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Dan Fortune #5
Shadow of a Tiger
A pawnbroker dies, and Fortune investigates his brother, a French soldierIt’s summer in New York, and the city is boiling. Unable to stand the heat, Dan Fortune’s girlfriend Marty asks him to pawn her diamond ring in order to buy them a few weeks by the seashore. Fortune does as told, but picks up some business while at the pawnshop. There he meets Claude Marais, brother of the pawnbroker and veteran of the humiliating French defeats in Vietnam and Algiers. Fearing that someone is trying to kill her husband, Claude’s wife hires Fortune to guard him against a mysterious German with a years-old wartime grudge. Because money is tight, Fortune violates his own policy of avoiding suspicious cases, and agrees to spend a night standing guard outside Claude’s hotel room. In the morning Claude is fine, but the pawnbroker hangs from a rope in his shop’s back room. To avenge the pawnbroker, Fortune’s vacation will have to be postponed.
- GenresMystery
184 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1972
About the author
Michael Collins
35 books7 followersMichael Collins was a Pseudonym of Dennis Lynds (1924–2005), a renowned author of mystery fiction. Raised in New York City, he earned a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart during World War II, before returning to New York to become a magazine editor. He published his first book, a war novel called Combat Soldier, in 1962, before moving to California to write for television.
Two years later Collins published the Edgar Award–winning Act of Fear (1967), which introduced his best-known character: the one-armed private detective Dan Fortune. The Fortune series would last for more than a dozen novels, spanning three decades, and is credited with marking a more politically aware era in private-eye fiction. Besides the Fortune novels, the incredibly prolific Collins wrote science fiction, literary fiction, and several other mystery series. He died in Santa Barbara in 2005.
Two years later Collins published the Edgar Award–winning Act of Fear (1967), which introduced his best-known character: the one-armed private detective Dan Fortune. The Fortune series would last for more than a dozen novels, spanning three decades, and is credited with marking a more politically aware era in private-eye fiction. Besides the Fortune novels, the incredibly prolific Collins wrote science fiction, literary fiction, and several other mystery series. He died in Santa Barbara in 2005.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 25, 2017
Shadow of a Tiger. Dennis Lynds
A friend of Dan Fortune is murdered. Dan has very few friends. His friend, a pawn broker was an honest, good man from France. He suffered during the war under Nazi oppression. He didn't fight them, he just survived and carried his memories with him, in silence. Another man lies about his past. Everyone who knows him thinks he is a hero. Only he knows, but he has lived under the illusion too long. Another man, who worked for the pawn broker lives a tortured existence brought on by the racist stupidity of others. He craves an identity, but also lives in an illusion. A tragic scenario, that unfortunately too many people exist in. An extremely well written Thriller! Enjoyed immensely!
A friend of Dan Fortune is murdered. Dan has very few friends. His friend, a pawn broker was an honest, good man from France. He suffered during the war under Nazi oppression. He didn't fight them, he just survived and carried his memories with him, in silence. Another man lies about his past. Everyone who knows him thinks he is a hero. Only he knows, but he has lived under the illusion too long. Another man, who worked for the pawn broker lives a tortured existence brought on by the racist stupidity of others. He craves an identity, but also lives in an illusion. A tragic scenario, that unfortunately too many people exist in. An extremely well written Thriller! Enjoyed immensely!
December 18, 2019
The influence of Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer series is what originally drove me to this series. Dan Fortune can kind of be seen as Archer’s east coast counterpart, only he’s missing an arm and we know more about his personal life. In this one, Dennis Lynds (writing under the nom de plume “Michael Collins”) treads familiar territory for both he and his influencer: exploring the dirty deeds of a family.
A recurring theme in many of these stories is the past often catches up to us. Macdonald would often use this to explore psychological themes in his stories; in other words, why the Greek classics tell on our behavior. Lynds isn’t so high concept. These are simple mystery stories and he keeps the mental motivations to a minimum. Both writers exhibit a deep sense of empathy for their subjects, even (sometimes especially) the criminals).
That’s what I love about this series but even given that Dan Fortune is still understanding of the whys of bad behavior, this one is tough to swallow because of how Lynds writes far east Asians. Lynds is sympathetic to Asian folk and tries to understand Chinese and Thai culture and is definitely not trying to be racist.
But man…yikes.
There’s a lot musings on honor and Buddhism and the 0-word, showing that Lynds, despite good intentions, clearly has no idea what he’s talking about. And the female Thai character was written in such a stereotypical way as to make Graham Greene blush. It’s just impossible to get over and it cost the book a star.
It is easy to say that ratings should be determined just by the quality of the tale and not how prejudiced the writer is. I’ve never really known how to strike that balance; I’ve enjoyed plenty of books with prejudicial views and I try to be honest about how it impacts the story itself. If we threw out every book with a prejudicial bend and/or author, we’d have little to read. But I still feel like acknowledging this is important because, at least for me, it impacts my enjoyment of the book and how I view it. I’d be interested to see how other people deal with this.
A recurring theme in many of these stories is the past often catches up to us. Macdonald would often use this to explore psychological themes in his stories; in other words, why the Greek classics tell on our behavior. Lynds isn’t so high concept. These are simple mystery stories and he keeps the mental motivations to a minimum. Both writers exhibit a deep sense of empathy for their subjects, even (sometimes especially) the criminals).
That’s what I love about this series but even given that Dan Fortune is still understanding of the whys of bad behavior, this one is tough to swallow because of how Lynds writes far east Asians. Lynds is sympathetic to Asian folk and tries to understand Chinese and Thai culture and is definitely not trying to be racist.
But man…yikes.
There’s a lot musings on honor and Buddhism and the 0-word, showing that Lynds, despite good intentions, clearly has no idea what he’s talking about. And the female Thai character was written in such a stereotypical way as to make Graham Greene blush. It’s just impossible to get over and it cost the book a star.
It is easy to say that ratings should be determined just by the quality of the tale and not how prejudiced the writer is. I’ve never really known how to strike that balance; I’ve enjoyed plenty of books with prejudicial views and I try to be honest about how it impacts the story itself. If we threw out every book with a prejudicial bend and/or author, we’d have little to read. But I still feel like acknowledging this is important because, at least for me, it impacts my enjoyment of the book and how I view it. I’d be interested to see how other people deal with this.
June 6, 2010
This is one of my favorite classic hard-boiled PI series.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews