The Mouse in the Mountain

Rating:
Summary: A Pleasure To Read
Review: Looking for the most dangerous, enigmatic and ruthless sidekick in the mystery genre? Have you decided it's Joe Pike? Or Hawk? Or Bubba Rugowski? Well forget about it. The meanest, most unsympathetic and unpredictable sidekick out there would have to be Carstairs, partner of private detective Doan. He's huge, aloof handsome, successful, ruthless and...a Great Dane. Who could ask for more?

This is the first of three Doan and Carstairs mysteries and is a comical hardboiled mystery set in the Mexican mountains in the tiny village of Los Altos. Doan accompanied, by his multi-talented partner Carstairs, visits the village in the guise of a tourist, but by the time Los Altos is cut off from the rest of the world thanks to an earthquake, it was already clear to him that there was more than the average amount of foul play taking place in such a small village. Plenty of murders, thieves and double crosses keep the action lively, while the banter from Doan continually jollies the mood along no matter how desperate the situation. For all his good-naturedness and happy go lucky exterior, there is a tough side to Doan which he is forced to exhibit on occasion and, like all hardboiled detectives, shows no hesitation in using deadly force when necessary.

This is an extremely fast book to read with plenty happening surrounded by snappy, often whimsical dialogue. A real pleasure to experience.

Rating:
Summary: Hardboiled hilarity from a forgotten master! Super Dog P.I.!
Review: Norbert Davis is an almost forgotten hardboiled mystery writer for the pulp magazines who flourished in the 1940s. Davis had an incredible talent for combining the tough, violent pulp mystery style originally created by Dashiell Hammett with the screwball comedy of a Preston Sturges movie. Tough bruisers and back-stabbing dames mix it up with assoerted nutcases, obnoxious kids, goofy waiters, and English mangling bus-drivers. (Davis's own world apparently wasn't so hilarious: he committed suicide in the summer of 1949.)

Some of Davis's terrific stories were available in a recent volume, "The Adventures of Max Latin," now about of print and expensive to find used. Thankfully, a small mystery press, The Rue Morgue Press, has put out this re-print of Davis's 1943 novel, "The Mouse in the Mountain." It's the first of three books Davis wrote about an unusual detective team: pudgy P.I. Doan and his partner Carstairs -- who happens to be an enormous Great Dane. Carstairs ain't no animal sidekick, and he's no wimpy Scooby-Doo: he's the dominant member of the partnership, cool under pressure, nobody to mess with, and constantly saving Doan from trouble.

This novel takes Doan and Carstairs to the tiny Mexican town of Los Altos, apparently to convince a possible informer to stay put. Along on the trip is a gaggle of typical Davis comic creations: pretty Janet Martin, fascinated with the history of Los Altos and the romantic explorer who chronicled it; toilet salesman Henshaw, his crabby wife, and obnoxious little son Mortimer; Patricia van Odsel, glamorous heir to a flypaper fortune, and her gigolo Greg and maid Maria; and the rude and domineering Captain Emile Perona, looking for a fugitive of his own. Soon, an earthquake strikes (wonderfully, vividly described) cutting off the town from the rest of the world, fugitives with dark secrets and assassination on their minds start crawling out of the rocks, and certain people end up dead. Who's the killer? What are the strange secrets buried in the crumbling buildings of Los Altos? Will Henshaw manage to sell a new toilet to the grouchy hotel owner? Will Carstairs sitting on Henshaw's awful brat Mortimer ever shut the kid up? Learn all these answers and more in this hilarious, fast-paced mystery from a forgotten master!

The book also contains a helpful introduction about Norbert Davis's life and his unique style, a funny and helpful cast of characters, and the original back of the 1943 book jacket, urging readers to buy War Bonds -- a great way to get you in the right frame of mind for a hardboiled mystery set during the war years.

Get a copy today before Rue Morgue Press runs out of them! Also look for the sequel, "Sally's in the Alley."