(2 of 4)
Paul Madvig was the city boss; he had risen to the top of the pile by patience and "guts." But it was Gambler Ned Beaumont's brains that helped him out of many a tough spot. Beaumont did not like the idea of Madvig's supporting aristocratic Senator Henry, thought still less of Madvig's sparking the Senator's daughter Janet. When the Senator's son was found murdered, suspicion soon fell on Madvig, but strangely enough failed to wreck the political alliance between the boss and the aristocrat. Ned Beaumont was used to fishy doings. He said little to anybody, but he went after the murderer on his own. That was nearly the end of Beaumont. How it all turned out is a story Author Hammett tells with raciness and verisimilitudinous realism. If you have any breath left afterwards you will probably use it to inquire for earlier Hammetts or to ask for more.
The Author. Like William Shakespeare, Dashiell Hammett has little Latin and less Greek, abandoned formal education in his first year of high school to be: a messenger boy. clerk in an advertising office, in a broker's office, timekeeper in a machine shop, stevedore, railroadman. But his chief job, at which he worked both before and after the War, was as a Pinkerton detective. He says: "I was a pretty good sleuth, but possibly a bit over-rated because of the plausibility with which I could explain away my failures." During the War, Hammett acquired a sergeantcy and tuberculosis, has lost them both. Other books: The Dain Curse, Red Harvest, The Maltese Falcon.
Short, Not Sweet
SAD SAD LOVERS—Daniel Carson Goodman & Duffield ($2.50).
Of the many things that can be and are being said about love, Author Goodman has chosen to voice the cynical. He pleads an unpopular cause, but the cases he presents make their occasional point. Of these 17 short stories not one gives aid & comfort to romantic love.
Some of them:
A racketeer-businessman is seduced from his comfortable wife by his unattractive but spiritual secretary, wishes when it is too late that he had not fallen for that high-brow stuff.
Two young men in love (with each other) come to a violent end.
An aging professor's advances are scornfully repulsed by one of his girl pupils, whereupon he succumbs to a senile bronchial complaint.
Daniel Carson Goodman, 48, M.D., has been a theatrical producer, cinema executive, author, businessman (he is vice presi- dent of Celotex Co., of Southern Sugar Co.), one of the late Cinemactress Alma Rubens' husbands. He has also written: Hagar Revilly, Because of Women, Battle of the Sexes.
Wrong Generation
AMBROSE HOLT AND FAMILY-Susan Glaspell—Stokes ($2.50).*