What do you think?
Rate this book
John and Suzy Marshall #9
Fatal in Furs
Private Detective Johnny Marshall is hired by luscious Leila De Jong to retrieve a $20,000 mink coat taken by a wayward Romeo a week after giving it as a gift...and has now given it to his ex-wife, the louse. As Johnny prowls the grim noir landscape of post-war Los Angeles, he discovers that the road to his $300 fee leads through a wilderness of vice and corruption, straight to the murder of a shady cop...and he is the prime suspect.
- GenresCrime
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1951
8 people want to read
About the author
James M. Fox
34 books4 followersBorn Johannes Matthijs Willem Knipscheer. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1937 and became a naturalized American citizen.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 25, 2013
Who would have thought trying to find a missing fur coat could get a fellow into such a heap of trouble? Certainly not private eye Johnny Marshall, else he might have turned down the case, despite the $300 carrot dangled in front of him, and the blonde bombshell wanting the coat returned. It started with hurt feelings and love gone stale and ended up in a bloody mish-mash of murder, vice and rackets.
Fatal in Furs is one of several books written about the exploits of Johnny and Suzy Marshall, two typical Los Angelino suburbanites with a nice house, a beer budget they make work, and a marriage they make work even better. While some critics of the series dismissed it as a pseudo-Nick & Nora pairing (even to the point of a dog, except theirs is a giant Dane named Khan), but I think this at-times charming couple more in the Mr-and-Mrs-North school of detective matrimony. But the action of the series is pretty gritty, just this side of noir in portraying the highs and lows of post-war Los Angeles.
James M Fox was the pen-name of Johannes Matthils Wilhelm Knipscheer...usually I don't think there is a legitimate reason for a pen-name, but in this case I think Herr Knipscheer made a rather good choice. He wrote very authentically about mid-century America, which was his adopted country (born in Holland), letting his detective tell the tale; where he departs from other hard-boiled noir writers of the time, was in his inclusion of domestic bliss, in the form of the Marshall. Johnny is not just a knight errant in these mean streets, but a married one, with a wife who occasionally tags along and often sends Khan along as canine bodyguard and chaperon. The result is a somewhat cynical narrative tinged with hope, a lighter shade of noir, and a starkness relieved by brilliant banter.
As a crime story, the novel is well plotted and peopled with characters that have all the vices and virtues of the times. As noted earlier, the husband-wife teaming make this a slightly lighter foray into crime noir: hardcore fans of noir will find it less grim, while readers looking for a bubbly domestic detective will find it darker than they expect...sort of like when the Punisher visited Archie at Riverdale High. While the Fox books are out of print, they are still rather easy to obtain and those mystery buffs who make the effort will be rewarded with great stories, insights on mid-century America (quite a foreign country these days), and some tremendous pulpish covers, especially on the Dell editions.
Fatal in Furs is one of several books written about the exploits of Johnny and Suzy Marshall, two typical Los Angelino suburbanites with a nice house, a beer budget they make work, and a marriage they make work even better. While some critics of the series dismissed it as a pseudo-Nick & Nora pairing (even to the point of a dog, except theirs is a giant Dane named Khan), but I think this at-times charming couple more in the Mr-and-Mrs-North school of detective matrimony. But the action of the series is pretty gritty, just this side of noir in portraying the highs and lows of post-war Los Angeles.
James M Fox was the pen-name of Johannes Matthils Wilhelm Knipscheer...usually I don't think there is a legitimate reason for a pen-name, but in this case I think Herr Knipscheer made a rather good choice. He wrote very authentically about mid-century America, which was his adopted country (born in Holland), letting his detective tell the tale; where he departs from other hard-boiled noir writers of the time, was in his inclusion of domestic bliss, in the form of the Marshall. Johnny is not just a knight errant in these mean streets, but a married one, with a wife who occasionally tags along and often sends Khan along as canine bodyguard and chaperon. The result is a somewhat cynical narrative tinged with hope, a lighter shade of noir, and a starkness relieved by brilliant banter.
As a crime story, the novel is well plotted and peopled with characters that have all the vices and virtues of the times. As noted earlier, the husband-wife teaming make this a slightly lighter foray into crime noir: hardcore fans of noir will find it less grim, while readers looking for a bubbly domestic detective will find it darker than they expect...sort of like when the Punisher visited Archie at Riverdale High. While the Fox books are out of print, they are still rather easy to obtain and those mystery buffs who make the effort will be rewarded with great stories, insights on mid-century America (quite a foreign country these days), and some tremendous pulpish covers, especially on the Dell editions.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews