British author John Harvey is most famous for his Charlie Resnick Nottingham-based police procedurals. They are almost uniformly loved. I haven't ever read one as police procedurals is a sub-genre I just haven't ever latched onto. But Harvey got his teeth cut in the Piccadilly westerns, the English brand of American western novels by of the Spaghetti western. Books like George Gilman's Edge and Adam Steele. Harvey wrote some in the "Apache," "Hart: The Regulator," "Hawk," and more. He also wrote the W.W.II series "Deathshop," which I have but haven't gotten too. But what I got here is the forth book about Scott Mitchell a British hard-boiled private detective. All four books were written in a two year gap from '76 to '77. That's some fast-writing (especially cause that's not all the books her wrote in those years) and it kinda shows but that's also part of the charm of it.
Mitchell is fairly low-rent doing divorce work mostly and being self-deprecating. He's hired to get picture (the dirty kind) of a woman by her husband. He does it and then promptly get his ass kicked and sliced in his office by two thugs who may or may not be involved. Well, like any private eye worth his salt Mitchell sticks his nose into dirty deeds at the center and the cool woman who seems to have stepped out of a 40's film-noir. Along the way Mitchell gives his knuckles a workout, chases down leads, talks to people, tangles with a sadistic killer with one glass eye that he pops out and plays with; when he's not slicing with his switchblade, gets beat up some more by cops and just generally does the paperback-P.I. thing. You can tell Harvey can write wearing some of his aspirations on his sleeve. He and me are both fans of the "Out of the Past," the finest example of film-noir. Plus Mitchell is a nicely sardonic character who's wit and observations carry the book
"Neon Madman" didn't reinvent the wheel, it didn't even put a new hub-cap on it but it was pleasant in a comforting way. It's a standard second-tier private eye novel transplanted to England. Something in the Frank Kane, Henry Kane or Michael Brett vein. The pages flew by over a couple of hours in two days stretched out on a couch with a nice cuppa black coffee. I have no complaints about reading it, but it struggled to remember much of the plot a day or two later, so there's a lot of what you need to know. The original printings are super scarce and pricey. They do sport some pretty nifty photo-covers; some of the best examples of that style of cover, but probably aren't worth the price. Mysterious Press reprinted all four in two-doubles and they are available as ebooks for more reasonable prices. I did enjoy it enough that I'm glad I have some other examples of Harvey's early word to digest but I probably won't rush into them.
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