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Doan and Carstairs: Their Complete Cases
For the first time in an authorized edition, all five stories of Doan and his "partner," his Great Dane, Carstairs. These quirky hard-boiled detective stories were written by Norbert Davis, the Black Mask author who inspired Raymond Chandler to try his hand at the genre. This edition includes all three Doan and Carstairs novels (The Mouse in the Mountain, Sally's in the Alley, and Oh, Murderer Mine), as well as the two short stories from the pulps: "Holocaust House" and "Cry Murder!" It's rounded off with an all-new introduction by Evan Lewis.
580 pages, Paperback
First published April 2, 2013
About the author
Norbert Davis
133 books18 followersNorbert Davis (1909–1949) was studying law at Stanford University when he began selling stories to pulp magazines, where he found enough success that he never bothered taking the bar exam. His best-known characters are Doan and Carstairs—a private eye team made up of a man and a thoroughly clever Great Dane.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 6, 2026
"So I started murdering people... with a typewriter on paper."
This was Norbert Davis' explanation of how he went from being a Stanford law student to a regular contributor to the 1930's "pulp" magazines that produced such greats as Raymond Chandler and Rex Stout. He was too broke to pay for school, so he started writing.
Sounds good to me. The world needs an entertaining story teller far more than it will ever need another lawyer. Davis' short stories covered the genres of mystery, war, western, romance, and adventure and appeared often in "Black Mask" and other popular pulps. His series featuring screwball P.I. Max Latin were particularly well-received and were probably the fore-runners of the Doan and Carstairs novels.
A year ago I stumbled onto a collection called "The Essential Works of Norbert Davis" and loved it so much I wanted to go around holding a gun to people's heads to FORCE them to read it. Now it's replaced by this collection, which is probably an improvement. "Essential Works" started with a novella called "Holocaust House" that isn't Davis' best. This new collection quite properly starts with the wonderful "The Mouse in the Mountain", which takes Doan and Carstairs to a small resort village in Mexico. It has that rarest of all things for a mystery novel - a believable, interesting love story.
Doan is an innocent-looking guy with some surprising talents and Carstairs is a well-bred Great Dane with a supercilious attitude. They are a fine team and every book has a line-up of oddball characters with strange histories. They're reminiscent of Chandler (a neighbor and admirer of Davis) and Dashiell Hammett in the West Coast settings and the gritty, dark characters and situations. But there's also a strong whiff of Damon Runyon's eccentric humor. I love all of them. Davis' early death (from suicide) was a tragedy, but I'm grateful for those who are preserving his stories and making them available. If you like old mysteries and like to laugh, you mustn't miss these.
This was Norbert Davis' explanation of how he went from being a Stanford law student to a regular contributor to the 1930's "pulp" magazines that produced such greats as Raymond Chandler and Rex Stout. He was too broke to pay for school, so he started writing.
Sounds good to me. The world needs an entertaining story teller far more than it will ever need another lawyer. Davis' short stories covered the genres of mystery, war, western, romance, and adventure and appeared often in "Black Mask" and other popular pulps. His series featuring screwball P.I. Max Latin were particularly well-received and were probably the fore-runners of the Doan and Carstairs novels.
A year ago I stumbled onto a collection called "The Essential Works of Norbert Davis" and loved it so much I wanted to go around holding a gun to people's heads to FORCE them to read it. Now it's replaced by this collection, which is probably an improvement. "Essential Works" started with a novella called "Holocaust House" that isn't Davis' best. This new collection quite properly starts with the wonderful "The Mouse in the Mountain", which takes Doan and Carstairs to a small resort village in Mexico. It has that rarest of all things for a mystery novel - a believable, interesting love story.
Doan is an innocent-looking guy with some surprising talents and Carstairs is a well-bred Great Dane with a supercilious attitude. They are a fine team and every book has a line-up of oddball characters with strange histories. They're reminiscent of Chandler (a neighbor and admirer of Davis) and Dashiell Hammett in the West Coast settings and the gritty, dark characters and situations. But there's also a strong whiff of Damon Runyon's eccentric humor. I love all of them. Davis' early death (from suicide) was a tragedy, but I'm grateful for those who are preserving his stories and making them available. If you like old mysteries and like to laugh, you mustn't miss these.
