tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1376776737751512562024-03-17T06:01:07.528-07:00The Passing TrampThe Passing Tramp: Wandering through the mystery genre, book by book.The Passing Tramphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.comBlogger1123125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-48607350033711103512024-02-08T22:21:00.000-08:002024-02-16T23:38:59.798-08:00No Time Like the Past? At Bertram's Hotel (1965), by Agatha Christie<p><i>Agatha Christie</i></p><p><i>Pecks at the keys 'bout a murder in her mind she's seen</i></p><p><i>Death lives in her dreams</i></p><p><i>There's a face at the window</i></p><p><i>A man's holding a knife that is all red and crusted with gore</i></p><p><i>Who is it for?</i></p><p><i>All those lovely murders</i></p><p><i>How did she think them up?</i></p><p><i>All those lovely murders</i></p><p><i>On blood tonight we'll sup!</i></p><p><i>Ah, try to solve those lovely murders!</i></p><p><i>Ah, just try to solve those lovely murders!</i></p><p>--with apologies to Paul McCartney</p><p><i>Inside, if this was the first time you visited Bertram's, you felt, almost with alarm, that you had re-entered a vanished world. Time had gone back. You were in Edwardian England once more.</i></p><p><i>"I mean, we're not the sort of hotel where murders happen."</i></p><p>--<b>At Bertram's Hotel, Agatha Christie</b></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxCz5scCzxh6pCSdwV11Z_sbVjtGHv-58IylFsQ4B-Kec8b1vCW_HBJ8XUn4nDDUxJuKdVONbE1bKU2EWAgMWmYugaaqMEwvRZgBvXRhQVIeQXcW7K2ZBqaD9LqEl8VqBTX8mQaeiGeDsOfxjN_2AKjCXBqHsRSThJMU8zy3VlPdHEddYt3M2I475w-biJ/s1920/hotel1.webp" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1920" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxCz5scCzxh6pCSdwV11Z_sbVjtGHv-58IylFsQ4B-Kec8b1vCW_HBJ8XUn4nDDUxJuKdVONbE1bKU2EWAgMWmYugaaqMEwvRZgBvXRhQVIeQXcW7K2ZBqaD9LqEl8VqBTX8mQaeiGeDsOfxjN_2AKjCXBqHsRSThJMU8zy3VlPdHEddYt3M2I475w-biJ/w640-h426/hotel1.webp" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brown's Hotel, said to have been the basis for Christie's fictional Bertram's Hotel<br />Christie added the crime.</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>Agatha's Christie's 1965 Miss Marple mystery novel <b>At Bertram's Hotel</b> is, I believe, the only work of hers which mentions the rock group <b>The Beatles</b> by name. By 1964, when the Queen of Crime was writing Hotel, the Beatles had invaded and conquered America and of course they were huge in the UK as well. The popularity of the mop-topped Beatles, who at that stage of their careers seem to us so young and almost cutely innocent, was mystifying to a lot of oldsters like Agatha, making them feel more alienated than ever from the then present era and its modish youth. <b>At Bertram's Hotel</b> makes brilliant use of that feeling of alienation. </p><p>A year after her nephew Raymond West provided her with a vacation to a Caribbean island in <b>A Caribbean Mystery</b> (1964), Miss Marple got a nice trip to London, courtesy of Raymond and his wife Joan, to stay at Bertram's Hotel. Of course, not long after Miss Marple gets there, she's embroiled in a crime and (eventually) a murder, which is even better, really, than shopping at the London stores. </p><p>Since its publication nearly sixty years ago <b>At Bertram's Hotel</b> has provoked a mixed response from critics, who generally have enjoyed the atmosphere of the hotel, while taking a dimmer view of the thrillerish aspects of the plot. I recall that when I first read this one, probably in 1978 when I was twelve, I found it pretty darn dull. </p><p>Where were all the things I expected from a Christie by that time: the murder in the opening chapters, the investigations by the (usually) amateur sleuths, the gathering of suspects in the drawing room or some such similar place for the elucidation of the crime? Instead you have Miss Marple sitting in a hotel chit-chatting with other oldsters, with occasional bouts of consuming muffins and tea and the occasional raspberry donut (the author had a sweet tooth, or a sweet plate) and shopping and reminiscing around London. There is also some wild plot concerning a criminal gang of robbers. Not my own personal cup of tea at all at the time.