FORGOTTEN BOOKS #82: STRANGER IN TOWN By Brett Halliday


If memory serves me correctly, Stranger in Town was the first of dozens of Mike Shayne mysteries I read. The tough redheaded private eye would always get beaten up, knocked unconscious, end up in bed with a beautiful woman, and still manage to solve the murder after drinking a bottle of cognac. I’m sure the wonderful Robert McGinnis cover on Stranger in Town factored into my decision to spend thirty-five cents to buy this DELL paperback when it was published in 1961. I was 12 years old.

28 thoughts on “FORGOTTEN BOOKS #82: STRANGER IN TOWN By Brett Halliday

  1. Dan

    I’ve said this before but…

    McGinnis’ depictions of sexy women play on a fetish of mine: they all look strikingly intelligent. I always was a sucker for smart women.

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  2. Todd Mason

    They all have the same cheekbones. But this one’s cheekbone is covered by her hair. The man had range, no two ways about it. (As one correspondent once noted in response to this observation, “They have cheekbones?”)

    “Halliday” when actually Dresser is usually a fun read, even when there’s nothing unfamiliar about the work in question…the Other Hallidays were a very mixed bag…I keep meaning to excavate my MIKE SHAYNE’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE backfile and make a point of reading/rereading some of James Reasoner’s and others’…

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  3. Richard Robinson

    Great cover. I like the Shayne books quite a bit, they are fast, fun, satisfying in a way most mysteries written these days are not: they tell a straight story, wrap things up and let the reader enjoy the ride. No pretensions of “literature” about these books but they are great fun. Did I mention great cover?

    George, if you were 12, I’m surprised they let you buy the book.

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  4. Kent Morgan

    I just checked my collection and my copy has a different cover of a woman on the floor and Shayne with a gag over his mouth. The artist was Robert Stanley. It’s labelled A New Mike Shayne Mystery and the price was 35 cents. What makes this book special to me is that it has my late father’s initials printed in pen on the inside front page. I know he purchased it at a tobacco store in The Pas, Manitoba as this store was the only one in our small town north of the 53rd parallel that sold books. He bought and read all the Halliday books as well as Erle Stanley Gardner, A.A. Fair and George Harmon Coxe when they arrived in the store. I started reading them also as our town didn’t have a library and our school library seemed to focus on Tom Swift. While I don’t have any of the other PBs my father read, for some reason I kept all the Mike Shayne ones and just last year completed my collection.

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    1. george Post author

      You have an earlier edition of STRANGER IN TOWN, Kent. In the 1960’s, Robert McGinnis seemed to be the exclusive cover artist for the Mike Shayne series at DELL.

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  5. Todd Mason

    I am not quite the fan of McGinnis that some are, but I am a fan. The man knows his work, and has a fine touch.

    Bill, some of us didn’t resist the thrill of crime fiction (or erotically-charged art, as your collection of mid-’50s FANTASTICs will testify) early on. Yes, I’m on your lawn, whatcha gon–Ow.

    Rick, you know, the Stephen Fabian covers almost caused me some difficulty in buying some issues of AMAZING and FANTASTIC at age 13…but not much. Buying NATIONAL LAMPOON at age 10 was a bit trickier.

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    1. george Post author

      I ran into trouble as a teenager trying to buy PLAYBOY (I wanted to read the articles) and SWANK and other magazines of that ilk, Todd. Some clerks would refuse to sell them to me. I’d just go to another store and try again.

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    1. george Post author

      Thanks, Rick! Although I have fond memories of the cover on STRANGER IN TOWN, I can’t for the life of me remember anything about the actual novel.

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  6. Todd Mason

    In the cover painting, she certainly seems alert to the male figure apparently blithely walking through auto traffic to get to her at the bus stop (she may not necessarily look intelligent thus, but certainly observant, and probably anxious even as his figure suggests arrogance, haste, and incaution). Her pose and clothing are not only fashionably “smart” and form-fitting, but suggest sexual bondage, with the prominent belt and her arms behind her at the belt/waist level, and her top almost poised to fall off her shoulders; her legs are arranged in a somewhat defensive position, if she was lying down, and could suggest a desire to flee as she is “officially” standing up…against a background of night or dusk that somewhat resembles bedsheets, as even her all-white outfit does. Her facial expression is tense, but otherwise difficult to read…how much pleasure mixed with that tension? She could be looking at the man, or looking simply to her side, resigned to her fate (which certainly, um, ties in with bondage of literal or figurative sort).

    Yup, he definitely knows what he’s about, McGinnis. Now if the blurb-writers Bill’s been highlighting could’ve been nearly so subtle in their blatancy…

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    1. george Post author

      Great analysis, Todd! I can’t tell you how many paperback books I purchased just for the McGinnis cover. Of course, Art Scott beat me by a mile.

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  7. Art Scott

    Just to keep all you McGinnis fans salivating, there’s a new book in the works from Donald M Grant, focusing on McGinnis’s women, all the art shot from the original paintings. I’ve contributed the text for the sections on the paperbacks and his Cavalier magazine work (his gallery nudes are also featured). Mike Shayne gets a chapter, as do (of course!)Carter Brown and Shell Scott. Watch for it. By the way, the circular logo portrait of Shayne is by Bob Stanley, and was carried over into the McGinnis era for continuity.

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