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The Mouse in the Mountain

Page history last edited by PBworks 17 years, 11 months ago

Davis, Norbert - The Mouse in the Mountain

 

Critics have hailed this tale of a dog and a private eye down in Mexico druing WWII as one of the funniest detective novels of all time.

 

There have been a lot of dogs in mystery fiction but there's never been one quite like Carstairs. Doan, a short chubby Los Angeles private eye, won Carstairs in a crap game, but there never was any questions as to who the boss was in this relationship. Carstairs isn't just any Great Dane. He is so big that Doan figures he really ought to be considered another species.

 

They are down in Mexico to convince a missing fugitive that he would do well to stay put. The case is complicated by three murders, assorted villians, and a horrific earthquake that cuts the mountainous little village of Los Altos off from the rest of Mexico.

 

Written is the snappy hardboiled style of the day, The Mouse in the Mountain was first published in 1943 and followed by two other Doan and Carstairs novels.

 

"Each of these is fast-paced, occasionally lyrical in a hard-edged way, and often quite funny. Davis was on of the few writers to successfully blend the hardboiled story with facicial humor." -- Bill Pronzini, 1001 Midnights


The Mouse in the Mountain (1943), is the first of Davis' three Doan and Carstairs novels, dealing with private eye Doan, and his canine "partner", a Great Dane called Carstairs. The Mouse in the Mountain contains three crime subplots, none of which have anything to do with each other. The last and weakest of the three is the only actual mystery plot in the book; it is a perfunctory murder mystery with a routine solution. This causes some drag at the end of the novel. By contrast, the novel's middle sections soar, with their vivid description of the remote Mexican mountain town and the events it triggers. Since the mystery plot does not appear till after the mid point of the book, most of the first half is basically a story about some very eccentric characters, some of whom might be detectives and criminals, but which is not basically a mystery story. Davis impresses with his ability to extend his strange paradoxical storytelling to novel length, without any noticeable strain or effort. The book just speeds along, with gracefulness and freshness.

 

Mike Grost

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