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Mac #7
The Chased and the Unchaste
B001HM52YO The Chased and the Unchaste unknown_binding Publication 1959-01-01 Random House Inc
- GenresFiction
Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1958
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11 people want to read
About the author
Thomas B. Dewey
85 books8 followersThomas Blanchard Dewey was an American author of hardboiled crime novels. He created two series of novels: the first one features Mac, a private investigator from Chicago, the second features Pete Schofield.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 4, 2021
The seventh book in the “Mac” PI series finds Mac in Hollywood where he has been hired by a wealthy film producer to protect his young daughter from a kidnapping threat. Mac considers this to be a lucrative and easy job until a murder occurs and things begin to unravel. Dewey has a knack for creating fascinating female characters and here we have the saucy wife, the mousy governess and the cantankerous housekeeper, all with major roles in the narrative. The things that set Mac apart from the bevy of paperback original PIs of the era is that the characters and the plots are much more believable. Mac is a smart guy and he comes up with logical plans that don’t always go his way, rarely resorts to violence, and almost never gets the girl. Another fine novel from a writer who doesn’t get the respect or attention that he deserves.
December 13, 2017
The Chased and the Unchaste is the seventh novel in Dewey’s Mac series, falling about mid-way through the series. Published in 1959, this hardboiled detective novel is crisp and clean in its writing style. This one takes Mac from his mean streets of Chicago to tinseltown, where he works as a bodyguard for the family of a famous producer, his nubile young wife, Carol, who likes to swim au natural, and four- year-old Linda.
Much of the first half of the book takes place in the producer’s home with a revolving cast of estranged ex-wives, boxers, maids, cooks, nannies, executives, and the like making appearances. Mac tries to narrow down the cast to the few who really could be threatening the family and this part of the story feels a bit domestic and cozy. But, midway through, the story really opens up and goes straight into the familiar hardboiled territory with bodies turning up, mean cops turning on wiseguy out-of-town visiting private eyes, and the action really explodes.
The Mac series is a lot of fun to read and one of the most underrated and least known of the private eye series from the fifties and sixties.
Much of the first half of the book takes place in the producer’s home with a revolving cast of estranged ex-wives, boxers, maids, cooks, nannies, executives, and the like making appearances. Mac tries to narrow down the cast to the few who really could be threatening the family and this part of the story feels a bit domestic and cozy. But, midway through, the story really opens up and goes straight into the familiar hardboiled territory with bodies turning up, mean cops turning on wiseguy out-of-town visiting private eyes, and the action really explodes.
The Mac series is a lot of fun to read and one of the most underrated and least known of the private eye series from the fifties and sixties.
July 21, 2017
The Chased and the Unchaste is the seventh novel in Dewey’s Mac series, falling about mid-way through the series. Published in 1959, this hardboiled detective novel is crisp and clean in its writing style. This one takes Mac from his mean streets of Chicago to tinseltown, where he works as a bodyguard for the family of a famous producer, his nubile young wife, Carol, who likes to swim au natural, and four- year-old Linda.
Much of the first half of the book takes place in the producer’s home with a revolving cast of estranged ex-wives, boxers, maids, cooks, nannies, executives, and the like making appearances. Mac tries to narrow down the cast to the few who really could be threatening the family and this part of the story feels a bit domestic and cozy. But, midway through, the story really opens up and goes straight into the familiar hardboiled territory with bodies turning up, mean cops turning on wiseguy out-of-town visiting private eyes, and the action really explodes.
The Mac series is a lot of fun to read and one of the most underrated and least known of the private eye series from the fifties and sixties.
Much of the first half of the book takes place in the producer’s home with a revolving cast of estranged ex-wives, boxers, maids, cooks, nannies, executives, and the like making appearances. Mac tries to narrow down the cast to the few who really could be threatening the family and this part of the story feels a bit domestic and cozy. But, midway through, the story really opens up and goes straight into the familiar hardboiled territory with bodies turning up, mean cops turning on wiseguy out-of-town visiting private eyes, and the action really explodes.
The Mac series is a lot of fun to read and one of the most underrated and least known of the private eye series from the fifties and sixties.
August 31, 2025
Rounded down to 3.5
She broke off and it was like an amputation. It showed in her face.
"I mean," she said quietly, "I don't mean that's all there is to marriage. It's just an example. The thing is-to live with Julie, for a woman, you have to get under his skin some way.
Otherwise it's like living in a one-woman harem; or a flower in a pot that once in a while somebody sprinkles a little water on you."
"So," I said, for something to say, "you were in love with Julie when you married him?"
Carol ran her finger slowly around the rim of her glass.
