Too Soon Dead
Reviewed By Janet Mawdesley April 3, 2016
Author Michael Kurland
Distributor: New South Books
ISBN: 9781783295364
Publisher: Titan Publishing Group
Release Date: March 2016
Website: www,newsouthbooks.com.au
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This is a wonderful ‘Who Dunn-it’ written in the best of the tradition bringing the world of 1930’s New York, the years of prohibition, the Great Depression and the era where anything could, and often did, happen on the streets of Manhattan alive once again.
Morgan De Witt is the assistant to famous columnist Alexander Brass, a man whose word is read daily and syndicated across America. De Witt considers he is very fortunate to be Brasses right-hand man and do-it all to this well respected columnist. That De Witt is also attempting to write his first novel is of considerable importance to DeWitt but not to anyone else.
Alexander Brass, a revered and in some ways feared member of Manhattan Society, often finds himself working on matters that are not always society gossip, or related to current events; matters which test his intellect to the limit.
When a man arrives in Brasses office offering a packet of photographs, refusing to give either his name or any details about the package, Brass is intrigued; even more so when he opens the packet discovering seriously compromising pictures of a number of the elite members of Manhattan Society.
According to the ‘fat man’ who delivered the pictures, it is not the pictures that are important but who took them and why. He refuses to add any further details, saying that the photographs are all part of a story well worth the telling, but in doing so a good deal of trouble and danger could be created. Trouble for everyone!
Brass decides to try and find the ‘fat man’, seconding newsman Billy Fox to ‘tail’ the man, but when Fox turns up dead, Brass realises that whatever is behind the photographs is definitely deadly and there is someone out there who will stop at nothing to get them back.
Brass is devastated that this should happen to such a young man carrying out what should have been a simple surveillance task and recruits the seriously intellectual capacity of his secretary Gloria Adams, the nightclub knowledge of Billy Fox’s widow, Cathy, Inspector Willem Raab who reluctantly agrees to share information with Brass, and of course De Witt, who amongst all the uproar is still trying to write his novel, and sets out to find out what the real issue is behind the incriminating pictures.
Add a group of what appear to be eccentric Germans, a Nazi underground movement, along with a stripper and a nymphomaniac and you have a ripper of a story.
Each of the characters is well portrayed and easy to create in the imagination which is a true hallmark of well written fiction such as this period style, murder mystery. The streets and back allies of Manhattan are well portrayed; the atmosphere of the 1930’s pervades every page adding colour and entertainment to the plot.
Utterly engrossing, Manhattan, Alexander Brass style, during the 1930’s is very difficult tear yourself away from as this intriguing drama unfolds and climaxes in the most surprizing manner!