One of the great things that Prologue Books has done is introduce a new generation of readers to forgotten writers from the great age of the pulps. There were few women writers of pulps and mysteries during that age and fewer still that did not write under pen names. Helen Nielsen wrote about a dozen novels from the 1940's through to the 1970's, including The Brink of Murder, Dead on the Level, and Sing Me A Murder. She is, however, most well known for being a screenwriter for Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Perry Mason. Her pulp writings often featured either a Mike Shelly, a hardboiled detective, or a female detective. Detour to Death features neither of these. It is nevertheless an excellent book.

The basic plot for Detour to Death is familiar to most pulp readers. A man, through no fault of his own, becomes the chief suspect in a murder and, while he is on the run from the law, other bodies fall in his path and he is the chief suspect in those murders as well. He stands friendless, alone, unable to prove his innocence until the end of the story. Most of the time this plot is found in New York, Chicago, or Philadelphia (if it is a David Goodis story). What is wonderful and unique about Detour to Death is that the familiar plot is not played out in familiar territory. The entire story takes place in a small, desolate town in the west and the murder at the center of the story is of the town's popular doctor, a man everyone loved, and the entire town is arrayed against the protagonist. Who is the protagonist of this story? Danny Ross, a young kid of nearly eighteen, who had set out from Chicago and was headed down to Mexico to start life over. His seventeen-year-old jalopy had given out and, after pushing it to the side of the road, he thumbed a ride with the doctor. "Danny was barely eighteen. Eighteen and skinny in a pair of tight Levi's and an old leather jacket, with his sun-bleached hair cut a quick two inches from his scalp, and his tanned face marked with anger and pride. Danny wasn't running away from life; he was running toward it." This is a well-written story that surprisingly, despite its bleak and desolate location, draws the reader in quickly to a mystery that gets ever deeper. It is a terrific read and highly recommended.
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