Murder Is My Business (Hard Case Crime)

Noir Novel The sparse and fast paced narration reminds me of a streamlined Hudson convertible roaring along a dark shadowed street; you can ignore the cover! This 1945 detective novel has it all: excessive drinking, nicotine stains and a slew of "hunches" as the detective wanders the nether-land of the El Paso border. The lurid cover has little to do with the story...after all it was 1945 and besides suggestive covers worked well for pulp magazines. The mysterious death of a soldier and his impoverished, grieving mother leads Mike Shane to take a case that leads where? Is the Austrian clothing shop owner a Nazi spy with easy access to the border? Why did the crooked politician get so upset over an autopsy that showed the body he ran over was previously killed? Why was the dead soldier enlisted under an assumed name? Why do the leads point to a silver mine in Mexico? Questions Shane must pursue with gum shoe grit! ...the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground (Gen 4:10). Mike Shane persists and answers why the second body is not in the ground but floating in the river. This novel noir reminds me of the films noir of postwar America; films made after the angst of global struggle was still fresh in the minds of a war weary generation. We are lead through a noir Mexican opium den by an honest Mexican cop...ahhh Mexico, that unkempt demented backyard of the dark American psyche. Here Mexico becomes the source of crime in El Paso, but you aren't surprised at that are you? The ending will surprise you, but you are not surprised at being surprised by detective story endings!

Ahhh, Hard Case Crime brings us one more classy noir novel with a history. Published in 1945, Murder is My Business, appeared as one of those Dell Map editions and has since reappeared several times. Michael Shayne has been featured in 60 novels, on TV, radio and in a dozen films. Murder is My Business is representative of the Shayne novels, and one of the most enjoyable. "Murder is My Business" is a crisply written, well plotted Halliday book that is one of his best. From the Robert McGinnis cover that shimmers right out at you...(is that Cher?) we are drawn into the trouble that is more dangerous the 2nd time around. Halliday gives us a novel that has become characteristic of Hard Case Crime, excellent and creative all at the same time. Well done.

Unlike "Bodies are where you find them" that I read before, this story had no comedy angles. But it was powerful and very well plotted. Although I have not read ALL of the Michael Shayne mysteries, I bet this is one of the best plotted. A mayoralty election was held. People argued about the effect of the murder to the election, but nobody cared about the victim himself. Except Michael Shayne; because (solving) murder was his business.