A PR man investigates the tortured life of a mysterious acquaintance--and winds up knee-deep in the wrong kind of troubleFor a public relations guru like Al Brody, witnessing death is not part of the job description. But that is just what the call from Andrew Capestone requires. When Brody arrives at his old friend's bedside, it's not long before the man dies. Brody has not thought of Capestone, his onetime Harvard acquaintance, for decades. In the years since college he has established a successful career, gotten married, gotten divorced, and fallen in love with his assistant Millie. But everything Brody has worked for is put in peril when Capestone's dead body goes missing, and Brody is suddenly involved in a shocking criminal cabal. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Howard Fast including rare photos from the author's estate.
EV Cunningham is a pseudonym used by author: Howard Fast, and under that name he wrote 21 mystery novels plus two others, one under his own name and one using another pseudonym Walter Ericson.
He was educated at George Washington High School, graduating in 1931. He attended the National Academy of Design in New York before serving with the Office of War Information between 1942 and 1943 and the Army Film Project in 1944.
He became war correspondent in the Far East for 'Esquire' and 'Coronet' magazines in 1945. And after the war he taught at Indiana University, Bloomington, in the summer of 1947, a year in which he was imprisoned for contempt of Congress, concerning his communistic views.
He became the owner of the Blue Heron Press in New York in 1952, a position he held until 1957. And he was the founder of the World Peace Movement and a member of the World Peace Council from 1950 to 1955 and was later a member of the Fellowship for Reconciliation. In 1952 he was an American Labour Party candidate for Congress for the 23rd District of New York.
He received a great many awards between 1933 and 1967.
He married Bette Cohen in 1937 and they had one son and one daughter.
Under his own name he wrote 35 works of fiction plus a variety of history and critical works, short stories, plays and a screenplay, 'The Hessian' (1971) plus a book of verse with William Gropper.
He died died at his home in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, on 12 March 2003.
More than a bit dated in its attitudes towards women but no more than the average L.A. noir, and the atmosphere is certainly think with menace and betrayal. A good read if you want to believe the world hasn't changed, pre women's lib, civil rights and the glare of the public eye on what exactly the government is doing. Still, the deus ex machina of the drug trade as the central plot is gritty and believable enough to carry the reader through.
This is a well-written, well edited, book. Every word advances the story. No filler in this book. This is a fast paced enjoyable read. Detectives, lawyers, hit men, secretaries, violence implied, but not shown, no swear words. I liked this book a lot.