Trouble Is My Name by Stephen Marlowe

First published in 1956; published digitally by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Media on December 18, 2012 

Stephen Marlowe was a prolific author who wrote under a variety of pen names. He attached his real name (Milton Lesser) to a few science fiction novels that are all but forgotten. His detective fiction is largely remembered for his creation of Chester Drum, a private investigator based in Washington, D.C. Trouble is My Name, a Drum novel, was first published in 1956. The story takes place in that time frame.

During the war, the O.S.S. supplied gold bars to fund a partisan resistance group in Germany. The responsible O.S.S. officers, Fred Severing and Kevin Keogh, disagreed about whether the gold should go to a group of Bavarians or a group affiliated with the Russians. Then Keogh died and the gold disappeared. Years later, for reasons that remain murky until the novel's end, Severing, now a congressman and a probable vice presidential candidate, is back in Germany.

Chester Drum travels to Germany in search of Severing, who has displeased his party by disappearing without explanation. To find Severing, Drum needs to speak to Wilhelm Rust, a war criminal who has served his sentence, but the interview is interrupted by gunfire. The Streicher twins, entertainers who double as killers, are after Rust, as are the West German security police, Rust's son, and Keogh's daughter Patty, who wants Rust to explain how her father died. Drum, naturally, is caught in the middle.

Drum is the kind of private detective who dominated noir fiction in the 1940s and 1950s. He's bright, tough, and cranky. He oozes integrity. You have to wonder how any of these guys made a living. They were always working for free, doing what needed to be done because it was the right thing to do, disdainfully ripping up checks from clients who tried to fire them.

Drum's biggest problem is that "the right thing to do" isn't always clear. He wants to be on the side of the angels, but someone stole the gold and someone is willing to murder to recover it. Is Severing an angel, a devil, or a pawn?

The set-up is interesting and credible. Marlowe's capable prose moves the story forward at a steady pace, leading to an extended action scene that (unlike many modern thrillers) is also credible. The conclusion is pure noir and quite satisfying.

RECOMMENDED