</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvr_7qMas25hPVbiiVhQHHgT41QbWsBpWIEXCxdUeIdj-t9cSFixsMMGgPx3_uqhULAr7znYvZq97XdoYbvYne7hjUwx-rXM_WTH39RfGLbeEM2qyLVUGSYpiJRF2YZrt4TdRn8Hc1CbsCoRUlhw-y0vcN-z0fquunfOAtTVCo9OS-5If4yVusb_kpsylu/s750/hotel.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="750" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvr_7qMas25hPVbiiVhQHHgT41QbWsBpWIEXCxdUeIdj-t9cSFixsMMGgPx3_uqhULAr7znYvZq97XdoYbvYne7hjUwx-rXM_WTH39RfGLbeEM2qyLVUGSYpiJRF2YZrt4TdRn8Hc1CbsCoRUlhw-y0vcN-z0fquunfOAtTVCo9OS-5If4yVusb_kpsylu/w400-h266/hotel.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brown's Hotel</td></tr></tbody></table><p>When I reread the novel many years later my view of it greatly improved; and on this latest reread I only liked it more. </p><p>It's hardly an original observation but Christie's rendering of the hotel, which on the surface appears to be so magnificently, reassuringly traditional, is impressive indeed. I would say in fact that it's something of a tour de force, rather Allingham-esque in its atmospherics. </p><p>Indeed, I think <b>Youngman Carter</b>'s<b> <a href="https://thepassingtramp.blogspot.com/2013/01/mr-campions-continuation-youngman.html">Mr. Campion's Farthing</a></b> (1969), said to have been based on an outline from <b>Margery Allingham</b> before she died in 1966, might have been influenced by <b>At Bertam's Hotel</b>. </p><p>Miss Marple loves Bertram's but, canny as she is, she feels a certain sense of unease from the beginning: </p><p><i>It really seemed too good to be true. she knew quite well with her usual clear-eyed common sense, that what she wanted was to refurbish her memories of the past in their old original colours. Much of her life had, perforce, to be spent recalling past pleasures. If you could find someone to remember them with, that was indeed happiness. Nowadays that was not easy to do; she had outlived most of her contemporaries. She still sat and remembered. In a queer way, it made her feel young again. </i></p><p>This is lovely, focussed writing, the kind of thing people would not be getting nearly so much from Christie in a few short years in the future. </p><p>Later after the astonishing events at Bertram's Hotel, Mrs, Marle reflects to the paternal, tune-humming Chief-Inspector Fred "Father" Davy (one of Christie's best-realized police detectives in the Marple universe, along with Inspector Dermot Craddock): </p><p><i>"It seemed wonderful at first--unchanged, you know--like stepping back into the past--to the part of the past that one had loved and enjoyed. But of course it wasn't really like that. I learned (what I suppose I really knew already) that one can never go back, that one should not ever try to go back--that the essence of life is going forward. Life is really a One Way Street, isn't it?"</i></p><p>These are wise words, well-put, and a rebuke to those who think that Christie was "merely" about puzzles, with no intent behind her crime writing other than to entertain. After <b>The Pale Horse</b> (1962) and <b>The Clocks</b> (1963), Christie's books increasingly concern elderly people trying to accommodate themselves to the present, with mixed results. (<b>Endless Night</b> is an exception, in that it is told through the voice of a young person.) There's an autumnal feeling to most of these books, that of an aging writer who has realized she is in the final stage, not merely of a career, but of life itself. But in <b>Hotel</b>, she's still perceptive enough to be aware that nostalgia is a comfortable trap, a resignation from life. While one lives one should try to strive and go forward. </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijqe_N6CCAYT0Ewsy9HqK2n8S8By7I3GNkPe_q8eX4ymLUakJ6hXKwFVqKI95r20c5hG0daB8_jlEJYyAutgU8ny1X6SdNlxN_fUKJHXFcMUTGiZ2qq-UVBGTmr7TElL8gBRlHRXiN1ESgI2OqQredEN-EH3wWHkbOxjnB4j8ijyDMCS7d6npUDlAiFuDS/s4190/hotel_000042.