When this book arrived, I immediately looked forward to reading it.
The lower right corner of the cover states:
A Detective Thriller with an unusual sex interest.
“Find Dr. Schultz” turns into a slogan
which sweeps the country.
Brief Interlude was published by Grant Hughes, circa late-1946 or early-1947, and features a lovely cover illustration by H. W. Perl. It is 98-pages in length, and written by John Eagle.
Who?
This was the alias of William Bird (“eagle,” “bird,” get it?). He also wrote as John Toucan (guy clearly had a sense of humor). Born 3 March 1896 in Croydon, Surrey, William Henry Fleming Bird died in 26 July 1971 in Benfleet, Essex.
The following stories appear in magazines:
As William Bird:
Critical Age (ss) Futuristic Science Stories # 12 (John Spencer, 1953)
As John Eagle:
Act Without Footlights (ss) Crime Shorts # 2 (Gerald G. Swan, 1944)
The Invisible Necklace (ss) Detective Shorts # 2 (Gerald G. Swan, 1946)
As John Toucan:
Genesis (nv) Worlds of Fantasy # 13 (John Spencer, 1954)
Point in Time (ss) Wonders of the Spaceways # 5 (John Spencer, 1952)
Repercussion (ss) Tales of Tomorrow # 8 (John Spencer, 1953)
War Potential (nv) Tales of Tomorrow # 5 (John Spencer, 1952)
He also wrote several novels under house names (list courtesy of the isfdb website):
War of Argos (Curtis Warren, 1952) as Rand Le Page
Two Worlds (Curtis Warren, 1952) as Paul Lorraine
Operation Orbit (Curtis Warren, 1953) as Kris Luna
Cosmic Conquest (Curtis Warren, 1953) as Adrian Blair
Third Mutant (Curtis Warren, 1953) as Lee Elliot
And Jets # 7: Blast-off into Space (Jonathan Cape, 1966) was under his own alias, Harry Fleming. Several other novels also appeared under this alias.
At least one further novel appears under the John Eagle alias (also in my collection) and that is Reckless Journey, published by Hamilton & Co., 1947, with again a cover illustration by H. W. Perl (the Bear Alley blog states it was illustrated by Brabbins; perhaps a variant cover exists). I’ll be preparing this title for a future blog post.
NOTE:
A novel in America called THE HOODLUMS
was published in 1953 by Avon Books,
carrying the John Eagle name.
Who actually wrote this???
But, let’s return to Brief Interlude. First and foremost, this novel was painfully difficult to read. The author carried on a dialogue that often left me confused. I may one day make a second pass at the novel (reasons why explained later).
The novel opens with English men and women alike wondering who and where this elusive Dr. Schultz–the person mentioned on the front cover–is. This unknown person has created a question that becomes a running mockery of a slogan and causes inquisitive persons to seek out and find Dr. Schultz, who turns out to be essentially a mad-scientist using mind control messages subliminally hidden in his television ads and assorted films that he forces his clients to watch.
The sex interest turns out to be a young lady who apparently died in a fire. However, her lover is certain she is the nurse at Dr. Schultz’s establishment. The two women, after all, are identical. Realizing she is the same and proving it are two different things. It is soon discovered that the doctor murdered his own nurse, swapped the bodies and regularly uses his mind-altering technology to slowly brainwash the girl into believing she truly is the insane doctor’s nurse. But…why?
Enlisting the assistance of amateur-detective Aubrey St. Clare, this pseudo-science fiction / crime detective-esque novel nearly concludes when he and the girl’s lover commit an act of breaking-and-entering, are caught by the doctor at gun-point, and locked away in the cellar. Thankfully, St. Clare’s crime-fighting female partner (Miss Lennie French, a newspaper reporter) earlier in the tale obtained a job there, and helps them to escape. The police arrive on the scene and the whole messy gobbledygook thankfully comes to its dreadful conclusion, with a villain tossed off the roof to his grisly demise.
As noted, the erratic dialogue and the bizarre plot drove me bonkers but I may well decide to revisit this tale and see it through again.
THE SPECTRE LIBRARY PRESENTS: The Pulp and Paperback Fiction Reader 
John Eagle of THE HOODLUMS: Greg Shepard published this book last year and the following information comes courtesy of Greg: “Turns out that Eagle is really George Benet, a San Francisco longshoreman who waited about 25 years to write a second book….”
George Joseph Benet
Born: May 27, 1918 Chicago
Died: October 9, 1990 San Francisco
He was 6’2” with blue eyes and red hair. He joined the Army in just before WWII and served throughout the war. Moved to California after the war and married Camille Gage Morris (6/12/29–3/1205) a rare book dealer in San Francisco on June 2, 1949. Moved to Greenwich Village in 1952, then back to San Francisco later that decade. Worked on and off as a longshoreman in San Francisco and was a life-long member of the ILWU and eventually got a masters from U.C. Berkeley. He was part of a group of writers known as the Waterfront Writers.
Bibliography:
A Place in Colusa (1977)
A Short Dance in the Sun (1988)
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Thank you, Bill, for the wonderful information and interesting to learn that Greg intends to reprint that work. What a timely coincidence.
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One Correction to my earlier reply: Stark House has not yet released the book – but will next month – it’s a good one.
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“It is soon discovered that the doctor murdered his own nurse, swapped the bodies and regularly uses his mind-altering technology to slowly brainwash the girl into believing she truly is the insane doctor’s nurse. But…why?”
You answered your own question when you described him as a “mad scientist.” What’s the fun of being a mad scientist if you have to have REASONS for the mad things you do? That’s the sort of boring regulations a dreary old “sane scientist” has to follow. Anyway, those 98 pages aren’t going to just fill themselves, you know.
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Ha, thanks Denny. I still wish that there had been a rational reason behind why this particular nurse was appropriated. Were this an established writer, there would have been a credible reason. But, these wartime and postwar fiction items were cranked out generally in two weeks on request by the publishers.
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