You Can Call It a Day

by Peter Cheyney

Johnny Vallon, key figure in the latest Cheyney chiller, exchanges the dangers of total war for the equally hazardous challenges of Chennault's Investigations. And in the heart of London, with dramatic suddenness, murder hits home — right in Chennault's office, to grimly exact. Chennault, himself, owner of the flourishing detective agency, is found slumped over his desk. Heart trouble is the official diagnosis... But Vallon knows better, and proves it.

189 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1949

About the author

Born Reginald Evelyn Peter Southouse Cheyney, he trained as a lawyer before getting tired of legal office work and joining the Army. He fought at the second Battle of the Somme in World War I and was wounded but when he returned to England he wrote songs, poems and short stories for various newspapers and magazines and used many pseudonyms.

He also turned his hand to journalism, was a newspaper editor and also owned a detective agency, Cheyney Research Investigations.

His first published novel was This Man Is Dangerous and this began his prolific novel writing career. Thereafter he averaged two mystery novels a year with his best known characters being Slim Callaghan and Lemmy Caution and he became one of the best known and most successful of British crime novelists. His success also brought with it financial rewards and he was recognised as one of the richest authors of the time.

There have been many film versions of his works, which helped spread his popularity, particularly to the United States.

His life-style, one of hard-living, much like his characters, and hard work eventually took their toll and he died at age 55. He was buried at Putney Vale Cemetery.

Michael Harrison published a biography in 1954 entitled Peter Cheyney Prince of Hokum and there have been a number of biographical essays over the years.

Gerry Wolstenholme
December 2010

Reviews

[Eddie Graves · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great period story of murder, love triangles, blackmail, and our hero Johnny Vallon, making sense of it against the odds, despite living on rye whisky and seldom sleeping. A great page turner, compelling. Interesting is how a character sets out to prove the case for a divorce in the days when it was harder to get: the description of a specialist firm to arrange appears plausible.

[Ian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Johnny Vallon might be my least favourite of Peter Cheyney's creations. He is of course machismo on legs, here exemplified by a supreme indifference to the charms of pretty dames when he chooses, an absolute dependence on unfathomable amounts of rye whisky and a propensity for driving back and forth between London and the West Country, usually at night, seemingly only to prove that he can endure without any sleep whatsoever. Despite Vallon's annoying limitations, this is racy enough and fascinating for the scams and cheats that enabled couples to manufacture evidence of infidelity for divorce cases in those far off days.