What do you think?
Rate this book
Ed Rivers #2
The Girl's Number Doesn't Answer
Three people were dead, their heads bashed in, their bodies hacked with a samurai sword. All three victims were Japanese. The murder weapon was traced to Nick Martin, a veteran of Iwo Jima. Nick had spent fifteen pain-ridden years in and out of Army hospitals. He tried to drown his memories of the horror, but whisky only put him right back in the middle of that fierce battle.
Nick drank a fifth the night of the killing.
That's the kind of case the police call 'open and shut.' But Ed Rivers, a private detective, was a friend of Nick Martin's. And no one was shutting the door of a death cell on Nick - not while Rivers could still go after the real, fiendishly clever murderer.
Nick drank a fifth the night of the killing.
That's the kind of case the police call 'open and shut.' But Ed Rivers, a private detective, was a friend of Nick Martin's. And no one was shutting the door of a death cell on Nick - not while Rivers could still go after the real, fiendishly clever murderer.
Paperback
First published January 1, 1960
3 people are currently reading
15 people want to read
About the author
Talmage Powell
136 books3 followersPen Names: Robert Hart Davis, Robert Henry, Milton T. Lamb, Milton T. Land, Jack McCready, Anne Talmage, and Dave Sands.
U.S. Author (1920 - 2000) Talmage Powell began his writing career in 1942. Mr. Powell created over 200 stories for the pulp fiction magazines writing in almost every genre and for all of the top magazines. After the demise of the pulps, Mr. Powell continued to write another 300 plus short stories for fiction magazines such as Ellery Queen, Alfred Hitchcock, Mike Shayne, Manhunt and Suspense.
Powell also had a number of successful novels published during the 1950s and 1960s. His Ed Rivers series is recognized as some of the best Private Investigator stories from that era. Mr. Powell also had written a number of novels under the Ellery Queen by line as well. He also contributed his creative talents to screenwriting and television work.
Talmage Powell has had a long and successful career by delivering suspensful, intelligent, action based stories that any reader would enjoy.
Pulp Magazines (Partial): Dime Detective, Dime Mystery, Detective Tales, Ten Detecive Aces, Doc Savage, The Shadow, G-Men Detective, Ranch Romances, Fifteen Western Tales, Hollywood Detective, Crack Detective, Black Mask, and many more.
U.S. Author (1920 - 2000) Talmage Powell began his writing career in 1942. Mr. Powell created over 200 stories for the pulp fiction magazines writing in almost every genre and for all of the top magazines. After the demise of the pulps, Mr. Powell continued to write another 300 plus short stories for fiction magazines such as Ellery Queen, Alfred Hitchcock, Mike Shayne, Manhunt and Suspense.
Powell also had a number of successful novels published during the 1950s and 1960s. His Ed Rivers series is recognized as some of the best Private Investigator stories from that era. Mr. Powell also had written a number of novels under the Ellery Queen by line as well. He also contributed his creative talents to screenwriting and television work.
Talmage Powell has had a long and successful career by delivering suspensful, intelligent, action based stories that any reader would enjoy.
Pulp Magazines (Partial): Dime Detective, Dime Mystery, Detective Tales, Ten Detecive Aces, Doc Savage, The Shadow, G-Men Detective, Ranch Romances, Fifteen Western Tales, Hollywood Detective, Crack Detective, Black Mask, and many more.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 12, 2019
“The Girl’s Number Doesn’t Answer” is the second of five Ed Rivers novels authored by Talmage Powell. The others in the series are: (1) “The Killer Is Mine” (3) “With A Madman Behind Me” (4) “Start Screaming Murder” and (5) “Corpus Delectable”. Rivers is a private eye in the Tampa Bay area, having his office in Ybor City, the Spanish section. Rivers was originally a New Jersey police officer who fell for a girl who left him for a hood and then watched as his girl and the hood lost a race with a freight train. He has some bitterness about this. He thought she had been “everything fine and decent molded into human form.” Rivers is not a Tampa native and can’t really stand the heat there. Each evening he buys a twenty-five pound block of ice and places it in front of a fan to cool down his bedroom or soaks in a tub of chilled water. He’s tall, gangly, and ugly. He explains, “My face usually gets a reaction. I’ve seen it fire the eyes of women with feelings ranging from acute distaste to hot hunger.”
