Peter Cheyney’s Dangerous Curves

Dangerous Curves, published in 1939, was the second of Peter Cheyney’s Slim Callahan private eye thrillers.

Peter Cheyney (1896-1951) was an Englishman who had a very successful career writing pulp thrillers in the American style, starting in 1936. He is best remembered for his terrific crime/spy thrillers involving FBI agent Lemmy Caution. Cheyney also wrote a popular series of novels featuring a home-grown pulp hero, private eye Slim Callaghan, set in the seedier sleazier underside of London.

Obviously with an English PI in an English setting the mayhem had to be toned down. You can’t have guys leaning out of cars blasting people with machine-guns or cops giving suspects the Third Degree. Slim Callaghan is tough enough but his toughness is more psychological than physical. And there’s just enough mayhem to make things exciting without seeming implausible in 1930s London.

Slim is working on the Riverton case. It’s a big case but it’s tricky and it gets very tricky indeed. Wilfred Riverton is a wealthy young man who will be a very wealthy young man indeed when his father dies, and that’s likely to happen soon. Wilfred is also a very foolish young man. He has fallen in with a bad crowd (in fact they’re out-and-out criminals) and they’re fleecing him. Gambling, dope, women - these are Wilfred’s vices. He is universally referred to as the Mug because that’s what he is.

His stepmother has hired Callahan Investigations to find out who is fleecing Wilfred and to get the young man out of their clutches while there’s still some of the family fortune left.

Wilfred’s stepmother is not much older than he is. She is very beautiful and very glamorous. The type of woman who might be no good but is dangerous anyway.

There are lots of dangerous no-good dames in this story. And lots of crooks some of whom are very tough and some of whom are just sleazy punks. It’s a situation that could end very badly, and it does. It ends with a shooting. The circumstances are slightly ambiguous but what really happened soon becomes clear. Only maybe it didn’t happen that way at all. There’s a fine mystery plot here with an abundance of neat little plot twists.

Slim Callahan likes to keep on the right side of the police but he has his own methods and if Detective Inspector Gringall knew what he was up to he might disapprove. Slim likes Gringall. He doesn’t want Gringall to know things that would just worry him.

Slim is a bit of a rogue but he’s a charming rogue. He’s very clever and there’s always the danger he’ll try to get too clever. He takes a lot of risks. But where’s the fun in life if you don’t take risks?

Slim drinks quite a bit but it seems to have no effect on him. Tough guys can handle their liquor. He likes fast cars and he likes women. And women like him.

The setting is London but it’s the seedy, sleazy, exciting London of night-clubs, gambling clubs, con-men, hoods and girls with flexible morals.

Cheyney does a fine job of capturing the hardboiled style but with an English flavour. And the man knew how to tell a story with energy and flair. This is pulp fiction with (thankfully) no literary aspirations.

Dangerous Curves is hugely enjoyable. Highly recommended.

I’ve reviewed the first Slim Callahan thriller, The Urgent Hangman, and several of the Lemmy Caution books including Poison Ivy, Dames Don’t Care, I’ll Say She Does! and Never a Dull Moment. And I’ve reviewed his excellent 1942 spy thriller Dark Duet.

Peter Cheyney's Dark Duet

Dark Duet is a 1942 spy thriller by Peter Cheyney. It was the first of his “Dark” series of spy novels.

Peter Cheyney (1896-1951) was an Englishman who from 1936 to 1951 enjoyed great success with his American-style pulp thrillers. Cheyney hadn’t been to America but that didn’t matter. He knew the America of the movies and the pulps and he correctly assumed that that was the America his readers wanted. Some of his books were set in the United States, others were not, but most had that American pulp style.

His Lemmy Caution and Slim Callaghan novels were lightweight energetic fun but it’s immediately obvious that Dark Duet is going to be something much darker and more serious, and much more gritty.

I generally dislike wartime spy thrillers because there’s too much propaganda but while this book suffers a little from this flaw it has lots of compensating strengths.

It starts out with a man named Fenton sitting in an office. He has a problem to solve. He deals with the problem by making use of two hitmen, Kane and Guelvada. He needs a woman murdered. It has to be done discreetly and it has to look like an accident. The twist is that Fenton works for the British Government. It’s the British Government that wants the woman murdered. Kane and Guelvada are British Government assassins.

Readers in 1942 would have reacted differently to this setup compared to readers today. In 1942 most readers would probably have considered that since there was a war on there was no problem with the government having its enemies liquidated. Readers today might find this concept slightly uncomfortable.

Shortly afterwards the two assassins are in Lisbon, awaiting instructions for their next hit. They are about to discover that the hunters can easily become the hunted. One of the strengths of this story is the way the hunters and the hunted exchange roles frequently.

Portugal is neutral but every second person in Lisbon is either a German or a British agent. Some of the local police and officials are pro-German and some are pro-British. It is not a good idea to trust any of the local officials.

Kane and Guelvada are very skilful hitmen but they are also somewhat cerebral. They think quite a bit about the nature and the psychology of their work. Guelvada thinks a lot about women - women play a vital part in all their missions. If you’re going to be involved in intelligence or espionage work you’re going to be dealing with women. Sometimes as targets, sometimes as innocent victims, sometimes as useful tools (as honey traps for instance), sometimes as allies and often as dangerous unpredictable factors. In this case a woman is going to become involved in a way that the two assassins were not expecting.

