This is It, Michael Shayne (1950) by Brett Halliday

This is It, Michael Shayne (1950) is the eighteenth novel in the Michael Shayne series by "Brett Halliday," penname of Davis Dresser, which attracted my attention for exactly the same reason as The Corpse That Never Was (1963) – promise of a tough nut (i.e. an impossible crime) to crack. Shayne is a hardboiled private eye who, every now and then, "solved classical locked room mysteries." This is It, Michael Shayne is cited as an example and The Corpse That Never Was is another often marked as one, but neither are locked room mysteries. Only legitimate locked room mystery in the series appears to be Murder and the Married Virgin (1944).

I wanted to get that out of the way first as the only locked room mystery discussed on this blog since Edmund Crispin's short story "The Name on the Window" (1951) is D.L. Marshall's 77 North (2023). That's simply shocking for this blog and something that will be remedied in the next post, but first let's take a look at This is It, Michael Shayne.

This is It, Michael Shayne begins with Shayne stepping from a deep-sea fishing boat, "luxuriously relaxed after a day of good-fellowship combined with moderate amounts of aged liquor" and "a fair day's catch," but upon returning to his office he finds an urgent message on his desk from his secretary, Lucy Hamilton – three messages in fact and a thick envelope. The three memos urge Shayne to immediately call Miss Sara Morton at the Tidehaven hotel when he's back. Shayne then opens the envelopes and finds three, small squares of paper with threatening messages, "YOU HAVE THREE DAYS TO GET OUT OF MIAMI ALIVE," "TWO MORE DAYS" and "ONE DAY LEFT," but even more perplexing is the half of a five-hundred dollar bill ("ripped across the middle"). A letter from Morton explaining she has "given up hope that you will contact me before it is too late" and enclosed "the notes which my secretary will explain to you, and one-half of a retainer which I trust you will earn by bringing my murderer to justice." Miss Morton does not answer his calls, but her secretary, Beatrice Lally, does and she's not alone. Timothy Rourke, a reporter from the Miami News, is also at the hotel. There he learns Morton has been in her hotel room awaiting his call, but the door is still locked and light can be seen through the transom without a sign of life. So they enter the room through an unlocked, connecting bathroom door and find Morton with "an ugly gash in her throat." So the problems begin as Sara Morton was not only a celebrity, but practically a legend in her profession.

Sara Morton is a roving reporter for a national syndicate, "feared by the underworld and criminals in high places," who "broke into the big time years ago by becoming the moll of one of Capone's original mob to get an exclusive." She came to Miami to get a story and has been pestering a local criminal, Leo Gannet, who runs the Green Barn and the Red House. And both places offer an opportunity to do some illegal gambling. She immediately jumped on Gannet and began dropping into those two places as soon as she arrived, "they have both closed their gambling-rooms since she started visiting them," which is always a dangerous game to play with hardened criminals. Nor was it perhaps a clever idea to turn down Gannet's $25,000 (more than $300,000 today!) to leave town immediately. There's also a potential personal angle to the case. Sara Morton intended to divorce her estranged husband, Ralph Morton, whom she pays half a grand a month to stay out of her hair. And she intends to marry a man, Edwin Paisly, several years her junior ("...all the earmarks of being more interested in her money than in her"). Will Gentry, Miami's chief of police, really wants to speak with Beatrice Lally, but Shayne whisked her away from the crime scene and stubbornly keeps her away from Gentry as long as possible. And not with reason. But it goes without saying this causes some friction between the two.

This all makes for a quick, fun and perfectly serviceable tough-guy private eye novel and Shayne always seems to act more as a detective than a pulp-style gunslinger, dodging bullets and catching fists, but the plot is pretty lousy – a transparent plot that needlessly tied itself into a knot. First of all, the murderer is so obvious, I kept dismissing it as a red herring. After all, why (SPOILER/ROT13) frghc gur zheqre nf n ybpxrq ebbz zlfgrel jura gur bayl crefba jub pbhyq unir qbar vg, rvgure orvat va gur nqwnprag ebbz be univat n xrl gb gung ebbz, unf qbar vg? Lbh qb gung gb ybnq fhfcvpvba ba na vaabprag punenpgre naq cerfragvat n ceboyrz gung arrqf fbyivat: svaqvat nabgure jnl vagb gur ybpxrq ebbz. Guvf vf whfg havafcverq naq qvfnccbvagvat, ohg, rira jbefr, vg znxrf Funlar ybbx yvxr ur unq whfg orra ehaavat nebhaq cbvagyrffyl gur ragver gvzr. Fbzrguvat rnfvyl svkrq unq gur pevzr fprar abg orra fb gvtugyl ybpxrq be Unyyvqnl unq whfg ena jvgu gur vzcbffvoyr pevzr, juvpu pbhyq unir orra rnfvyl nppbzcyvfurq ol tvivat gur xrl gb gur nqwnprag ebbz na nyvov ol unaqvat bire ng gur ubgry qrfx (gur gvzr-gevpx jbhyq unir gnxra pner bs gur erfg). So a fun enough read that long-time fans of the series will undoubtedly enjoy, but has nothing to recommend to most readers of this blog who come for the classical whodunits, unbreakable alibis, dying messages and miraculous murders.

However, I'm not going to give up on this series just yet. Only on trying to find one, or two, hidden locked room mysteries within the series. There are some and intriguing titles to be found the series with the meta-sounding She Work to Darkness (1955), Shayne crosses path with Brett Halliday at a mystery writer's convention, is likely going to be next stop.