Departure Delayed is a 1947 suspense mystery by Will Oursler - my copy was a part of the Inner Sanctum Mystery series which I always keep an eye out for. Oursler was an American writer of more than 45 novels - twelve of them mysteries - and at one time the vice-president of the Mystery Writers of America.
"Johnny Wilson checked the gun. Johnny Wilson married Carol Eaton. Johnny Wilson killed a man. Johnny Wilson had run out on his bride. Johnny Wilson - Johnny Wilson was me."
Departure Delayed is noir with a capital N.
Gritty and street tough, it reads like it was written on a diet of cigarettes and the last of the scotch.
Roy Marshall wakes up on a subway train realizing he has lost four months of his life - between November and February is a complete blank. When he stumbles into a local bar, the barman knows him as John Wilson - even his billfold is marked Wilson - and there is an apartment address. He soon finds his alias John Wilson has married and abandoned his bride, carried a gun, and the police are after him for murder - in fact he's still bleeding from a gunshot wound. He's running on instinct - dealing with the duplicitous blonde he finds in the apartment, the society girl that claims she is his wife, an unknown gang of killers involved with Wilson, and the detective who dogs his every move. The more evidence turns up the more Roy is convinced Wilson - himself - is a murderer.
Just out of the service after a tour of the South Pacific, he's a tough character that can handle the flashbacks to a special assignment in Manila. He was after a top smuggler who passed drugs through Japan to Shanghai. These forgotten months seems to have something to do with that, and perhaps the lead Detective as well, who always seems to be one step ahead.
This was intense and engrossing. Lots of twists on Roy's downward spiral, as the noose tightens. Fans of 1940's noir and writers like Cornell Woolwich will want to check this out.
A solid read.
1947 / Hardcover / 215 pages
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