I received Bequest in the mail on the same day that The Survivor Murders arrived, making me a very happy batophile.
In Bequest, Anthony Quinn is called to the home of a very financially successful recluse who passes away prior to being able to speak with Tony. Quinn shrugs that off as an odd, unfortunate event but finds out that another attorney had also been called to the recluse's home. This other attorney appears to have been killed in a murder-suicide later that same day. Is there a connection and are the deaths of the recluse and the attorney as clear-cut as they seem? After an attempt on his own life, Quinn intends to find out.
The recluse's family are basically all bastards and he has a checkered history of his own, so there is no lack of suspicious folks in this tale. This is another story in which the members of team Bat are not used much. McGrath has a presence throughout but is assisting Quinn moreso than trying to interfere and capture the Black Bat.
There is one odd aspect from a story-telling standpoint. McGrath mentions the police commissioner. I believe he even phones him. Jerome Warner was the commish for several of the early issues in the series but they don't refer to him by name. I knew Norman Daniels had ceased to use Warner as a regular character but if the story calls for the police commissioner, why not make it Warner? Unless Warner's status is explained in an earlier story (retirement, for example), it's too bad Warner was completely overlooked.
There is very little action in the story and a little too much goofiness in the way the crimes were carried out and how Quinn and co. figured them out. It made for a relaxing cottage read but I wouldn't count it among the better Bat stories.
No comments:
Post a Comment