Cleve F. Adams. The Black Door (1941, reprinted 1952)

     Cleve F. Adams. The Black Door (1941, reprinted 1952 in a Popular Library edition) Flagg has been given a do-nothing job because his fiancée is the daughter of a tycoon. Some social and some business secrets get all mixed up and he finds himself investigating a friend of his fiancée’s, who is after his bod. I stopped reading halfway through this “Hard-Boiled Detective Novel,” as I couldn’t care enough about the characters or their predicaments. The story would work quite well as B-movie, which would also have the advantage of requiring only 90 minutes or so of my time instead of several hours.. As it is, it has historical interest only, as an example of its genre as produced in the pre-war period. * (2005)