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Whit Whitney #2
Shear the Black Sheep
John J. Clayton was a guy with plenty of money. There was no doubt about it. But James Whitney (Whit to friends), a detective in his spare time, hesitates to accept the job this mogul offers him. The prospect of poking a nose into other people's affairs that he is very keen not to destroy does not appeal to him much. However, he accepts, picks up a corpse, learns how to use some prohibited weapons, finds himself in jail and comes out enriched by an experience that is not exclusively police.
- GenresMysteryLiterature
222 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1942
24 people want to read
About the author
David Dodge
89 books28 followersDavid Francis Dodge (August 18, 1910 – August 1974) was an author of mystery/thriller novels and humorous travel books. His first book was published in 1941. His fiction is characterized by tight plotting, brisk dialogue, memorable and well-defined characters, and (often) exotic locations. His travel writing documented the (mis)adventures of the Dodge family (David, his wife Elva, and daughter Kendal) as they roamed around the world. Practical advice and information for the traveler on a budget are sprinkled liberally throughout the books.
David Dodge was born in Berkeley, California, the youngest child of George Andrew Dodge, a San Francisco architect, and Maude Ellingwood Bennett Dodge. Following George's death in an automobile accident, Maude "Monnie" Dodge moved the family (David and his three older sisters, Kathryn, Frances, and Marian) to Southern California, where David attended Lincoln High School in Los Angeles but did not graduate.
After leaving school, he worked as a bank messenger, a marine fireman, a stevedore, and a night watchman. In 1934, he went to work for the San Francisco accounting firm of McLaren, Goode & Company, becoming a Certified Public Accountant in 1937. On July 17, 1936, he was married to Elva Keith, a former Macmillan Company editorial representative, and their only daughter, Kendal, was born in 1940. After the attack on Pearl Harbor he joined the U.S. Naval Reserve, emerging three years later with the rank of Lieutenant Commander.
David Dodge's first experience as a writer came through his involvement with the Macondray Lane Players, a group of amateur playwrights, producers, and actors whose goal was to create a theater purely for pleasure. The group was founded by George Henry Burkhardt (Dodge's brother-in-law) and performed exclusively at Macondria, a little theater located in the basement of Burkhardt's house at 56 Macondray Lane on San Francisco's Russian Hill. His publishing career began in 1936 when he won First Prize in the Northern California Drama Association's Third Annual One Act Play Tournament. The prize-winning play, "A Certain Man Had Two Sons," was subsequently published by the Banner Play Bureau, of San Francisco. Another Dodge play, "Christmas Eve at the Mermaid," co-written by Loyall McLaren (his boss at McLaren, Goode & Co.), was performed as the Bohemian Club's Christmas play of 1940, and again in 1959. In 1961, the Grabhorn Press published the play in a volume entitled Shakespeare in Bohemia.
His career as a writer really began, however, when he made a bet with his wife that he could write a better mystery novel than the ones they were reading during a rainy family vacation. He drew on his professional experience as a CPA and wrote his first novel, Death and Taxes, featuring San Francisco tax expert and reluctant detective James "Whit" Whitney. It was published by Macmillan in 1941 and he won five dollars from Elva. Three more Whitney novels soon followed: Shear the Black Sheep (Macmillan, 1942), Bullets for the Bridegroom (Macmillan, 1944) and It Ain't Hay (Simon & Schuster, 1946), in which Whit tangles with marijuana smugglers. With its subject matter and extremely evocative cover art on both the first edition dust jacket and the paperback reprint, this book remains one of Dodge's most collectible titles.
Upon his release from active duty by the Navy in 1945, Dodge left San Francisco and set out for Guatemala by car with his wife and daughter, beginning his second career as a travel writer. The Dodge family's misadventures on the road through Mexico are hilariously documented in How Green Was My Father (Simon & Schuster, 1947). His Latin American experiences also produced a second series character, expatriate private investigator and tough-guy adventurer Al Colby, who first appears in The Long Escape (Random House, 1948).
