Down Among the Dead Men

 Down Among the Dead Men (1943) by Stewart Sterling (Prentice Winchell)

Detective Lieutenant Steve Koski of the Harbor Police has quite a problem on his hands. The Nazis are blowing up ships carrying explosive cargo with unerring accuracy--someone is tipping them off. Then a bargeman's family goes fishing for crabs and hauls up a suitcase with a man's torso inside. Arms, legs, and head all missing. When Koski hears that an engineer has gone missing from the yacht belonging to one of the big shipping families and that the shipping giant's son is also on the MIA list, he begins to wonder. There aren't a lot of clues to follow, but Koski makes the most of what he has: a radio tube, a laundry mark on the sheets wrapping the torso, and name written on a bar counter in spilled beer. The trail leads him to a shady dame who might be able to identify the killer, but she gets shot before the lieutenant can get a name. If he doesn't move quick, the Nazis are going to take out the biggest shipment of explosives yet...and a murderer is going to get away.

This really could have been much better. It's full of weird slang terms that I could get through context--but it took more effort than necessary and completely distracted from the plot. I'm not entirely sure what Koski's background is--but the slang terms he uses and his constant use of "yair" for yes was distracting. It made me think he must be Australian because Kerry Greenwood sprinkles "yair" among her working class Australians in the Phryne Fisher books. I just can't figure out who in New York City in the 1940s would be using it. 

One thing I did appreciate about the novel was the use of the harbor police. Sterling liked to use non-traditional officials as detectives--from hotel "house dick" Gil Vine and Fire Marshall Pedley under the Sterling pseudonym to Don Cadee, a department store detective, written under the name Spencer Dean. It was interesting to see how the harbor police work and to get a look at New York from a different perspective. Koski is a pretty good detective; he manages to put two and two together pretty quickly. The solution isn't a new one, but I did think it was used pretty effectively. So.... ★★★ for a solid slightly hard-boiled procedural.

First line: The scream knifed sharply through the March twilight, cutting above the grumble of the policeboat's exhaust, the hrrush of the bow-wave.

Last line: Next time there's any burning, he's on his own.

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Deaths = 3 (one stabbed; one shot; one hit on head)