Kane and Guelvada are rather complex and rather interesting characters. They are two very different men which is why they’re such an effective team. Kane is coldly logical and calculating. Guelvada is imaginative. He thinks of himself as an artist. Murder can be done with style and artistry.

Cheyney builds the suspense slowly but skilfully. We can see a trap being artfully constructed to engulf them but they may be constructing a trap of their own. The question is which set of hunters will be able to strike a killing blow first. It’s a dangerous dance of death.

This is a fine and gripping gritty realist spy novel and it’s highly recommended.

The good news is that copies of the “Dark” spy thrillers seem to be easy to find.

I’ve reviewed some of Cheyney’s Lemmy Caution novels - Dames Don’t Care and Never a Dull Moment. And one of his Slim Callaghan PI thrillers, The Urgent Hangman.

Peter Cheyney's The Urgent Hangman

Peter Cheyney (1896-1951) was an Englishman who had a very successful career writing American-style pulp thrillers, beginning in 1936. Cheyney hadn’t been to America but that didn’t matter. He was familiar with the America of the movies and the pulps and he assumed (correctly) that that was the flavour that readers wanted. He is best remembered for his crime/spy thrillers (such as Dames Don’t Care and Never a Dull Moment) involving FBI agent Lemmy Caution. He also wrote a series of novels dealing with a home-grown pulp creation, private eye Slim Callaghan, set in the seedier sleazier underside of London. The Urgent Hangman, published in 1938, was the first of the Slim Callaghan thrillers.

Slim Callaghan is a private detective and his business is not going well. He has seven-and-sixpence in his pocket and that represents his entire worldly wealth. He owns one pair of shoes and they’re falling apart. He hasn’t eaten all day. And, much more seriously, he has run out of cigarettes.

So his new client arrives just in time (and she arrives very late at night). As a bonus she’s young and gorgeous. Her name is Cynthis Meraulton. She spins him a very unlikely tale. Her very rich stepfather cannot live much longer. His fortune will be divided between Cynthis and the old boy’s five nephews. One of the nephews, Willie, is her husband-to-be. Willie is honest and reliable. His four brothers are penniless losers and probably crooks. Cynthis has been warned that she is in danger and has been advised to consult Slim Callaghan.

On that very night Cynthis’s stepfather is murdered. Cynthis is likely to be a suspect. She did not get on with her stepfather. In fact Slim is sure that she is the murderess. Nonetheless he sets out to prove her with a fake alibi. He later comes to feel that this was a mistake. Not that Slim has any qualms about providing fake alibis - his ethical standards are very very flexible. His reasons for doing so in this case are quite simple. Cynthis is a gorgeous woman.

Of course Cynthis might not be guilty. The four ne’er-do-well Meraulton brothers all had motives for killing the old man as well.

Slim concocts an incredibly elaborate plan to mislead the police. He also blackmails all of the Meraulton brothers and amasses a very tidy sum of money. But what exactly are his intentions? Detective Inspector Gringall isn’t sure. He disapproves of Slim but has a grudging respect for him. Whatever Slim is up to it’s bound to be clever. Not necessarily honest, but clever.

Old man Meraulton had made a new will, leaving everything to Cynthis. That will appears to be the key to the puzzle, and it is, but not in the obvious way.

Slim weaves an intricate web in which not only the various members of the Meraulton family are entangled but also their various mistresses and associates. Detective Inspector Gringall also seems to be caught in the web. Slim has an objective in mind but he is the only one with any idea what that objective might be.

Cheyney’s style is a kind of English hardboiled. It’s very very pulpy but it’s lively and energetic and fun.

Slim is a great character. He’s incredibly devious, he’s ruthless, he has no respect for the law and he may well be no better than a criminal but we can’t help liking him. His total disrespect for all the things that we are supposed to respect is endearing. And he’s a pretty tough guy. He can take a beating and come up smiling.

There’s no shortage of red herrings. Is it fairly clued? Since it’s not a traditional puzzle-plot mystery there’s no reason why the author should play fair but in a way he does. There’s a vital clue that we should spot but Cheyney makes sure that there’s so much going on and that we’re so involved with Slim’s scheming that we probably won’t stop long enough to notice its significance. I don’t think the author can be accused of pulling a solution out of a hat like a conjuror with a rabbit.

The Urgent Hangman has an air of seediness, sleaze, trashiness and cheapness. These are features, not bugs. It’s fine pulpy fun. Highly recommended.

Peter Cheyney's Dames Don’t Care

Peter Cheyney (1896-1951) was an English criminal investigator turned crime writer who enjoyed immense success in the late 30s and the 1940s. His Slim Callaghan books were very popular but he achieved his greatest success with his Lemmy Caution novels, beginning in 1936 with This Man Is Dangerous. Dames Don’t Care, published in 1937, was the third of the Lemmy Caution books.

