The Mouse In The Mountain, a Norbert Davis novel from 1943, is a rare specimen of hard-boiled screwball comedy. It's one of his Doan and Carstairs stories. An equally rare detective team: Doan is a small and chubby private detective, very innocuous in appearance, though that turns out to be a deceptive front for a cheerily merciless work ethic. Carstairs is a very large Great Dane, won by Doan in a craps game, and forever chagrined to be associated with such a low-life human. Very haughty and independent, Carstairs helps Doan rather grudgingly, perhaps only when it suits his own whims. He is definitely not a cutesy canine detective pal (Carstairs would kick Scooby Doo's ass around the block and then down a steep flight of stairs). In this slim novel, the pair find themselves on a trip to a remote village in Mexico, where Doan is to convince a US fugitive to stay put. Complications (and an earthquake) pile up rapidly. Davis' prose may not be as elegant as Chandler's (whose is?), but he moves things along nicely. It has the appealing feel of a 1940s comedy/detective film (if he had been a smaller man, William Bendix would have made an excellent Doan). Nothing heavy, just breezy fun.