Collected here are the dialogues which, first published in Mencken's American Mercury, brought young Cain—then an editorial writer for Walter Lippmann at the New York World—his first taste of literary acclaim in the late Twenties. Strongest of these is The Hero, in which town commissioners (prime examples of the booboisie) discuss a pension for the family of a fireman who was killed while shooting water at a rival company of responding firefighters. Cain's command of Eastern Shore dialect is at its most concentrated and satiric here. And the same dialect also carries the best of the more formal short stories: Pastorale—about an incredibly grisly and botched murder and its perpetrators. . . who, hard as they try, can't keep the secret crime to themselves. That sin is impossible to hide is, of course, a basic Cain theme; and there's also a novella, first published in serial-form, which—with strong similarities to Double indemnity (sex, embezzlement, stupidity)—inflates under the same thematic pressure. But, except for the above-mentioned pieces, the work here is very minor Cain, often succumbing to a very treacly situation: the desperate man-on-the-run meets the innocent girl. (Sweet-and-sour is the trickiest of flavors, and Cain was mostly a flop at it.) A few early gems of raw, ugly Cain, then, in a generally undistinguished retrospective.
Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1981
ISBN: 0140070559
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Holt Rinehart & Winston
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1981
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A murder is committed in a stalled transcontinental train in the Balkans, and every passenger has a watertight alibi. But Hercule Poirot finds a way.
**Note: This classic Agatha Christie mystery was originally published in England as Murder on the Orient Express, but in the United States as Murder in the Calais Coach. Kirkus reviewed the book in 1934 under the original US title, but we changed the title in our database to the now recognizable title Murder on the Orient Express. This is the only name now known for the book. The reason the US publisher, Dodd Mead, did not use the UK title in 1934 was to avoid confusion with the 1932 Graham Greene novel, Orient Express.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1934
ISBN: 978-0062073495
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1934
The parts with Nero Wolfe, the only character Goldsborough brings to life, are almost worth waiting for.
In Archie Goodwin's 15th adventure since the death of his creator, Rex Stout, his gossipy Aunt Edna Wainwright lures him from 34th Street to his carefully unnamed hometown in Ohio to investigate the death of a well-hated bank president.
Tom Blankenship, the local police chief, thinks there’s no case since Logan Mulgrew shot himself. But Archie’s mother, Marjorie Goodwin, and Aunt Edna know lots of people with reason to have killed him. Mulgrew drove rival banker Charles Purcell out of business, forcing Purcell to get work as an auto mechanic, and foreclosed on dairy farmer Harold Mapes’ spread. Lester Newman is convinced that Mulgrew murdered his ailing wife, Lester’s sister, so that he could romance her nurse, Carrie Yeager. And Donna Newman, Lester’s granddaughter, might have had an eye on her great-uncle’s substantial estate. Nor is Archie limited to mulling over his relatives’ gossip, for Trumpet reporter Verna Kay Padgett, whose apartment window was shot out the night her column raised questions about the alleged suicide, is perfectly willing to publish a floridly actionable summary of the leading suspects that delights her editor, shocks Archie, and infuriates everyone else. The one person missing is Archie’s boss, Nero Wolfe (Death of an Art Collector, 2019, etc.), and fans will breathe a sigh of relief when he appears at Marjorie’s door, debriefs Archie, notices a telltale clue, prepares dinner for everyone, sleeps on his discovery, and arranges a meeting of all parties in Marjorie’s living room in which he names the killer.
The parts with Nero Wolfe, the only character Goldsborough brings to life, are almost worth waiting for.Pub Date: May 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5040-5988-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Mysterious Press
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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