Dividend on Death is a 1939 novel by Brett Halliday, the pen name of Davis Dresser.
It was the first novel in a series about tough-guy Miami private detective Michael Shayne, a series that would run for 37 years and some 70 pulp novels. Mike Shayne is your standard hard-boiled PI who, as the story opens, is approached by a lovely young woman, Phyllis Brighton. Phyllis is in a state of high agitation bordering on hysteria. She tells Shayne that "They" think Phyllis is going insane and may try to kill her mother. This is a problem, because Phyllis's mother is due to arrive on the afternoon train. After Phyllis hands over a valuable pearl necklace as a retainer, Shayne agrees to help.
Inside of an hour, Shayne gets a second visitor, one Dr. Joel Pedique. The sleazy, Obviously Evil Pedique says that he's the attending physician to Rufus Brighton, who is both seriously ill and Phyllis's stepfather. Pedique tells Shayne that Phyllis is mentally disturbed. They fear that Phyllis might do some harm to her mother, and they would like Shayne to shadow Phyllis to make sure she doesn't do anything.
Amused at the prospect of collecting two paychecks for one job, Shayne cheerfully accepts. He drives out to the Miami Beach house where the Brightons are staying to discuss Phyllis with her family—only to find a dazed, bloodstained Phyllis in the hallway. After hustling Phyllis back to her bedroom, Shayne, still unseen by anyone, makes his way to Mrs. Brighton's bedroom and finds her, dead with a slashed throat...
Tropes:
- Body in a Breadbox: Shayne finds the corpse of the real Rufus Brighton, stuffed in a trunk and buried in the sand of the beach outside the Brighton house.
- Buxom Beauty Standard: A trope that ran throughout the Mike Shayne series. Shayne admires the way Phyllis fills out her jacket, and later notices Charlotte the "full-bodied" blonde. Later, when Charlotte comes over to his apartment, Shayne compliments her curves.
- Cobwebs of Disuse: The cobwebs in the Brighton garage storage room make things a little creepier, but also draw Shayne's attention to the one spot in the room that isn't covered in cobwebs and dust, where something must be hidden.
- Cold Cash: Shayne hides the pearl necklace Phyllis gave him in the refrigerator, under the lettuce.
- Colliding Criminal Conspiracies: As it turns out, the murders of Mrs. Brighton and Charlotte the nurse have nothing to do with each other. Mrs. Brighton was murdered by Montrose, because she would have identified Julius as impersonating her husband, which would have wrecked Montrose and Julius's chance of getting the Brighton fortune. Charlotte the nurse was murdered by Gordon, solely so Gordon could get his moll into the Brighton house as the next nurse, so Gordon could steal the Raphael painting that was being delivered.
- Dame with a Case: A jittery, near-hysterical Phyllis Brighton shows up at Mike Shayne's doorstep, and asks him to make sure she doesn't kill her mother.
- Dead-Hand Shot: Shayne finds Mrs. Brighton dead on her bed from a slashed throat. "One white hand trailed down limply toward the floor."
- Dead Person Impersonation: Julius Brighton was impersonating his dead brother Rufus, in order to get his hands on the Brighton fortune.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: For the most part the Shayne formula was set up from the beginning, but there are some instances of early weirdness in this novel.
- Shayne invites Charlotte the sexy nurse over for what Charlotte thinks will be sex. Shayne really wants nothing more than to question Charlotte about the goings-on at the Brighton house, but as it happens, they do wind up having sex. There would be many many many instances in later novels where a Femme Fatale or other suspicious female character would try to seduce Shayne, but he always resisted.
- Peter Painter, chief of Miami Beach detectives, is introduced barking threats at Shayne and demanding he reveal where Phyllis is. However, Shayne eventually agrees to help Painter close the case and agrees to let him have all the publicity. Painter, for his part, at one point blows off Shayne's confession to destroying evidence, and at the end thanks him for his help. In later novels Painter would be a purely antagonistic Inspector Javert character who longs to put Shayne behind bars, and the Friend on the Force aspects to his character would be transferred to Chief Will Gentry of the Miami PD, who makes a brief appearance in this book.
