Andrew
Evan Hunter wrote close to 150 novels in his career. This is his very first one, originally published as The Evil Sleep! under his own name in 1952 and later re-released as So Nude, So Dead and credited to his most famous pen name, Ed McBain, in 2015.
As a debut novel, it's predictably a little rough around the edges with a fair few contrivances to push the plot forward. But also on display is the unique voice that Hunter would sharpen to a razor over the course of his career. For example, a passage at the start of Chapter 11 where he likens the unraveling murder mystery to a musical composition coming together:
Look at it like a sheet of music, a complicated score with difficult fingering.
Start a beautiful melody called Eileen, play it light, allegro, for twenty-two bars. Then kill it.
Bring in your subordinate theme, label it Charlie Massine, start it softly, with reminiscent snatches of the main theme, bring it to a climax. Kill it.
Then pull in your beautiful melody again, and this time weave it through with snatches of underlying currents: Babs, Tony Sanders, Dale Kramer, Peter Chalmers.
Sustain a heavy bass with the Peter Chalmers motif, sprinkled with a Dale Kramer pecking at the upper register.
Start a fast-traveling, frantic boogie, label it Tony Sanders. Pull in a handful of harmonious chords, full, throbbing, lingering, and call them Barbara Cole.
Then play them all together in a violent, sombre dance of death touched lightly with sixteen ounces of heroin. Move your fingers furiously, and try to find the key.
If you’re the police, add a single note, and keep pounding at it with one finger. The note is Ray Stone, hophead. That’s the key.
Being from 1952, there are other bits of the book that are unintentionally amusing to the modern reader...Ray Stone is a heroin addict, so of course he is a jazz musician (as is every other drug addict in the book) and there's a tearful description of how his fate was sealed from the very first time he smoked reefer. Every description (every description) of a woman starts with her breasts and moves downward.
Evan Hunter wrote close to 150 novels in his career. This is his very first one, originally published as The Evil Sleep! under his own name in 1952 and later re-released as So Nude, So Dead and credited to his most famous pen name, Ed McBain, in 2015.
As a debut novel, it's predictably a little rough around the edges with a fair few contrivances to push the plot forward. But also on display is the unique voice that Hunter would sharpen to a razor over the course of his career. For example, a passage at the start of Chapter 11 where he likens the unraveling murder mystery to a musical composition coming together:
Look at it like a sheet of music, a complicated score with difficult fingering.
Start a beautiful melody called Eileen, play it light, allegro, for twenty-two bars. Then kill it.
Bring in your subordinate theme, label it Charlie Massine, start it softly, with reminiscent snatches of the main theme, bring it to a climax. Kill it.
Then pull in your beautiful melody again, and this time weave it through with snatches of underlying currents: Babs, Tony Sanders, Dale Kramer, Peter Chalmers.
Sustain a heavy bass with the Peter Chalmers motif, sprinkled with a Dale Kramer pecking at the upper register.
Start a fast-traveling, frantic boogie, label it Tony Sanders. Pull in a handful of harmonious chords, full, throbbing, lingering, and call them Barbara Cole.
Then play them all together in a violent, sombre dance of death touched lightly with sixteen ounces of heroin. Move your fingers furiously, and try to find the key.
If you’re the police, add a single note, and keep pounding at it with one finger. The note is Ray Stone, hophead. That’s the key.
Being from 1952, there are other bits of the book that are unintentionally amusing to the modern reader...Ray Stone is a heroin addict, so of course he is a jazz musician (as is every other drug addict in the book) and there's a tearful description of how his fate was sealed from the very first time he smoked reefer. Every description (every description) of a woman starts with her breasts and moves downward.