Colby’s “The Captain Must Die” is a top-notch crime paperback. What he does so absolutely well is he has you as the reader pitching for the three soldiers who were released from Leavenworth against the captain who put them there, Gregory Driscoll. But, slowly, Colby turns things around and make you wonder if you are pitching for the good guys or not.
He sets this one up as a caper novel with three hard-edged men getting in position to pull out the ultimate revenge against the man who set them up and left them to die in prison. That man (the captain) has become quite successful financially and has a beautiful wife to boot: Madge. He is also rumoured to have a fortune in cash hidden in a secret room in the house. The three men are going to break him, humiliate him, and then kill him for kicks.
Colby does an excellent job of setting this up. The three conspirators are Cal Morgan, Brick, and Barney. Brick is the bitterest of the three and the most humorless. But the way they play this out is brilliant starting with the practical jokes on Driscoll like pulling his oil plug out and adjusting his brakes and dropping tarantulas into his car. Like when Cal gets back together with Driscoll’s wife Madge and awakens the fires in her before having her drop off to sleep and Cal puttering about the house with Driscoll about to return any second.
The full palette of revenge makes perfect sense once the reader gets the full background of what went on and how unfair it seemed and how long the bitterness had to take hold of these men.
But no adventure novel would be complete without a whole full-born bang-bang shoot-em-up take-no-prisoners all-out-battle and Colby gives this to the readers perfectly.
Pulp, Crime, & Mystery Books 