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4190" data-original-width="2453" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijqe_N6CCAYT0Ewsy9HqK2n8S8By7I3GNkPe_q8eX4ymLUakJ6hXKwFVqKI95r20c5hG0daB8_jlEJYyAutgU8ny1X6SdNlxN_fUKJHXFcMUTGiZ2qq-UVBGTmr7TElL8gBRlHRXiN1ESgI2OqQredEN-EH3wWHkbOxjnB4j8ijyDMCS7d6npUDlAiFuDS/w234-h400/hotel_000042.jpg" width="234" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tom Adams cover</td></tr></tbody></table><p>I could go into the plot of the book more. The criminal gang element, apparently inspired by England's <b>Great Train Robbery</b> of 1963, is bookish and too clever by half, I think, like something out of <b>Edgar Wallace</b>; but it dovetails beautifully with the theme and plot of the book. There's an absent-minded cleric to end all absent-minded clerics. (When he disappears Inspector Davy speculates about his possibly having run off with a choir boy.) </p><p>There's a significant mother and daughter pairing, allowing Christie to get on her soapbox about mothers not providing adequate supervision for their daughters in the Sexy Sixties. There's a late murder which draws on several classic Christie devices and probably won't fool the experienced Christie reader. But I wouldn't change any of it for the world. </p><p>As ever Miss Marple has great moral force in the novel, making her devotions before going to bed at night and telling Davy: "<i>Murder--the wish to do murder--is something quite different. It--how shall I say?--it defies God."</i> It's the sort of line the actress <b>Joan Hickson </b>could deliver perfectly on point, which is why she will always be Miss Marple to me. </p>The Passing Tramphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-79180146482968203302024-02-07T21:58:00.000-08:002024-02-17T05:03:35.234-08:00Lucifer: Hallowe'en Party (1969), by Agatha Christie <p><i>"How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!...For thou has said in thine heart, I will ascend into Heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God...."</i>--<b>Isaiah 14:12-13 (Bible, KJV)</b></p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgijAm0KEj746nE456PpveZCz9HsAjyBux6ddnJ9dGAkmzA-M0rVbfNOOPCYlirwyCOAQhdVsBV8ycEp1biQvhQM5wMKIrn9FIUvpqhpfQLZHDCiKYTpgwid6yydr3pPWSYdXCMDmsitmA5DGmvMzdoWX0IkAMiMUqDF9pcy-Fgsdhagc_nVxJ0id4ra2gL/s1575/bobbing2a.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1575" data-original-width="986" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgijAm0KEj746nE456PpveZCz9HsAjyBux6ddnJ9dGAkmzA-M0rVbfNOOPCYlirwyCOAQhdVsBV8ycEp1biQvhQM5wMKIrn9FIUvpqhpfQLZHDCiKYTpgwid6yydr3pPWSYdXCMDmsitmA5DGmvMzdoWX0IkAMiMUqDF9pcy-Fgsdhagc_nVxJ0id4ra2gL/w250-h400/bobbing2a.jpg" width="250" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">bobbing for apples in 1969</td></tr></tbody></table>I think <b>Agatha Christie</b>'s <b>Halloween Party</b>--I'm going to drop the apostrophe for ease--a seriously underrated book. As Christie aged in the 1960s her mystery plots became less tidy and <b>Halloween Party</b> is no exception in this regard, though it's a masterpiece of construction compared with <b>By the Pricking of My Thumbs</b> or <b>Postern of Fate</b>. (Sorry Tommy and Tuppence fans!)