Trouble Follows Me (aka Night Train) (1946) was Ross MacDonald’s second published novel and came out a few years before Millar turned nearly full-time to writing Lew Archer’s legendary private eye series. Trouble Follows Me, though, is quite different from the Archer novels and offers a very different experience with Millar’s writing. For one thing, it is a World War 2 espionage novel, although that is not apparent at first. Set initially in Honolulu, then in Detroit, and on a cross-country Orient Express, it appears to be a murder mystery with hints that something else might be at play as Navy Ensign Sam Drake and his romantic partner Mary Thompson race to figure out what is behind a string of murders or suicides that they seem to be a few steps too late to uncover.
Honolulu as the war is racing to conclusion is no match in Drake’s eyes to cosmopolitan Detroit. Drake meets blonde temptress Mary Thompson, a tall midwestern blonde, at a party in Honolulu along with her radio broadcasting partner Sue Sholto, who his buddy Eric has been having an affair with. Sue’s suicide or perhaps murder during the party sets off a series of events as Drake, for no good reason other than being a good patriotic guy, is set to figure out what is going on.
Sue’s killing appears to be blamed unfairly on the only African-American around, a steward, Hector Land. There is a great deal of racial perspectives given here with the overall tenor being commentary I would think on the state of racial relations in the pre Civil Rights era with Southerners still thinking that African-Americans needed to keep in their places and even Drake and Mary uncomfortable moving in the African-American parts of Detroit. It was certainly a different time and people said things then that they would not say today.
When Land disappears in San Diego, realizing that he was from Detroit too, Drake decides to pay Land’s wife a visit and see what she knows, particularly since there are hints that Land might be connected to a subversive organization. We get Drake moving uncomfortably through parts of town where he stands out.
Eventually, the action moves to a cross-country train with some odd passengers and some poisoned whiskey. Nevertheless, Drake continues to pursue his gut and try to find out what is going on and why people around him seem to become homicide victims. The grand finale ties up all the loose ends and makes sense of everything going on.
This espionage novel just misses with some of the plotting and dialogue being clunky and Drake’s entire involvement seeming to be uncalled-for.
Pulp, Crime, & Mystery Books 