George Harmon Coxe’s Murder in Havana was an easy buy for us—it was cheap and set in an exotic land. We were also drawn by its World War II backdrop, which made us fully expect Nazis, and we got them. The story concerns Andrew Talbot, who’s in charge of a secret shipbuilding project. While he’s out on the town someone breaks into his hotel room but somehow ends up dead five floors below. Talbot is relieved not to have been robbed of his top secret dox, but once he realizes the dead man hadn’t been the only person in his room and his papers were photographed rather than stolen, he sets out to save his professional reputation and unmask the spies.
As required from this sort of tale, the hero meets a couple of beautiful women, interfaces fractiously with the local cops, gets knocked over the head, and drinks rum. Mysteries from this era can be wordy, but Coxe deserves credit—he keeps the action moving around Havana and avoids the pointless reiterations that can slow these books. The ending is fun, and multi-layered. There could be more local color and travelogue, and we aren’t sure if we accept the idea of skeleton keys being purchaseable on the street, but overall Murder in Havana is quite entertaining. It was published in 1943 originally, with this Dell edition and its Barye Phillips cover art of a woman bound but incongruously smiling coming in 1950.
Nice touch. This book is one that was mailed to us from the United States by a friend, so thanks to Alex for that. In the story, a model poses with an elaborate set of costume jewelery she’s been told is worthless, but comes to believe the gems are real after a stranger robs her of them, and an acquaintance returns them just before dying at her feet—shot twice in the back. She enlists the aid of a photographer who’s smitten with her, and the two try to unravel the mystery. There’s a very funny line about one of the supporting characters:
