If you thought I was only going to have The Wrong Murder Part I Cocktail Talk on this site, and thereby only having one quote from Craig Rice’s third John J. Malone book, boy were you wrong. I think they’ll be at least one more even than this. Don’t miss the past Craig Rice Cocktail Talks, either, so you can learn more about this neat mid-last-century female crime writer and gadabout. But first, check out the below, where press agent (currently unemployed press agent, that is) Jake Justus (one of our three main characters) and a few others are in need of rum due to his recently-married wife Helen Brand’s wild driving:
As soon as Jake felt that he could turn his head without its falling off his neck, he looked back. The gangster’s car was still following, a little farther behind, but there. Jake decided to take back fifty per cent of everything he had thought about Little Georgie la Cerra. Or at least his driver.
Helene said, “There’s a bottle of Bacardi somewhere in the back seat, in case any of you big, strong me feel faint.”
By the time the bottle had been passed around, her passengers were able to speak again.
The Wrong Murder is the third book in Craig Rice’s John J. Malone series, with Eight Faces at Three being the first and The Corpse Steps Out being the second. I have a couple Eight Faces at Three Cocktail Talks, which I highly suggest you read so you can learn more about the amazing and intriguing Craig Rice (short version: born in 1908, first book 1939, lived an incredible tipsy life, married much – including to a beat poet – was the first crime writer on the cover of Time magazine, was said by a friend to be able to crochet, play chess, read a book, and compose music at the same time all while holding a highball, was very popular, then faded, and now hopefully is making a tiny comeback). But I, for some reason, though I’ve read it, did not have any Cocktail Talks from the second book. Not sure what rock fell on my head! Because I know the main characters were tippling throughout. The main characters being (as in the first book, and the third) press agent Jake Justus, his love, heiress Helen Brand, and defense council John J. Malone. The third book actually starts with the first two getting married, at which celebration a guest bets Jake they can commit a murder without him being able to solve it – the bet prize being a bar the guest owns, which is catnip to Jake, currently out of a job. There’s lots of madcap highjinks, lots of near-death driving by Helen, lots of missed honeymoon plane reservations, lots of Malone bemoaning it all, and lots of drinking. They still love the rye, as in the first two books, and as the below demonstrates.
She frowned. “I need a drink to help me think clearly.”
“Follow me,” Jake said. “I’m a St. Bernard.”
The walked through the softly falling snow down Madison Street to the corner of Wacker Drive, turned south for half a block, and entered a pleasantly noisy, though far from ornate, saloon.
Jake waved Helen to a secluded corner and called, “Two double ryes, quick.”
“Poor Malone,” she said softly, peeling off her gloves. The rye brought a little color back to her cheeks.
We now to come to our last (for now, at least!) Cocktail Talk from the Second Fletcher Flora Mystery Megapack (published by Wildside Press). We’ve had ones from the stories included therein called Kill Me Tomorrow and Hell Hath No Fury and The Tool, all pulp published nuggets from the crime and mystery and more writer once based in Leavenworth, KS (a fitting spot for a crime writer, due to the prison there), and today have a quote from a story called Sounds and Smells. In it, our narrator drinks an Ambrosia Highball, and for the life of me, I can’t discover a drink named that in my booze book library (I haven’t gone through that many books yet, however, between us). I will keep looking! And keep reading Fletcher Flora (who you will learn more about, and read more quotes from, when you go through the past Fletcher Flora Cocktail Talks).
I was sitting at the bar drinking an Ambrosia Highball when Sherry came in. It was not the cocktail lounge of the Café Picardy by any means, but it was a pleasant place, and there was a talented and pretty girl who sat on a little dais and played pretty tunes on a concert harp. Sherry was certainly astonished to see me, and apparently uncertain whether to be happy or otherwise. Anyhow, she sat on a stool beside me.
We turn to a perfectly-made Martini in our third quote from the Second Fletcher Flora Mystery Megapack (published by Wildside Press), the same tome of Fletcher Flora goodness that gave us the memorable and recently posted Kill Me Tomorrow Cocktail Talk and Hell Hath No Fury Cocktail Talk. Now, as today’s pulpy gem shouldn’t be rushed, much like a four-to-one Martini shouldn’t be, I’m going to skip any further intro (outside of telling you to read all the Fletcher Flora Cocktail Talks to learn more about the author).
“Nettie likes you, I think, and it’s rarely that she likes anyone at all. It must be your irresistible charm. I’m having an early Martini. Will you have one?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
“They’re in the pitcher on the table there. I remembered the ratio exactly. Four to one.”
“Good. Will you have another one with me?”
“Later, darling. Four-to-one Martinis shouldn’t be rushed, especially when they get an early start.”
Our second Cocktail Talk from the Second Fletcher Flora Mystery Megapack comes from a story within that mighty tome of Flora-goodness (published by Wildside Press) called Kill Me Tomorrow. Before heading into a martini below, however, be sure to read the Hell Hath No Fury Cocktail Talk, to learn more about the Megapack and about Fletcher Flora – for that matter, don’t miss all the past Fletcher Flora Cocktail Talks! Then come back for the below Martini fun.
She had lifted her glass to drink again, but the action was suspended suddenly with the edge of crystal just touching her lips. Her breath stirred slightly the gin and vermouth, and her eyes, wide and still and black in the contrived dusk, stared at him across the golden surface. After a moment, with a sad little sigh, she tipped the glass and set it down again.
“Poor dear. It’s always such an ordeal going to the dentist. You’d better have a drink at once.”
“I could use one, all right.”
