The Mysterious Mickey Finn

Couldn't put this one down! Excellent read! And I LOVE the cover!

The Mysterious Mickey Finn is a rollicking, madcap comic mystery that will have you alternately laughing out loud and reading in silent amazement as the plot becomes more and more complex and the actions more extreme and unpredictable. It is impossible to predict what will happen next. As enjoyable today as it was when originally published in 1939, The Mysterious Mickey Finn is a delicious treat for mystery lovers.

Homer Evans is a popular man of leisure, talented at whatever he puts his mind to, but preferring to do as little as possible besides advising his friends. His good friend Jansen, a Norwegian painter of some merit, but few finished canvases is dismayed to discover that Hugo Weiss is in Paris. A year earlier, Weiss had given a thousand dollars to Jansen in order to spend the year in Paris painting. The year has passed, the money is gone, and there is little to show for it. Evans proposes a minor deception to save Jansen, but in the process sets off a freight train of unexpected events. Weiss disappears after a meeting with Jansen and friends, leading to a police dragnet, confused identities, and much more.

The more complicated events become, the more imperative it is for Homer Evans to find Hugo Weiss, get his friends out of trouble, and discover who is behind a complicated scheme of art forgery. There is murder, mistaken identity, disguises, shoot outs, boisterous drinking, and much more.

If you are looking for a vastly entertaining escapist read, you can do no better that The Mysterious Mickey Finn.

I received a copy of The Mysterious Mickey Finn from the publisher and Netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review.

--Crittermom

In the introduction, the author tell us not to expect dead bodies in the first pages, but he would like to built up the characters first. And what a merry chase it is, and very entertaining it is too, your really have to be quick to follow all the twists and turns . Set in Montparnasse, the centre of artist and writers in the 20s. The back covers says it is a little Wodhouse - and it is. If you want a gallop through a mystery, with lots of laughs and twist and turns, this book won't disappoint. Oh, there is a body eventually . Lots of fun. This book was provided in return for a honest an unbiased review.

a well written book - I enjoyed it and as I got into it, found it hard to put down

A lot of this book reads like a screwball comedy from the 30s with some Keystone Cops thrown in. There is a lot going on in this vintage mystery and it can be hard to keep up. It takes place in Paris between the Wars. Most of the characters live in Montparnasse. There are art crimes, political crimes, kidnapping and murder. The author knows Paris and these characters well. It was a quick fast fun read and I enjoyed it.

A fun read - glad to see it back in print - pulp fiction is having a resurgence with new adults

Elliot Paul was a prolific author, journalist and screenwriter, who wrote from the 1920s to the 1950s. While he was a fluent writer, he was something of a hack, everything I've read of his seems to be imitations of more talented writers. This seems to be his attempt to set a [[ASIN:146626893X P. G. Wodehouse]]-inspired screwball murder mystery set in the "movable feast" of 1920s Paris with its expatriate artists and writers.

While the action is fast and ridiculous, it does not measure up to Wodehouse. The plot gets out of control, with too many characters in too many places committing or solving too many crimes. Nothing fits together, either logically or stylistically. One scene appears lifted from a pulp Western, followed by something from an English bedroom farce, then you get some pages of arch comments about art, and so on. For all of the chaos, it never develops the inspired lunacy that feeds on itself of great screwball. The author has to keep throwing in new absurdities to feed the action, which gets old quickly. The reader quickly loses interest in the plot and characters, and continues on (if she does) for the next funny bit. The book is an amusing way to kill some time, but it's nothing you'll remember or care about afterwards.

The first few pages rise above the level of the book, with some realism and social commentary you wouldn't expect is a madcap comic novel, and the last few pages are some nicely understated soft core porn (nothing explicit or offensive to most readers). In between are a lot of over-the-top, frantic gags of which about half work and half don't, but none work with another.

The book does merit some additional respect for the fact that the author lived among the Paris artists and writers who inspire his characters. There are plenty of in-jokes, and amusingly exaggerated portraits of famous writers, artists and hangers-on. Whatever core the book has is provided by its connection to reality, and readers familiar with the period will get some added enjoyment. If your favorite movie is [[ASIN:B005MYEQ4U Midnight in Paris]], then you'll get a real kick out of this book.

It must be fun to work for Dover Publications and dig up some of these older books and offer them up for sale again. Many of their reissues are absolute treasures ... but treasures that I hadn't been familiar with beforehand. This is just such a case.

Originally from 1939 comes the satirical mystery, The Mysterious Mickey Finn, by Elliot Paul. The book features amateur detective Homer Evans, a man who takes great pleasure in doing as little as possible. He's in France, so of course art takes on a role, and here we have a Norwegian friend, Jansen, of his who's been paid by an American millionaire, Hugo Weiss, to spend a year in Paris to learn and paint. The year is almost up, the money gone, Weiss is in France, and Jansen has almost nothing to show for his time.

Evans concocts a scheme to help Jansen, but when Weiss goes missing after meeting with Jansen and the authorities get involved, things get out of control and the normally laconic Evans has to get busy to protect his friends and discover what really happened to Hugo Weiss.

There's a fair amount of humor here. It's not always laugh-out-loud sort of humor (though I did do that a few times), but it's satire. Think M*A*S*H by Richard Hooker , or Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, or even A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. These are all books considered humorous, but are typically satire, providing a biting commentary on a personal, social, or political aspect. Now toss in a mystery, and you have The Mysterious Mickey Finn.

This is not the easiest of reads, but I've often found satire to be challenging to read. You must pay very close attention to pick up on the humor, meaning that the reading goes much slower than normal (for me, leastwise). But for the astute reader, it pays off.

I saw a fair amount of Hawkeye Pierce and Yossarian and even Ignatius J. Reilly (M*A*S*H, Catch-22, and A Confederacy of Dunces, respectively) in the character of Homer Evans, though perhaps given the publication dates, it safer to say that a little bit of Homer Evans is in each of the above named characters. Ultimately, it is Evans who makes this story worth reading.

Looking for a good book? Mixing satire and mystery, The Mysterious Mickey Finn, by Elliot Paul, is a fun read, though you might have to work at it a little bit.

I received a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.