KIRKUS REVIEW
Further (Tin Sword 1950) in the cavalier career of Joshua Doty, these blithe incidents pursue an improbable course with mock formality and a broad impudence. Joshua, going on 20 in the year 1919 and an ex-colonel, gets a job as a newspaper reporter in Los Angeles where with patrolman Noonan, soon to become his closest friend, they pick up a Tong hatchetman and a reward- part of which is spent on Noonan's gift to Joshua- a gold pencil. They set up a mixed household which includes a beautiful, ununderstandable Polish- Finnish Countess-cook; Josh becomes a motion picture publicist and falls in love with Lou Lee, a Chinese lady locksmith; convent-bound Beatrice, whom they shelter, changes her sites to marriage with a Mexican Jesus; Joshua's mother, the lovely Victoria, arrives on the coast for a fling at fame in pictures- but it is their Countess who is groomed for stardom; Noonan runs for Senator and is off to Washington, while Joshua, terminated at the studio, heads out into the world for further adventures presumably like these..... Outlandishly skittish, this predicates a special taste which you can gauge pretty accurately by your demand for the first book.