Michael Shayne's Long Chance is a 1944 novel by Brett Halliday, the pen name for Davis Dresser.
It is an installment in the long-running pulp fiction mystery series about hardboiled private detective, Michael Shayne. As this one begins, Shayne, mired in grief after the death of his wife Phyllis, is packing up to leave Miami, his home of nine years. He has had enough of the detective business and is preparing to leave his career as well as the city behind when he gets a surprise visitor. Tim Rourke, his old newspaper buddy, has brought by one J.P. "Joe" Little, who is worried about his daughter Barbara. Barbara, a troubled young woman, has struggled with drugs and recently attempted suicide. She has since fled to New Orleans, where she is living under an assumed name and is still trying to pursue a career as a writer. Little is still worried, though, because he thinks from Barbara's letters that she is back on dope. She also may have fallen back under the influence of the unnamed man who got her hooked on drugs in the first place, who may have been trying to turn her into a prostitute.
Shayne, lacking much else to do, and also because he himself lived in New Orleans before moving to Miami, takes the case. He travels to New Orleans and finds Barbara, now living under the name of Margo Macon, with little trouble. "Margo" takes a fancy to him, and suggests they go out, but first, she's expecting guests. Shayne sets out to find the dope-peddler who apparently is again in Margo's company. Some plot happens, Shayne runs into an enemy from the police department, and he gets arrested on a bogus drunk-and-disorderly charge. He gets out of jail a few hours later, makes it back to the hotel, and finds "Margo", beaten to death.
This novel introduced Lucy Hamilton, here called "Lucile" Hamilton. Lucy, the replacement for Phyllis, would be Shayne's Love Interest, Sexy Secretary, and sidekick for the next 22 years of novels.
Tropes:
- Bluffing the Murderer: Shayne confronts Joe Little with an identification of his fingerprints on the liquor bottle that was the murder weapon. A panicking Little protests that he wore gloves—and the jig is up. Shayne was lying about his prints on the bottle.
- Buxom Beauty Standard: The women in Michael Shayne novels were always busty and hot. Shayne admires the "full breasts" of Barbara Little, which are barely contained in her halter top.
- Calling Parents by Their Name: Little tells Shayne that his daughter, in her letters, refuses to address him as her father. This actually turns out to be foreshadowing of the central twist.
- Camp Straight: Drake is described as "foppish", he has a "pink blush" to his cheek, and he colors his nails. When he demands to know who Shayne is Shayne says "I'm not queen of the fairies." Yet he is married, with a (dying) wife back in New York, and he likes to go to strip clubs.
- Chekhov's Gun: In their first meeting Little says that he was called to identify a suicide victim but saw that it wasn't his daughter. In fact it was his daughter and he pretended it wasn't as part of a complicated scheme to get her insurance payout.
- Continuity Nod: As he packs his stuff, Shayne comes across the knife used to kill Phyllis's mother in the first Michael Shayne novel, Dividend on Death.
- Dirty Cop: Captain Denton is a dirty cop who takes protection money from Rudy Soule, the drugs-and-whores kingpin. They have a little powwow about whether or not they should murder Shayne, before deciding against it.
- Dramatic Drop: "Mr. Little's pince-nez fell to the floor from his trembling fingers" as he confesses.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Lucy Hamilton, who would become a regular character in the Michael Shayne series, is introduced as "Lucile."
- Extremely Short Timespan: The formula of the Michael Shayne novels. A very busy 24 hours has Shayne take a train to New Orleans, get mixed up with gangsters and prostitution, and catch a killer.
- Friend on the Force: Chief McCracken, Shayne's buddy from the old days who gets him sprung from jail in this story and helpfully assembles everyone for the Summation Gathering.
- Hand-or-Object Underwear: Captain Denton drugs both Shayne and Lucile, has them both stripped naked, and then pretends to arrest them in a prostitution raid. He brings a woman along to take pictures. The incriminating photo that he is holding out as blackmail against Shayne has Lucile holding her arms over her bare breasts.
