By MICHAEL FESSIER (Stark House Press; 1935/2022)

Certainly one of the most unusual novels to emerge from the 1930s hard-boiled school (which included FAST ONE and MEN, WOMEN AND RATTLESNAKES).  Written by a prolific Hollywood screenwriter, FULLY DRESSED AND IN HIS RIGHT MIND is certainly among the tersest of its ilk, related in short, declarative sentences with very few commas and extremely short (1 to 3 pages on average) chapters, and a narrative that would appear to fully support that style—initially, at least.

The Bay Area based narrator Johnny Price first encounters his major antagonist, an enigmatic figure with glowing green eyes who’s identified only as “the little old man,” upon finding himself at the scene of a shooting.  The culprit isn’t immediately apparent until the LOM approaches Johnny and nonchalantly claims it was he that pulled the trigger.  Johnny initially dismisses the claim, but keeps it in mind as the LOM, who insists on shadowing Johnny, grows increasingly stalker-ish and aggressive, and exerts an altogether odd effect on Johnny’s pal Dorgan, a painter who develops an unhealthy obsession with the LOM and his green eyes.  Just how dangerous the LOM truly is remains unrevealed until a way into the story, when this individual frames Johnny for a murder.

The book’s other major oddity is Trelia, a beautiful woman Johnny spies swimming in Golden Gate Park.  He’s shocked by her unselfconscious nudity, but she doesn’t appear too vexed about it.  Upon appearing clothed for the first time, Trelia is described as wearing “something green and soft,” which is one of several subtle connections between her and the green eyed LOM, characters who both appear to be not of this world.

In a newly written introduction David Rachels calls this book a “hard-boiled-fantasy mash-up.”  How literally we’re meant to take the supposed fantasy elements I’m not sure, as the story never loses its hard-boiled vernacular, and never concretely reveals whether its many oddities are meant to be supernatural in origin.  What we’re left with is a furiously readable curiosity that probably won’t satisfy too many hard-boiled aficionados but will resonate with fans of crime-centered oddities like THE MAN WITH THE CHOCOLATE EGG and IT HAPPENED IN BOSTON?, books whose puzzlement and audacity were amply foreshadowed in FULLY DRESSED AND IN HIS RIGHT MIND.

Also included in this 2022 publication (as the novel itself is quite short) are three 1950s-era short stories Michael Fessier published in the noir mag MANHUNT: “Sex Murder in Cameron,” “Nice Bunch of Guys” and “The Faceless Man.”  Unlike FULLY DRESSED AND IN HIS RIGHT MIND, these tales fit quite snugly in the noir cannon, being unsparing accounts of murder, alienation and mob cruelty.  No, none of the three tales carry the provocative charge of the novel, functioning as, at best, a furthering of its hard-boiled aura and a fitting requiem for its talented author.