The Silver Cobweb

Ralph Lindsey

by Ben Benson

Mary Ann Fedder, a pretty twenty-one-year-old girl was preparing for her wedding in a couple of weeks to a local boy called Russell Westlake. What possible reason could Whitey Swenke - a hired killer already wanted on three charges of murder - have for chasing her through the little town of Dorset and shooting her down in her own home? This was the problem confronting the State Police. Young Ralph Lindsey on his first assignment to the police barracks captured Swenke, but this was only the beginning and he soon found himself in trouble not only with Carl Podres, the proprietor of a local roadhouse and the glamorous night-club singer, Amy Bell, but also with his superiors, who on receipt of two anonymous notes decided that he was causing far too much trouble for a young trooper.

200 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1955

Reviews

[Lesley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another Fifties thriller. This is a gritty police drama following young Ralph Lindsey on his first assignment in the small town of Dorset. There are plenty of twists and turns and I found I could not put it down. If you are interested in police dramas of the fifties this is well worth a read, if you can find it.

[Ralph · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gritty 50's noir crime novel written from the POV of a Massachusetts state trooper. Ralph Lindsey is still rather new to the job and trying to live up to the reputation left in the State Police by his now wheelchair-bound father when he makes the lucky catch of a wanted killer who had just murdered, for no apparent reason, a young Danvers girl about to be married. Later in the day, he happens to give a speeding ticket to a beautiful chanteuse who works at the nearby roadhouse. It's the confluence of these two events which leads the trooper into a web of deceit, theft and murder.

The trooper is a former soldier, a Massachusetts native and has a narrative voice that might be described as optimistically cynical, all traits he shares with the author. Benson was a WW2 vet (Lindsey fought in Korea) who began to write after being badly wounded in action overseas. The Silver Cobweb, which refers to a piece of jewelry but is also an apt description of the interconnected lives, was the third of seven Lindsey novels. It's not a great novel, but it's very good, the characterization and action are well written, the plot is complex enough to engage you throughout, and the protagonist is filled with enough affable angst to make his problems your concern. Good, solid, 50's crime novel that will play out in the cinema of your mind like an Alan Ladd film...in b&w, of course.