Customer Reviews

Vanishing Ladies (New Portway Reprints)

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This was originally published in the sixties undr the pen name of "Richard Marsten" and it is polished diamond bright piece of sheer machine tooled professionalism by a master of crime fiction at the peak of his powers

Cop"Phil Colby"is going on vacation with "Ann"his fianceeand things begin to go awry even during their outward journey when a cop gives them a wholly unjustified speeding ticket.This a mere bagatelle compared to what happens next as "Ann"goes missing soon after they check into their hotel (separate rooms--this is pre-permissive era crime fiction after all)The desk clerk denies she was ever there and the cop insists he did not hand out a speeding ticket
Colby calls in help from his own department and the case is cracked by a colleague"Tony Mitchell"You'll have to read it to discover hoew and read it you should for this is crisp,sleek and thoroughly engrossing with an edge of mounting paranoia that grips like a pit bull

The female of the species turns out more deadly than the male in a crisp modern noir.Cynical and bleak in its view of urban morality

Read it please- you deserve a treat

A solid page-turner that turns a trifle pat, "Vanishing Ladies" is a coming together of a couple of movie plots, "Bad Day At Black Rock" and "The Lady Vanishes", only with a few philosophical characters thrown in. I enjoyed it but don't imagine I'll remember it long.

Police detective Phil Colby and his fiancée Ann are off on a June vacation from the city where he fights crime, little dreaming the country hamlet they come to is steeped in non-lawful activity. They stop at a seedy motel, and the next thing Phil knows, Ann is gone. Everyone who saw them together in Sullivan's Corners tells Phil he was alone. You don't need to be a cop to figure something's wrong, though the blood he finds on the floor is a clinching clue.

"Where there's blood, there's danger," Phil knows.

Originally published in 1957 by Evan Hunter under his pen name Richard Marsten, and republished years later under Hunter's better known nom de plume Ed McBain, "Vanishing Ladies" is a book that quickly reveals its age, with references to the Mann Act and Marilyn Monroe pinups. It's also a shorter novel, as was the style in the 1950s.

Its brevity is both strength and weakness. It's a strength because "Vanishing Ladies" is a tight little tale that wastes little time throwing Colby from one ugly situation to another. McBain nicely describes the sensation of being bitten by a snake and hit on the head with a wrench - in successive pages. He dishes it out, and you gobble it up fast.

It's a weakness because the set-up promises more than the rest of the book delivers. Sullivan's Corners is a screwed-up little burg, we learn quickly, and ironically leaves the hardened city detective longing to be back in the asphalt jungle. But Hunter-McBain-Marsten never brings the town to life like he does Isola in the 87th Precinct series.

Years later, another McBain novel not connected with the 87th Precinct would try much the same thing in reverse, a suburban character lost in the big city, in "Downtown". That book has humor and atmosphere going for it, along with a more clever and satisfying plot, and is really one of the best books under the McBain name, 87th Precinct or not. "Vanishing Ladies" feels like a dry run at the same idea.

It's good while you are reading it, and the resolution isn't a letdown or a cheat, but it's not a book designed to leave you thinking much about it when it's over.