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Innocent Bystander
A midway murder sends a terrified eyewitness running for her life—from a cop, a con, and her own secrets—in this mystery by the author of the John J. Malone series. The best carnival barker in the business couldn’t have drawn a crowd like the one now gathered around the Ferris wheel on the pier. In one of the cabs, still rocking with the ocean breeze, is a dead man—a bloody knife protruding from his back. Why the notorious gambling boss Jerry McGurn was killed is no mystery. Who did it is. And there’s only one probable witness to the crime. As bystanders go, Ellen Haven comes across as pretty enough, plus her blue eyes well up with tears at the mere mention of something as awful as murder. Homicide detective Art Smith wants to believe she didn’t see a thing. Why would she lie? Then again, why else would she suddenly vanish? And Smith isn’t the only one looking for her; so is a brutal ex-con, fresh out of San Quentin, with a score to settle. Smith knows he’d better find her first, but Ellen is leading both men into a hall of mirrors where illusions of guilt and innocence can shatter with a single gunshot. A former crime reporter, Craig Rice was “the first writer of detective fiction to make the cover of Time magazine. Her hardcover sales figures matched those of her bestselling contemporaries Rex Stout, Ellery Queen, Erle Stanley Gardner, and Raymond Chandler. She’s worth remembering” (Jon L. Breen, Edgar Award–winning author).
- GenresMystery
209 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1949
14 people are currently reading
53 people want to read
About the author
Craig Rice
103 books56 followersPseudonym for Georgiana Ann Randolph Craig aka Daphne Sanders and Michael Venning.
Known for her hard-boiled mystery plots combined with screwball comedy, Georgiana 'Craig' Rice was the author of twenty-three novels, six of them posthumous, numerous short stories, and some true crime pieces. In the 1940s she rivaled Agatha Christie in sales and was featured on the cover of Time Magazine in 1946. However, over the past sixty years she has fallen into relative obscurity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Ri...
Known for her hard-boiled mystery plots combined with screwball comedy, Georgiana 'Craig' Rice was the author of twenty-three novels, six of them posthumous, numerous short stories, and some true crime pieces. In the 1940s she rivaled Agatha Christie in sales and was featured on the cover of Time Magazine in 1946. However, over the past sixty years she has fallen into relative obscurity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Ri...
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 22, 2023
05/2018
From 1949. Good atmosphere of a carnival, and good mystery too (the murder takes place on the ferris wheel). One of only a couple of non-series books by Craig Rice. Who was actually a woman named Georgiana.
From 1949. Good atmosphere of a carnival, and good mystery too (the murder takes place on the ferris wheel). One of only a couple of non-series books by Craig Rice. Who was actually a woman named Georgiana.
August 18, 2019
It’s 1949 and the U.S. economy is booming. Plenty of money to spend on amusements and one of L.A.'s most popular places is the Pier, a beach-side carnival filled with rides, games, and sideshows. Tony Webb is at home there, a carney himself before he went to work in Jerry McGurn’s gambling house. When McGurn got into legal trouble he couldn’t bribe his way out of, he set up Tony to take the rap. Now Tony has “graduated” from Sing-Sing and is back on the streets. And he has a date to meet McGurn on the big ferris wheel.
Homicide detective Art Smith is sent to the Pier when it becomes obvious that someone has shoved a knife into McGurn’s back. Now Smith has to find witnesses, knowing he’ll get nothing from the carneys. But a pretty, young girl was having her picture drawn by sketch artist Amby and she might have seen who was on the wheel with McGurn. All the police have to go by is the picture Amby drew, now torn in half and discarded.
Smith is an old-fashioned cop who memorized the Manual of Police Procedure and sticks to it. His assistant O’Mara is contemptuous of regulations and impatient for advancement. He likes to take short-cuts and the more brutal, the better. Then he finds something that looks much more profitable than being a cop and soon he’s playing both sides of the street.
There’s $50,000 hidden and a key to a safe-deposit box will put the lucky man (or woman) on Easy Street. Tony Webb is looking for it and so are two New York goons who lost money dealing with McGurn. And other people are looking, too, but which ones?
This is a rather conventional “hard-boiled” detective story. Thousands were cranked out in the 1940’s and 50’s and most are highly forgettable. There’s a painfully honest cop and a corrupt, brutal cop, and a tired old Homicide chief who never takes sides. He’s seen it all and will see it all again. There are gangsters and those who deal with them and those they rip off. There are youngsters like Tony Webb. He’s smart, but childhood in an orphanage left him to shift for himself. He’s bitter from experience, but could still go either way.
