I revel in a classic noir voice that happens to be female

Some time ago, I wrote about my guilty Charlie Huston noir vampire pleasure, not least of which was Huston's tough-guy style. Helen Nielson's 1951 "Dead on the Level," while devoid of vampires, is equally addictive right from the opening paragraph:

The way Casey figured it, life was a sour deal. It was something with a beginning you didn't ask for, an ending you couldn't help, and nothing in between that would sell even at a charity auction. But it came in a package, like a Christmas tie, and once the package was opened you were stuck with it.

Those three sentences sum up the cynical view of life, the wise-cracking metaphors, and the rat-a-tat cadence of classic noir that makes the style as recognizable and seductive as Shakespeare's iambic pentameter. Nielson sustains that style for nearly 200 pages, deftly maneuvering through plot twists and stock noir characters as handily as any of the great male crime writers, only Nielson, to crib from Ginger Rogers, does it backwards and in heels.

What's memorable about "Dead on the Level" is not the rich dame with the smoky purple eyes who gives Casey Morrow $5,000 to marry her, or the Irish gal sidekick who paints nudes in a drafty loft, or the rich dame's mother (think Barbara Stanwyck) or the rich dame's lawyer/fiance (casting call for Dan Duryea). Nope, it's the sneaking suspicion that, beneath the surface, Nielson has that noir style down so well that it COULD just be twitting her male counterparts by mimicking their style, and that makes this book all the more fun.

What IS remarkable about Nielson is that the brash crime drama schtick covers a lot of info in an economy of words. For instance, the book opens with Casey Morrow drinking up his last few bucks in a Chicago bar after a failed business venture in California. He wakes up in a strange place wondering if he needs an alibi, leading the reader to understand Casey isn't a stranger to situations in which he might need alibis. It's only later that he learns that the dame with the smokey purple eyes is the daughter of a wealthy philanthropist who's been bludgeoned to death a poker in his study.

What's also notable about Nielson's book is that we get a backstory on Casey Morrow that makes him vulnerable in a way Sam Spade never was. Casey, we learn, is a Chicago native, born Casimir Morokowski, a skinny kid who lived over a bar with a mother who often resorted to the strap and a step-father who owned the bar and was probably sympathetic but didn't like to interfere. Meeting his mother after eight years away in the war and his ill-fated venture on the coast, Casey considers, "It was terrible what a lot of silence stood between them; what number of things could never be said and never be told." Morrow is not just a hard-boiled guy who might be taking the fall for the Brunner murder; he's a person with a past, with regrets, and he sometimes wants to "bawl his eyes out" like Casimir Morokowski. (He doesn't, of course.)

There are two domestic noir stories running on parallel tracks in this little novel, and that gives it texture and depth. There's the back story we get about Casey's working-class family, hardscrabble, sad, but resilient, and the outwardly perfect Brunner family, whom Casey later observes had fallen into a gutter the Morokowskis would never stoop to.

Also remarkable is the fact that Nielson's tale is full of women--perps, victims, and helpers. Women dominate this novel, and they dominate Casey Morrow. Maggie Doone, the plucky artist, helps Casey with stakeouts and is ready with hot coffee and blankets when needed. Phyllis Brunner of the purple eyes is running a con game to save her own life (or ruin her mother's) and drags Casey smack into the middle of it. And Mrs. Brunner, Phyllis's mother, has nerves of steel and lots of secrets. Even Casey's old Ma can run a good subterfuge; when the chips are down and the cops are at the door, she knows how to look harmless and elderly and stall for time to let her boy get away.

Nielson's novel should also be enjoyed for the wonderful period piece that it is. This is America after World War II, when ethnicity and social class still mattered, and clothes and your last name gave you away if you were hoping to get away with some pretensions above your station. But it was also the eve of the Beat generation, the questioning of all those social rules and gender roles. Worthwhile reading on many levels!