He signaled a waiter and asked for bourbon and water. When it arrived, he drank half of it quickly.
Fletcher Flora is a last-century pulp/pocket book/noir/mystery/etc. writer who perhaps in my humble opinion (or imho, as they say) hasn’t always gotten his due as being in the upper echelon of such writers. He has, in his best work, an individual style (I have a hard time pinning it down in words. I read it called “off-beat” and that’s not a bad description, character-forward, wry in a way, you just have to read them), and he’s from KS, as I was, both of which drew me to him. Until recently, there weren’t a lot of reprints of his novels, and the stories were – like so many stories pubbed in the pulps – entirely impossible to get unless you were lucky enough to inherit a stack of said mags or the money to track them down. However! As with Day Keene and a few others, more recent years have provided a boon to those of us who enjoy a good yarn in the genres, as reprinting tech has been made easier, making it possible to rediscover more of the words written by worthy authors like Flora and Keene (very different writers in style, by the way). We’ve had a few Fletcher Flora Cocktail Talks in the past as I’ve managed to score more books, and then recently I found on the Amazon a wonderful collection called The Second Fletcher Flora Mystery Megapack – funny enough, the First Fletcher Flora Mystery Megapack wasn’t available when I was shopping, so I started with the second, though I’ll remedy that asap. The megapack (from Wildside Press – thanks by the way Wildside) has an assortment of stories from Mr. Flora, ranging in length, and while all slide into the crime and mystery shelf, the set-ups and characters and driving forces change enough to make it a swell read. They aren’t all of the same high quality as his best – he had to make a living and the pulps didn’t pay phenomenally well, so quantity mattered, too – but they’re all close enough that I was amazingly happy to get the collection, and to round out my Flora-fiction. I can’t wait to read more in the first megapack, if I can wrangle it! With all that preamble, I should say that there was lots of Cocktail Talking in the stories, so expect to hear more in the coming weeks. To start, a quote from a story called “Hell Hath No Fury.” In it, we step into a little dive bar, which Mr. Flora describes perfectly in a few short sentences, and then heads for the rye.
On Fifteenth, just off Wamego, The Peanut was a dismal, little bar which, like all bars in the morning, somehow gave the impression of having a hangover. In the shadowy interior, behind the peanut bowls, a bartender looked at me as if he wished he didn’t have to. Opposite the bar lining the wall, there was a string of booths, each with its own peanut bowl, and private remote-control box for the juke box in the rear. In the last booth, where the shadows were deepest, I caught a glimmer of platinum, the white movement of a lifted hand.
I told the bartender to bring me a shot of rye and went back to the booth and sat down.
I’ve had a couple Erik Ambler Cocktail Talks in the past (the long-ago past if we’re talking about the full age of this blog, but the short-ago past if we’re talking the age of peoplekind), and today feel I maybe didn’t give Mr. Ambler enough credit way back when. Or perhaps I’ve changed, as I just read Journey Into Fear, his international, I suppose intrigue novel is one way to describe it, spy-ish, is another, though the main character is in no way a spy, but an engineer of sorts. Said main character is in Turkey for his company in hope of updating Turkey’s water defense systems at the beginning of/right before WWI, and it turns out other countries aren’t hyped for this and so want to kill him. Exciting, right! I loved the pacing, the person-thrust-into-the-espionage-world nature, the exotic historic locales, and the intriguingly suspicious side characters that populate it. Enough that I went back and re-read another one of his books, and liked it better than in the past, too. Now I’m on the hunt for more! Hopefully more with Cocktail Talks like the below.
“I think some food would do me good.”
“My dear Mr. Graham! How stupid of me! Some food. Of course! We can stop at Novi. You will be my guest. And if there is any champagne to be had, we shall have it. There is nothing like champagne when one is depressed.”
Graham felt suddenly a little light-headed. He laughed.
The Consul raised an eyebrow.
“I’m sorry,” Graham apologized. “You must excuse me. You see, it is rather funny. I had an appointment to meet someone on the two o’clock train. She’ll be rather surprised to see me.”
Years and years ago I featured here on the Spiked Punch a quote we’ll call A Man’s Head Cocktail Part I, at least we will now, as today we are having A Man’s Head Part II! Both are from the George Simenon book of the same name, a book featuring his character par excellence, Inspector Maigret, the taciturn, sometimes slow-moving, relentless, irreplaceable Parisian policeman, and a book (you may have guessed this!), I recently re-read. It was as good this time as the first time, whisking you away in a bygone Paris through prose that is as unmistakable as our Inspector. This case circles around a man waiting to be hung for a double murder, but a double murder Maigret has come to believe the man didn’t commit – so he basically breaks him out of prison, and lets the chips fly. They come to fly around a bar for part of the time, the famous La Coupole, which is where the action, as it is, is taking place in the below. In that quote, a Rose cocktail is ordered, which if you don’t know (I had to double check), is a mix of London dry gin, Heering cheery liqueur, and dry vermouth, garnished with a cherry. My guess is there are about 137 Rose cocktails, but this is a classic number that you see referred to as “French style,” making me believe it’s the Rose below!
And William Kirby, pushing his way between two people, held out a hand across the mahogany bar.
“How are you, Bob?”
Mrs. Kirby went straight up to the yellow-haired Swedish girl, kissing her and talking volubly in English.
The newcomers had no need to order drinks. Bob promptly handed Kirst a whiskey and soda, and mixed a Rose for his young wife, asking:
“Back from Biarritz already?”
“Only stayed three days. It was raining worse than here.”