Two more well-received Colby books appeared in 1949 and 1950, but with the publication of To Catch a Thief in 1952, Dodge abandoned series ch
David Dodge was born in Berkeley, California, the youngest child of George Andrew Dodge, a San Francisco architect, and Maude Ellingwood Bennett Dodge. Following George's death in an automobile accident, Maude "Monnie" Dodge moved the family (David and his three older sisters, Kathryn, Frances, and Marian) to Southern California, where David attended Lincoln High School in Los Angeles but did not graduate.
After leaving school, he worked as a bank messenger, a marine fireman, a stevedore, and a night watchman. In 1934, he went to work for the San Francisco accounting firm of McLaren, Goode & Company, becoming a Certified Public Accountant in 1937. On July 17, 1936, he was married to Elva Keith, a former Macmillan Company editorial representative, and their only daughter, Kendal, was born in 1940. After the attack on Pearl Harbor he joined the U.S. Naval Reserve, emerging three years later with the rank of Lieutenant Commander.
David Dodge's first experience as a writer came through his involvement with the Macondray Lane Players, a group of amateur playwrights, producers, and actors whose goal was to create a theater purely for pleasure. The group was founded by George Henry Burkhardt (Dodge's brother-in-law) and performed exclusively at Macondria, a little theater located in the basement of Burkhardt's house at 56 Macondray Lane on San Francisco's Russian Hill. His publishing career began in 1936 when he won First Prize in the Northern California Drama Association's Third Annual One Act Play Tournament. The prize-winning play, "A Certain Man Had Two Sons," was subsequently published by the Banner Play Bureau, of San Francisco. Another Dodge play, "Christmas Eve at the Mermaid," co-written by Loyall McLaren (his boss at McLaren, Goode & Co.), was performed as the Bohemian Club's Christmas play of 1940, and again in 1959. In 1961, the Grabhorn Press published the play in a volume entitled Shakespeare in Bohemia.
His career as a writer really began, however, when he made a bet with his wife that he could write a better mystery novel than the ones they were reading during a rainy family vacation. He drew on his professional experience as a CPA and wrote his first novel, Death and Taxes, featuring San Francisco tax expert and reluctant detective James "Whit" Whitney. It was published by Macmillan in 1941 and he won five dollars from Elva. Three more Whitney novels soon followed: Shear the Black Sheep (Macmillan, 1942), Bullets for the Bridegroom (Macmillan, 1944) and It Ain't Hay (Simon & Schuster, 1946), in which Whit tangles with marijuana smugglers. With its subject matter and extremely evocative cover art on both the first edition dust jacket and the paperback reprint, this book remains one of Dodge's most collectible titles.
Upon his release from active duty by the Navy in 1945, Dodge left San Francisco and set out for Guatemala by car with his wife and daughter, beginning his second career as a travel writer. The Dodge family's misadventures on the road through Mexico are hilariously documented in How Green Was My Father (Simon & Schuster, 1947). His Latin American experiences also produced a second series character, expatriate private investigator and tough-guy adventurer Al Colby, who first appears in The Long Escape (Random House, 1948).
Two more well-received Colby books appeared in 1949 and 1950, but with the publication of To Catch a Thief in 1952, Dodge abandoned series ch
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 4, 2022
With most of David Dodge's novels, you become used to exotic settings that often serve to camouflage as much of the stories' mysteries as the plots themselves. Whether in Peru, Mexico, somewhere in communist Eastern Europe, or along the French Riviera, the atmosphere of a Dodge book is just as important as the characters he creates. So, when reading Shear the Black Sheep, you might be surprised to find yourself in: Los Angeles. It's a conventional setting--along with the other Whit Whitney books, by the way, where the accountant/detective operates out of a San Francisco office. But then suddenly you realize it's not. Conventional, that is. At least to a contemporary reader, viewing things through the lens of more than 80 years since Black Sheep was written and then published. For this is Los Angeles just before World War II. It's not the noirish city of 40s movies and later crime novels. It's too bright and shiny for that. It's still connected to the world of the 1930s, even the 1920s. The central crime that kicks off the story, after all, is about an illicit poker game.
