“Murder Mayhem” by Ray Stahl (aka: Bart Carson)

Ray Stahl briefly appeared in the Crime Doesn’t Pay Series in 1953, after backlash from the English government against gangster novels. Prior to 1953, the name that appeared on the front of this particular run was “Bart Carson.” Yeah, that Bart Carson. The newspaper reporter that ditched a career attached to a paying job to run solo as a tough investigative, smart-mouthed reporter.

Both bylines are the work of author William Maconachie, a highly competent writer of American-style gangster novels filled with colorful wit and sarcasm, vicious criminals, and cold-as-ice dames that even give our heroically former reporter, Bart Carson, the frigid treatment.

Married in 1948 to Nellie Betts (born 6 October 1911; died 1980 in Wallasey, Cheshire, England). For Nellie, William was her second husband. She married young in 1933, first to Vivian Osmond Weights (whom she divorced; he died 1978).

Her second husband, our author, was born William John A. Maconachie (20 May 1917) and his death was registered January 1988 in Birkenhead, Cheshire, England.

But, let’s skid off the history lesson and return to the novel…

Bart is fresh off a case in “Murder Mayhem,” having gotten away with some hood’s goods (like that, eh?) and also snatches a pile of maps. Why? Well, back before we had digital bullshit up-our-ass to tell us where to go (and yuh KNOW what I mean! pun intended) you had to KNOW how to read a damn map to get from Point A to Point B. Once upon a time, the United States also did not have an international highway system, either, but that’s another story….

Likes I says, bub, Bart’s got some maps, and he’s fresh from a case. He’s doin’ good, ya know. The big crime boss is outs, but the rackets ain’t stayin’ quiet long. There is a shake-up happening in New York, and someone is moving the chess pieces, ’cause only the winner can take all, see?

Bart’s up to his eyes in bullshit when hoods move in to retrieve one of the maps he unwittingly obtained, which is marked with a series of “X”s and”Y”s. The former denotes businesses purchased by the new proposed crime boss. The latter, future propositions. And when the latter are all gone, there won’t be but “X”s remaining, and they ain’t there to denote romantic kisses.

Bart is beaten, tortured, and taken for a drive to be murdered, but comes out aces every time. How this character never made it to the big old silver screen is beyond me, given that he was the only UK gangster writer to entertain a success in England and appear numerous times in print across The Great Pond in America. Likewise, “Bart Carson” enjoyed translations in foreign countries, too. He should have made a brief Hollywood commodity, to say the least.

But he didn’t, and his English originals remain to this day highly collectible and damnably rare to obtain.

Naturally, Bart solves the riddle behind who the mastermind “Brain” is, when a dying criminal cops to it. Hardly any brilliant deduction there, when he doesn’t have much to do but lean down and catch a dying hood’s last gasp. Remarkably, even saving the life of the chief of police’s daughter doesn’t avail him a hug or kiss from the central dame in the novel, contrary to the workings of most gangster novels of the period.

Give Bart Carson (or Ray Stahl) a try. You won’t be disappointed.