ROCKS AND A HARD PLACE

If diamonds are a girl's best friend, emeralds are a girl's dodgy acquaintance.

This will come as a shock to those who don’t already know, but Robert Dietrich was a pseudonym used by E. Howard Hunt, before his stint as Richard M. Nixon’s hotel breaching black bag operative. 1957’s Murder on the Rocks is the first entry in his nine-part franchise about a Washington, D.C. based accountant, lawyer, and ex-military tough guy named Steve Bentley. Here he’s entangled in the search for a priceless emerald called the Madagascar Green, which he somehow needs to locate and exchange with the fake in order to save the owner the embrassement of knowing he was ever robbed. Quite a task.

Hunt makes the title character Bentley a cunning, smart-mouthed upsetter of applecarts and damager of delicate sensibilities. He seems to particularly dislike dishonesty and insiderism. You can’t be more dishonest or inside than breaking the law for the president the way Hunt did, so it goes to show that fictional characters are not always analogous to their authors. But Hunt certainly wasn’t the first or last writer to morph into a destructive political tool. The past is prologue, and all that. In any case, though Murder on the Rocks loses some momentum toward the end, for the most part it’s not unlike the Madagascar Green—colorful, multi-faceted, and hard-edged. We have a feeling the Bentley series is good.

Washington D.C., Dell Publications, Robert Dietrich, E. Howard Hunt, Howard Hunt, cover art, literature

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

December 5

1933—Prohibition Ends in United States

Utah becomes the 36th U.S. state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the United States Constitution, thus establishing the required 75% of states needed to overturn the 18th Amendment which had made the sale of alcohol illegal. But the criminal gangs that had gained power during Prohibition are now firmly established, and maintain an influence that continues unabated for decades.

December 5

1945—Flight 19 Vanishes without a Trace

During an overwater navigation training flight from Fort Lauderdale, five U.S. Navy TBM Avenger torpedo-bombers lose radio contact with their base and vanish. The disappearance takes place in what is popularly known as the Bermuda Triangle.

December 4

1918—Wilson Goes to Europe

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson sails to Europe for the World War I peace talks in Versailles, France, becoming the first U.S. president to travel to Europe while in office.

December 4

1921—Arbuckle Manslaughter Trial Ends

In the U.S., a manslaughter trial against actor/director Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle ends with the jury deadlocked as to whether he had killed aspiring actress Virginia Rappe during rape and sodomy. Arbuckle was finally cleared of all wrongdoing after two more trials, but the scandal ruined his career and personal life.

December 3

1964—Mass Student Arrests in U.S.

In California, Police arrest over 800 students at the University of California, Berkeley, following their takeover and sit-in at the administration building in protest at the UC Regents’ decision to forbid protests on university property.

December 3

1968—U.S. Unemployment Hits Low

Unemployment figures are released revealing that the U.S. unemployment rate has fallen to 3.3 percent, the lowest rate for almost fifteen years. Going forward all the way to the current day, the figure never reaches this low level again.

December 2

1954—Joseph McCarthy Disciplined by Senate

In the United States, after standing idly by during years of communist witch hunts in Hollywood and beyond, the U.S. Senate votes 65 to 22 to condemn Joseph McCarthy for conduct bringing the Senate into dishonor and disrepute. The vote ruined McCarthy’s career.