| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

The Double Frame

Page history last edited by PBworks 17 years ago

Rice, Craig - The Double Frame (1958) aka Knocked for a Loop

 

Lots of humour, a fast pace, and plenty of energy - the little girl Alberta is kidnapped by nearly all the characters at one time or other. Dialogue believable - you can HEAR what's being said (esp Al di Angelo). Only OK as a detective story, though. I guessed the right murderer, but, on looking back, couldn't find the bit where he mentions the bronze Buddha, so is it fair? 3/5.

 

Nick Fuller

 

Malone gets back to his office from Joe the Angel's bar early for once, and finds the body of his political opponent Leonard Estapoole, nicely set up for a frame. He hides the body temporarily but gets ambushed and slugged on his way to find a more permanent solution. Complications arise as Jake and Helene Justus turn up back in Chicago from a trip to the midwest, and the fake kidnapping of Estapoole's stepdaughter turns into a real one.

 

I found this Malone caper slightly disappointing. The real murderer(s) are a little obvious to an experienced reader, and the passages with Jake and Helene read like afterthoughts put in to pad out the book and give it more interest. The characters are all well-drawn apart from Malone himself, who seems to be going through the motions in a fairly mechanical way. And would the cops really be quite so incompetent as they are portrayed here?

 

Jon.

 

Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.