Danger in Paradise / Malay Woman
Albert Sidney Fleischman (better known simply as Sid) was a celebrated, Newbery Medal–winning children’s-book author, but he began his 62-year career writing pulp mysteries. Stark House has already published two of these (Look Behind You, Lady, and The Venetian Blonde) and now favors us with two more, both of which are set in Asia, a territory Fleischman knew well from his World War II service in the navy. In addition to the similarity of setting, both belong to the hard-boiled school of mystery fiction and feature damsels (OK, dames) in distress and also—a timely touch—terrorists. In Danger, hero Jeff meets a mysterious (and beautiful) White Russian woman, who entrusts him with a dark and dangerous secret. In the second, Jock overhears a murder plot that makes him the de facto protector of a (beautiful) young woman who is the owner of a rubber plantation. Though originally published in 1953 and 1954 respectively, both books are still great fun to read, in part because they are so rich in their settings. --Michael Cart