Joining my love of locked-room mysteries (by author such as John Dickson Carr), is the airline mystery. I can watch movies like Airport 75', Airport 77' and the classic The High And The Mighty over and over.
I'd even throw Airplane! in there as well. You may remember Airport 75' with Karen Black and Charlton Heston, with the famous tag line "The stewardess is flying the plane!". Watching it recently surprised me. I remember Karen landing the plane after the two captains are sucked out of the cockpit. If you do as well, think again.
There is the possibility of a few strangers being contained together and forced to endure and overcome the adventure. The excited passengers, the in flight romances, and then the murder (or disaster, I don't mind). Who amongst the passengers is the villain?
Ricochet Books have reprinted a series of pulp fiction novels, and Dorval is the second released. They have even adapted the original cover; that stewardess is looking a little worried. Originally published in 1952, it was written by David Montrose, the pen name of Charles Ross Graham, and has long been out of print.
Private detective Russell Teed is called to a job in New York, meeting his client in a Grand Central Station bar. He makes contact. She's in a vivid green dress, on the interesting side of twenty-five, with hair as long and rich and thick and red as a sunset before the storm, red as the facets of a ruby, red as fresh arterial blood. She smiled at him. She had bands on her teeth.
This hard boiled style is witty, fun to read, and adds to the action.
The job? A one-way plane ticket from New York to Montreal where he should identify from the (about ten) other passengers, who is the father that abandoned her as a child. Since there are only a few men on board, it might not be so hard. Once departed, a violent storm kicks up, and while they are seat belted in and generally being ill, the gentleman who is most likely her father is struck on the head and killed. Of course, everyone on the plane had motive and it's up to Russell Teed to find both the missing murder weapon and the how and the why.
Although it takes place mainly in Montreal, it is 1952 and many of the signs and places as referred to with English names. Soon he is involved with seedy characters, conniving family members, gets a razor slash in his leg and a slug in his shoulder. Briskly written, it has some memorable characters like the attractive redhead with a mouth full of braces, low-down African gangsters, and Lorette Toledo, a blonde singer of smut songs in a Montreal clip joint.
Charles Ross Graham was from New Brunswick and only wrote four novels, all featuring Russell Teed. I'd love to read more of this author and would recommend Murder Over Dorval to mystery lovers. His style, like that of James Cain, Dashiell Hammett, and Raymond Chandler, draws you right in and keeps you entertained well after you have landed.
2010 / Paperback / 160 pages
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