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Johnny Liddell #1
About Face
The pretty-boy movie star.
The fat producer.
The buxom blackmailer.
The grubby undertaker.
These four people never would have associated with one another runder ordinary circumstances. But they were drawn together in a shady swindle that promised to net a handsome profit.
It was a neat little deal and everything worked out exactly as planned—until private eye Johnny Liddell showed up on the scene.
That was the day the movie star was murdered. He made a pretty corpse. The first of four.
It started out as a dog of a case-with Johnny Liddell keeping tabs on a drunken movie star for a fat producer. But it picked up interest when the actor was found dead in a phony auto accident. Then, two blondes and one brunette later (as Liddell figured time), somebody put a bullet through the producer's fat skull.A killer seemed bent on giving the morgue a little extra business. Three more customers, to be exact, and one of them was named Johnny Liddell.
The fat producer.
The buxom blackmailer.
The grubby undertaker.
These four people never would have associated with one another runder ordinary circumstances. But they were drawn together in a shady swindle that promised to net a handsome profit.
It was a neat little deal and everything worked out exactly as planned—until private eye Johnny Liddell showed up on the scene.
That was the day the movie star was murdered. He made a pretty corpse. The first of four.
It started out as a dog of a case-with Johnny Liddell keeping tabs on a drunken movie star for a fat producer. But it picked up interest when the actor was found dead in a phony auto accident. Then, two blondes and one brunette later (as Liddell figured time), somebody put a bullet through the producer's fat skull.A killer seemed bent on giving the morgue a little extra business. Three more customers, to be exact, and one of them was named Johnny Liddell.
- GenresMystery
264 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1947
32 people want to read
About the author
Frank Kane
218 books10 followersFrank Kane, Brooklyn-born and a lifetime New Yorker, worked for many years in journalism and corporate public relations before shifting to fiction writing. At the time he was selling crime stories to the pulps he was also sustaining a career writing scripts for such radio shows as Gangbusters and The Shadow.
In addition to the Johnny Liddells, Kane wrote several suspense novels, some softcore erotica, and (under the pen name of Frank Boyd) "Johnny Staccato", a Gold Medal original paperback based on the short-lived noir television series, starring John Cassavetes, about a Greenwich Village bebop pianist turned private detective.
In addition to the Johnny Liddells, Kane wrote several suspense novels, some softcore erotica, and (under the pen name of Frank Boyd) "Johnny Staccato", a Gold Medal original paperback based on the short-lived noir television series, starring John Cassavetes, about a Greenwich Village bebop pianist turned private detective.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 19, 2019
My edition is another Ace Double Mystery.
The first is an early entry in the Johnny Liddell series, where he is an operative working in Hollywood, trying to find a missing film star and murder suspect. All of these mysteries are the same, and they're all pretty solid.
The second has to do with a MacGuffin in a cigarette pack, but there's pages missing, so I don't really have enough to criticize it.
The first is an early entry in the Johnny Liddell series, where he is an operative working in Hollywood, trying to find a missing film star and murder suspect. All of these mysteries are the same, and they're all pretty solid.
The second has to do with a MacGuffin in a cigarette pack, but there's pages missing, so I don't really have enough to criticize it.
July 14, 2017
In this caper, Liddell goes out to Hollywood to work a job for a studio executive (Julian Goodnan). A teen idol (Harvey Randolph) has gone missing and every day he's off the set is costing the studio dollars.
It is a little more humorous than most Liddell stories. In a somewhat humorous vein at one point, he takes note of Mona Varna and muses that the "trouble with these voluptuous wenches is that they always turn to fat.... But until they do..." When Liddell goes to visit his friend the coroner, he tells the nurse at reception that he's a corpse and he's come to give himself up. When he goes to the studio to visit with his client, there's a "buxom blonde in a dark green sweater" stabbing listlessly at the keys of a typewriter "taking excessive care not to fracture the finish on her carefully shellacked fingernails." In later Liddell stories, that same description is used for Liddell's own secretary.
This story is filled with drinking at bars, in actress' apartments, drinking at the coroner's office etc.
But things aren't so funny when the movie star ends up in the morgue and the Hollywood big shot trying to find him ends up there too.
Liddell, with young reporter Toni Belden along at his heels, wants to make sense of it. But the bodies keep dropping until there is a fatal foursome involved.
It's a good old fashioned mystery and it's a quick read too. It may not have the depth of a Jim Thompson or David Goodis book, but it's a fun piece of reading and well worth your time. My biggest criticism of it is that it could have had a better title. The alternate title About Face conveys better what the story was about.
It is a little more humorous than most Liddell stories. In a somewhat humorous vein at one point, he takes note of Mona Varna and muses that the "trouble with these voluptuous wenches is that they always turn to fat.... But until they do..." When Liddell goes to visit his friend the coroner, he tells the nurse at reception that he's a corpse and he's come to give himself up. When he goes to the studio to visit with his client, there's a "buxom blonde in a dark green sweater" stabbing listlessly at the keys of a typewriter "taking excessive care not to fracture the finish on her carefully shellacked fingernails." In later Liddell stories, that same description is used for Liddell's own secretary.
This story is filled with drinking at bars, in actress' apartments, drinking at the coroner's office etc.
But things aren't so funny when the movie star ends up in the morgue and the Hollywood big shot trying to find him ends up there too.
Liddell, with young reporter Toni Belden along at his heels, wants to make sense of it. But the bodies keep dropping until there is a fatal foursome involved.
It's a good old fashioned mystery and it's a quick read too. It may not have the depth of a Jim Thompson or David Goodis book, but it's a fun piece of reading and well worth your time. My biggest criticism of it is that it could have had a better title. The alternate title About Face conveys better what the story was about.
January 12, 2015
Weaker, early Johnny Liddell effort that has some plot issues.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews