The Brand Of Silence: A Detective Story by Johnston McculleyMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Another rip-roaring pulp adventure from McCulley.
He's re-using his material a bit. The wealthy man gains his valet the same way the wealthy man in The Black Star gets his valet: he finds him about to commit suicide by jumping into a river, talks him out of it, and gains his gratitude and loyalty for life. This seems a slightly unconventional way of getting a valet (I believe it was more common to go to an agency), and it's weird that it happened twice. Anyway, "Murk," as he names the valet (who, implausibly, has used so many false names he's forgotten his real one), is "solid" for his boss from then on. So is his boss's old friend, a detective, who values friendship and loyalty more than money. Both of them refuse to be intimidated or bribed into working against, or ceasing to work for, the hero.
And he needs loyal friends, because he's come back to New York from ten years in Honduras, where he turned $10,000 into a million, to find that he's mysteriously shunned by society; a bank manager doesn't want his business, he's asked to leave the first hotel he books into, young women he hardly knows cut him dead, and, when forced to talk to him, say "You know what you did!" But he doesn't.
And then he gets arrested for murder, and the people who can prove his alibi swear they never saw him at the time.
It's a fine mystery, and it took me until 70% of the way through to figure out what was going on and who was behind it. (view spoiler) Meanwhile, there's lots of detective work and plenty of being ambushed and hit on the head and abducted. It's hard-boiled on the outside and noblebright on the inside; both Murk and the detective maintain their loyalty, and the hero is a good man wrongly accused.
If you're going to write pulp fiction, this is how to do it.
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