Adams, Cleve And Sudden Death.

Tough-guy World War 2-era murder mystery / espionage yarn set aboard the fictitious liner HONOLULU QUEEN on a voyage from Los Angeles to Honolulu. Adams’ hero Rex McBride seems to be a Sam Spade clone, and indeed several characters appear to be related to other Dashiell Hammett characters (McBride’s girl friend Kay Ford resembles Nora Charles as played by Myrna Loy; the novel’s lady villain, a Mrs. Nordstrom, is rather like the scheming, lying Brigid O’Shaughnessy (as played by Mary Astor) in “The Maltese Falcon” and there’s even a corpulent bad guy – though at least he doesn’t talk like Sydney Greenstreet!) The espionage angle concerns a spy ring headed by a nasty “Jap” Baron working undercover for his country’s diplomatic service (who said the American public was unaware of the Japanese threat to U.S. security prior to Pearl Harbor?). Adams’ shipboard scenes are evocative of Matson Line Hawaii service during the inter-war years, and the HONOLULU QUEEN herself was probably based upon either the LURLINE of 1932 or the MALOLO of 1927. Later published as a novel under the title And Sudden Death.

And Sudden Death. New York, N.Y.: E.P. Dutton & Company, 1940. 249 p.

This is the book version of Adams’ serial “Homicide Honolulu Bound.”