Richard Lockridge, And Left For Dead
Copyright © 1961 Frances and Richard Lockridge
Frances and Richard Lockridge, The Devious Ones
Copyright © 1964 Richard Lockridge
The Lockridges were prolific, writing four mystery series (the Mr. & Mrs. North books (27), the Merton Heimrich books (24), and Nathan Shapiro books (10), and the Bernie Simmons books (7), between 1940 and 12 non-series books, between 1940 and 1980. That works ouk, basically, to two books a year for 40 years (Frances died in). I have an immense fondness for the Mr. and Mrs. North boks, and find the Heimrich boobs to be somewhat better than average. The Shapiro books, which I have commented on elsewhere (mostly on the DorothyL listserv group), are adequate, but not really much more than that. Ive begun to read the Simmons books, and have finished the first two—Left for Dead and The Devious Ones. So far, these are another step down, albeit still readable.
Both books are essentially fem-jep books (although the main female character in The Devious Ones is more active), and fem-jep is not high on my list [1] Amd, as a main character, Simmons seems to me to be less well thought out and considerable less interesting than the Norths, Heimrich, or Shapiro (in descending order of interesting).
Briefly, then, comments on And Left for Dead and The Devious Ones.
Mary Smith is released from—actually, walks out of—a NYC hospital, after a lengthy stay following what appears to have been a mugging gone bad. (Against the mugging hypothesis is the fact that her body was found in a part of Manhattan she had never ventured into). She has no ID—the name itself is a name of convenience given to her by the hospital staff. In a significant plot twist, her name is, in fact, Mary Smith. She returns to what was, before the mugging (as is,, so far as she knows, still is, her apartment, where she had stashed a recoverable key. On entering the apartment, sh realizes that someone else is now living there.
That “someone” is Martin Luther Hale, a reporter who’s left his job in order to write a novel. He’s somewhat put out to come home and find her there. He had rented the apartment because, so far as he knows, it w=was vacant, and vacant because a young woman named Mary Smith had been murdered there. Unsurprisingly, Hale has his doubts about this Mary Smith’s story. Her actual back-story comes out. She had grown up in a small town in Wisconsin, and 5 years before she came to NYC, her mother had been charged with, and acquitted of, murdering her husband (and Mary Smith’s father). She came to NYC to hide, basically, after her mother died. But there’s a lot of money back in Wisconsin/
Throw in a PI from Chicago (Bruno Atkins) and an (ex?) con man now in NYC, and we have something of a complicated situation. Bernie Simmons, our putative main character, does not show up until there’s been another murder (about halfway through the book). He’s not a cop, but an assistant DA, and it’s his case to deal with when (if) it goes to trial. And Simmons does get to the truth.
The problem with Simmons (whiih will also be apparent in The Devius Ones) is that he has no interesting charactistisc other than his red hair.
Moving on, then, to The Devious Ones. Loren Hartley, who works (and it’s sort of a make-work job) for her uncle, Alexander Hartley, as his secretary. He’s a retired financier, and wealthy. On a hot Friday afternoon, he’s getting ready to leave for the weekend, and she’s getting ready to go out for lunch. On her way to lunch, she’s hailed by a woman, about her age. She’s Alice Jackson, an acquaintance if Loren from their high school days in Ohio. And is happy at this chance meeting. She entreats Loren to join her, and another of their HS classmates ([Bertha (now, Berta) Mason, who has also come to the City and is a well-known and successful actress]. Loren give in. And they walk to Jackson’s apartment, where Jackson fixes drinks while they wait for Mason to arrive.
And…the next thing Loren is aware of is waking up on a park bench, feeling awful, across the way from an older, very fat, apparently drunk man sleeping on a bench. It takes some time, but Loren manages to recover enough to walk to her apartment. She has a tentative dinner date with a cousin, Robert Campbell, Jr. She tries to get out of dinner, but he talks her into going, and, in the course of the evening, she tells him about her disquieting afternoon. And he convinces her that they should go see Jackson. When they get there, it appears that the apartment actually belongs to someone named “Dunkin”, based on the card on the door), which is confirmed by the building superintendent. The following day, she discovers that Peter Sayres (an attorney, working mostly in D.C.) has called, and that Berta Mason had not come to lunch (and, apparently , had no knowledge of lunch)
And her very rich uncle is found dead in his office. There is what looks like notes for a new will (disinheriting Loren). There’s a witness claiming to have seen her going from the park to the office building where his office was. And her summer-weight coat seems to be blood-soaked. Sayres claims her as a client, asserting her innocence. But the evidence keeps piling up. And the old, fat drunk is also murdered—after giving the cops a statement in which he stated he saw her, about 3 PM, leaving the park for the office building.
Simmons, for some reason to which we are not privy, keeps putting of Loren’s arrest. It seemed to me that, if she was innocent, there was only one plausible murderer (who, and with what motive, should be obvious). And so it turns out, with Simmons and Sayres converging on the scene (where Loren is in jeopardy, having tracked the actual culprit down.
The Devious Ones is a better story than And Left For Dead, largely because Loren is more active in clearing her name (although she does a few not-very-bright things. But neither is particularly strong. Lockridge writes well, and does a very good job of making his settings come alive. Having read these two for the first time, I doubt I’ll re-read them. But the time spent with his people was at least pleasant.
