Carter Brown’s The Dame

Carter Brown’s The Dame, published in 1959, is one of his many Lieutenant Al Wheeler hardboiled mysteries. In fact it was the fourteenth of the 52 Al Wheeler novels (Carter Brown wrote 215 novels and 75 novellas which sold a total of around 120 million copies).

Lieutenant Al Wheeler from the sheriff’s office has to investigate the murder of glamorous movie star Judy Manners, only he gets to her luxury beach house to find her very much alive. There is a corpse, a naked woman, but it’s not the movie star.

The dead blonde was Judy’s secretary Barbara.

Judy thinks that she was the killer’s real target and that Barbara was killed by mistake. Al thinks it’s an interesting theory but he’s not convinced one way or the other.

Judy is married to fellow movie star Rudi Ravell. Rudi is as dumb as a rock but he’s handsome (and he knows it) and he has an eye for the ladies. He also has a very jealous wife.

Judy and Rudi were about to star in a new movie. The business deals behind the movie, involving a producer named Harkness and a financier named Luther, are perhaps not entirely honest and above-board. But then very little in Hollywood is honest and above-board.

There’s another dame involved, Camille Clovis. She lives expensively and has no job. She is almost certainly a kept woman, but kept by whom?

Any of the men could be sleeping with any of the women. That’s the way it goes with movie people.

Which means shady business dealings or sexual jealousy could be equally plausible motives. And everyone mixed up in the case has a motive for murdering someone.

Al is keen to get to grips with some hard evidence. He’s also keen to get to grips with the lovely Camille. He wouldn’t mind getting to grips with Judy Manners as well - that legendary 40-inch bust of hers certainly got his attention. The truth is that Al Wheeler has a very keen interest in the female of the species, and when when he’s on a case he finds plenty of opportunities to pursue that interest.

Maybe the crazy old guy who maintains the cemetery in the dusty little one-horse town of Oakridge can provide a clue. The old guy has some bitter memories and they involve some of the people mixed up in this murder case.

There could be a question of mistaken identity, or possibly several questions of mistaken identity. Al seems to be dealing with people who shoot first and ask questions later.

Carter Brown wrote pulp fiction with the emphasis on pulp. But he wrote very enjoyable pulp fiction. And he wrote well. There’s plenty of hardboiled dialogue and atmosphere, and plenty of sleazy atmosphere as well.

Al Wheeler is a likeable wise-cracking rogue. He might seem to be focused mainly on skirt but he has good cop instincts. He has a reputation for getting results and treading on toes in the process. As long as he keeps getting results he can get away with treading on toes and chasing dames.

The Dame is trashy fast-paced light entertainment and it’s highly recommended.

I’ve reviewed a number of the Al Wheeler books - No Harp for My Angel, Eve it's Extortion and Booty for a Babe as well as his Danny Boyd PI novel The Savage Salome and his Hollywood trouble-shooter Rick Holman thriller Where Did Charity Go? and they’re all fun.