How about a taste of Canadian noir? One really has to thank Stark House Press for such, in putting out Douglas Sanderson’s THE DEADLY DAMES / A DUM-DUM FOR THE PRESIDENT as part of its “Mystery Classics” two-fer line instead of just reissuing some safe bet with built-in name recognition. Stark House goes above and beyond by finding authors that need to be reintroduced to a new generation. A case in point is Sanderson, who does something I did not think was possible: He outdoes Mickey Spillane. Yep, I said it, and you can believe it.

For both of these Montreal-set novels, the main character is the same, even though their names are different. Kevin Burton Smith’s introduction explains why, but the simple answer is: different publishers. (Aside from the new introduction, this edition also sports an interview with Sanderson, who died in 2002, and a bibliography.)

In 1956’s THE DEADLY DAMES, detective-for-hire Bill Yates is on a divorce case, working for a drunk who seems to made of money and wants pictures of his wife cheating. Meanwhile, the matriarch of the family tries to get him off the case by hiring him for something else. A day later, she turns up dead, the wife tries to hire Yates, then come along the wife’s sister and a crew of crooks to complicate things further. I felt like I neede a program to keep it all straight. But it never slows down and Sanderson balances all these people with subtle ease and humor.

There is more going on than you can believe, with backstabbing and double crosses galore. The bodies pile up real quick in this tale and the violence does not let up, either. I felt as though I was on a runaway freight train, holding on for dear life, as Sanderson just pushes the book to the limit and to a very fitting and humorous ending. Yates is made from the Mike Hammer mold, taking a beating and keeping on ticking, not stopping until he figures it all out. So sure, Stark House might skimp a bit on the covers, but what’s inside is what really counts. THE DEADLY DAMES does not only deliver – it comes at you hard like it was delivered by a cannon.

Now, if DAMES feels like a runaway train, then 1961’s A DUM-DUM FOR THE PRESIDENT feels like a Porsche cruising on the Autobahn. It is not as frantic as the previous tale, but when it hits its stride, hold on. This is one of Sanderson’s Mike Garfin stories, opening with a woman named Martha Davenport trying to hire him for a case, but he wants nothing to do with and shows her the door. Being the persistent type, she comes back the next day with a different story. But the night before, Mike is introduced to a man of Latin American descent named Manuel Bordea.

Bordea is first introduced under a false name, as he is the deposed president of an unnamed country with a supposed hidden amount of stolen loot from there. Bordea wants to hire Mike for a week to hold a key in an envelope – a simple task for which he’ll receive $500. But if only it were that easy. Not only is Bordea hiding in Montreal but, much to his chagrin, so is his second-in-command of the secret police. From here on out, it seems everyone wants the key or the money that’s supposed to be floating around.

In a story like this, it should come as no surprise that someone turns up dead, and the list of suspects grows to no end, with Mike topping the charts. While reading DUM-DUM (the title refers to a bullet, not a lollipop), I found one character to be of no use until it clicked in my head (and in Mike’s as well). Now, I can’t say I saw the ending coming at all, since Sanderson hides a certain amount of clues from the reader, but if read closely, they might be a little clearer than they were to me.

But I can’t complain – wait, actually I can: Damn you, Stark House! Now I’m going to have to search out other books by Sanderson. –Bruce Grossman

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