed police because he is one of the good guys. They occasionally give him warnings and tongue lashings. Because it is an element of the time it was written, the male-female interactions did not age well. If you like the old Mike Hammer TV series, this read is a more in-depth version of that series.

[Moe · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 pretty good.

[Mark Rabideau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent noir detective novel.

[AARON SINGER · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great story held on till the end

Recently diiscovered Frank Kane , and his detective series is top notch ! The character Johnny Liddell is a good guy with a lot of brains . Can't wait to read more . Kane style is clean , well written , but in some ways reminds me of John Sandford's Virgil Flowers.

[John L · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pulp it is

You can't ask much of PI Liddell but this is one if the good ones
Try them all: thrills chills kills