Carl Deuker -- Books, Movies, TV

This time Fisher is after an Irish criminal who is extraordinarily clever. The police have him trapped in a tower.  Five police approach--four windows, one door.  Two of the police are killed, other two injured.  How did he do it?  He didn't.  He wasn't there. One of the policemen, eager to prove his own skill, kills his partners as they all peer into the space where the criminal is supposed to be.  He then falls backward on his ladder to feign injury. Fisher figures it all out . . . but . . . it's the English investigating the Irish.  They can't let the scandalous behavior of the English cop get out. So, the cop's actions are covered up and the Irish criminal goes to jail.  (Fisher does help him escape.)  Again, he is the "man who knew too much."

Middle-aged crisis. Job . . . wife . . . teen-aged daughter When this movie hits, it's spectacular, and it hits often enough to be a **** movie for me.  Excellent acting, surprising shifts in plot that still fit, funny, thought-provoking.  I always worry about seeing a movie again after many years (Bonnie and Clyde, Yikes!), but this one held up.

Based on a play.  Judie Holliday, under the tutelage of William Holden, learns about America's founding principles and learns that her abusive sugar daddy, Broderick Crawford, is a criminal.  First 3/4ths are wonderful.  Last 1/4th is a bit on the preachy/sappy side, but still 3.5 stars

Face in the Target (story one) I was expecting a novel--basis for Hitchcock movie.  Instead it's a collection of stories with Fisher--the man who knows too much--as a a laconic, ironic, detective.  His buddy March (reporter) is along for the first one. March, reporter, comes upon Fisher, laconic upper crust Englishman who is . . . fishing.  A car comes flying over a nearby cliff as they talk.  Accident?  Suicide?  March follows along as Fisher, through keen observation, deduces that it is a murder and also comes up with the murderer.  Pretense and reality, nicely done.  Fisher decides, in the end, not to have murderer arrested.  Very enjoyable

Rabbi Small is a Sherlock Holmes detective, noticing small details and putting together the big picture by deduction.  No surprise (sadly) that the Episcopal minister isn't the murderer.  No surprise that no one in the Jewish community is the murderer.  So that leaves Al Hirsh's workplace, and the ending is reasonably satisfying.  A very pleasant cozy mystery.

Rabbi Small has all sorts of problems.  He agrees to bury Al Hirsh, a non-practicing Jew, in the Jewish cemetery. Hirsh is a suicide.  (Or is he?  Murder?) This "outrages" the Goronsky family who might be thinking of contributing $$$ for a new chapel.  This upsets a member of the congregation (architect) who would like to design that chapel.  Rabbi stands firm:  the buried man will stay in the cemetery and there will be no separating him from others.  Angry members of congregation conspire against the Rabbi.  They want his job--force him to resign over the burial issue.  They want the $$$ for the new chapel.  (Small doesn't.  Too showy, no need.) Details:  Hirsh worked on Manhattan Project.  Alcoholic over guilt, he was about to be fired. This fits the "suicide" angle.  Good fun, a cozy mystery with gentle teaching of Judaic traditions.

I read these years ago and decided to revisit.  Very enjoyable,  Kemelman blends lessons on Judaism with a mystery.  In this book, Yom Kippur is (gently) explained, as is the ins-and-outs of a Rabbi's relationship with his synagogue, both the members and the administration. The death is Isaac Hirsh, a mathematician who goes on benders now and again.  This time he comes upon a bottle when his neighbor is out and the deliveryman leaves it with Hirsh. Hirsh has a young wife, is a mathematician, is non-observant.  He drinks the liquor, intending to but a bottle to replace it for his neighbor.  He throws away the box/address label. So . . . probably poisoned liquor intended for the neighbor, Levenson. Other characters:  and old guy, Garafosky or some such, who refuses to break the Yom Kippur fast to take his medicine.  Rabbi Small explains he's actually breaking Hebrew law by NOT taking it, but the old guy is stubborn and actually enjoys the ar...