Hazell and the Menacing Jester

James Hazell Mystery #4

by P.B. Yuill

Moneybags Beevers and his weird little problem first cropped up on a wet London morning in May. Someone was menacing his pretty young wife, and the impresario needed class to run him to ground. Private investigator James Hazell was yearning for a taste of the high life, and was long overdue some expensive Bond Street shoes. All of which made him the perfect patsy for a rich man's dangerous game...

Genres: Crime

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Joint pseudonym of Gordon M. Williams with Terry Venables

Reviews

[Two Envelopes And A Phone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hunh. I don't remember much from when I read Hazell Plays Solomon years ago, but I'm gonna get the review down for this one right away, so I don't shortchange it (maybe Hazell Plays Solomon was better than I recall...?).

For a book that doesn't promote itself as an actual murder mystery, and doesn't seem like it will go in that direction even though it gets better and better as it goes along, this was a treat-petite all the way through. In 189 pages we have private eye Jim Hazell getting hired by some poor sod Beevers, because Beevers and his much (muuUUUUCCHHhhh) younger wife are getting endlessly pranked by some anonymous joker who specializes in getting just a little more tasteless - and a tad more threatening - with every new wrinkle. For most of the early part of the book Hazell is convinced Beevers is not coming clean about whatever part of his life might be causing this, though Beevers does initially provide some highly credible suspects to check out. Meanwhile, Hazell bumps up into "the high life" for most of the book, as he gets invited into Beevers's social and business circles. Parties, posh cliques, arts and entertainment celebrities and wannabes, free tickets to a big sporting event (things get unexpectedly frightening there)...and just this vague sense that it's all a little thin-ice with something lurking underneath. Even when some terrible truths come to light...can things drop lower still?

I won't say for sure if someone does get offed, but some pretty shocking hit-and-run mayhem figures in (peripheral, or key development?), and there's a dead mouse, as the cover of my edition warned. I got fairly far into the book hoping the dead mouse was just something tossed onto the cover of the novel for no good reason - you know those SF or Fantasy novels that put a cover on the novel that has absolutely zero to do with anything that goes on in the book? I thought maybe that bit of shenanigans had finally leaped to the Mystery genre...but, uh, sad to report the story is down one rodent by the end. (We're not 'in at the death', but the official Trigger Warning is for the wee corpse).

Some across-the-pond slang that I had to grapple with - but the trickiest bit is actually explained, which was helpful to me, because I thought someone was gettin' paid for a somewhat dangerous job with, I dunno - I thought some sort of beverage and snacks at the pub, like peanuts - but it was creative word-jinks for amts. of $$. Cool!

I loved the "it's solved/it's not/it's solved/it's not/it's that dude!/no, it's her!/no, he's the creep.../no, flush that, time for the final explanation!" last 50 or so pages of the book. Always one last trick, or feint, before Hazell gets wise. Great fun! As much fun as if a body had dropped in a half-page Prologue - and I still won't say if anyone gets murdered...or even if we're doing a variation on Come Away, Death, by Gladys Mitchell, another fine experiment with WHEN, or even IF, we need a corpse. A human corpse, I mean.

I won't go back and re-read Hazell Plays Solomon for a fresh take on how good it was - but other books from this series? Sure!

[Marco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this, a real page turner and full of suspense and intrigue. I'd imagine it would be hard for a non-Brit to read due to the slang but I loved it.