December 27, 2018
Doan is a detective and Carstairs is his Great Dane.
1. Holocaust House--Doan is told to go up to a place up north to guard a certain young woman. From the first, he is confronted with frozen bodies, a man with a gun and a house of people who don't seem quite right. ]
2. Mouse in the Mountain--Doan is on a tour to Mexico to find a missing man needed back in the US. They find bandits, odd characters and experience a serious earthquake and murders.
3. Oh Murderer Mine--Doan is hired to guard Eric Trent, known as Handsome Lover Boy of an older cosmetics mogul. This is mainly set at a school with robbers, crazy people, and murders.
4. Sally's in the Alley--Doan is conscripted by FBI to do a job out in the American west. Dead bodies appearing in his trunk and in empty apartments, odd happenings and surprise twists.
I enjoyed these, but not spectacular. Doan is one of those private detectives who often gets in trouble with the police for no reason. He also appears dumber than he is. He always figures out what exactly is going on before the reader does. The best part is his dog. Carstairs has a definite personality and it comes through in every case.
1. Holocaust House--Doan is told to go up to a place up north to guard a certain young woman. From the first, he is confronted with frozen bodies, a man with a gun and a house of people who don't seem quite right. ]
2. Mouse in the Mountain--Doan is on a tour to Mexico to find a missing man needed back in the US. They find bandits, odd characters and experience a serious earthquake and murders.
3. Oh Murderer Mine--Doan is hired to guard Eric Trent, known as Handsome Lover Boy of an older cosmetics mogul. This is mainly set at a school with robbers, crazy people, and murders.
4. Sally's in the Alley--Doan is conscripted by FBI to do a job out in the American west. Dead bodies appearing in his trunk and in empty apartments, odd happenings and surprise twists.
I enjoyed these, but not spectacular. Doan is one of those private detectives who often gets in trouble with the police for no reason. He also appears dumber than he is. He always figures out what exactly is going on before the reader does. The best part is his dog. Carstairs has a definite personality and it comes through in every case.
May 4, 2018
Doan is a detective who conceals his detecting instincts and his gift for extreme violence beneath his chubby appearance and pink complexion. Carstairs is a pony-sized Great Dane of extraordinary intelligence. Together they solve cases involving other extraordinary characters in WWII/post WWII America. This is the kind of literature that inspired the movie Pulp Fiction: it's light, fun reading.
The stories themselves are mixed bag. "The Mouse in the Mountain" is a masterpiece (which I've reviewed separately and enthusiastically); I believe that story on its own justifies buying this anthology. However, Sally's in the Alley did not catch my interest. The other stories range from good to just entertaining.
The stories themselves are mixed bag. "The Mouse in the Mountain" is a masterpiece (which I've reviewed separately and enthusiastically); I believe that story on its own justifies buying this anthology. However, Sally's in the Alley did not catch my interest. The other stories range from good to just entertaining.
January 9, 2015
Entertaining detective story fiction written in the 1940's. Most of his work was short stories for the pulp magazines of the day, but this book includes three novels and a novelette featuring Doan a private investigator and his sidekick Great Dane Carstairs. The stories are witty and often humorous as you follow Doan on his complex cases. The stories seem to start slow and seem simple enough, but by the end they are a whirlwind full of twists.
July 24, 2015
These are obscure little tongue-in-cheek hard-boiled gems about a deceptively simple-looking detective and his arrogant Great Dane partner, who sometimes seems smarter than the chubby detective is. (Doan is the detective; Carstairs is the dog.)They are not only funny, but well-written. They will make you smile, giggle and laugh and the kindle edition is cheap on Amazon.
January 21, 2016
Wonderful and intriguing
I enjoyed this book of mysteries. Carstairs as the sidekick was a fantastic foil. Whatever needed to be left unexplained was always his quirk. Having lived with dogs, I can believe he could very well influence things. Doan was the bumbling appearing human that was with the huge dog, but always eventually solved things.
I enjoyed this book of mysteries. Carstairs as the sidekick was a fantastic foil. Whatever needed to be left unexplained was always his quirk. Having lived with dogs, I can believe he could very well influence things. Doan was the bumbling appearing human that was with the huge dog, but always eventually solved things.
June 24, 2020
4 complete Golden Age mystery novels featuring PI Doan and his Great Dane, Carstairs.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews