Murder for Two

 Murder for Two (1943) by George Harmon Coxe

Jack "Flash" (or "Flashgun") Casey is none too pleased (see first line below). Uncle Sam has turned him down for military service because of a bum knee. In a fit of good nature (what he subsequently thinks of as soft-headedness), he volunteered to teach a twice-weekly photography class for the American Women's voluntary Services. And now his boss MacGrath has told him that he must allow one of the women whose father has a major stake in the newspaper to tag along with him so she can observe a photographer in action.

Crusading news columnist Rosalind Taylor is always on the hunt for ways to make crime bosses and those who swindle the average Joe pay for their dirty deeds. When an engineering inventor named John Perry is released from jail (for what he claims was a trumped-up charge), she's ready to help. Several years ago, Perry devised a new lubricant which should have made him wealthy and a more suitable suitor for Karen Harding--whose father is none too thrilled at the couple's attachment. But he claimed that his backer, Matt Lawson--a former bootlegger who began investing in more legitimate enterprises just before the war--tricked him when the contract was signed. Perry wound up going to jail for assault.

Taylor has discovered information that will support Perry's claims and she sets up a meeting with one of her sources. She invites Flash Casey, the newspaper's crack cameraman who just happens to be a pretty decent detective as well, to join the meeting and, of course, his assistant for the day tags along as well. But the news columnist doesn't show up for the appointment and when Casey and his shadow go to her apartment, they find the place ransacked and Taylor dead in her car a few blocks from the building. Casey soon finds himself knee-deep in another murder investigation...and so is his shadow. Because she just happens to be Karen Harding and she's still in love with John Perry. 

Coxe as he does with his Kent Murdock series (also a cameraman/detective), provides a tough guy crime novel with a soft touch. Soft-boiled, the story gives us a seemingly untouchable swindler equipped with hired guns and enforcers--and, of course, Casey can hold his own with the bad guys (even if he is a softie underneath). But the mystery is not a simple one. It's not just a matter of the swindler doing in those who might expose him. There's an extra angle on the case and only Casey is able to spot it. This is the first of the Flash Casey mysteries that I've tried and while he is cast in the same mold as Murdock, he's not a carbon copy. The interesting angle that Casey spots, and which I did not, gives just the right touch. ★★★★

First line: Casey was burning.

Last line: Taking pictures for a big city newspaper might be a headache, but for him it was the only job in the world and there was no other that could compare with it.

****************

Deaths = two shot