cover image No Questions Asked/The Defense Does Not Rest

No Questions Asked/The Defense Does Not Rest

Edna Sherry. Stark House, $17.95 trade paper (284p) ISBN 978-1-951473-87-7

This reprint volume collects two workmanlike crime novels by mid-20th-century domestic suspense novelist Sherry (1885–1967), best known for Sudden Fear (1948), adapted in 1952 as the Joan Crawford film noir classic. No Questions Asked (1949) centers on New York City homicide captain Steve Lake, who’s investigating communist spies in the germ warfare division of a chemical research laboratory. Meanwhile, the prim Lake, who’s 38, worries about his new wife, who’s only 22. “What could a guy offer a girl sixteen years younger?” Doubts about his wife’s fidelity lead to Lake spying on her as the two story lines dramatically intertwine. The Defense Does Not Rest (1959) opens with wounded Lt. Maxwell Gray carried off the battlefield in Korea. While recuperating back in the States, Gray meets and marries the devious, jewel-hungry Carol Tyson, and his troubles really start. It takes many chapters to get to the murder of the embittered gold-digger, but the ending amps up as the twists keep coming. Some snappy dialogue makes up for what will strike today’s readers as old-fashioned plots. Mickey Spillane this isn’t. (Oct.)