Another entertaining Doan and Carstairs mystery with more twists to the plot than a barrel of snakes. Thoroughly enjoyable! ( )

This is a story of a man and his dog. The dog is a huge Great Dane, and the man is a detective of sorts, named Doan. Doan is also a man who finds enjoyment wherever he can, even while a gun is being pointed at him. The dog is a bit more moody, but together they make a great team. The story takes place (and I presume was written) during WW2 and concerns a bunch of folks pretending to be various things trying to find a deposit of a precious ore of some sort. Our hero is pretending to be, though not very seriously, a Japanese agent trying to make contact with the rather whacked-out weirdo who knows where the deposit is, but who claims the Government cheated him out of it.

But that is really enough about the plot. The book is propelled from beginning to end by humor, from the way Davis tells the story to the things the characters, particularly Doan, say. It isn't easy to maintain this type of wisecracking atmosphere throughout the full length of a noir novel without it descending into utter farce, but Davis succeeds marvelously. Along the way, he gives us some great scenes, most involving the uber-intelligent dog, and a desert climax that packs a real wallop. And he does it all rather effortlessly. Lots of Davis's work is available free on munseys.com. While this is the first of his books I have read, it won't be the last. ( )

Doan is a private eye in the mold of Philip Marlow and Carstairs is his Great Dane assistant.
In this second adventure,they are sent by G-Men on a mission to find the location of an ore deposit in the desert known to an old drunken derelict. Seems easy at first,but there are others chasing the same thing and not all of them are easy to spot.
There is plenty of witty dialogue on the way the story cracks along at a fine old pace. ( )