Customer Reviews

Sally's in the Alley (Rue Morgue Vintage Mysteries)

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During the second world war there were a number of mystery writers who specialized in chaotic, fast-moving, screwball detective stories. The war doesn't always enter into the plot, but there were numerous such books at that time and in my head I sort of group them together based on when they were written and their zany tone. Craig Rice, Dwight V Babcock, Frank Gruber (early in his career), and Norbert Davis were all writers of this "school", which features humor, lots of movement, and multiple lead characters at least one of whom has a rather flexible morality. The books are crowded with characters of widely divergent backgrounds, and often have an underworld or (sometimes) a Hollywood back drop.

I think the best of the lot may be Norbert Davis's "Sally's in the Alley". Davis's novels have the most unusual crime-solving duo I've come cross. One of them is a dog: Carstairs, a highly moral, intelligent Great Dane who doesn't approve of his master, a detective named Doan, who Carstairs believes indulges his taste for alchohol too much. The plot is as screwball as anything in the genre, and is populated with such characters as a highly patriotic young woman named Harriet Hathaway who'll do almost anything to help the war effort, a mysterious man named "Mr. Blue" who'd rather make lewd suggestions to Harriet than think about the war, a beautiful movie star, her corrupt agent, a government-hating prospector named Dust Mouth Haggerty, and a sinister undertaker, among others.

And Davis certainly had an amusing and evocative way with words: "Forenoons in Southern California are wonderful, except when the're not, and in that case there's no use discussing the matter at all. This one was ordinarily wonderful. The sun was shining and soft breezes were slithering, and there were some small, shy, freshly washed clouds distributed where they would do the least good."

At a slim 122 pages, the covers of this book are too close together (to invert an Ambrose Bierce criticism of another book), but that's my only complaint.

By the way, if you like Davis, you're in good company. He was a favorite of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Bought this for my Kindle and loved it so much I ordered a hard copy for my daughter. Doan is a detective like no other you have met: short and round and not at all handsome. He fools the baddies because he looks harmless but he packs a wallop when he needs to and not always with his fists. His tongue is as sharp as his ability to defend himself in the manly arts. Carstairs, Doan's great dane, has as much personality as his master, and we are not always sure who is the master and who the pet. The two have a comical love-hate realtionship. Convoluted plot with lots of laugh-out-loud scenes.

I am a sucker for mysteries set during WWII. this one was actually written mid-way through the war rather than just being set in the period so it is even more attractive. The story reflects a simplier era, even though the country was fighting for it's life at the time. The Great Dane is the brains of the outfit but he is not a cartoon character. He doesn't talk and the reader doesn't hear his thoughts. In fact he's not a friendly beast at all. As might be expected the plot boils down to German spies under cover in the US. It ends with the unexpected war hero getting the girl. Yea team!