King, Rufus - Murder Masks Miami (1939)

Murder Masks Miami (1939) is the last Valcour novel. It is a genuine who done it, not a thriller, and is exceptionally readable. Murder Masks Miami is just plain fun. When mystery fans say they would like to read a Golden Age mystery novel, this is the sort of book they are talking about. This book is a formal detective novel, like King's next novel, Holiday Homicide (1940). Why a writer who so often strayed away from Golden Age norms should suddenly adhere so closely to the formal mystery is not clear. Still, I think it has made for one of King's most entertaining novels. King has mastered the mystery art of telling a story backwards. Each scene unearths some new hidden facts about the characters and the plot, and the book gradually reveals the whole story of their relationships, and what took place during the crimes. The ultimate solution does not contain any great ingenuity, although it does have a small twist. It is plausible and emotionally satisfying, however.

The book takes place in a vacation area near Miami, and is pleasantly escapist. King writes with tremendous verve, and is in his more upbeat mode. There is a great deal of romance and soap opera about the characters' loves, all of which is closely integrated into the mystery plot, so it is not a digression from the main detective work. Once again, the heroine's longing for the good looking life guard can be seen as an expression of gay feeling. The ambiguity surrounding the life guard - he is a suspect in the story, along with everyone else, and could be the killer - seems like a referendum on the validity of such longings. The book keeps one in suspense till the end about how this affair will turn out. Valcour himself invites a young male security guard to breakfast, thus dropping some broad clues about his own sexual orientation. There is a definite party like aspect to this scene. If Murder by Latitude was King's tragic gay novel, Murder Masks Miami is his comic one. By the way, the title of the story is never explained in the book. The title has plenty of alliterative punch, and is very suggestive in its imagery. But what is being masked, or how murder does it, is not made clear.

Mike Grost