- Hookers and Blow: Vaguely hinted at, as Little says that Barbara has been engaging in "depravities" while she is high on drugs. Shayne tracks Drake, the other man looking for Barbara, to a nightclub that is actually a whorehouse, run by a local drug kingpin.
- Insurance-Motivated Murder: A variation. Joe Little's daughter Barbara has already died. But he refuses to ID the body, then kills Margo a month hater and IDs her body as Barbara, so that he can get Margo's life insurance payout.
- It's All Junk: Shayne contemplates all the souvenirs from his career as a private eye and decides that it's all "mere rubbish."
- It's All My Fault: Shayne reels in shock when he gets back to the hotel and finds Barbara dead, when that very morning he'd promised Joe Little he'd keep her safe.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When Shayne explains his theory that Drake killed Barbara because she wanted to leave him, Quinlan says "It sounds like a ten-cent melodrama." The Michael Shayne books were 25-cent melodramas.
- Lingerie Scene: Lucile is wearing "a blue satin negligee" when she welcomes Shayne back to her apartment.
- Nature Abhors a Virgin: Lucile says she thought "Margo" was a virgin and recommended that she have an affair.
- Nature Adores a Virgin: According to Lucile, Henri knew Margo was a virgin and "that made the chase exciting."
- Noodle Incident:
- When packing up his stuff, Shayne finds a fake kidnap note from "the Hanson case", a blackjack that he stole from Pug Myers, and a rubber hose once used to gag a woman in "the Lenham case". None of these were in actual Mike Shayne novels.
- The narrative doesn't give the details of the sex show at the Daphne Club, only noting that it involved a stripper and a boy and that the woman was wearing nothing but heels when she left the stage.
- Plot Hole: Joe Little was certainly taking his own long chance, since the woman in New Orleans could have told Shayne that she wasn't Barbara Little, just wrecking the whole scheme.
- The Reveal: The dead woman, the woman Shayne found in New Orleans, wasn't Barbrara Little; Margo Macon was her real name. Joe Little covered up his own daughter's death, then killed Macon and offered her up as a substitute body.
- Sinister Switchblade: When Shayne is outed as a detective, Henri the slimy pimp whips out a "clasp-knife." Shayne overpowers him but is then clubbed into unconsciousness by the dirty cops who are accompanying Henri.
- Slipping a Mickey: A thirsty Shayne gulps down the drink that Rudy Soule offers hin and says that he would have drank it if it were a Mickey Finn. Soule laughs and says "It was." Shayne then falls unconscious.
- Slouch of Villainy: Henri, the sleazy pimp and drug pusher, is introduced as he "leaned against the desk" of Shayne's hotel.
- Summation Gathering: Shayne has all the characters brought over to Inspector Quinlan's office so that Shayne can reveal the killer in classic style.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Earlier Shayne novels had as characters Chief Will Gentry, the Miami chief who was Shayne's buddy and Friend on the Force, and Chief Peter Painter, the Miami Beach chief who loathed Shayne and yearns to arrest him. This book has Chief McCracken, Shayne's old Friend on the Force from his New Orleans days, and Captain Dolph Denton, an old enemy who loathes Shayne and years to arrest him. (However, unlike Painter who was just a Jerkass, Denton is an actual Dirty Cop.)
- Title Drop: Shayne could just do what Denton wants and leave town, and not risk arrest or social humiliation for Lucile. But he decides to "take a long chance" and execute a complicated scheme to expose the real killer.
- Uncle Tomfoolery: An unfortunate running trope in the Shayne novels. Shayne encounters a "Negro bellhop" with "buck teeth" who says stuff like "It wa'n't nothin', suh." Later, a "Negress" maid says "Ain't no girl in heah."
- You Can Leave Your Hat On: Shayne and Lucile watch a nude dance show at the Daphne Club.
- Zip Me Up: A flirtatious moment when Lucile asks Shayne to button up the back of her dress and "Shayne's big fingers" struggled with the buttons.
