My pal JJ has been extolling the talents of Herbert Brean over at The Invisible Event since 2017 . . . but I didn’t listen. Two years after that, our buddy Ben at The Green Capsule joined in the chorus . . . and I didn’t take up the tune. And then in 2020 our friend the Puzzle Doctor took a different tack by being pretty unimpressed with Brean! I must have been distracted by other things in 2020, but when PD talks, I listen: we tend to have opposite views on the most interesting things (koff*Jumping Jenny*koff)! After reading the first two books by Brean (the second one in disgust), ol’ PD decided to give those Brean titles a new home – and he sent them to yours truly. I thanked him for his generosity and placed those two titles on my tottering TBR pile, where they have occupied positions #361 and 362. 

Until today, folks! Until today!!

Herbert Brean (1907- 1973) wrote seven crime novels and a bunch of short stories and non-fiction articles, one of which (“A Case of Identity”) formed the basis of the Alfred Hitchcock film, The Wrong Man. He was a member of the Baker Street Irregulars and a director of the Mystery Writers of America. And, of course, he is all but forgotten today. 

One of Brean’s two detective protagonists was Reynold Frame, who, like Brean, was a journalist. Frame debuted in Wilders Walk Away (1948) and appeared in three more of Brean’s novels: The Darker the Night (1949), Hardly a Man Is Now Alive (1950) and The Clock Strikes 13 (1952). You can check out my friends’ reviews yourself, but the gist is that the first and the third are the best. The Doctor was turned off enough by The Darker the Night that he forsook Brean in the future and shelled out the overseas postage to put this and Wilders Walk Away in my greedy little hands. 

Of course, I have gotten things mixed up and chose the second title to read first. The only spoiler is that in Darker, Frame is engaged to a character from the first book, but she only appears momentarily at the end. Otherwise, it looks like you can read these out of order with no problem. Which is a relief because I have to say that, with one caveat, I loved The Darker the Night! Unfortunately, the caveat is that it isn’t an especially puzzling mystery, but for a while it sure reads like one, and I really don’t want that little fact to distract you from the book’s many sordid charms. 

I have no idea yet how different this book is from Wilders Walk Away – that one is a dark village mystery, and I have heard comparisons for to Ellery Queen’s Wrightsville books. The Darker the Night is a New York crime story through and through. Brean milks all the suspense he can get out of Frame’s wandering the city streets at midnight, finding danger in the darkened rooms of posh penthouses and Skid row tenements alike, and making enemies of society’s cream, its scum, and even of the police who ostensibly protect them all.  

It begins like one of those sophisticated urban whodunits that writers like Patrick Quentin wrote so well. (I was particularly reminded of the 1952 Peter Duluth mystery, Black Widow.) It is the night before Thanksgiving, and Reynold Frame has just wrapped up an exhausting freelance photo-journalism assignment:

“He had the spent, empty feeling that comes from working too long to hard. His mind spun with a thousand and one details that had had to be checked, with anxiety over whether a last-minute change in the layout had not ruined one of the best pictures, whether he had done as good a job with the text as the story deserved.”

Frame stops in a bar for a scotch on the rocks and turns his attention for the first time to the morning paper, where he reads about a Cleveland attorney named Douglas Ballantyne who fell to his death from the 26^th floor of the Barchester Hotel. It turns out that Ballantyne’s niece Lee is an old college friend, and out of concern, Frame decides to look her up – and steps into a growing nightmare when another friend invites them to a party at her place where the guests will be regaled by a demonstration of hypnotism from the renowned Gary Price. 

And now we seem to enter the same world of Carter Dickson’s The Reader Is Warned, where Herman Pennick wielded his “Teleforce” for seemingly malevolent purposes. Is Gary Price a self-aggrandizing entertainer? Or is he capable of causing his subjects to either throw themselves out of a high-rise window or, perhaps, push someone else to their death??

This is certainly part of what makes up The Darker the Night, and it’s an entertaining aspect of the book, if somewhat unsatisfying in the end. The circle of rich folks are interesting without being particularly well-delineated, and as my blog-bros have pointed out, there is no deep clueing to lead you to a stunning reveal at the end. But the title should clue you into the fact that this book owes as much to the popularity in the 1940’s of noir as it does to the denizens of classic mystery. As Frame investigates, we move more into Woolrich territory. The focus here is clearly on the investigator, who can be sympathetic and sensitive to a grieving girl and then turn on a dime into a tough guy. 

The murder plot has some of its origins in the lurid past, including the exploits of one Al Capone. Frame faces off with a violent gangster, drinks to excess more than once, engages in witty repartee with friends and foes, and instigates a truly thrilling escape from the cops who, true to form in any mystery genre, mistakenly believe that in Frame they have found their man! The middle of the book is one big thrill ride before we come down, but only slightly, with a gathering of the suspects and the unmasking of an all-too-obvious killer. 

Along with the urban settings and snappy prose of Quentin and the melodramatic premise of Dickson, Brean also includes footnotes worthy of Van Dine or Carr, including a delicious-sounding recipe for something called spiedino romana. And there’s enough butter and cheese in this to cause a murder by heart attack, for those of you who might be inspired to go there! I had a ball with this novel. I can understand how Brean might have inspired Hitchcock, and I only wish that The Darker the Night had been made into a movie; certainly the themes and set pieces found here have inspired many a film noir director. 

And, hey! if I liked this one this much, think of how much I’m going to enjoy Wilders Walk Away, a book that my blog-bros all agree is even better. And if I can ever find a copy of Hardly a Man Is Now Alive, which they think is Brean’s masterpiece . . . well, that will be a real spiedino romana!! And so, I want you to read this one. No, really, read it! Okay, listen to my voice . . . your eyes are getting heavy . . . heavy . . . you are falling into a deep and restful sleep . . . sleep . . . sleeeeeep . . . . .