Peter Cheyney's Can Ladies Kill?

Between 1936 and 1951 Englishman Peter Cheyney had a lot of success with his American-style pulp crime/spy thrillers. The fact that he had never been to America didn’t worry him. He knew the America of Hollywood movies and hardboiled pulp fiction and he knew that that was the America that mattered to his readers. Some of Cheyney’s books are set in the United States, some are not, but they all have a decided hardboiled flavour.

His most famous series characters were private detective Slim Callaghan and FBI agent Lemmy Caution. Lemmy Caution featured in a terrific series of French movies in the 1950s and early 60s with the great Eddie Constantine in the title role.

Can Ladies Kill?, published in 1938, was the fourth Lemmy Caution novel.

Marella Thorensen has sent a message to the FBI that she has vital evidence regarding serious Federal crimes and she wants a meeting with a Federal agent to hand over that evidence. So Lemmy Caution finds himself on her doorstep in San Francisco but there’s nobody home. He calls back later and there’s still nobody home. It’s a bit puzzling.

Berenice Lee Sam has also received a communication from Marella requesting an urgent meeting. Berenice hasn’t come home and her father has contacted the cops.

Then Marella gets iced. Literally. I won’t explain further because it’s too cool a detail to spoil. Her body is found floating in the bay. And then some guys in a Chevrolet open up on Lemmy with a machinegun.

Berenice is the daughter of rich Chinese businessman Lee Sam. Marella’s husband is Lee Sam’s lawyer. Something illegal has been going on, a racket in silk, and it involves Lee Sam and semi-reformed mobster Jack Rocca who has business dealings with Lee Sam and it involves Rudy Spiglia who is Jack Rocca’s chief lieutenant. The problem is that it’s illegal but fairly trivial. The information Marella wanted to pass on to the FI had to be much more important than that.

And there have been some adulterous goings-on involving some of these people. That might provide a motive for murder, but that also cannot possibly be the evidence Marella wanted to give the Bureau.

Lemmy has no idea what information Marella had but he’s convinced that it is the key to the whole case. Without that key all the other evidence may well be totally misleading. And without that key the theory Lemmy has come up with might well collapse completely. Lemmy’s chief virtue as a detective is that he doesn’t allow himself to be locked in to a theory no matter how superficially attractive it might be.

The plot really is fiendishly complex but Cheyney brings it all together successfully at the end. And the ending is a real sting in the tail.

There are several dames mixed up in all this and none can be trusted. Including Marella, and she’s dead. Berenice is very rich and very gorgeous. Dames like that are always dangerous. Lemmy figures that although she might be dangerous she’s probably a hell of a woman, and after he sleeps with her he knows she really is a hell of a woman.

There is of course no shortage of action. Lemmy is handy with his fists and with his Luger automatic but he has brains as well as brawn. He’s not the kind of detective who crawls around on his hands and knees with a magnifying glass looking for cigar ash. He does however spend a lot of time thinking. Lemmy doesn’t have much polish but he’s a likeable guy.

Can Ladies Kill? is highly recommended.

I’ve reviewed other Lemmy Caution novels - Never a Dull Moment, Dames Don’t Care and Poison Ivy. And I’ve reviewed several of the Lemmy Caution movies including Poison Ivy (1953).