Murder Over Dorval by David Ambrose

Joining my love of locked-room mysteries is the airline mystery featuring a few strangers contained together and forced to endure and overcome the adventure. The excited passengers, the in-flight romances, and the possibility of murder (or disaster, I don't mind). Who among the passengers is the villain?

Private detective Russell Teed is called to a job in New York, meeting his client at Grand Central Station. He makes contact. She's in a vivid green dress, on the interesting side of twenty-five, "with hair as long and rich and thick and red as a sunset before the storm, red as the facets of a ruby, red as fresh arterial blood. She smiles at him. She has bands on her teeth."

This hard-boiled style is witty, fun to read, and adds to the action.

The job? A one-way plane ticket from New York to Montreal where he should identify, from about ten other passengers, who is the father that abandoned her as a child. Since there are only a few men on board, it might not be so hard. Once departed, a violent storm kicks up, and while they are belted in and generally feeling ill, the most likely gentleman is struck on the head and killed. Of course, everyone on the plane had motive, and it's up to Russell Teed to find both the missing murder weapon and the how and the why.

An unusual mystery based around Montreal, it is 1952, and many of the signs and places are referred to with English names. Soon, he is involved with seedy characters and conniving family members, and he gets a razor slash in his leg and a slug in his shoulder. Briskly written, it has some memorable characters like low-down African gangsters and Lorette Toledo, a blonde singer of smut songs in a Montreal clip joint.

First published in 1952, it was written by David Montrose, the pen name of Charles Ross Graham, a New Brunswick author of four novels, all featuring Russell Teed. His style, like that of James Cain, Dashiell Hammett, and Raymond Chandler, draws you right in and keeps you entertained well after you have landed.

Murder Over Dorval is recommended!

2010 / Paperback / 160 pages