How does Whit find himself checking out illegal gambling in Los Angeles? Doesn't seem too much to make a crime novel out of initially. But Whit uncovers some embezzlement, a group of card sharks, and has solved the entire mystery in only the first 62 pages. But there is still three-quarters of a the book left. So, it can't be that easy. The next layer, then, describes how Whit gathers the evidence to take down the crooks and put them in jail for a long period of time. That gets us through half the book. Still another half to go! How? Where? Well, at that point, a murder takes place. Whit spends the remaining pages tracking down the poisoner who has made off with $25,000. And at the end you get the best part. Whit makes a fool out of himself and pins everything on the wrong person. Don't worry. Things do work out in the final few pages, however. It's just that Whit ends up guilt ridden because only the work of his colleagues bails him out.
This is another indication of just how willing Dodge was to take independent paths in his writing and challenge the conventions of genre fiction. It is what elevates him from common crime fiction. That, of course, and his superbly smooth writing. All the pieces come together. The initial hook to the story, the personalities of the characters, the mystery/ies, and the very real way that Dodge has those characters interact. Theirs is the mannered behavior of an American middle class lost to present times. Even the violence, what there is of it--and there isn't all that much, despite the murder--operates behind a social setting where the only time people misbehave is when they're drunk. It's all so utterly normal.
How does Whit find himself checking out illegal gambling in Los Angeles? Doesn't seem too much to make a crime novel out of initially. But Whit uncovers some embezzlement, a group of card sharks, and has solved the entire mystery in only the first 62 pages. But there is still three-quarters of a the book left. So, it can't be that easy. The next layer, then, describes how Whit gathers the evidence to take down the crooks and put them in jail for a long period of time. That gets us through half the book. Still another half to go! How? Where? Well, at that point, a murder takes place. Whit spends the remaining pages tracking down the poisoner who has made off with $25,000. And at the end you get the best part. Whit makes a fool out of himself and pins everything on the wrong person. Don't worry. Things do work out in the final few pages, however. It's just that Whit ends up guilt ridden because only the work of his colleagues bails him out.
This is another indication of just how willing Dodge was to take independent paths in his writing and challenge the conventions of genre fiction. It is what elevates him from common crime fiction. That, of course, and his superbly smooth writing. All the pieces come together. The initial hook to the story, the personalities of the characters, the mystery/ies, and the very real way that Dodge has those characters interact. Theirs is the mannered behavior of an American middle class lost to present times. Even the violence, what there is of it--and there isn't all that much, despite the murder--operates behind a social setting where the only time people misbehave is when they're drunk. It's all so utterly normal.
May 15, 2018
A high stakes stakes mystery in pre-war LA. Well written, entertaining, and full of un-inventable or even research-able period details.
July 20, 2019
Algo lento al principio, pero de la segunda mitad en adelanta imposible dejar de leer. Personajes jodidamente inteligentes, giros que no te los esperas y desconfias de cada persona hasta que terminas. Impresionante.
February 28, 2013
Check out what I wrote in by blog in Spanish: http://lunairereadings.blogspot.com/2...
This is a typical murder case. We won't know who the murderer is until the very end, but it is fun to try to guess, especially now, in this society full of high-budgeted movies. The hero (Whit Whitney)is a CPA that knows nothing about being an investigator, and finds himself involved in this complicated adventure. I liked the story, the addictive narrative, the cleanliness of the descriptions and the sharpness of the story-telling exercise. I loved the structure because it is predictable, and I was very fond of the hero, who is a normal single guy (a CPA, on top of all his normality!) who falls in love with his female business partner. It was refreshing and very entertaining. I really liked it.
This is a typical murder case. We won't know who the murderer is until the very end, but it is fun to try to guess, especially now, in this society full of high-budgeted movies. The hero (Whit Whitney)is a CPA that knows nothing about being an investigator, and finds himself involved in this complicated adventure. I liked the story, the addictive narrative, the cleanliness of the descriptions and the sharpness of the story-telling exercise. I loved the structure because it is predictable, and I was very fond of the hero, who is a normal single guy (a CPA, on top of all his normality!) who falls in love with his female business partner. It was refreshing and very entertaining. I really liked it.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews