We said we’d get back to Crime Club and here we are, with a beautiful 1960 edition of Amber Dean’s Bullet Proof. The art, as with our previous Crime Club selection, is uncredited, but certainly by the same talented person. The novel is a swift read about a disturbed escapee from a rural New York youth home who becomes the focus of a manhunt after a woman is shot dead. The kid may have mental issues but he’s smarter than the cops think, or at least is confoundingly capable of remaining fugitive. As they search for him trooper Brick Noble begins to wonder if the dead woman’s husband arranged everything. It’s interesting his reason for believing this: he lusts for the man’s pretty secretary, and is jealous that she has feelings for her boss. Noble rather un-nobly insists that middle-aged, unattractive wives are often targets for murder. His theory is not necessarily correct in this case, but we enjoyed the cynicism Dean put on display with this plot element. She wrote other mysteries, and considering her success here we think she’s worth revisiting.