And there’s a pretty, young woman named Ellen who is whatever the man looking at her wants her to be. Both Tony and Smith fall for her. O’Mara is in love with himself and sees her as a meal-ticket to a big pay-off. And the NYC guns are hoping she can lead them to their money.
I was disappointed by this book and not just because I love Craig Rice’s hilarious mysteries. I think Rice aimed high here, which I admire. But did she miss the mark?
The strength of the book is the author’s lyrical, fascinating description of the Carnival world, which is not a sub-culture, but a life separate from all others. The carneys live by no code but their own and trust no one but each other. They even learn rudimentary sign-language to communicate privately and safely. Rice, the quintessential loner, understood this world and wrote about it lovingly. It’s a shameful waste that the characters in this out-standing setting are two-dimensional and never break out of predictable patterns.
The violence bothered me, especially the sad tale of deaf-and-dumb Amby whose sweetness and innocence makes him a natural target. The essence of hard-boiled writing is that some people deserve to live and others deserve to die. Amby’s story is worth telling, but it’s not enough to make a masterpiece out of this hum-drum book.
If you can get it on sale, give it a quick read, but it’s one of Craig Rice’s weaker efforts. And if you know all of Chandler’s stuff by heart and are looking for more good hard-boiled fiction from this era, check out Milton Ozaki or Jonathan Latimer. Or Erle Stanley Gardner's Cool & Lam series.
Homicide detective Art Smith is sent to the Pier when it becomes obvious that someone has shoved a knife into McGurn’s back. Now Smith has to find witnesses, knowing he’ll get nothing from the carneys. But a pretty, young girl was having her picture drawn by sketch artist Amby and she might have seen who was on the wheel with McGurn. All the police have to go by is the picture Amby drew, now torn in half and discarded.
Smith is an old-fashioned cop who memorized the Manual of Police Procedure and sticks to it. His assistant O’Mara is contemptuous of regulations and impatient for advancement. He likes to take short-cuts and the more brutal, the better. Then he finds something that looks much more profitable than being a cop and soon he’s playing both sides of the street.
There’s $50,000 hidden and a key to a safe-deposit box will put the lucky man (or woman) on Easy Street. Tony Webb is looking for it and so are two New York goons who lost money dealing with McGurn. And other people are looking, too, but which ones?
This is a rather conventional “hard-boiled” detective story. Thousands were cranked out in the 1940’s and 50’s and most are highly forgettable. There’s a painfully honest cop and a corrupt, brutal cop, and a tired old Homicide chief who never takes sides. He’s seen it all and will see it all again. There are gangsters and those who deal with them and those they rip off. There are youngsters like Tony Webb. He’s smart, but childhood in an orphanage left him to shift for himself. He’s bitter from experience, but could still go either way.
And there’s a pretty, young woman named Ellen who is whatever the man looking at her wants her to be. Both Tony and Smith fall for her. O’Mara is in love with himself and sees her as a meal-ticket to a big pay-off. And the NYC guns are hoping she can lead them to their money.
I was disappointed by this book and not just because I love Craig Rice’s hilarious mysteries. I think Rice aimed high here, which I admire. But did she miss the mark?
The strength of the book is the author’s lyrical, fascinating description of the Carnival world, which is not a sub-culture, but a life separate from all others. The carneys live by no code but their own and trust no one but each other. They even learn rudimentary sign-language to communicate privately and safely. Rice, the quintessential loner, understood this world and wrote about it lovingly. It’s a shameful waste that the characters in this out-standing setting are two-dimensional and never break out of predictable patterns.
The violence bothered me, especially the sad tale of deaf-and-dumb Amby whose sweetness and innocence makes him a natural target. The essence of hard-boiled writing is that some people deserve to live and others deserve to die. Amby’s story is worth telling, but it’s not enough to make a masterpiece out of this hum-drum book.
If you can get it on sale, give it a quick read, but it’s one of Craig Rice’s weaker efforts. And if you know all of Chandler’s stuff by heart and are looking for more good hard-boiled fiction from this era, check out Milton Ozaki or Jonathan Latimer. Or Erle Stanley Gardner's Cool & Lam series.
July 23, 2020
This was a big change from the humorous John J. Malone stories I had read previously. This is a violent, hard-boiled novel and very different from the John J. Malone series. I'm not aware of her writing any other hard-boiled crime novels like this one and that's too bad. I think it stands up well with other hard-boiled crime novels of the late 40's and early 50's.
