Past, Present, and Murder

A Julian Quist Mystery #12

by Hugh Pentecost

When the fiancee of a partner in Julian Quist's public relations firm is savagely killed, Quist vows to uncover the murderer

187 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1982

About the author

Hugh Pentecost was a penname of mystery author Judson Philips. Born in Massachusetts, Philips came of age during the golden age of pulp magazines, and spent the 1930s writing suspense fiction and sports stories for a number of famous pulps. His first book was Hold 'Em Girls! The Intelligent Women's Guide to Men and Football (1936). In 1939, his crime story Cancelled in Red won the Red Badge prize, launching his career as a novelist. Philips went on to write nearly one hundred books over the next five decades.

His best-known characters were Pierre Chambrun, a sleuthing hotel manager who first appeared in The Cannibal Who Overate (1962), and the one-legged investigative reporter Peter Styles, introduced in Laughter Trap (1964). Although he spent his last years with failing vision and poor health, Philips continued writing daily. His final novel was the posthumously published Pattern for Terror (1989).

Reviews

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: amateur sleuth Julian Quist is trying to find his partner who is looking for the murderer of his fiancé.

[James Fearn]

1982 Nero Award Winner. I finished this book almost two weeks ago, and so from what I can remember the plot is pretty well developed and it reads pretty good. It is worth a casual read nothing to really get overly excited about.

The characters in Past, Present, and Murder are not as well developed as the plot but it doesn't detract from the story line. The ending is far more fulfilling than the '81 winner.

On to the '90 winner now - Coyote Waits by Hillerman