Created by Floyd Mahannah
(1911-76)
Floyd Mahannah isn’t exactly a household name, even among fans of the genre. He only cranked a half dozen or so books and a handful of shortt stories in the digests of the time in the fifties.
But they were really good stuff.
A case in point being The Golden Widow (1956), a hard, nasty noir full of violence and sex that owes at least as much to James M. Cain as it does to Raymond Chandler.
DEX NOLAN is a former cop caught in one hell of a jam—he blew off his job to run a gold mine in Arizona, but he got the shaft. A few bad decisions and a load of back taxes have cost him everything.
So when Ivy, a former girlfriend, snaps her wealthy fingers and asks him to help her out of a blackmail jam, Dex jumps at the chance to do a little off-the-books private investigation.
Naturally, she’s the widow of the title. She’s got a dead husband and suspicions of murder dogging her.
Poor Dex. The next thing you know, the poor sap’s banging around with gangsters, smugglers, a suitcase full of geetus, a murder frame and the usual double- and triple-crosses; not to mention having the crap beat out of him several times.
But he’s got a few tricks up his sleeve…
Like I said, good stuff, if not exactly cutting edge. But if you’re into it, Mahannah cranked out a couple of other solid P.I. standalones, The Yellow Hearse and The Golden Goose. And don’t miss the short story, “Prognosis Negative,” a quick, mean blast of nastiness.
UNDER OATH
- “You get gangsters, drug smuggling, a suitcase full of loot, the cops chasing Dex for murders he didn’t commit, shootouts in the desert, and more double- and triple-crosses than you can keep up with. Dex takes a lot of punishment in this book, both physical and emotional, before the final twist comes barreling down on him and the reader.”
— James Reasoner (October 2024, Rough Edges)
NOVELS
- The Golden Widow (1956) | Buy this book
FURTHER INVESTIGATION
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
