Jack Iams was the penname for Samuel H. Iams Jr (1910-1990) and yes, the surname does keep reminding me of the cat biscuit brand. Nevertheless, Iams was an American author who worked as a journalist and according to the Gadetection website ‘served as a news bureau chief during WW2.’ His background in journalism shaped his mystery series which is centred on an amateur sleuth called Stanley Rockwell a.k.a. Rocky, who is an editor for a newspaper.
I am not sure if his job changes over the course of the series, but he appeared in 9 mysteries. Today’s read comes about halfway through the series, which ran from 1947 to 1955. Iams is a writer I have been interested to try for some time, but tracking down his books is not the easiest task, particularly if you want to avoid the large print editions available second hand online.
Synopsis
‘Uncle Poot was murdered on Christmas Eve. Poot was an irascible old cuss who made and sold toys all year long, but on Christmas he was Santa Claus to the city’s underprivileged small fry to whom he opened his shop for an annual party. Why anyone would murder his old friend Poot causes a young city editor to try to find the killer, and before he comes up with the right answer a lot of local scandal gets an airing and the editor very near loses his own life.’
Overall Thoughts
The story begins late one evening, at the Record, where Rocky works, and it is he who narrates the story:
‘“Rocky,” he said, “you got a minute?”
The question was rhetorical, but as long as he had called me Rocky, I knew it wasn’t anything very serious. If it had been, he’d have called me Rockwell, and if I’d been in hot water of any kind, he’d have called me Stanley. Stanley is my first name, and a perfectly good one, but when J. H. used it, it somehow reminded people that I was pretty young to be city editor – not quite thirty – and had better not get too big for my britches.’
As the plot progresses, Rocky does indeed get called different names depending on how much trouble he is in.
I liked the description of another member of the Record team, Debbie Mayfair a.k.a. Mrs Pickett, who writes the society column:
‘She herself had never belonged to what passed for society in our city of eighty-odd thousand, and she had precious little use for those who did, but, nevertheless, Debbie Mayfair was the town’s social arbiter. If you made her column, you were in. If you didn’t, all you could do was brush up on your manners and hope for the best. Her decisions between sheep and goats were ruthless except in the case of children’s parties and golden wedding anniversaries.
“Children,” she was fond of saying, “belong to society automatically. Innocent until proven guilty, see? And people that can stay married fifty years are the backbone of the country. What the hell else is society supposed to be?”
Her own marriage, though rarely mentioned, was understood to have lasted about six months.’
Another favourite character description is for Wetherby Derwent, who is said to ‘look like a man going to fight a duel that he had no interest in, and no hope of winning.’ I felt that was such an evocative line for someone who is feeling dejection. At the beginning of the book, the Malloy family want an announcement, in the Record, for the children’s party they are holding at their community centre, yet this seemingly innocent request provokes a strong reaction at the newspaper:
‘The Malloy family was not society. Politically, it was the city’s ruling dynasty and one of the richest families in town, but that, in Mrs Pickett’s book, was beside the point. It wasn’t altogether because the late Martin Malloy, Sr., had started out as a bricklayer, either. it was because the late Martin and his son after him had cut a lot of sharp corners in their rise to power, and while nothing specifically crooked had ever been pinned on them, their money didn’t smell like Chanel No. 5.
Editorially, the Record opposed the Malloy regime, but there were certain rules to the game. It was one thing to write thundering blasts against corruption at City Hall and quite another to indulge in small discourtesies such as ignoring an item the Malloys wanted printed. That could lead to retaliatory discourtesies – police passes and delivery truck permits, for instance, would suddenly be very hard to renew.’
In addition, the Malloy Community Centre is not the asset it is claimed to be:
‘On the surface, it sounded like a worthy and high-minded enterprise, but the plain fact was that the Malloy Memorial Community Centre was a joke. It was an old warehouse that Martin, Jr., had found himself stuck with and had turned into a civic project by adding a few Beaver-board partitions and a Ping-pong table. God knows that Shady Hollow could have used a community centre – it was the town’s slum and pink-light district […] but the Malloy Memorial wasn’t it.’
The project is being run by a director; a young woman named Jane Hewes. It is reported that ‘she was a social worker whom the Malloys had imported, presumably because no local social worker would have touched the project with a ten-foot Geiger counter.’