"You want to know my private, personal theory about love?" she said. "Love is a luxury. It's what you have left over after the bills are paid. It's a windfall-like an unexpected divi-dend; or when they split the stock and suddenly you've got twice as much. And you know something else? The only people who get love, or even deserve to get it, are lovable people.
I don't mean perfect people, or special or brilliant or rich and famous or magnetic or proud or beautiful. I just mean lovable."
"That makes it sort of mysterious," I said.
"Sure it's mysterious. And you try to make it something else-like the patter of tiny feet or bread and salt on the table or some certain way to behave or not to behave-and you'll never know what it is; or you'll kill it."
I let myself out of the car at the hotel and said good night.
The sergeant nodded and slammed the door. I looked up at the hotel for a minute, then walked down the street to an all-night restaurant and drank some coffee. The cut on my face started to bleed again and I held a paper napkin over it while I walked back to the hotel and rode up to my floor. I threw the napkin away in a sand-filled ash pot in the corridor and gave it a few moments of thought, not very deep.
The blood was part of me, but it didn't have anything to do with identity. Millions of men had left gallons of blood in every country in the world, but it hadn't made them part of that country, nor the country part of them. And it never would. You had a certain amount of blood in you. If you were lucky, you kept it. Luck was the only method. I had been lucky.
"I'm asking you to go back and take care of Linda," I said.
"And the next time you get to Chicago, give me a ring." She sat there for about a minute, her eyes probing the dark, then she went into the bathroom and closed the door. I sat on the bed, waiting. There was a slender, shallow depression where she had been lying.
When she came out, she was brushed and primped and respectably concealed
"I'm sorry I was so long," she said. "I cried for a while."
"Good for you," I said.
"Shall we go?"
At the door she hung back. "Did he say that really? Does he want me back?"
"Last thing he said to me," I told her.
She turned her small face up, childlike. "Kiss me goodbye,
Mac," she said.
I kissed her cheek and her mouth. She smiled. As she walked ahead of me down the hall, she was doing very well.
I was proud of her. I thought about her with Linda and Julie in the big house and the years falling away, but it wasn't a picture I could hold onto. It kept coming apart. They would have to work it out some way, some day. • •
She broke off and it was like an amputation. It showed in her face.
"I mean," she said quietly, "I don't mean that's all there is to marriage. It's just an example. The thing is-to live with Julie, for a woman, you have to get under his skin some way.
Otherwise it's like living in a one-woman harem; or a flower in a pot that once in a while somebody sprinkles a little water on you."
"So," I said, for something to say, "you were in love with Julie when you married him?"
Carol ran her finger slowly around the rim of her glass.
"You want to know my private, personal theory about love?" she said. "Love is a luxury. It's what you have left over after the bills are paid. It's a windfall-like an unexpected divi-dend; or when they split the stock and suddenly you've got twice as much. And you know something else? The only people who get love, or even deserve to get it, are lovable people.
I don't mean perfect people, or special or brilliant or rich and famous or magnetic or proud or beautiful. I just mean lovable."
"That makes it sort of mysterious," I said.
"Sure it's mysterious. And you try to make it something else-like the patter of tiny feet or bread and salt on the table or some certain way to behave or not to behave-and you'll never know what it is; or you'll kill it."
I let myself out of the car at the hotel and said good night.
The sergeant nodded and slammed the door. I looked up at the hotel for a minute, then walked down the street to an all-night restaurant and drank some coffee. The cut on my face started to bleed again and I held a paper napkin over it while I walked back to the hotel and rode up to my floor. I threw the napkin away in a sand-filled ash pot in the corridor and gave it a few moments of thought, not very deep.
The blood was part of me, but it didn't have anything to do with identity. Millions of men had left gallons of blood in every country in the world, but it hadn't made them part of that country, nor the country part of them. And it never would. You had a certain amount of blood in you. If you were lucky, you kept it. Luck was the only method. I had been lucky.
"I'm asking you to go back and take care of Linda," I said.
"And the next time you get to Chicago, give me a ring." She sat there for about a minute, her eyes probing the dark, then she went into the bathroom and closed the door. I sat on the bed, waiting. There was a slender, shallow depression where she had been lying.
When she came out, she was brushed and primped and respectably concealed
"I'm sorry I was so long," she said. "I cried for a while."
"Good for you," I said.
"Shall we go?"
At the door she hung back. "Did he say that really? Does he want me back?"
"Last thing he said to me," I told her.
She turned her small face up, childlike. "Kiss me goodbye,
Mac," she said.
I kissed her cheek and her mouth. She smiled. As she walked ahead of me down the hall, she was doing very well.
I was proud of her. I thought about her with Linda and Julie in the big house and the years falling away, but it wasn't a picture I could hold onto. It kept coming apart. They would have to work it out some way, some day. • •
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews