Sally's in the Alley: A Carstairs & Doan Mystery (Rue Morgue Vintage Mysteries) (Paperback)

~ Norbert Davis (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Norbert Davis committed suicide in 1949, but his incomparable crime-fighting duo, Doan, the tippling private eye, and Carstairs, the huge and preternaturally clever Great Dane, march on in a re-release of the 1943 Sally's in the Alley, the second book in the dog-detective trilogy. Doan's on a government-sponsored mission to find an ore deposit in the Mojave Desert, but he's got to manage an odd (and oddly named) bunch of characters Dust-Mouth Haggerty knows where the mine is but isn't telling; Doc Gravelmeyer's learning how undertaking can be a "growth industry"; and film star Susan Sally's days are numbered in an old-fashioned romp that matches its bloody crimes with belly laughs.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Product Description

G-men take over Doan's life and complications ensue - a search for unique ore in the demented desert town of Heliotrope, mistaken identity, spies, and general chaos.

***

excerpt from Chapter 1:

THIS WILL PROBABLY STRIKE YOU AS HIGHLY improbable if you know your Hollywood, but the lobby of the Orna Apartment Hotel, off Rossmore south of Melrose, is done in very nice taste. It is neat and narrow and dignified, with a conservative blue carpet on the floor and a small black reception desk on a line straight back from the unadorned plate glass door.

At this particular moment its only occupant was the desk clerk. He was small and very young-looking, and he had dark curly hair and a snub nose with freckles across the bridge. His blue eyes were staring with a look of fierce, crosshatched concentration at the pictured diagram of a radio hookup he had spread out on the desk.

The plate glass door opened, and a man came into the lobby with a quietly purposeful air. He was blond and a little better than medium height, and he was wearing an inconspicuous blue business suit. He looked so much like an attorney or an accountant or the better class of insurance broker that it was perfectly obvious what he really was.

He walked up to the desk and said, "Have you a party by the name of Pocus staying here?"

The desk clerk was following the whirligig line that indicated a coil on his diagram with the point of a well-chewed pencil. The pencil point hesitated for a split second and then moved on again.

"No," he said. He didn't have to bother about being courteous because he intended to quit the apartment hotel any minute now and get a job at a fabulous salary in a war plant installing radios in fighter planes.

The blond man took a leather folder from his pocket, opened it, and spread it out on the radio diagram. "Take a look at this."

The clerk studied the big gold badge for a second and then looked up slowly. "You're a G-man."

The blond man winced slightly. "I'm a special agent of the Department of Justice. Let's start over again. What's your name?"

"Edmund."

"All right, Edmund. Have you got a party by the name of Pocus staying here? H. Pocus or Hocus Pocus?"

"No," said Edmund. He cleared his throat. "Will you excuse me for a second? I've got to call and wake up one of our tenants. He works on the swing shift, and he has to get waked up and eat before--"

The blond man punched him suddenly and expertly in the chest with a stiffened forefinger. "Get away from the switchboard. You're not tipping anybody off." He whistled shrilly through his teeth.

Another man came in the front door. He was short and stocky, and he had sleepy brown eyes and a scar on his nose. A third man came in from the hall that led to the back door. He was very tall and thin, stooped a little. He wore a light topcoat, and he kept his hands in its pockets.

"They're here," said the blond man. "Come on, Edmund. Give. Which apartment are they in?"

Edmund stood mute.

The blond man watched him curiously. "Are you scared of them?"

"Yes," said Edmund.

"Listen, son," said the blond man. "This is the government you're talking to now. If either one of them even made a pass at you, we'd put them away in Alcatraz."

"How do I know they'd stay there?" Edmund asked.

"All right," said the blond man. "Come on out from behind that desk. Sit down in that chair and rest your feet. Look up the tenant index, Curtis."

The stocky man went behind the desk, found the file of register cards, and ran through them expertly.

"In two-two-nine," he said. He looked under the desk. "Here's the pass key." He flipped it to the blond man.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 155 pages
• Publisher: Rue Morgue Press (January 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0915230461
• ISBN-13: 978-0915230464
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #917,127 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My Favorite Mystery, October 28, 2004

By	Mark McGlone (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.