Book Review: The Hills of Homicide by Louis L’Amour
Before he landed the contracts that were to make him America’s most beloved Western writer, Louis L’Amour tried his hand at various other genres of pulp fiction. But the pulp magazine market was drying up, so it was generally a good thing he found other work. Caroll & Graf Publishers collected five of his hard-boiled crime stories from the late 1940s in this volume printed in 1983.
“The Hills of Homicide” is the first and title story, perhaps chosen because it ties to the Western themes of L’Amour’s more famous work. An unnamed private detective (possibly Kip Morgan) is called to a small town named Ranagat, somewhere between Las Vegas, Nevada and Odgen, Utah. (Looking at the map, I think the more westerly route.) It seems that there’s been a murder atop a local butte that can only be accessed from one trail which is carefully watched by the victim’s old partner turned bitter enemy.
That enemy reports that only two people went up that trail that night, the victim’s pretty and formerly estranged niece, and a gambler named Blacky Caronna. The niece claims the victim was alive when she left, and Blacky claims he changed his mind halfway up and never saw the man. The victim was stabbed in the back while facing the only door to his cabin, with no sign of struggle. The enemy could never have gotten the victim to expose his back.
The private eye’s client is Blacky, who is desperate to get cleared of this murder quickly, and isn’t too particular about how it’s done. Maybe he doesn’t want anyone inquiring as to his actual activities in Ranagat?
The detective discovers there’s another suspect, and eventually discovers how that person pulled off the seemingly impossible crime. But not before the requisite fistfight. The solution is a doozy.
“I Hate to Tell His Widow!” is the first of two Joe Ragan tales. This police officer is reassigned from Burglary detail to Homicide to conduct a parallel investigation when his old partner is murdered. This case is complicated when it’s learned that the partner was killed by his own gun–not his service revolver, but one he had for home defense, and his wife has no alibi, and apparently a motive.
It turns out there’s a vicious blackmail racket involved, and the solution to the case is heartbreaking for Joe. Joe plays fast and loose with evidence and getting warrants.
“Collect from a Corpse” has Ragan now in Homicide full time, but seconded to Burglary for a few weeks as there’s some promotion politics going on. Called to a safe job at a nightclub, he and the other officers discover that the theft exactly matches the modus operandi of a particular break-in artist. The rookie is all for putting an all-points bulletin out on this criminal. Ragan happens to know that crook has a perfect alibi–he’s very recently dead, something not known to the other investigators until now.
Which brings into question the case Ragan had the previous week. A criminal supposedly reformed, but the burglary was exactly his M.O. and he didn’t have an alibi, and seemed genuinely surprised that he was being arrested. And there’s a couple of other recent cases that smell fishy in this light. When Ragan brings this up to the head of Burglary, that captain accuses Joe of trying to sabotage his promotion, and sends him back to Homicide.
The nightclub owner turns up dead, and Ragan is back on the case from a homicide perspective. Turns out someone’s committing copycat crimes, but who and why?
Notably, neither this nor the other Joe Ragan story could have been adapted for television or movies at the time without neutering the central twists. Told you these were hard-boiled.
“Stay Out of My Nightmare!” introduces us to Kip Morgan, though his occupation isn’t specified here. A buddy from his Army days has asked to meet up with Kip, apparently to discuss some trouble he’s in. That buddy fails to show, and when Kip goes to his home, both the buddy and his wife have disappeared!
Turns out racketeers have been horning in on a veterans’ charity gambling event, but somehow the buddy got the money and the racketeers are just as baffled about his disappearance. Kip’s going to need help not just from the police, but from his Army buddies.
But before that, he must escape an honest to goodness deathtrap, a room that will be underwater at high tide, with the tide coming in and the door barred from the other side!
“Street of Lost Corpses” reveals that Kip Morgan’s day job is private detective. He’s undercover on Skid Row to investigate the disappearance of an alcoholic. This particular rummy had a sister who saw him once a month to give him a little money, but he didn’t show up for two months. She’d hired another investigator, but that man turned up dead with stab wounds. Suspicious!
Kip’s discovered that the alcoholic was actually sober for two weeks before he disappeared. And two of his rummy friends had disappeared in the weeks before the incident. Come to think of it, there’s been more disappearances here than usual. When Kip is suddenly attacked in his seedy hotel room by a shadowy figure with a knife, he knows he’s on to something. But what?
There’s a bit of a formula to these stories. Each of them will feature at least one lovingly detailed fistfight (both Joe and Kip are explicitly boxers) and a “dame” for the main character to hook up with at the end, though not to continue into the next story. The best of these girl of the week characters is a secretary in “Widow” who turns out to be something of a detective herself, and teaches Ragan a trick he uses in the sequel, though not mentioning her.
They’re not bad stories, but a bit repetitive, and I can see where this was a dead end for L’Amour’s career. Recommended to Louis L’Amour fans, and those that enjoy hardboiled detective tales.
