WHO IS AMY BREWSTER?
"Amy Brewster is a cigar-smoking, 300-pound
lawyer-financier introduced by Sam Merwin Jr. in 1945. Upper-class but
unfeminine, she is enlisted by friends to solve crimes. She appears in
Knife in My Back
(1945),
Message from a Corpse (1945) and
A Matter of Policy (1946). Both Bertha Cool and Amy Brewster are defined
against the genre's stereotypes, particularly the
femme fatale: they are not attractive, not home-bound, and not submissive, either conversationally or professionally.' -
Frances A. DellaCava and Madeline H. Engel,
Female Detective in American Novels, A Bibliography and Analysis of Serialized Female Sleuths (1993).
The following is adapted from the introduction to the Amy Brewster mystery,
A Matter of Policy.
Sadly,
the late Sam Merwin, Jr. and his
mysteries are largely forgotten today.
The 
Encyclopedia of Mystery and
Detection, for instance, comprehensive as it is in other respects, contains
no entry for him or for the Amy Brewster books. This neglect is particularly
tragic when it comes to his three Amy Brewster mysteries, for Amy is a unique,
proto-feminist character who stands out vividly against the background of her
time (the 1940s).
Sam
Merwin Jr. was a triple-threat man who
sold stories in the mystery, sports and science fiction genres. Oddly, since mysteries were his first love,
it is for his science fiction that he is remembered today, when he is
remembered at all. Science fiction fans
seem to have substantially longer memories than mystery fans, for some reason.
Though
he was highly regarded by his contemporaries, particularly for his work as a
mystery editor—he edited the entire line of nearly a dozen mystery magazines
published by then industry giant Popular Publications—during his lifetime he
was overshadowed by his far more successful father. Sam Merwin Sr. (frequently in collaboration with Henry
Kitchell Webster) was one of the bestselling authors of his own day (the early
1900s). The two men were among the first
to focus their plots on the workings of American industry in a series of novels
of which Calumet K (one of the late philosophical novelist, Ayn Rand’s favorite
books, according to her biographers) was representative, the story of a
construction foreman working against a difficult deadline to overcome natural
disasters and sabotage by competitors to finish a grain elevator on time. The editors of the Saturday Evening Post credited Merwin with “making the novel of
business popular in America."
That Sam Merwin Jr. chose to pursue a career as a writer with a
father already ranked among the giants of literature is testimony of the
strength of his own urge to write. He began
as a journeyman in the pulps, where he sold stories to virtually every mystery
pulp including Thrilling Detective, Popular Detective, G-Men Detective, Exciting
Detective, and more than a dozen others.
Later as a matured writer his work was accepted by the classier
digest-sized mystery magazines like
Ellery Queen, Pursuit, and Manhunt.
As
the heyday of the pulps waned due to the rise of television, Sam Merwin
Jr. increasingly turned to novel-length
works. One result was the three Amy
Brewster books: A Matter of Policy, Knife
at My Back, and Message from a Corpse. (There is also an associated mystery, Murder in Miniatures, which features
Sergeant Lanning, whom Amy matches wits with in this book.) Considering the
public passion for mystery series at the time (consider Nero Wolfe, Perry
Mason, Mr. and Mrs. North, Mike Shayne, etc.), why there were
only three Brewster tales remains ... a mystery.
Perhaps a woman as unconventional in every way as Amy was simply too far
ahead of her time. If she had eaten
less, dressed better, avoided profanity and shed a few pounds, her chances for
success in the 1940s, when all women were supposed to be-oh-so-glamorous and innocent, might
have been greatly enhanced. One imagines
that if her author were living and writing today, Amy would be as popular as
Kinsey Mulhone and V. I. Warshawski.
Where
did the author come up with so original a character, not to mention a
woman, as Amy Brewster? She was modeled
on a real woman, a genuine American original, and a celebrity of her time, who
dropped in to visit his famous father one day.
Though the name Elsa Maxwell was a household word then, it would likely
draw a blank even with a well-informed person today. But in the 1920s and '30s, she was America’s
"hostess with the mostess," a wealthy member of the Four Hundred
famed for her wide social contacts which included heads of
state, writers, athletes, and even interesting hobos, all of whom could be
counted on to attend the lavish, and justly celebrated, bashes she gave in New
York, Washington D.C. and points
west. Her entry in American Heritage Dictionary memorializes her as an,
"American gossip columnist and professional hostess noted for her
extravagant high-society parties." What it leaves out is everything
distinctive about her: her gargantuan gourmet’s appetite, her propensity for
sizzling profanity, her size-fifty frame, her utter disregard for convention,
and her penetrating intelligence. All characteristics guaranteed to leave their
impression on a teenage boy whose father she dropped in to visit for a day, and
all characteristics Ms. Maxwell shares with that boy’s creation, Amy Brewster.
Perhaps
a word should be said about the author’s penchant for strong female
characters. The reader will note,
perhaps wonderingly, that all three women in this book are steel-willed,
intelligent and resourceful. This holds
true for Sam Merwin Jr.'s other mysteries.
One short novel, "The Stones in the Script," features a
cool-headed brunette who isn’t afraid to use a gun and a blonde who slams out
home runs on the ball field. Likewise,
it’s the young heroine of Murder in Miniature who spots the important
clue.
Samuel
Kimball Merwin Jr. was born in
Plainfield, New Jersey in 1910. He
received his degree from Princeton, was a highly-respected writer and editor
who authored more than one dozen books and several hundred short stories. He passed away in 1996 at his home in Los
Angeles, California at the ripe age of eighty-five, and is survived by his
third wife, Amanda Varela, to whom he had been married for over a quarter of a
century.
Today
his mysteries can be found only at used and rare book shops. Like the Amy Brewster novels, most have been
out of print for more than fifty years.
The editorial board of Deerstalker Classics is particularly proud to be
part of the effort to placing all three in print again after far too long a
lapse of time.
Jean
Marie Stine
January
2001
The blurb for A Matter of Policy (only $2.99 at Amazon/Kindle):
"This an enthralling read that begins when a young
friend of Amy Brewster’s finds his life in jeopardy after an unknown
mastermind insures it for one million dollars. This is the first of
three classic Amy Brewster mysteries available for the first time in
over fifty years! When a private detective hired to protect the young
man is the first victim, Amy Brewster must think fast and act faster if
she is to learn who is behind the plot on the young man’s life in time
to save him. Is it Tosta Kaaren, AKA the Canarsie Swede, a
platinum-blond nightclub singer whose real name is Toots Carlin? Or
Paulie Paulec, the local crime boss who has a finger in every racket in
town? Or playboy Lance Torrey, whose sources of income are suspect at
best. A Matter of Policy is the first of three suspenseful Amy Brewster
reprints by the legendary Golden Age mystery writer/editor, Sam Merwin,
Jr."
(Covers from the hardcover and the paperback first editions above.)
