Book Review – Shout at the Devil
Article by Ray Schillaci
Hold your breath as Dan Bronson sucks us back into the whirling cesspool of 1950s Hollywood with his accidental detective Jack Shannon coming to the aid of “sultry, sensuous and sassy” Karen Scott, star of the silver screen. Crackling with lively dialogue and shocking glimpses of Tinseltown tawdriness, Bronson’s latest is an irresistible page-turner filled with hairpin twists and turns, blackmail, mayhem and murder.
Bronson last left us with his studio publicist/fixer Shannon in exile from mainstream Hollywood, working as a stuntman on Poverty Row as a result of his handling of the disappearance of sexpot star Savannah Stevens. If you have not yet met Jack, check out his first outing, Someone To Watch Over Me, and spiral into the darkness of 1940s Hollywood. That fascinating read is a wonderfully nostalgic precursor to what’s in store for you in the new book, an account of Jack’s adventures in the 1950s City of Angels — a city ironically filled with the devil’s minions. The all too apt title of this latest Jack Shannon mystery? Shout At The Devil.
This go-around, Jack’s future is at stake as his work as a stuntman slowly dries up. His funds are running low, and he’s about to lose his home, but all this changes when his old friend Karen re-enters his life. Karen and Jack co-starred in a low-budget programmer in the days before World War II sent them in different directions — Karen to stardom and Jack to the battlefields of Europe where he suffered a disfiguring wound that ended his acting career.
A powerful presence, Karen is only 5’1″, but she’s strong-minded and feisty. She takes nothing from anyone and is as big off screen as on. Strong as she is, however, she needs help. She’s being blackmailed over a stag film she made when she was struggling to survive as an aspiring actress in Hollywood. It’s the sort of thing that, in the 1950s, could immediately end a star’s career, and she has come to her old friend Jack, the former studio fixer, for assistance, offering him a generous sum to deal with the blackmailer.
Jack agrees to meet with the blackmailer and handle the exchange, but when he arrives at the remote meeting place, he finds a man in a car…dead. He’s then knocked unconscious, waking up to find no sign of the stag film, the money gone, and himself the number one suspect in the murder of the presumed blackmailer.
Bronson leads us down a sinister path that delights us with the little-known dirt of both fifties Hollywood and the Los Angeles of that era — cities that house more salacious secrets, debauchery, and murder than any other in their time. As if the backdrop were not fascinating and fun enough, the author gives us a wonderful line-up of notorious suspects and peppers the pages with mystery and intrigue, easing the reader into his world of noir and making Shout at the Devil a fast, immensely enjoyable read. You can’t help but be swept up into Jack Shannon’s turbulent life as an unintended detective as he makes his way through Tinseltown, Poverty Row and the dark, murky landscape of the City of Angels — a trip so intriguing that you may find yourself thinking repeatedly about Shout, picking it up, and reading it all over again.
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