Copyright © 1961 Frances and Richard Lockridge
Frances and Richard Lockridge, The Devious Ones
Copyright © 1964 Richard Lockridge
The Lockridges were prolific, writing four mystery series (the Mr. & Mrs. North books (27), the Merton Heimrich books (24), and Nathan Shapiro books (10), and the Bernie Simmons books (7), between 1940 and 12 non-series books, between 1940 and 1980. That works ouk, basically, to two books a year for 40 years (Frances died in). I have an immense fondness for the Mr. and Mrs. North boks, and find the Heimrich boobs to be somewhat better than average. The Shapiro books, which I have commented on elsewhere (mostly on the DorothyL listserv group), are adequate, but not really much more than that. Ive begun to read the Simmons books, and have finished the first two—Left for Dead and The Devious Ones. So far, these are another step down, albeit still readable.
Both books are essentially fem-jep books (although the main female character in The Devious Ones is more active), and fem-jep is not high on my list [1] Amd, as a main character, Simmons seems to me to be less well thought out and considerable less interesting than the Norths, Heimrich, or Shapiro (in descending order of interesting).
Briefly, then, comments on And Left for Dead and The Devious Ones.
Mary Smith is released from—actually, walks out of—a NYC hospital, after a lengthy stay following what appears to have been a mugging gone bad. (Against the mugging hypothesis is the fact that her body was found in a part of Manhattan she had never ventured into). She has no ID—the name itself is a name of convenience given to her by the hospital staff. In a significant plot twist, her name is, in fact, Mary Smith. She returns to what was, before the mugging (as is,, so far as she knows, still is, her apartment, where she had stashed a recoverable key. On entering the apartment, sh realizes that someone else is now living there.
That “someone” is Martin Luther Hale, a reporter who’s left his job in order to write a novel. He’s somewhat put out to come home and find her there. He had rented the apartment because, so far as he knows, it w=was vacant, and vacant because a young woman named Mary Smith had been murdered there. Unsurprisingly, Hale has his doubts about this Mary Smith’s story. Her actual back-story comes out. She had grown up in a small town in Wisconsin, and 5 years before she came to NYC, her mother had been charged with, and acquitted of, murdering her husband (and Mary Smith’s father). She came to NYC to hide, basically, after her mother died. But there’s a lot of money back in Wisconsin/
Throw in a PI from Chicago (Bruno Atkins) and an (ex?) con man now in NYC, and we have something of a complicated situation. Bernie Simmons, our putative main character, does not show up until there’s been another murder (about halfway through the book). He’s not a cop, but an assistant DA, and it’s his case to deal with when (if) it goes to trial. And Simmons does get to the truth.
The problem with Simmons (whiih will also be apparent in The Devius Ones) is that he has no interesting charactistisc other than his red hair.
Moving on, then, to The Devious Ones. Loren Hartley, who works (and it’s sort of a make-work job) for her uncle, Alexander Hartley, as his secretary. He’s a retired financier, and wealthy. On a hot Friday afternoon, he’s getting ready to leave for the weekend, and she’s getting ready to go out for lunch. On her way to lunch, she’s hailed by a woman, about her age. She’s Alice Jackson, an acquaintance if Loren from their high school days in Ohio. And is happy at this chance meeting. She entreats Loren to join her, and another of their HS classmates ([Bertha (now, Berta) Mason, who has also come to the City and is a well-known and successful actress]. Loren give in. And they walk to Jackson’s apartment, where Jackson fixes drinks while they wait for Mason to arrive.
And…the next thing Loren is aware of is waking up on a park bench, feeling awful, across the way from an older, very fat, apparently drunk man sleeping on a bench. It takes some time, but Loren manages to recover enough to walk to her apartment. She has a tentative dinner date with a cousin, Robert Campbell, Jr. She tries to get out of dinner, but he talks her into going, and, in the course of the evening, she tells him about her disquieting afternoon. And he convinces her that they should go see Jackson. When they get there, it appears that the apartment actually belongs to someone named “Dunkin”, based on the card on the door), which is confirmed by the building superintendent. The following day, she discovers that Peter Sayres (an attorney, working mostly in D.C.) has called, and that Berta Mason had not come to lunch (and, apparently , had no knowledge of lunch)
And her very rich uncle is found dead in his office. There is what looks like notes for a new will (disinheriting Loren). There’s a witness claiming to have seen her going from the park to the office building where his office was. And her summer-weight coat seems to be blood-soaked. Sayres claims her as a client, asserting her innocence. But the evidence keeps piling up. And the old, fat drunk is also murdered—after giving the cops a statement in which he stated he saw her, about 3 PM, leaving the park for the office building.
Simmons, for some reason to which we are not privy, keeps putting of Loren’s arrest. It seemed to me that, if she was innocent, there was only one plausible murderer (who, and with what motive, should be obvious). And so it turns out, with Simmons and Sayres converging on the scene (where Loren is in jeopardy, having tracked the actual culprit down.
The Devious Ones is a better story than And Left For Dead, largely because Loren is more active in clearing her name (although she does a few not-very-bright things. But neither is particularly strong. Lockridge writes well, and does a very good job of making his settings come alive. Having read these two for the first time, I doubt I’ll re-read them. But the time spent with his people was at least pleasant.
[1] I should acknowledge that
there’s a fair amount of fem-jep in the North books; I have not re-read the
Heimrich books recently enough to comment on that aspect of them.
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