Tag: Hugh Pentecost

Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Fourteenth Trump by Judson Philips

Judson Phillips, also known as Hugh Pentecost, wrote a dizzying number of mysteries under both names, earning him the Grand Master Award from Mystery Writers of America in 1973. His first mysteries were about a gambler in New York City named Danny Coyle and his assistant Claude Donovan, nicknamed Harvard. The Fourteenth Trump (Dodd, Mead, 1942) is the second one.

Danny Coyle used to be a bookmaker but now he specializes in betting on anything at all that interests him. Currently his favorite bet involves the local district attorney, whom he loathes. The DA’s office is being investigated by a special committee headed up by Congressman Terry Reardon. Danny has bet a quarter of a million dollars (nearly $4 million in 2019 dollars) that when the investigation is complete, the DA will be out of office.

Reardon’s fiancé is found standing over the body of a man in his hotel room, holding a gun that has been recently fired. She denies involvement, saying she just arrived and found the victim, but she’s arrested for murder in what appears to be an open-and-shut case. She refuses to talk to anyone, including Reardon, but she does ask Harvard to pay her gambling debt of forty-seven hundred dollars (worth just under $74 thousand in 2019) at a questionable bridge club.

Danny assumes the arrest is a frame set up to embarrass Reardon and by extension, himself. He throws himself into the investigation to salvage his bet and his reputation, looking at the bridge club and its gun-toting staff closely, especially after he determines that the play in the club is rigged in favor of the house. Harvard’s girlfriend decides to help things along and engages in a flirtation with the worst of the thugs at the bridge club, putting herself and Harvard in danger.

Danny is a likeable character who inspires loyalty among his legion of informants. My favorite is Mickey, who runs a dice game in the subway station late every night to take advantage of men waiting for their trains. An involved plot includes an intricate examination of timing and of clocks that may or may not have been changed in order to provide an alibi. A plot twist from out in left field in the last chapter or two reminds the reader that the book was written during wartime.

Friday’s Forgotten Book: The Shape of Fear by Hugh Pentecost

Currently investigating the Pierre Chambrun series by Hugh Pentecost. How have I missed these books? I vaguely recall reading some of the Julian Quist stories by Pentecost but have no memory of this series set in the luxury Hotel Beaumont in New York City. Pentecost is the pseudonym of Judson Pentecost Phillips, who has some 12 mystery series to his credit under one or the other name. He received the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 1973, which was certainly warranted for output alone, if nothing else.

The Chambrun books mirror the John Putnam Thatcher books by Emma Lathen in many ways. They span the same time period and they both offer ensemble casts of characters in large public-facing commercial organizations. Pentecost released 21 books and one collection of short stories in the series between 1962 and 1988. Thatcher and the staff of the Sloan Guaranty Trust first appeared in 1961 for a total of 24 books. I did not notice the scathing Lathen wit in the Chambrun books I’ve read so far but the plotting, dialog, and characterization are excellent.

The Shape of Fear (Dodd Mead, 1964) is the second book. The story is told from the perspective of the hotel’s new public relations director. Questions from a recent addition to the staff is a great way to justify detailed descriptions of setting and personnel roles and personalities, clever device.

As the book opens, Mark Haskell, the new PR director, has a potential bombshell tossed into his lap, how to seat three individuals at war with each other at an important international political dinner. Two of the three automatically warrant places at the head table because of their position; the international guest of honor has requested the third also sit there as his guest. The three cannot be expected to get through the event without some sort of eruption. Mr. Murray Cardew, the hotel’s long-term resident and expert on social behavior and protocol, was called in to consult on the conundrum. Later in the evening Cardew calls Haskell and asks him urgently to come to his room. Haskell is delayed a few minutes and when he arrives, find Cardew dead of an obvious head injury. Hotel manager Chambrun and the staff are shattered, as the victim was genuinely loved and admired.

Some probing police interviews reveal the suspicion that the hotel is unwittingly being used in the movement of heroin into the country; everyone supposes Cardew saw or heard something about it, which led to his death. Between the political conspiracies that surround the international guest of honor and the suggestion of drugs in his hotel, Chambrun is furious. Add the local police and representatives of the federal narcotics force who are in and out and a movie star who demands constant attention, and the hotel is seething with tension and worry. A completely unexpected development at the very end wraps it all up smoothly and surprisingly.