- Most Shayne novels were examples of Extremely Short Timespan that took place over no more than 24 hours of frantic action, and sometimes less than that. This book takes place over three full days.
- This is a relatively rare example of the Dame with a Case intro. Most of the rest of the books in the Shayne series did not use this trope.
- Extra! Extra! Read All About It!: As Shayne is leaving the hospital, he's amused to hear newsboys hawking extras about the bloody shootout at the Brighton house.
- Hand Gag: Charlotte is all over Shayne when Shayne thinks he hears an intruder. He claps a hand over Charlotte's mouth, and a turned-on Charlotte licks his fingers.
- Hidden in Plain Sight: How to smuggle a valuable Raphael painting past customs without having to pay tax? You paint a different artist's signature over Raphael's, and tell the customs inspector that it's a copy.
- "I Can't Look!" Gesture: "Shayne turned his eyes away and held out his hand" after telling Phyllis to strip out of the bloodstained nightgown, which of course left her naked. It would be ungentlemanly to look and besides, he's more concerned with hiding the evidence that could send Phyllis to prison.
- Lingerie Scene:
- When Shayne shows up at the Brighton house he finds Phyllis in the hallway wearing nothing but a nightgown. The sexiness of this scene is somewhat lessened by the nightgown being spattered with blood.
- When Shayne goes to see Gordon the hoodlum, he sees Gordon's daughter (actually, his moll) in the bedroom. She is walking around in a negligee and Shayne realizes that she's putting on a show for his benefit. Especially when she drops the negligee and is left in only bra and panties.
- Mad Doctor: It turns out that creepy Dr. Pedrique was hypnotizing Phyllis into thinking she might be a lesbian, and was hoping to Hypno Fool Phyllis into murdering her own mother, just to see if he could.
- Made of Iron: Shayne gets shot four times—two grazing shots and two bullets in the shoulder, but still. Then he gets beaten into unconsciousness by Gordon and Gordon's mook. He keeps charging, and solves the case with his arm in a sling, although he does ask to be taken back to the hospital after the climax.
- Mammy: An amazingly racist scene has Shayne meeting a "fat Negress" in the Brighton kitchen. It gets even worse when he actually addresses her as "Mammy", and worse still when she answers his question about the gardener by saying "Dey ain' no gahdner heah dat I knows 'bout."
- Mutual Kill: Shayne sets this up. He gets both Gordon and Montrose to both show up to buy the painting, and then arranges for Peter Painter and the cops to appear right after. The police sirens trigger a shootout in which both Gordon and Montrose are killed, while Shayne pockets the money each gave him to buy the painting.
- Narrative Profanity Filter: "Shayne unemotionally mentioned Painter's probable ancestry in censorable terms."
- Never One Murder: Charlotte gets murdered almost immediately after returning to the Brighton house following sex with Strike.
- No Romantic Resolution: Phyllis, now feeling much better after she's escaped Pedrique the creepy hypnotist, returns to Shayne's apartment at the end of the book and tries to seduce him. Shayne, feeling a little guilty because Phyllis is only 19 and he's 35, reluctantly refuses. He tells her to "Go out and grow up. Then come back," and maybe they can see if something happens. Sure enough, Phyllis returns in the next novel, The Private Practice of Michael Shayne, and at the end of that book they get married.
- Plot Hole: Julius Brighton's whole scheme involved hiding his brother Rufus's dead, embalmed body for weeks before Julius pretended to "die". Maybe there are no doctors or coroners in Miami to tell the difference between an embalmed corpse and a fresh one.
- Sexy Sweater Girl: Phyllis, on the edge of a total breakdown, faints. Shayne catches her, and can't help but observe "her breasts taut against the thin knit jacket of her sports outfit."
- Sissy Villain: Dr. Pedrique, Phyllis's psychiatrist who is obviously up to no good. He is "small-boned" with long hair, who walks "mincingly" into Shayne's room and has "effiminate" hands.