I enjoyed this more typical crime story and was trying to decide whether to give it 3 or 4 stars and decided to bump it up to 4. All the characters were interesting if not particularly likeable. The protagonist Tony Webb was a low level player in a crooked gambling hall operation who just got out of Sing Sing after apparently taking a rap for his boss. The action takes place mostly on an amusement pier where Tony spent his time and is accepted by the "carnies" as one of them.
What i really liked was the way that rice brought the carnie atmosphere of the amusement pier to life. You felt like you were actually there. The amusement pier is almost as much a character as the people involved. It reminds of the way Fredric Brown was able to weave a carnival background into many of his stories. There are many twists and turns as each character tries to reach their individual objective involving a $50,000 stash. You have two cops with their own agendas. Smith is an old-fashioned cop who memorized the Manual of Police Procedure and and actually rehearses it in his mind before deciding on his next move. Then there is O’Mara who has become cynical, enjoys the chance to express his brutal nature under the guise of being a cop and generally only looking out for himself.
I enjoyed this more typical crime story and was trying to decide whether to give it 3 or 4 stars and decided to bump it up to 4. All the characters were interesting if not particularly likeable. The protagonist Tony Webb was a low level player in a crooked gambling hall operation who just got out of Sing Sing after apparently taking a rap for his boss. The action takes place mostly on an amusement pier where Tony spent his time and is accepted by the "carnies" as one of them.
What i really liked was the way that rice brought the carnie atmosphere of the amusement pier to life. You felt like you were actually there. The amusement pier is almost as much a character as the people involved. It reminds of the way Fredric Brown was able to weave a carnival background into many of his stories. There are many twists and turns as each character tries to reach their individual objective involving a $50,000 stash. You have two cops with their own agendas. Smith is an old-fashioned cop who memorized the Manual of Police Procedure and and actually rehearses it in his mind before deciding on his next move. Then there is O’Mara who has become cynical, enjoys the chance to express his brutal nature under the guise of being a cop and generally only looking out for himself.
November 22, 2025
A pretty solid cat and mouse tale with a few dashes of murder thrown in for good measure.
This novel follows a few different characters after the murder of a gambling hood on a Ferris wheel. Among them are a couple cops (one nice, one not-so-nice), a small-time crook, a deaf-mute artist, and the amusement park's dunk tank girl. There's flashes of romance, bitterness, and betrayal all about, and enough hints that "things aren't what they seem" to keep a reader turning the pages. During the climax, there's a great chase through a number of the amusement park's attractions that would've sold movie tickets if this story was ever filmed.
I'm a sucker for carny noir, so I enjoyed the setting of the murder, natch. The middle half of the book doesn't happen at the fun park, but the book starts and ends there, with several visits along the way. (Much more time is spent in the park than in the similar-murder-location, yet wholly disappointing Death on a Ferris Wheel.) So I'll be adding this to my carny noir list.
Rice is known for her screwball comedy murder novels, but this is played pretty straight. There's not much silliness or witty repartee. I haven't read any of those books, but after how well this was plotted, I'm willing to try.
This novel follows a few different characters after the murder of a gambling hood on a Ferris wheel. Among them are a couple cops (one nice, one not-so-nice), a small-time crook, a deaf-mute artist, and the amusement park's dunk tank girl. There's flashes of romance, bitterness, and betrayal all about, and enough hints that "things aren't what they seem" to keep a reader turning the pages. During the climax, there's a great chase through a number of the amusement park's attractions that would've sold movie tickets if this story was ever filmed.
I'm a sucker for carny noir, so I enjoyed the setting of the murder, natch. The middle half of the book doesn't happen at the fun park, but the book starts and ends there, with several visits along the way. (Much more time is spent in the park than in the similar-murder-location, yet wholly disappointing Death on a Ferris Wheel.) So I'll be adding this to my carny noir list.
Rice is known for her screwball comedy murder novels, but this is played pretty straight. There's not much silliness or witty repartee. I haven't read any of those books, but after how well this was plotted, I'm willing to try.
June 4, 2018
Much more hard-boiled than I was expected, although not totally, so I guess medium-boiled detective fiction? I am totally down for the carnival atmosphere, although there was certainly some predictability in terms of the story-line.
September 22, 2021
God book
oK...
Why do require so many words, since I think I it was a good book but don't really have that much more you say?
oK...
Why do require so many words, since I think I it was a good book but don't really have that much more you say?
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews