What do you think?
Rate this book
Deadly Pick-Up, The & Killer Take All!
Armchair Fiction presents extra large editions of classic mystery-crime double novels. The first novel is “The Deadly Pick-up” by one of the better mystery writers of the 1950s, Milton K. Ozaki. She was a clean-limbed, lemon fluff blonde standing there, waiting for a taxi. Gordon Banner was a lonely out-of-towner who happened to be driving by. The ominous threat of rain, plus a shortage of empty cabs, made the pick-up easy. Before long, he found himself inside her apartment. Flung upon the bed was the still warm body of the clean-limbed, lemon fluff blonde. She’d been strangled—strangled while he waited outside her door for her to change out of her ripped dress. Thus did Gordon Banner become the prime suspect in the murder of a girl he had known only a few short minutes. Swiftly paced and filled with raw, gritty, suspense, “The Deadly Pick-up” ranks among renown mystery author Milton Ozaki’s most spine-tingling tales. The second novel is “Killer Take All!” by another fine mystery writer, James O. Causey. Tony Pearson was a pro-golfer wannabe. He couldn’t cut it on the PGA tour. He couldn’t even cut it as an assistant club pro at a local country club. Then Max Baird came into his life. Max Baird, a known gangster with a reputation for dope smuggling and prostitution. But Baird was trying to clean up his act, and when he hired Pearson to be his club pro at his lavish golf course, it was just another small step in trying to make his operation look “legitimate.” But an unfaithful floozy of a wife, an unscrupulous business manager, and a fake Rembrandt all led Tony Pearson into a convoluted web of conspiracy and eventually…first degree murder, a crime for which Pearson had been neatly framed. Only a passionate ex-lover, an aging confidence man, and a sympathetic cop stood between Tony Pearson and the gas chamber in one of the hottest murder mysteries you’ll ever read…
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 26, 2015
1 person is currently reading
7 people want to read
About the author
Milton K. Ozaki
42 books2 followersAka Robert O. Saber.
Milton K. Ozaki, born in Racine, Wisconsin from a Japanese father (Jingaro Ozaki, who later changed his name to Frank) and an American mother, Augusta Rathbun, was a journalist, a reporter and a beauty parlor operator (the Monsieur Meltoine beauty salon, in the Gold Coast section of Chicago). He is the author of approximately two dozen popular mid-20th Century detective novels under both his given name and the pseudonym Robert O. Saber, and is considered one of the first American mystery writers of Japanese descent. He died in Sparks, Nevada.
Milton K. Ozaki, born in Racine, Wisconsin from a Japanese father (Jingaro Ozaki, who later changed his name to Frank) and an American mother, Augusta Rathbun, was a journalist, a reporter and a beauty parlor operator (the Monsieur Meltoine beauty salon, in the Gold Coast section of Chicago). He is the author of approximately two dozen popular mid-20th Century detective novels under both his given name and the pseudonym Robert O. Saber, and is considered one of the first American mystery writers of Japanese descent. He died in Sparks, Nevada.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 11, 2021
When Gordon Banner, a flour salesman, moves to Chicago from a small town in Wisconsin, he barely has time to check into a hotel before he's up to his neck in mobsters, murder, dope, cops, and women of questionable virtue.
His misadventures begin when he spies a very sexy blonde standing at the curb desperately attempting to flag down a cab. The wolf in Banner, as opposed to the gentleman, leads him to pull over and offer the young woman a ride. She has an urgent errand to run but needs to swing by her apartment on the way. Banner waits for her in the car, but when she fails to return after nearly thirty minutes, he goes up to check on the woman only to find that she's been murdered. And if that weren't bad enough, she's left a package in his car containing a hundred thousand dollars!
One thing leads to another and, naturally, Banner is in the frame for the murder. Additionally, of course, some fairly nasty people are hunting for the cash. Inevitably in a book like this, the only way Banner will be able to save himself will be to solve the murder on his own. This will pose something of a challenge given that he's new in town, knows nothing about the city, and knows no one who might help him. And caught between all the competing factions he encounters, he'll be lucky to escape with his life.
First published in 1954, this is a fairly standard pulp novel for the day. It's a reasonably entertaining read, but it's not among the better examples of the genre and will probably appeal only to die-hard fans. More interesting than the book itself is the author, Milton Ozaki, who was apparently one of the first writers of Japanese descent to write American crime novels. He lost a leg as a youth and, in and around writing some twenty-five crime novels, he also ran a couple of fraudulent mail-order colleges. He also apparently marketed a phony device that was supposed to increase the gas mileage of automobiles, all of which sounds like Ozaki might have had a life worthy of a couple of fairly interesting pulp novels himself.
His misadventures begin when he spies a very sexy blonde standing at the curb desperately attempting to flag down a cab. The wolf in Banner, as opposed to the gentleman, leads him to pull over and offer the young woman a ride. She has an urgent errand to run but needs to swing by her apartment on the way. Banner waits for her in the car, but when she fails to return after nearly thirty minutes, he goes up to check on the woman only to find that she's been murdered. And if that weren't bad enough, she's left a package in his car containing a hundred thousand dollars!
One thing leads to another and, naturally, Banner is in the frame for the murder. Additionally, of course, some fairly nasty people are hunting for the cash. Inevitably in a book like this, the only way Banner will be able to save himself will be to solve the murder on his own. This will pose something of a challenge given that he's new in town, knows nothing about the city, and knows no one who might help him. And caught between all the competing factions he encounters, he'll be lucky to escape with his life.
First published in 1954, this is a fairly standard pulp novel for the day. It's a reasonably entertaining read, but it's not among the better examples of the genre and will probably appeal only to die-hard fans. More interesting than the book itself is the author, Milton Ozaki, who was apparently one of the first writers of Japanese descent to write American crime novels. He lost a leg as a youth and, in and around writing some twenty-five crime novels, he also ran a couple of fraudulent mail-order colleges. He also apparently marketed a phony device that was supposed to increase the gas mileage of automobiles, all of which sounds like Ozaki might have had a life worthy of a couple of fairly interesting pulp novels himself.
August 18, 2016
This book is even and steady but a little on the unbelievable side. Our hero is a little too adept at stepping into something that is far from his experiential grid. Plus it never feels like he is in any kind of real danger, something that is needed for this genre to really work. The story itself is decent along with accomplished prose. Just not very compelling.
December 19, 2015
Both Stories were very good.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews