Handle With Fear

by Thomas B. Dewey

FIRST PAPERBACK EDITION, Graphic #73, published 1954. Original American hardcover published by M. S. Mill Co. and W. Morrow 1951. A Singer Batts mystery. Original 25 cover price.

Genres: Crime, Mystery

144 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1951

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

[Edwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was determined not to like this book. First, the main character Singer Batts (super dorky name) is a Shakespearean scholar and amateur criminologist. This sounds even less interesting than Nancy Drew. Second, the eccentric Batts has a partner that does his leg work and who also narrates the story, just like Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, which seemed way too derivative to me. A slew of characters are quickly introduced which I initially found confusing, however I stuck with it. Turns out that the book is great. Sure it’s got plenty of similarities to Rex Stout’s oeuvre. The plot is just as complex and satisfying, however it’s also way more violent. Batts and partner Joe Spinder get beat up or shot regularly, and it has quite a high body count for a story that I feared might have devolved into a tepid cozy mystery. Dewey wrote two other little known crime series, the detective named Mac, and the Pete Schofield books. The Singer Batts books are even less known, and unjustly so. I’m going to have to read the other three Batts books now.

[Whistler's Mom · Rating 3 out of 5]

When the gangsters are the "good" guys, you may be in Chicago.

This is the last of Dewey's Singer Batts series and I'm sorry he didn't write more. Singer Batts is an odd, but appealing detective and I like his sidekick Joe Spinder. I prefer them to solve crimes in their tiny Midwestern town, but Preston isn't far from a big city and people keep wandering back and forth. Americans have itchy feet and when trouble looms, their natural reaction is to try to outrun it.

So when a troubled young WWII veteran shows up in Preston with a gun-happy tough guy in hot pursuit, Joe Spinder rescues the youngster and drags reluctant amateur detective Singer Batts into helping him unravel the complicated mess. Since the mess happened in Chicago, that's where they head.

WWII disrupted life in the U.S. as people were pulled from their hometowns for the military or war work. Some never went back. Nick Andrews landed a DC government job and married a beautiful Italian-American girl, but Constancia's past caught up with her. She fled back to Chicago to stay with her sister, but when Nick followed her, she was murdered.

Her sister is VERY nervous and Marcella's BF Angelo has a nasty habit of throwing knives when he gets upset. Turns out Constancia's first husband left a mystery behind when he was killed in the war. Both sisters are deeply involved in a high-risk game of hide-and-seek with a suitcase full of cash.

Soon there's a second murder and then the discovery of a corpse that's been hidden for a long time. Oddly, the "corpse" has been collecting regular pay-offs from a legit business for years and years. The business manager wants to know who's been collecting the loot and Singer and Spinder want to know who bricked that body in the wall. They go to the local police, who refuse to get involved. All those deaths were suicides, so there's nothing to investigate. Case closed.

But Batts knows of one man who'll be interested in the deaths of the young women because he's the unofficial leader of the Italian-American community in Chicago. Furthermore, he's a man with plenty of money and even more influence. He may spend his days surrounded by priceless art, but no one's forgotten how he made his money. When the Godfather speaks, smart people listen.

Lots of gore and violence in this one, which I'm not crazy about. Joe Spinder gets beaten up and shot, but he's used to that. Singer Batts also comes in for some rough treatment (not to mention kidnapping) but proves surprisingly resilient for a frail-looking man. Most of the other characters are so used to violence they'd be astonished if they weren't in danger.

In the end, the action moves back to Preston, as it always does in this series. After all, the suitcase full of money is in the bank there. Can the tough guys who are after the dough use their hostage to liberate it or will Singer's Windy City gangster buds be able to stop them?

This series is quirky. It's pulp or noir or mid-1900's "men's fiction" or whatever you want to call it. However, the two main characters are decent people who step up whenever someone needs help. There are plenty of minor characters who are more than cardboard cut-outs. There's humor, too, but mostly the author's philosophy of life sets them apart. He was a man who believed in decency and goodness and it comes through in his stories.

I enjoyed this set of four, which I bought in a Wildside Press "megapack" for 99 cents - a lot of good reading for a buck. Dewey also created a Chicago P.I. named "Mac" and I've bought a couple of the books in that series. If they're as interesting as the Singer Batts series, I'm in luck.