Fatal Undertaking

Johnny Liddell #26

by Frank Kane

The tall blonde marched into the office, straight toward the man sitting behind the desk. "Are you Johnny Liddell?" The man nodded. That was his first mistake – and his last. The blonde opened her purse and without batting her big blue eyes she began showering him with hot kisses – from a snub-nosed .38.

Paperback

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

Frank 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.

Reviews

[Sloweducation · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've read Bare Trap and Slay Ride, two fifties Liddell mysteries. Okay, so Kane is a bit of a hack who hews closer to the formula than nearly anybody else, but in Bare Trap it was great, definitely one of the better Spillane-flavored hardboiled page-turners I've read, and I've read a few. There's plenty of series characters who take a big turn for the worse in the sixties. The trends of the time simply aren't very interesting anymore. God, who today can still read one of these books with their unimaginative visions of international espionage and not groan? Liddell faces up against a Cuban and a counterfeiter. Liddell's actions seem utterly unmotivated. For reality effect, Muggsy questions Liddell's decision to, say, fly to Vienna on his own dime to ask the Viennese police officer if they know of anybody named Berkman in following up on a lead so vague it could hardly be called a lead (which, of course, is the key to the mystery). And the things Liddell says in reply let us know that even Kane didn't know why Liddell should be doing what he does. Very incompetent.

[Gordie LaChance · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second Johnny Lidedell dective story by Frank Kane that I have read.

This one has a bit of an international flair to it as there are characters from Cuba's U.N. delegation featured and Liddell travels to Vienna and Paris in search of clues. The plot concerns counterfeiting and murder with roots that may go back to WWII.

Portions of the story are told from Liddell's viewpoint, others from that of various other characters.

I enjoyed this one well enough. It was fast paced and fun. There were perhaps a few too many coincidences and things that fell into place very easily. When Lidell travels to Paris after having first discovered some info in Vienna, he finds that an investigator from The Netherlands is already on the way to meet with him and provide him with even more critical info. That's certainly convenient--after all he is just a private detective and not a CIA agent or something.

I don't have enough info on Liddell as a character from two books to make an overall judgement yet but I do appreciate that he is not portrayed as an overly macho Superman and that he doesn't jump into bed with multiple women per book. Here he is just a persistent detective with a girlfriend who helps him out a bit.

Regardless of it's fairly typical flaws, this was a fun read.