<p></p><p>However Christie compensated for this flaw, in her best books of the period, by writing interesting <i>crime novels</i>, where she elevated suspense (<b>The Pale Horse, Endless Night</b>), setting (<b>At Bertram's Hotel</b>), or theme (<b>Hotel, Night, Halloween Party, Nemesis</b>). As pure detective novels, probably none of her books from the Sixties bear comparison with her best detective novels from previous years, but as crime novels some of them have plenty of good features. </p><p>As in other late Christies, <b>Halloween Party</b> has a great opening setup, followed by chapters of considerable verbosity which slow down the narrative. Verily, Christie is not the first mystery writer to be undermined by late in life use of a Dictaphone.</p><p>Almost all of the book takes place in a commuter town in the greater London area, Woodleigh Common. It opens at Apple Trees, the home of a domineering middle-aged widow, Rowena Drake, who is holding, yes, a Halloween party for neighborhood adolescents. There are activities and games like a broom decorating contest, an event where the girls hold up mirrors to see their future husbands, snapdragon (you try to snatch burning raisins and almonds) and, of course, bobbing for apples.</p><p>I have never done any of these things, though as a kid I did see neighborhood girls play Milton Bradley's Mystery Date, which is kind of the same thing as the mirror husband bit, I suppose. I remember seeing the commercial for that game below too, or one very like it. "<i>Open the door...for your...Mystery Date.</i>"</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/P9muUJczXc4" width="320" youtube-src-id="P9muUJczXc4"></iframe></div><p>My Mom always warned me off bobbing for apples, which she said was incredibly unsanitary. In the case of poor 13-year-old Joyce Reynolds in <b>Halloween Party</b>, bobbing for apples is literally fatal, because she is drowned at the party when someone lures her into the library and dunks her head into the galvanized iron apple bucket until she expires. </p><p>Come to think of it, this book could have been called <b>Another Body in the Library</b>. I shouldn't joke, as it really is a rather macabre and terrible murder. However, Christie in her own unsentimental way keeps telling us what a horrible child Joyce is. I don't believe Christie ever got really worked up about her child murders, except in the general sense that murder is inherently evil. That she did get worked up about. </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIxMl0UKUkvl8D0pwW9AjGAy7Ihq2A6DcEGdhCklMTgJQTwTRU6NZnjJduzo-4ZYV5jWFoYLszBjZCQUwHOMH0GeyvHESmhjMElPX4WkBGvNTLE4woBdPGPxLW8mlec8Z1GSdaTcYNdrn8_02MmXUkMUgXxAdVWtMIpfhigP6E_UtuUcHmQTa-QrRwWKJ3/s777/halloween2.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="777" data-original-width="596" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIxMl0UKUkvl8D0pwW9AjGAy7Ihq2A6DcEGdhCklMTgJQTwTRU6NZnjJduzo-4ZYV5jWFoYLszBjZCQUwHOMH0GeyvHESmhjMElPX4WkBGvNTLE4woBdPGPxLW8mlec8Z1GSdaTcYNdrn8_02MmXUkMUgXxAdVWtMIpfhigP6E_UtuUcHmQTa-QrRwWKJ3/w306-h400/halloween2.jpg" width="306" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Or maybe think again....</td></tr></tbody></table><p>So, how did someone come to drown Joyce in an apple bucket? Well, Joyce did boastfully announce at the party, not long before her death: "<i>I saw a murder once.</i>" It's a brilliant stroke of Christie's just to have Joyce suddenly blurt this out in the hubbub of general conversation. </p><p>Her boast was made, apparently, to impress Ariadne Oliver, mystery writer and Christie alter ego, who happens to be at the party, she being a friend of lovely Judith Butler, another handsome local widow, and her daughter Miranda, a sweet and charming girl unlike that stinker Joyce. This novel being rich in classical allusion, Judith gets compared to Undine, a water nymph, and Miranda to a wood dryad. </p><p>Everyone seems to think that naughty Joyce was lying (she has a history, like the boy who cried wolf)-- but what if she told the truth and the murderer had an accomplice, say, at the party? There would have been a reason, then, to have gotten rid of Joyce as fast as possible. (Joyce claimed she hadn't realized the killing was a murder at the time, this having taken place a few years earlier, when she was "just a child.")