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The fall guy,
A RUSH HENRY MYSTERY #3: The door had scarcely closed on the mysterious young man who had sought protection from Rush Henry because he feared for his life when wealthy Paul Germaine, Sr., brought one of the strangest requests of Rush's hectic career as a private investigator. Rush was to keep Chicago mobsters away from Germaine's brilliant young daughter, Leslie, whose interest in criminal psychology had made her determined to find out, first-hand, what made a gangster tick. Five minutest later Rush found the mysterious young man stabbed to death in the alley outside his office. The dead man was Germaine's son, Paul Germaine, Jr. Then a tall, cadaverous man in ministerial black informed Rush that he had seen the murderer run from the alley and instantly Rush knew that a strange mob had moved in. The tall man was Otho Brin, first of several San Francisco gangsters Rush was so soon to encounter. Was Brin playing a lone hand, or was he connected with suave, cultured Bernard Jago and his lovely daughter, Myrna? Was the San Francisco gang bucking the Chicago mob? Which had been responsible for young Germaine's murder? And what was daring young Leslie Germaine's connection with her brother's death? A swift, baffling mystery novel of underworlds at war—and of the fall guy caught between.
256 pages, Unknown Binding
Published January 1, 1945
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March 18, 2025
Barry put out five novels starring private investigator Henry Rush: (1) The Pay-Off (1943); (2) The Third Degree (1943); (3) The Fall Guy (1945); (4) The Triple Cross (1946); and (5) The Clean-Up (1947). He also wrote Kiss and Kill, an Ace original, Three For the Money and Nothing But Trouble. Set in Chicago, “The Fall Guy” has Rush portraying a former GI, former news reporter, and now private investigator in Chicago. “The Fall Guy” is a Chicago-based reprise of some of the Maltese Falcon themes, meaning there is some purloined treasure that a number of odd characters are after and willing to do just about anything to get- including murder. The novel is fast-moving, absorbing, and takes place in a few short blocks.
The novel opens with Rush agreeing to take on a case for a wealthy businessman Germaine, whose daughter Leslie is frequently seedy joints and making pals with mobbed-up guys in order to feed her fantasies about crime psychology and criminology. Before Rush can do much about the case, though, a young man who refuses to give Rush his name shows up at Rush’s office to engage his services as a bodyguard. Rush tells the young man that he is otherwise engaged and that, without even being told the man’s name, there was not much he could do in any event. When the young man is knifed in the alley behind Rush’s office moments later, it is a bold portent of things to come, particularly when Rush finds out that the young man is Germaine’s son Paul. Rush has a sense of guilt for not helping Paul when asked, but Paul had refused to give him any information, even his name.
There follows a number of odd encounter with a tall odd man who was on Paul’s tail, a woman named Hope who wants to engage Rush’s services to protect her from her father-in-law who now wants to marry her (she says), and a rotund man (the alleged father-in-law) Bernard Jago, and his gunsel Wilmer. None of their stories make much sense to Rush until he learns that they are all after missing objects that young Paul had been carrying. Rush understands there to be several different groups after the missing artifacts and, thinking he had them, they tear up his apartment and his office. With all these people after the missing items and bodies turning up in and around Rush’s office, Rush is constantly trying to figure out who to trust and who is going to leave him holding the bag. If you are going to relate this to the Maltese Falcon, Jago seems to be a stand-in for Gutman and Wilmer a stand-in for Joel Cairo.
Overall, “The Fall Guy” is a very satisfying read, easy to dive into, and good at holding a reader’s interest even if the ground covered is not all that original.
The novel opens with Rush agreeing to take on a case for a wealthy businessman Germaine, whose daughter Leslie is frequently seedy joints and making pals with mobbed-up guys in order to feed her fantasies about crime psychology and criminology. Before Rush can do much about the case, though, a young man who refuses to give Rush his name shows up at Rush’s office to engage his services as a bodyguard. Rush tells the young man that he is otherwise engaged and that, without even being told the man’s name, there was not much he could do in any event. When the young man is knifed in the alley behind Rush’s office moments later, it is a bold portent of things to come, particularly when Rush finds out that the young man is Germaine’s son Paul. Rush has a sense of guilt for not helping Paul when asked, but Paul had refused to give him any information, even his name.
There follows a number of odd encounter with a tall odd man who was on Paul’s tail, a woman named Hope who wants to engage Rush’s services to protect her from her father-in-law who now wants to marry her (she says), and a rotund man (the alleged father-in-law) Bernard Jago, and his gunsel Wilmer. None of their stories make much sense to Rush until he learns that they are all after missing objects that young Paul had been carrying. Rush understands there to be several different groups after the missing artifacts and, thinking he had them, they tear up his apartment and his office. With all these people after the missing items and bodies turning up in and around Rush’s office, Rush is constantly trying to figure out who to trust and who is going to leave him holding the bag. If you are going to relate this to the Maltese Falcon, Jago seems to be a stand-in for Gutman and Wilmer a stand-in for Joel Cairo.
Overall, “The Fall Guy” is a very satisfying read, easy to dive into, and good at holding a reader’s interest even if the ground covered is not all that original.
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