The Case of the One-Penny Orange: E. V. Cunningham

There are seven mystery novels starring Masao Masuto, a detective on the Beverly Hills police force. The mysteries were  written by Howard Fast, using the pseudonym E. V. Cunningham.The first was The Case of the Angry Actress (1967, originally published as Samantha). I enjoyed the first book in the series mostly because of the setting (Southern California), the time period it was written in, and the political and social commentary. 

This is part of the description from the dust jacket of the 1977 Holt, Rinehart, Winston first edition. I found this at a site dedicated to Howard Fast's books:

Here, in this first of a series, Masao is called in to check a ransacked house from which nothing has been taken. The same day a noted stamp dealer is found murdered in his office, and his assistant is beaten to death that night. Although Masao's chief rages about the transatlantic phone calls Masao demands and no one can fathom the tack he's taking, he quietly begins a search for a little square of reddish-orange paper, imperforate – an 1847 postage stamp from the island of Mauritius, now worth close to half a million dollars. It is one of the rarest, most famous stamps in the world. 

I was much more impressed with this book than I was with the first in the series. This book had a lot to offer in both characterization and plot. I especially liked Masao Masuto and his fellow policeman. His boss is a cranky supervisor, full of stress, but he and Masuto have a good working relationship. The same goes for Masuto's partner, Detective Sy Beckman. He is more that willing to slog through many back issues of a magazine at the library for a picture that Masuto wants or to make overseas calls for him. 

Matsuo is Nisei, a native-born American who parents were Japanese immigrants. At one point I thought that Masuto's detecting skills were a bit too intuitive, but there was a twist towards the end that corrected that impression. He is a tenacious, tireless, and dedicated policeman. He also has a family and tends a garden full of roses. I don't know how much knowledge the author had of the Japanese experience in California, but he and Masuto shared a religion. Matsuo is a Zen Buddhist and his religion shapes his way of looking at things and his behavior in his work.

I liked the picture of the Los Angeles area in the 1970's. Because of the geographical layout of Los Angeles and surrounding cities, there is a lot of overlap between police departments in different communities, at least in 1977 when this book was published. Thus Matsuo ends up looking into multiple murders which are outside of his jurisdiction and cooperating with different police departments.

I thought this was a very entertaining and fast-paced book, with some interesting characters, and a lot of other interesting information. I enjoyed learning some facts about rare stamps and stamp collecting while reading this book. 

For more information on the author see my review of The Case of the Angry Actress. Also see this article at Mystery*File with information on the books written by Howard Fast as E. V. Cunningham.

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Publisher:   Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1982. Orig. pub. 1977.
Length:      159 pages
Format:      Paperback
Series:       Masao Masuto, #2
Setting:      Los Angeles, California
Genre:       Police Procedural
Source:      I purchased my copy.