</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYo6xBFe3RIyj1jqVrxTavoqzUyw1Bp3alFAOUlK0MKAzoAQCVzo5uRuPo28hbj32OEPMgtnsVqnkgD-D6_kWqVukdxpG5r0DlkbnakKlRYbrH0Z_Y-h-MCS4IaTuFa8FzO3yQ4pZFDcJGCcfkPr1EgtyZogjTqqoB2ajIl82qfZcyi3slg2LNFewGF8wc/s686/snap.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="386" data-original-width="686" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYo6xBFe3RIyj1jqVrxTavoqzUyw1Bp3alFAOUlK0MKAzoAQCVzo5uRuPo28hbj32OEPMgtnsVqnkgD-D6_kWqVukdxpG5r0DlkbnakKlRYbrH0Z_Y-h-MCS4IaTuFa8FzO3yQ4pZFDcJGCcfkPr1EgtyZogjTqqoB2ajIl82qfZcyi3slg2LNFewGF8wc/w640-h360/snap.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">snapdragon<br />for more see <a href="https://mattfife.com/?p=4825">here</a></td></tr></tbody></table><p>A distraught Mrs. Oliver--she insists that she'll never eat apples again (and, indeed she switches over to dates)--calls upon her pal Hercule Poirot in London to get him to investigate the matter. So off Poirot goes to Woodleigh Common. After a visit to another old pal, Inspector Spence (from <b>Mrs. McGinty's Dead</b>, seventeen years earlier), who, now retired, lives in Woodleigh Common with his sister Elspeth, Poirot goes on the hunt for Joyce's killer. </p><p>Poirot's investigation consists mainly of him walking around from house to house in his painful patent leather shoes, interviewing people in an attempt to find out just what murder it was that Joyce might have seen. Among his most important interviewees are </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5_gY2bjPJI4Pxe7n8_q-8KR0GfGLU6fhXhVdcknws4TkHpfOXRNplQkTogyVzGViwNsg-rhmweXbF4A4mVnLjwXV3Mw03JcOF4mjuPAcbudBR2quYOZlPP8Q4Pm8kqcC_U5GreXoo270qMx4md-QUXhtQoT3IaQ10Ozg0hs7Ob7riArkS21lxvuDaGUxy/s800/halloween.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="552" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5_gY2bjPJI4Pxe7n8_q-8KR0GfGLU6fhXhVdcknws4TkHpfOXRNplQkTogyVzGViwNsg-rhmweXbF4A4mVnLjwXV3Mw03JcOF4mjuPAcbudBR2quYOZlPP8Q4Pm8kqcC_U5GreXoo270qMx4md-QUXhtQoT3IaQ10Ozg0hs7Ob7riArkS21lxvuDaGUxy/w276-h400/halloween.jpg" width="276" /></a></div><p><b>Miss Emlyn, headmistress of The Elms, a local girls school, who is, incidentally, a friend of Miss Bulstrode, headmistress of Meadowbank from </b>Cat among the Pigeons (1959)<b>, now retired</b></p><p><b>Miss Whittaker, a teacher at The Elms, who saw something at the Halloween Party</b></p><p><b>Judith Butler and Miranda, mentioned above</b></p><p><b>the late Joyce's mother and her elder sister, Ann, and her younger brother, Leopold, the latter two of whom are remarkably unconcerned about their sibling's death and the former of whom is mostly just whiny, to quote from my Pocket pb edition's cast of characters</b></p><p><b>Mrs. Goodbody, the local witch, who likes to quote nursery rhymes</b></p><p><b>Nicholas Ransom and Desmond Holland, local teenage boys who are adept at photography</b></p><p><b>and Michael Garfield, a beautiful landscape architect who fashioned a beautiful garden out of a local quarry for Rowena Drake's late aunt</b></p><p>I read <b>Halloween Party</b> originally when I was about twelve, less than a decade after it was originally published, and I quite enjoyed it as I recollect. Halloween was always a holiday I loved and of course some of the kids in the book were around my age at the time: stinkeroo Joyce, 13, winsome Miranda, 12, and Leopold, 10. Christie's depiction of children and teenagers is on the whole quite credible, I think, and especially impressive given the late date of the book. </p><p>Once again she seems relatively sympathetic to Sixties boys, intrigued