The Yellow Taxi aka Call A Hearse (1942) by Jonathan Stagge

Dr Hugh Westlake is settling down for Christmas with his daughter Dawn and her rather strange Christmas list – a goldfish, a pair of skis and, most importantly, a ship in a bottle (something everything a teenage girl wants, obviously) – when Norma Hale comes to see him, asking for a prescription for pills to calm her down. Apparently she is being stalked by a New York yellow taxi…

A ghost from her past, the same taxi was stalking her friend Libby and drove (sorry) her to her death. Now it seems that death has its sights on Norma. Can Dr Westlake unravel the secrets of the past in time to stop a killer carrying out their ruthless plan?

There are nine books written under the pseudonym Jonathan Stagge by the writing team who were also behind the Patrick Quentin and Q Patrick pseudonyms and their a bit of a mixed bag. This is the fifth one that I’ve read – they are as rare as elephant wings over here – two of which were great and two of which were not. But there’s enough charm here to keep me looking for the series to read them all. Maybe it’s the small town/doctor setting that reminds me of the Dr Sam Hawthorne stories by Edward D Hoch, although with an added weird daughter.

Because Dawn is rather odd – her Christmas list is strange for a teenager, even one in the forties, yes? There are times when she is smart, and other times where she lets slip clearly important information to suspects… and there is one point where she kisses her father goodnight “langourously”. Surely that’s the author(s) using the wrong word, yes? I hope so…

Putting Dawn to one side, this is a decent mystery. It’s nicely paced, with some good reveals that move the story along – the truth about the taxi isn’t held back for too long, the identity of a mysterious third person involved, and some other stuff are revealed as the story progresses, not held back until the end. This means that the plot keeps moving forward, rather than basically just being conversations punctuated by an occasional murder.

Praise also for the number of times that the plot didn’t go the way I was expecting it to. There are two distinct twists that look like they are going to happen but are just teased to distract the reader. I’ll be honest, it’s been a while since I’ve fallen for something like I did here.

The reveal of the murderer is a bit flat – it’s a little flat in the sense of working out who could have been in the right place at the right time – but I really enjoyed it up to that point, and I’ve read considerably worse. It does all make sense and it’s far more satisfying than a lot of mysteries I’ve read (such as The Dogs Do Bark and The Stars Spell Death in this series.) I’ve got two more Stagges on my shelf to read, but the score is currently three good to two bad, so on average, he’s doing well.

The Dr Westlake Series