A friend of Rivers’ (Nick Martin) is accused of a gory triple-murder beheading committed by use of a massive samurai sword that been hanging in Nick’s living room. Everything points to Nick being the killer such as opportunity, access, etc. and it doesn’t help that Nick and his wife (Helen) ran from the murder scene and were hiding out. Rivers, with all odds against him and pretty much on his own, is out to prove Nick’s innocence. Nick remarks at one point that Rivers doesn’t have many friends because the word means something to him. “You give a part of a kind of holy thing inside of you when you call somebody a friend.”
Like all of Powell’s books, this is a good, solid read and moves quickly without too many plot entanglements. If you enjoy fifties PI novels, give Powell’s Ed Rivers series a try. It is simply good solid PI fiction. It doesn’t try to be too fancy, too poetic, or too philosophical, but once you pick up one of his books, it is really difficult to put it down before you reach the conclusion.
A friend of Rivers’ (Nick Martin) is accused of a gory triple-murder beheading committed by use of a massive samurai sword that been hanging in Nick’s living room. Everything points to Nick being the killer such as opportunity, access, etc. and it doesn’t help that Nick and his wife (Helen) ran from the murder scene and were hiding out. Rivers, with all odds against him and pretty much on his own, is out to prove Nick’s innocence. Nick remarks at one point that Rivers doesn’t have many friends because the word means something to him. “You give a part of a kind of holy thing inside of you when you call somebody a friend.”
Like all of Powell’s books, this is a good, solid read and moves quickly without too many plot entanglements. If you enjoy fifties PI novels, give Powell’s Ed Rivers series a try. It is simply good solid PI fiction. It doesn’t try to be too fancy, too poetic, or too philosophical, but once you pick up one of his books, it is really difficult to put it down before you reach the conclusion.
January 10, 2017
Interesting to note similarities between the murders of a Japanese family in THE GIRL'S NUMBER DOESN'T ANSWER and Perfidia by James Ellroy. Ed Rivers is a private detective who works on behalf of Nick, his friend who's a war hero suffering from PTS and is accused of the horrific crime. Nick has battled the bottle and flashbacks, and is the sole suspect in the crime. Ed works hard to clear Nick's name by tracking down the real killer. Decent storyline as Ed bucks the stacked deck against his friend to prove his innocence, with a surprise as to who the actual killer turns to be, and the danger he faces in revealing who committed the crime. Next up by Talmage Powell will be With a Madman Behind Me, the 3rd book in the Ed Rivers series with The Killer is Mine being the first.
April 6, 2024
Visit JetBlackDragonfly (The Man Who Read Too Much) at www.edenthompson.ca/blog
"Ed Rivers had one clue to three brutal murders - a long blonde hair!"
Actually, there was also the lipstick-smeared pink kleenex, and the fact the hair was from a dead woman. This is the second twisted case of detection for private investigator Ed Rivers, after The Killer Is Mine, which I found the better mystery.
A Japanese-American family has been murdered in their private summer house - a father, a mother and their grown son Ichiro, slashed with a samurai blade. Nick and Helen Martin, friends of Ed and the Yamashita's neighbours, have disappeared. Nick suffers bouts of depression from fighting in Iwo Jima and Okinawa, soothing it with alcohol. His blade was the weapon, and as he was blackout drunk at the time, he is the prime suspect. He was good friends with the family but even he doesn't know if he is guilty. Ed convinces Nick to surrender, and works hard with Helen to clear his name.
Still with Nationwide Detection Agency, this time Ed works out of the office and runs this case by the book. I preferred the roughshod desperate ways of his last case, and this mystery felt like Talmage was trying to clean up Ed's act. Tampa is still muggy and the sweat doesn't help Ed's ugly appearance, his face still eliciting a reaction. He still carries his .38 and wears his knife in a sheathe at the base of his neck, ready for any sudden attack, and there are several - the first when Helen and Ed search Ichiro's sensualist apartment, from Kuriacha, a wrestling champion and friend of Ichiro's. It's looking more like the parents interrupted some shady dealings of their son, and needed to be silenced. Ed finds the Yamashita's business partner, and his seductive daughter Rachie, an out of control youth who dated Ichiro. Rachie admits his lifestyle was plush and knew he was also dating a mysterious blonde Luisa Shaw, she of the long blonde hair, who has disappeared. One way to find her is though Ed's friend Tilly Rollo, an upscale Tampa madam with a copper-red upsweep and powder blue telephone. Rachie and Tilly work with Ed to find Luisa, but if you are a reader of detective mystery stories, you will have figured this plot out in the first few pages.
