The 1955 novel One Touch of Blood is centered around an advertising man whose current employer is Old Rankler bourbon, owned by the three Plupe brothers, one of whom is found dead near their palatial seaside house. It’s a murder mystery with a tongue-in-cheek tone. For example, the Plupes’ umbrella company is called Pluperfect, Inc. The brothers are named Jon, John, and Jonathan, and are referred to as J.B, J.C, and J.D. The main character is Clark Clark. He rarely refers to his wife (or other women) without the preface “gorgeous,” or “nubile,” or “bursting,” or “pulchritudinous.” It goes on like this, a novel as a series of puns, sexual allusions, and horny party jokes.
Baker certainly can beat a dead horse. For example, at no point during this typically hard drinking 1950s mystery yarn does he simply write that so-and-so had a drink, or a bourbon. It’s always an Old Rankler. He name-drops Old Rankler, if we had to guess, close to a hundred times. We’re not joking. Here’s a typical usage:
[Maybe] J.D. neither fell nor was pushed, he merely tripped over a bottle of Old Rankler, and now his shares of Old Rankler stock would go to two relieved brothers.
Another: I wished I had a drink, Old Rankler mixed with more Old Rankler.
It’s bizarre.
Still, we have to give Baker credit. It must have been tricky to write a mystery novel in which every sentence is a gag or a set-up toward one. Ultimately, the question is does it work? In general, we’d say yes, barely, though much is sacrificed—actual characterizations, for one. You have no idea who any of these people are any more than you do Fat Tony on The Simpsons. One Touch of Blood shows that Baker had a touch of talent, but perhaps unsurprisingly he later earned fame writing self-help books, and at that point was working in a milieu we consider more fitted to his ability level.