Cheyney’s hero became even more popular on the Continent when the French made a series of successful (and incredibly entertaining) Lemmy Caution movies, including a 1954 film version of Dames Don’t Care.

Cheyney’s aim with the Lemmy Caution tales was to write fast-paced American-style pulp thrillers. Cheyney was English but he figured he could get away with making his hero an FBI agents and setting the stories in America. And he was right. Of course I’m sure that American readers would have spotted all sorts of mistakes about American police procedures and in the use of American slang. It doesn’t matter. This is not the real America. This is the America of gangster movies, dime novels and detective magazines. It’s a fictional world and like most good fictional worlds it’s more fun and more outrageous than the real world.

Dames Don’t Care starts in Palm Springs, with Lemmy investigating a counterfeiting case. It soon becomes a murder case as well, and there’s another sudden death that now looks might suspicious as well so even at this early stage it could be a double murder case.

Naturally there’s a dame in the case. In fact there are two. This worries Lemmy. He likes women but you never know what they’ll do next. Both these women are beautiful and glamorous. One of them may be no good. Both of them may be no good. At least Lemmy knows how to handle guys who are no good - he slugs them or shoots them. With dames that’s not always an option. He does consider giving one of them a spanking but decides against it, even if she did try to shoot him.

The action takes place partly in the U.S. and partly in Mexico. Lemmy has no jurisdiction in Mexico but that’s not going to stop him. Lemmy is not exactly a stickler for correct procedure, a fact that becomes increasingly apparent as the story progresses.

The plot is complicated, with several plausible suspects and alibis that might be phoney, or they might be supposed to look phoney. The first clue is two hundred thousand dollars’ worth of counterfeit bearer bonds that one of the dames (named Henrietta) tried to pass. Maybe she knew they were counterfeit and maybe she didn’t. Henrietta is mixed up in a romantic triangle only it’s not a triangle it’s a quadrangle and it’s not clear who is doing the betraying and who is being betrayed. Maybe they’re all betraying each other. This might be a world of no-good dames but it’s also a world of no-good punks. The men and the women in this story are equally dangerous and equally treacherous.

Lemmy Caution is as fast with his wisecracks as he is with his fists. It’s a fairly violent tale but it’s a book that aims to deliver entertainment and Cheyney mixes plenty of humour in with the tough guy stuff.

Cheyney does a decent job of keeping us in doubt as to the identity of the murderer. Most of the characters are up to no good but they’re not all capable of murder. It’s just that Lemmy can’t decide which ones actually are capable of murder. And those two janes have more than murder on their minds as well - they both try to seduce our hero. Lemmy has to admit that they’re both swell-looking gals.

Lemmy gradually puts the pieces together but if he’s goings to make the charges stick he’s going to have to be devious. That’s OK, because Lemmy Caution has brains as well as brawn. Lots of criminals have made the mistake of thinking he’s all brawn.

The Lemmy Caution books are tremendous ultra-pulpy fun. Dames Don’t Care is highly recommended.

I've reviewed two other of Cheyney’s Lemmy Caution novels, Never a Dull Moment and I’ll Say She Does!

Peter Cheyney’s Never a Dull Moment

Peter Cheyney’s 1942 potboiler Never a Dull Moment was one of the novels featuring his most popular hero, FBI Chief Agent Lemmy Caution.

They enjoyed huge popularity in Cheyney’s lifetime, and maintained this popularity in Europe at least until the 1960s thanks to the very successful French Lemmy Caution movies starring Eddie Constantine. They’re now all but forgotten. It’s a bit puzzling that they haven’t developed more of a cult following. They’re so deliciously trashy and pulpy and the hard-boiled dialogue is so overdone. Everything is so overblown it almost becomes high camp but it remains great fun.

As usual Lemmy is investigating crimes taking place outside the US. For an American FBI agent he seemed to spend remarkably little time in the US. Given that Cheyney was an Englishman it’s understandable that he preferred to have his hero operating in familiar surroundings. This gives the novels a kind of early transatlantic flavour.

A woman named Julia Wayles has been kidnapped in the US and taken to England. Although no-one is sure if she’s really been kidnapped. She’s being held by a couple of American mobsters named Rudy Zimman and Tamara Phelps. But no-one is sure if this is the real Tamara Phelps or not. And the Rudy who first turns up is not the real Rudy. There’s also an American woman named Mrs Lorella Owen but she’s probably not really Mrs Lorella Owen. It’s that kind of incredibly convoluted plot but it suits Cheyney’s rather tongue-in-cheek approach to the hard-boiled genre.

There are lots of dames in this book, and they’re all dangerous. In Lemmy Caution’s world dames are always dangerous. Well the fascinating and beautiful ones are dangerous and they’re the only ones Lemmy is interested in. There are few things in life that Lemmy likes as much as dangerous women. Men on the other hand are either lousy two-bit punks or they’re swell guys. Lemmy handles lousy two-bit punks just as adeptly as he handles dangerous no-good dames.

And as usual the crime that Caution is investigating turns out to be more than just everyday crime. There’s an element of espionage and intrigue. Entertaining lightweight fun pulp fiction.

I've reviewed another of Cheyney’s Lemmy Caution novels, Dames Don’t Care.