The children’s party will clash with Uncle Poot’s, so the Record decide to do a joint piece on the events. It is clear from the off that Rocky and Hewes will have a love-hate relationship, which is going to lead to something more. Not that their relationship is free of obstacles. Jane refuses to hear anything bad about the Malloy family and she does not believe they are involved in any corrupt activities. Moreover, she seems to be close to Martin Malloy III, the youngest member of the family.
When Uncle Poot is killed, circumstantial evidence initially points in a few directions for the reader, before narrowing down to one suspect and I was surprised (in a good way) that I had picked the wrong person. The obvious “bad guy” Martin Malloy III has an alibi, attending a party that Rockwell and Jane are also at.
Racism is certainly something classic crime fiction can be guilty of, and it can be less common for such books to demonstrably challenge it. However, I think Iams’ book is one of those instances, where discrimination and exclusion based on colour is not allowed a free pass. Rocky arrives at the Malloy Memorial Community Centre children’s party, and we are told about the children that:
‘They were quite a mixture, Irish and Italian predominating, with a sprinkling of Central Europe, but it occurred to me that something was lacking among the melting-pot ingredients.
“How come no coloured kids?” I asked Jane.
She bit her lip and looked away. “Mr Malloy said no.”
“Huh!” I snorted. “Dreaming of an all-white Christmas, is he?”
In my indignation, I must have spoken pretty loudly, because almost immediately a voice called from the top of the stairs.’
A couple of pages later Rocky asks Martin Malloy III why his father made this decision:
‘Marty considered, as if debating whether to give me a belligerent answer or a sweetly reasonable one. Apparently he decided on the latter. “You know yourself,” he said, “that there’s been a good deal of racial friction in this neighbourhood. Mostly among teen-age gangs. Nobody regrets it more than I do, but we felt we couldn’t risk it.”
“Uncle Poot used to risk it every year.”
“Who? Oh, the toy man. Poor fellow, that was a shame, wasn’t it?”
“It’s also a shame that the coloured kids won’t have any party at all this year.”
“That’s going to be your story, is it – race prejudice at the Community Centre?”
“I think it’s worth mentioning.”
Racial discrimination is not ignored in this story, and whilst the language is not necessarily the words we would use now, the intention is still sound i.e. that all the children of Shady Hollow should be allowed a Christmas party, regardless of their skin colour. To that end Rockwell and Jane Hewes decide to host a party at Poot’s toyshop for the children who have been excluded. This brings a lot of joy to the kids and they especially like being able to pick one a toy from the shop.
It does seem though that Rocky is also using the children’s party as camouflage for searching the crime scene at the back of the shop:
‘It occurred to me, as I looked around, that if I was going to make a minute search for overlooked clues, the importation of a gang of children was the hard way of going about it. On the other hand, their light-hearted presence offered a certain amount of cover, in case anybody for nosy about my being there.’
The children’s party ends in a fight between Rocky and Martin Malloy III (who is still wearing his Santa Klaus outfit from the other children’s party). Interestingly this gives him a temporary advantage as Rockwell finds it hard to punch him in the stomach due to his pillow padding.
Nearly 50% of the way through the novel and I was surprised that Rocky had not done much sleuthing, he almost seems to fatalistically accept the guilt of the man the police have arrested. This is contrary to the blurb which makes Rockwell out to be a much more direct and focused amateur detective. Furthermore, the sleuthing even pauses, due to City Hall obstacles, and at one point when Rocky is arrested, and his friendly police contact is suspended. In spite of this information is still forthcoming. For example, one conversation provides some alibi busting clues, although I think this was done a little heavy-handedly. Nevertheless, the lack of detective work is strange at times. A thriller-styled finale is required to find the last pieces of evidence. Normally, this would irritate or disappoint me, but I think Iams manages to make it work. The pacing balances out the less directive sleuthing and the narrative reads well. The motive for the murder of Uncle Poot is an interesting one, connecting to the victim and his business in a very specific way. I definitely think I would read more by this author.
Rating: 4.25/5
See also: Curtis, Bev and Tracey have also reviewed this title on their respective blogs.