There are several violent entanglements, and unseen blackjack hits to Ed's head - the worst of which he wakes up from inside a burning shack out on West Tampa's skid-row. Despite the violent deaths, this unfolds like a conventional investigation. There is a lack of desperation in the characters that I missed, although they were all good liars. There is also a similarity to the last case - an innocent man accused, the wife trying to free him, the rich and poor of Tampa, the police eager to bury the case - the usual detection plot. I enjoyed The Killer Is Mine so much I was eager for more, and this left me satisfied but not impressed. Ed Rivers is still an investigator to watch, and I will look for the other three in the series from Talmage Powell.
"Ed Rivers had one clue to three brutal murders - a long blonde hair!"
Actually, there was also the lipstick-smeared pink kleenex, and the fact the hair was from a dead woman. This is the second twisted case of detection for private investigator Ed Rivers, after The Killer Is Mine, which I found the better mystery.
A Japanese-American family has been murdered in their private summer house - a father, a mother and their grown son Ichiro, slashed with a samurai blade. Nick and Helen Martin, friends of Ed and the Yamashita's neighbours, have disappeared. Nick suffers bouts of depression from fighting in Iwo Jima and Okinawa, soothing it with alcohol. His blade was the weapon, and as he was blackout drunk at the time, he is the prime suspect. He was good friends with the family but even he doesn't know if he is guilty. Ed convinces Nick to surrender, and works hard with Helen to clear his name.
Still with Nationwide Detection Agency, this time Ed works out of the office and runs this case by the book. I preferred the roughshod desperate ways of his last case, and this mystery felt like Talmage was trying to clean up Ed's act. Tampa is still muggy and the sweat doesn't help Ed's ugly appearance, his face still eliciting a reaction. He still carries his .38 and wears his knife in a sheathe at the base of his neck, ready for any sudden attack, and there are several - the first when Helen and Ed search Ichiro's sensualist apartment, from Kuriacha, a wrestling champion and friend of Ichiro's. It's looking more like the parents interrupted some shady dealings of their son, and needed to be silenced. Ed finds the Yamashita's business partner, and his seductive daughter Rachie, an out of control youth who dated Ichiro. Rachie admits his lifestyle was plush and knew he was also dating a mysterious blonde Luisa Shaw, she of the long blonde hair, who has disappeared. One way to find her is though Ed's friend Tilly Rollo, an upscale Tampa madam with a copper-red upsweep and powder blue telephone. Rachie and Tilly work with Ed to find Luisa, but if you are a reader of detective mystery stories, you will have figured this plot out in the first few pages.
There are several violent entanglements, and unseen blackjack hits to Ed's head - the worst of which he wakes up from inside a burning shack out on West Tampa's skid-row. Despite the violent deaths, this unfolds like a conventional investigation. There is a lack of desperation in the characters that I missed, although they were all good liars. There is also a similarity to the last case - an innocent man accused, the wife trying to free him, the rich and poor of Tampa, the police eager to bury the case - the usual detection plot. I enjoyed The Killer Is Mine so much I was eager for more, and this left me satisfied but not impressed. Ed Rivers is still an investigator to watch, and I will look for the other three in the series from Talmage Powell.
August 12, 2024
As an Asian American, I always brace myself whenever I pick up a novel published in the 1960s that mentions Chinese or Japanese Americans. I know old fashioned racism is bound to rear its ugly head sooner or later, and in the most unapologetic, matter of the fact way. In this case, it's a Japanese American family that's been brutally murdered and the reader has to guess whodunit. Despite this, the cover features a luscious blonde, as a portrait of the murdered family was likely considered unmarketable.
