Hell is a City

Chief Inspector Martineau Investigates #1

by William Ard

HELL IS A CITY is one of the best hard-boiled crime novels from the Mickey Spillane age and shows what a loss it was to mystery fans when the author, William Ard, died very young. In the introduction, Francis M. Nevins places this novel as perhaps Ard's best. Written in 1960, it features Timothy Dane, Ard's smooth lawyer/detective fighting a corrupt city about to explode.

Genres: Crime

246 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1954

About the author

aka Ben Kerr, Mike Moran, Jonas Ward, Thomas Wills.

William Thomas Ard has been one of the most elusive writers in the collecting world.

Odd for a man who was one of the most popular hardboiled writers of the 1950s. He was praised by critics from the St. Louis Dispatch to the New York Times.

Few imagined the dark side of the city and the entertainment business better than William Ard. When he turned his gaze west, he gave life to one of the genre's most enduring heroes.

Today his name is all but forgotten. His hardboiled titles are scarce. His paperback titles in fine condition are nearly impossible to find.

While he went by many names, he is essentially a man of two faces. Ard was the creator of hard-hitting detective Timothy Dane of New York and an even harder living and loving detective, Lou Largo, of Florida.

Reviews

[Tasneem · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my cup of tea but slogged through it nonetheless.

[Bill Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favourite British crime movies is Hell is a City. Until this month, I never knew that it was based on a book by Maurice Procter, who lived in Halifax where I live. So, I had to give it a go. Procter was a serving officer in Halifax and wrote about what he knew. Turned out he wasn't a bad writer. This is the first in the Martineau series and is interesting, clearly set in the area and mostly Grantchester. Why he felt he needed to hide Manchester, I've no idea. It is tense and a clear track to the denouement. What makes it more interesting than the standard police procedural is Procter's sense of character, warts and all. They seem very rounded and of their time and ours. They have their flaws - not alcoholics or special issues, but the standard problems that faced people everyday in the 1950s and how they lived their lives. I'll be back for more.

On The Murder Room edition: these are cheap reproductions of what look like original editions, typos, print and blotches. No new typesetting. The new element seems to be the contents page, in a different type, but the numbering is incorrect, about 6 pages out. And then the covers in the series are identical apart from title changes. Disappointing. I may try and track down original hardbacks.

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: when Don Starling escapes from jail, Inspector Martineau knows the escapee will be coming for him.