I'll Kill You Next! by Adam Knight (Lawrence Lariar)

Steve Conacher is a private investigator. He’s been hired by Luke Yorke, an aging cartoonist and well known as the man behind the famous “Caleb Straight” comic strip. Yorke has hired Conacher to locate Mike Smith, an up-and-coming cartoonist and Yorke’s protégé. Conacher is a good choice given his own friendship with Smith. But Conacher knows there is more to the story than just a missing persons case. Yorke is getting old, and he's ill. He needs somebody to take over the reigns of the comic strip and thinks Mike Smith has the talent to do so. Of greater concern to Conacher, however, is that Yorke’s spoiled brat of a nephew will take over unless Smith can be found.

The stakes grow higher when Mike Smith is found dead. It looks to be suicide, but Conacher knows better. The discovery of a new rival comic strip being readied for launch gives a prime motive for Smith to be cleared out of the way. But who is behind this new strip? Who has the talent? It seems likely that it’s one of three dames orbiting Luke Yorke’s world.

The author of this novel is Lawrence Lariar, writing under the pen name “Adam Knight”. He also wrote crime novels under the names Michael Stark and Marston la France. Lariar, however, was not only a novelist. He is perhaps better known in the world of comics where he worked as a cartoonist, a cartoon editor and as the compiler of the “Best Cartoons of the Year” series. He definitely knew the mid-20th century carton business and this novel reflects that expertise. At one point he couldn't resist having his main character, PI Conacher find a copy of “Best Cartoons of the Year” while searching a room.

So it seems the world of 1950s cartooning can be just as cut-throat as any other business, especially when three beautiful women are involved, each with their own agenda. Conacher gets beat up quite a lot over the course of the story, walking into ambushes, being clobbered over the head and waking up on some couch somewhere. But in the end, he proves his cerebral acuity, figuring out what’s been happening, and resolving the crime.

I should also mention the teaser quote on the back of the book: "She got what she wanted. She was an eye-catching dish with a low, throaty voice, and she purred like a caged tiger. As she slowly rose from the couch, she pointed the gun right at my stomach and whispered, “I got rid of him and now…I’ll Kill You Next!” Like many similar paperbacks of the 1950s, this quote and the title itself have little to do with the story. It’s pure marketing designed to get their readers (young men) to plunk down a quarter and buy the book. No such quote, or scene, appears in the novel.

While this wasn’t a remarkable reading experience for me, it was entertaining and kept me interested to see what happened next. Given the opportunity, I would read more of Lawrence Lariar’s crime fiction…and maybe check out his work in the comic industry as well.