We’re finally back to Gavin Black today, the author who intrigued us with his South Asian mystery Suddenly at Singapore. However, that book, while fine, wasn’t a smashing success, so we recently opted for Dead Man Calling, published by William Collins Sons & Co. in 1962, with Barbara Walton cover art that’s sort of a low quality theft from earlier work of hers (look here). It’s a find-the-real-killer novel set in and around Tokyo, as Scottish hero Paul Harris starts out trying to buy a license from a Greek businessman to manufacture a diesel engine, but is soon blamed for murder. He’s in for rough treatment unless he solves the crime, which he goes about in typical fashion, with Black never quite managing to elevate the story despite its exotic set pieces, such as when Harris fights a ninja, using his “Malay boxing” to good effect. Black made Paul Harris the star of fifteen novels. Dead Man Calling was second in the series. We imagine both this book and the first were surpassed by at least one or two later efforts. Perhaps we’ll see.
