Mrs. Gladys Jellicoe has a serious problem and needs the help of private detective Shell Scott. He has come to her home in the Hollywood Hills from his office in the Hamilton Building on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles this warm September morning in response to her phone call. While she may have called him because she appears to be extremely well preserved--- much like a mummy-- apparently the real reason she called is the fact that her ex-husband is missing.

She believes him to be dead. Wilfred Jefferson Jellicoe is supposed to send her a monthly alimony check of three thousand dollars on or before the first of the month. “Jelly” as she calls him has now missed two payments. She has done some checking around of her own and has determined that he has not been seen at the Cavendish House in Hollywood for several days now. That is where he has been staying recently and he has not checked out. She has no idea where her ex-husband, at one time the assistant to legendary Hollywood movie mogul Gideon Cheim is, or why Jelly’s wallet was found in a seedy nightclub known as “The Panther Room.”

While she thinks Shell Scott’s going rate of one hundred dollars a day is rather expensive, she wants her missing alimony money as well as to find Jelly. She grudgingly agrees to pay and Shell Scott is on the case. One that will take him all across the Los Angeles area, into some adult activities with certain beautiful ladies, and a number of violent confrontations with several less than savory characters. That is when he isn’t smoking, drinking, or discussing things with the local cops.

Set in the 60’s, Shell Scott is the classic “man’s man.” He does it all and then some while making sure to be one step ahead of the bad and good guys alike. A fun read, The Cheim Manuscript: A Shell Scott Novel, twists and turns its way through 200 pages plus of mayhem and chaos all done with a slightly sarcastic tone. My first experience with a Shell Scott novel was highly entertaining and well worth the read.

The Cheim Manuscript: A Shell Scott Novel
Richard S. Prather
Pocket Books
February 1969
Paperback
215 Pages

This paperback was supplied by Barry Ergang years ago for me to read and review. He has been hounding me every so often about it ever since. In conniving desperation,

Kevin R. Tipple ©2016 ( )

This is one of Prather's better novels; maybe those he published with pocket books were not as heavily laden with breasts and thighs as his earlier books. that is appreicatede from us story buffs. Well, the story is alive and well herein and so is RSP's characterization, with Putrid and Burper and Luddy et al the hoods. If theere is a problem with Scott, it's his speechifying with Sampson, Captain of Homicide for LAPD and a straight arrow. The two are unujsally matched and it would have been good if Prather had written a novel telling how Sampson and Scott becamed such good fvriends. ( )