with their colorful clothes and profusion of curling hair. What about teenage girls? Christie still seems down on them. Ariadne Oliver pronounces, "<i>I can't help thinking...that girls are very silly nowadays</i>," to which Rowena Drake responds:<i> "Don't you think they always were?" </i> Mrs. Oliver considers and replies:<i> "I suppose you're right." </i></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqiR_IZ53wyN7mXMf3OBxE43QTYr0VuftrLLMUIwXkWSd9i4axQq1bs8FbLBMQ8FjgLsjXBDmqaFvodc3NY4PVOCq8SS_CH5gsgXI_BGT91rmGZsGwj3b2vp2nnbbsOUDi7PGHhshQLCNU2JUWquheGag_YnbTkPkNYkMR0yH0KGsi6huI_-egxVXcAH10/s1181/beatles.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="877" data-original-width="1181" height="476" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqiR_IZ53wyN7mXMf3OBxE43QTYr0VuftrLLMUIwXkWSd9i4axQq1bs8FbLBMQ8FjgLsjXBDmqaFvodc3NY4PVOCq8SS_CH5gsgXI_BGT91rmGZsGwj3b2vp2nnbbsOUDi7PGHhshQLCNU2JUWquheGag_YnbTkPkNYkMR0yH0KGsi6huI_-egxVXcAH10/w640-h476/beatles.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">such colorful lads</td></tr></tbody></table><p>There's one passage where Nicky and Desmond, trying to be with it and up-to-date, reference ESP. I thought Christie herself might have been alluding <b>The Amazing Kreskin</b>, an American psychic entertainer who I was surprised to see is still alive. However, I see he only became big in the Seventies, and they may not have heard of him in the UK anyway. Perhaps she was alluding to <b>Margery Allingham</b>'s thriller <b>The Mind Readers</b> (1965), published four years earlier. </p><p>The boys also knowingly suggest that two local school teachers (one of them murdered) might have been lesbians. I think they were probably right about that. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr1SMCr_YXKlvxLDFbYaTI4o2zOuidwJNDFE7fOLw969FBdtOtYLZAhrXUZ-1rHRh70F5BU6-f0gUJSN_i2gwF8SssNcpnHEbxHQh9JMbpeZrpfj2xLYo1aqswPcxAuoBxXrWzS-c2Mw2ZGIYz3riF-nC8JoPY2sSCPZE6IPNNf4JSLhAv2-xYiRhtorjp/s600/garden.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="402" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr1SMCr_YXKlvxLDFbYaTI4o2zOuidwJNDFE7fOLw969FBdtOtYLZAhrXUZ-1rHRh70F5BU6-f0gUJSN_i2gwF8SssNcpnHEbxHQh9JMbpeZrpfj2xLYo1aqswPcxAuoBxXrWzS-c2Mw2ZGIYz3riF-nC8JoPY2sSCPZE6IPNNf4JSLhAv2-xYiRhtorjp/w268-h400/garden.jpg" width="268" /></a></div><p>Reading <b>Halloween Party</b> always reminds me that Christie overlapped writing eras with such prominent Silver Age crime writers as<b> PD James, Ruth Rendell, Catherine Aird and Patricia Moyes</b>, only one of whom is still around with us today. There's a lot about <b>Halloween Party</b> that could actually have appeared in a Ruth Rendell mystery, for example. </p><p>Indeed, the resemblance to <a href="https://thepassingtramp.blogspot.com/2021/01/brush-up-your-wordsworth-guilty-thing.html">A Guilty Thing Surprised</a>, which Rendell published the next year, is not insignificant. Gardens feature prominently in that one too and an au pair girl plays a big role. (There's a vanished au pair girl in <b>Halloween Party</b>.) If anything Christie's novel is more up to date that Rendell's.</p><p><b>Halloween Party</b> is, to be sure, rambling and discursive, like all late Christie. You might get tired of all the people complaining about youth crime and hooliganism, though I guess it will be surprising news to the end-of-times MAGA ignoramuses that this is not a new phenomenon. </p><p>There's a chapter that feels utterly superfluous (an interview between Poirot and the local doctor, who is an irrelevant character to the story) and sometimes Christie contradicts herself or forgets in what order she told us something. In Poirot's elucidation at the end, for example, he says he interviewed Mrs. Goodbody after he talked to Miranda about a certain point, when in the text as it's presented to us it's the other way around. However, embedded within the text is a pretty good mystery, actually, one which draws significantly on a good Christie short story from the 1930s, like <b>Endless Night</b> drew on an older Miss Marple short story. