Alarum and Excursion

by Perdue-V

This 1944 classic was picked by National Book Award winner Jacques Barzun and his collaborator Wendell Hertig Taylor as one of the 50 best mysteries from the first half of the 20th century. Gasoline is in short suppy as World War II wages on and Nick Matheny's oil company just might have the formula for creating a cheap, synthetic fuel. Only Matheny is attacked before he can get to Washington, D.C. to tell the feds and loses his memory. It's a book that literally begins with a bang and ends with one of the most chilling lines in crime fiction.

Genres: Thriller

187 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1944

Reviews

[Ronald Wilcox · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent thriller set in 1943 (written in 1944) - a great example of noir. Nicholas awakens to find he has had surgery on his head. Unfortunately he remembers nothing before the present. He finds himself recovering in an insane asylum and slowly begins to remember bits and pieces of his past. He decides to escape from the asylum and then investigates his own past and that of his son. Very good suspenseful novel.

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: a man finds that he has had surgery to his head and that he is a patient in an insane asylum. He escapes to find out why.

[Ron Kerrigan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three and a half stars: Interesting story told by a man who doesn't quite remember much about how he wound up in a sanitarium. As his memory returns he snatches bits and pieces of his recent life and tries to figure out his relationship with his younger wife, his daughter-in-law, son, and business associates. You never quite know who is telling the truth, because the narrator doesn't know whom to trust; he just knows someone tried to kill him and maybe succeeded in killing his partner in the plan to produce cheap fuel.

[Arthur Pierce · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very un-traditional mystery by a talented author I had not previously encountered. A war-time setting, but the actual war doesn't enter into it, though it is WWII that is the motivation for the plot. Compelling and different.

[Ruth Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

154 pages