
If any Golden Age author can tell a story, it’s Theodore Roscoe. Yes, I take great comfort in the prose of the likes of John Dickson Carr, Agatha Christie, Henry Wade, Anthony Berkeley, Herbert Brean, Rupert Penny, or Norman Berrow. And Christianna Brand… well, she’s just sublime. But Theodore Roscoe can paint with words in a way that I haven’t encountered with other authors. I’d be fine reading a Roscoe book that doesn’t even feature any mystery – but, I mean, come on, give me a mystery…
Which takes me to this read – To Live and Die in Dixie. Is it a mystery novel? Roscoe wrote a breadth of pulp, ranging from tales of The Foreign Legion to jungle safaris and adventures of the United States Navy, so there isn’t a guarantee that anything you pick up by him is going to be a story of detection. But I suppose it’s a silly question to pose in the case of To Live and Die in Dixie. It’s right there on the cover: “A mystery novel by Theodore Roscoe”. Why then can’t I find a single review of this book? I mean, this is the guy who wrote Murder on the Way – a zombie laced impossible crime (published in 1935 no less) – which is easily one of the best entries the genre has to offer.
Continue reading “To Live and Die in Dixie – Theodore Roscoe (1961)”