The Brave, Bad Girls

Mac #5

by Thomas B. Dewey

A wealthy young woman tricks Mac into helping her slip away from her bodyguards, but soon needs his help when she becomes the chief suspect in a murder case

248 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1956

About the author

Thomas Blanchard Dewey was an American author of hardboiled crime novels. He created two series of novels: the first one features Mac, a private investigator from Chicago, the second features Pete Schofield.

Reviews

[Karl · Rating 4 out of 5]

in 1947, Dewey wrote a book featuring the series character he is best known for, a Chicago-based PI known simply as "Mac." In Mac's first appearance, in "Draw the Curtain Close" (aka “Dame in Danger”) In this installment , Mac is called in to protect a young woman from two goons. Those goons quickly separate Mac from the woman and rough him up. Called in to another case, he is asked to help a young teacher clear her name against a witch-hunting school board member. Eventually tracking down the first young woman, he finds her alone in an apartment with a dead man who appears to be the estranged husband of the schoolteacher. Mac hides the girl away and does not call the cops in, leading to much trouble later between him and the cops, as he tries to figure out how these two cases are related. There are many different plot turns here and quite a lot of action and misdirection. This is all very well done. written during his prime period, and includes all the necessary Mac traits, kindness, independence, and humanity.

The series consists of:

Draw the Curtain Close, 1947
Every Bet's a Sure Thing, 1953
Prey for Me, 1954
The Mean Streets, 1954
The Brave, Bad Girls, 1956
You've Got Him Cold, 1958
The Case of the Chased and the Chaste, 1959
The Girl Who Wasn't There, 1960
How Hard to Kill, 1962
A Sad Song Singing, 1963
Don't Cry for Long, 1964
Portrait of a Dead Heiress, 1965
"The Big Job" (short story), 1965
Deadline, 1966
Death and Taxes, 1967
The King Killers, 1968
The Love-Death Thing, 1969
The Taurus Trip, 1970
)

this is a great book

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mac is a one-man detective agency with one friend on the police force, Donovan, and a host of enemies.

Dewey throws a lot of different stuff into this one, including the rich girl with the corpse, the pair of hoods who beat him to a pulp, a pair of jazz musicians, the height of McCarthyism and the sinister attacks on even schoolteachers, the insidious influence of power and money, corruption, police beatings, and flower-wielding five-year-olds. With all these different themes and ideas, the plot gets quite a bit complicated and you could be forgiven if your head spins a bit at times with Mac racing from one disconnected thing to another.

Like all the books in the Mac series, it's a good read and moves along swiftly, but it just misses being a great read with too many plot lines going in different directions.

[Edwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The sixth book in the “Mac” series of detective books is an ambitious one, telling the stories of several women, a young debutante charged with murder, a teacher accused of being a communist sympathizer, her principal and love interest for Mac, and Mac’s friend (and love interest) who are all involved in a complex web of relationships that include a slew of other characters. This makes the book somewhat difficult to follow without paying strict attention. This is not necessarily a weakness. The plot, although complex, holds together beautifully and the journey is well worth it. Definitely one of my favorites of the series and recommended for readers that have an affinity for books with multiple plot lines and very many characters. There is a lot of depth here and I am adding this to my list of books that I intend to reread someday.

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was strange in some ways.

I still get no real sense of PI Mac's personality yet here he is attracted by and/or attracts several women of different types, age groups and classes while still not really getting involved with any of them in any meaningfully personal way.

Was the author merely trying to attract and hold as wide an audience as possible, or is it that Mac is too wedded to his job and justice, or that for some reason he fears involvement?

Anyway, this murder investigation closes in around Mac himself, before a plot twist reveals who has to be the murderer.

3.25 stars