“Set in 1937 after the Marx
Brothers' career in films had peaked. Groucho is in his late forties. The Dr.
Watson to his Sherlock Holmes is young Frank Denby, a Hollywood screenwriter
who is working with him on a new radio show named like the title of the novel.
When a starlet dies at her home, allegedly a suicide, Groucho resolves to learn
what really happened. The young woman had been one of Groucho's many
extracurricular affairs, and he's certain she would not have killed herself. So
is everyone else except the cops and the executives at the studio where she was
angling for a major role in an upcoming movie. Groucho and Frank set out on a
madcap investigation that causes them to be kidnapped, shot at, and clubbed on
the head more than once.”
Groucho Marx, Master Detective is a pretty funny book, and prolific author
Ron Goulart shows off -with a great dexterity- to have an innate ability to mimic the legendary comedian.
Sometimes the mystery –which covers some of the darker aspects of Hollywood-
takes a backseat to Groucho’s monologues, but the book is often a hoot and yields
many surprises.
This was one of six novels the writer produced between 1998 and 2005 featuring Groucho, however,
I mostly knew Goulart for his work in fantasy and science fiction and only
recently stumbled upon this book series when I was looking for other works by him. I
have been reading his short novels on and off since the 1980s, though he’s been
producing a wide body of work in many genres since 1952 (he would also publish a great deal of
works under a variety of pen names). Goulart is mostly known for his satire on
science fiction genre, but he’s also penned comics for Marvel, wrote several
novels based on Lee Falk’s The Phantom (using the pseudonym "Frank
Shawn") in the 1970s –and where he continues to this day to produce stories
for The Phantom comic book. He also ghost wrote all nine of the TekWar novels that
were released under William Shatner’s name between 1989 and 1997.
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