I'm not a typical reader of mystery novels. I picked up this pulp fiction novel from a "Little Library" out of curiosity.
The chief suspect is an army veteran, Nick, whose motive for killing "the Japs" arises from the fact he was wounded in Okinawa and may have killed the family in a drunken rage. It is eerily reminiscent of how Asian Americans, no matter what their country of origin (Korea, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, etc.) were assaulted or murdered when the pandemic hit, being blamed for a virus that came out of China. The fact that the family was murdered out of racial bias is never considered as important in the novel - it's simply treated as fact, an unfortunate but perfectly logical way of thinking. If you were traumatized by Japanese soldiers in the Pacific, it's only natural that you might want to kill Japanese Americans in the US who had nothing to do with the Japanese in the Pacific (shrug).
Apparently the more things change, the more they stay the same. The "model minority myth," decades before the term was coined, is present here when the Ed Rivers, the detective, goes on and on about how upstanding and "good" the Japanese American family was - the husband was a good and honest businessman and his servile wife was the picture of domesticity that Rivers considers even more retro than the present time of the novel (published in 1960, a time when white American women were oppressed, which says something). The exception is the son, who is described as a "sensualist" (an allusion to the supposedly decadent Orient) who may have or may not be the real target of the murderer. Right after praising the family as virtuous, however, the narrator mentions, in the next breath, going to their house in an area where "yellow skinned and slant eyed" people lived.
Elevated and then insulted - that's the Asian American experience in a nutshell. Is it really better than being an object of unremitting hatred, like what Black Americans face? I would argue no. At least you'd know what you're dealing with. Two-faced is how white Americans treat Asians.
I haven't finished reading it yet, but I gave it one extra star only because the writing is tight in that hardboiled detective style I like. I will update my review once I finish.
I'm not a typical reader of mystery novels. I picked up this pulp fiction novel from a "Little Library" out of curiosity.
The chief suspect is an army veteran, Nick, whose motive for killing "the Japs" arises from the fact he was wounded in Okinawa and may have killed the family in a drunken rage. It is eerily reminiscent of how Asian Americans, no matter what their country of origin (Korea, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, etc.) were assaulted or murdered when the pandemic hit, being blamed for a virus that came out of China. The fact that the family was murdered out of racial bias is never considered as important in the novel - it's simply treated as fact, an unfortunate but perfectly logical way of thinking. If you were traumatized by Japanese soldiers in the Pacific, it's only natural that you might want to kill Japanese Americans in the US who had nothing to do with the Japanese in the Pacific (shrug).
Apparently the more things change, the more they stay the same. The "model minority myth," decades before the term was coined, is present here when the Ed Rivers, the detective, goes on and on about how upstanding and "good" the Japanese American family was - the husband was a good and honest businessman and his servile wife was the picture of domesticity that Rivers considers even more retro than the present time of the novel (published in 1960, a time when white American women were oppressed, which says something). The exception is the son, who is described as a "sensualist" (an allusion to the supposedly decadent Orient) who may have or may not be the real target of the murderer. Right after praising the family as virtuous, however, the narrator mentions, in the next breath, going to their house in an area where "yellow skinned and slant eyed" people lived.
Elevated and then insulted - that's the Asian American experience in a nutshell. Is it really better than being an object of unremitting hatred, like what Black Americans face? I would argue no. At least you'd know what you're dealing with. Two-faced is how white Americans treat Asians.
I haven't finished reading it yet, but I gave it one extra star only because the writing is tight in that hardboiled detective style I like. I will update my review once I finish.
October 7, 2024
My second read of a Talmadge Powell's Ed Rivers series novel was just as good as the first. Ed Rivers works out of the 1960's Tampa, Florida. This novel begins with Nick Martin a good friend of Ed's being accused of the murder of three locals who apparently was hacked to death with a Samurai sword that Nick kept from his time in the service at Iwo Jima. Ed takes it upon himself to prove Nick's innocence. Ed Rivers is his own man and he has values that he holds dear. He does not jump in bed at the drop of a hat, he goes all out for his friends and he has a moral compass that is a rarity in the 60's detective field. I find him refreshing and not at all boring.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews