Books and Reading

Deal Me In Story #4: Winter Kill by Frederick Nebel

by Deacon Nick · January 25, 2018

The Hardboiled Dicks edited by Ron Goulart

Card Drawn: 8♥

Anthology: The Hardboiled Dicks edited by Ron Goulart

Story: “Winter Kill” by Frederick Nebel, 1935

If you pour water over a guy and take him outside when it’s zero, ten to one the guy will freeze in a hurry.

Kennedy of the Free Press and Captain Steve MacBride of the Richmond City Police Department were featured in almost forty stories by Frederick Nebel from 1928 to 1936. In “Winter Kill” the newspaperman and the cop try to figure out who killed Russel Parcell by drenching him in water and leaving him to freeze to death in zero degree weather. Suspects abound, and the wise-cracking Kennedy has his hands full trying to sort them all out.

I enjoyed this story more than I expected to after its somewhat slow start. Kennedy is an entertaining character, and the story moved along quickly, despite its length of forty pages.

“Winter Kill” was originally published in Black Mask in November, 1935.

My Rating: ⭑⭑⭑✩✩

Tags: Black Mask Deal Me In 2018 Deal Me In Short Story Challenge Frederick Nebel hardboiled detectives Kennedy of the Free Press pulp fiction

Deacon Nick

Nick Senger is a husband, a father of four, a Roman Catholic deacon and a Catholic school principal. He taught junior high literature and writing for over 25 years, and has been a Catholic school educator since 1990. In 2001 he was named a Distinguished Teacher of the Year by the National Catholic Education Association.