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Well, it’s officially summer, and you know what that means:
murder!
Not literally, of course, but perhaps literarily. If you’ll
soon be on vacation and need a good beach read, they don’t come any beachier
than the Florida-set detective novels of John D. MacDonald. MacDonald, best
known for 1957’s The
Executioners (the basis for the movie Cape Fear) is beloved by whodunnit afficionados
for his twisty narratives, shady characters, and dialogue so hard-boiled it
should be served with toast.
For the uninitiated, a great place to start is his debut novel, The Brass Cupcake (Random
House, 1950). The title refers to the gold badge our hero, Cliff
Bartellis, once wore on the police force, since reduced to a worthless trifle
after his code of honor collided with the department’s systemic
corruption.
Now Cliff works as an insurance adjuster with the perilous specialty:
recovering stolen jewels, then paying off half the value of the policy to
whoever coughs up the goods, with a nice little commission for himself.
Except this time, the thief left something behind: the bludgeoned body of a
nice little old lady.
It seems that a $300,000.00 payout buys a lot of murder, and corpses begin
accumulating like seaweed on the Florida coast. Meanwhile, Cliff’s old
buddies on the police force are none too pleased when their former brother in
blue notices that all their suspects keep winding up in the morgue. How
long before they suspect him?
And, hey, isn’t he dating the dead lady’s niece…
But Cliff has set a trap for the perpetrator. If he can keep his cool in
the oppressive Florida heat, he might just find the killer, snag himself a tidy
bonus, and get the girl (if she doesn’t get him first). Has he got the
smarts, instincts, and courage to expose the devious double-dealing?
Of course he does. After all, he’s an insurance adjuster.
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