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1IoAcdqIAeaCTkXYEDpsBmF_D1tQrZeOa257PmgvXqEjfHIFEsg_ZSCXgmhuP5sJppLzhzHGs7c5PN8bxW2b35zdiY4m68a6jBv65PMd0N6hUvW-R3enuML2WZ6GaszmA1BgtHuPoQwmtveKEY5n_lGEB36VmieWbkoDQKOVUQeGOEvYCfK7qPq174-hT/s1577/witchanddevil.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1577" data-original-width="1566" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1IoAcdqIAeaCTkXYEDpsBmF_D1tQrZeOa257PmgvXqEjfHIFEsg_ZSCXgmhuP5sJppLzhzHGs7c5PN8bxW2b35zdiY4m68a6jBv65PMd0N6hUvW-R3enuML2WZ6GaszmA1BgtHuPoQwmtveKEY5n_lGEB36VmieWbkoDQKOVUQeGOEvYCfK7qPq174-hT/w398-h400/witchanddevil.jpg" width="398" /></a></div><p>The major red herring is not presented forcefully enough, so detractors have complained that the mystery is too easy to figure out; yet it's an interesting plot to follow. There's also a powerfully presented, indeed mythic, depiction of true evil in this tale. </p><p>Halloween as a theme may be largely dropped after the opening chapters, but there is much about the murder that is Satanic, you might say, and one would do well not to forget the role an apple played in the the flight from Eden. </p><p>Rereading this one, I realized how much I truly enjoy it and I am updating my rating of it. I don't believe the recent <b>Kenneth Branagh</b> film, <b>A Haunting in Venice</b>, really had much to do with <b>Halloween Party</b> as claimed (correct me if I'm wrong), but the <b>David Suchet</b> adaptation from to 2010 was pretty good and is recommended, though it predictably was backset to the 1930s. </p><p>Just once I would like to see the Poirot of the Sixties presented on film. He's a older, lonelier figure, rather like Miss Marple, less given to colorful "foreign" behavior, whom the younger police have largely forgotten. They are afraid, indeed, that he might me senile, or "gaga" as they say.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3FdlRq9YujH6lljBEbCoZC21lLEXhBJ4LcholaGBFS6bhvIl70ehn6Y7NqDLMMZz_Sc85UCBiWHY6hOblOqihKw_mScg02fjDo-ftIQwiEBgaMFW260d2sce1jRpjCTH_qPxeRSK0mcx-5UwWm9CKnRQoqsgVs2S5icrccwyZBl-Cr7p_uGJIjY1gWEuU/s594/bobbing5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="518" data-original-width="594" height="349" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3FdlRq9YujH6lljBEbCoZC21lLEXhBJ4LcholaGBFS6bhvIl70ehn6Y7NqDLMMZz_Sc85UCBiWHY6hOblOqihKw_mScg02fjDo-ftIQwiEBgaMFW260d2sce1jRpjCTH_qPxeRSK0mcx-5UwWm9CKnRQoqsgVs2S5icrccwyZBl-Cr7p_uGJIjY1gWEuU/w400-h349/bobbing5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>When the Belgian detective first appears he is spending the night alone in London with his manservant George somewhere about in the flat, his friend Solomon Levy having canceled an evening visit on account of a cold. But then Mrs. Oliver shows up with another murder for him to solve. </p><p>Christie's fictional alter ego appeared in all the Poirot mysteries between 1956 and 1972, with the exception of <b>Cat among the Pigeons</b> and <b>The Clocks</b>, where Poirot's role is pretty reduced. As ever, she makes an enjoyable companion in crime fighting. (<b>Dead Man's Folly</b> is referenced in the book as well.)</p><p>Ann Reynolds, something of a know-all, mentions having read Oliver's mystery <b>The Dying Goldfish</b>, though I think she (and the author) is thinking of <b>The Affair of the Second Goldfish</b>, mentioned way back in two earlier Poirot detective novels. </p><p>There is one really fine, insightful twist in <b>Halloween Party</b>, I thought, concerning just what it was Joyce really saw. There's another murder in the present too, which may have been a bit too much of a bad thing. (My Mom thought so when she read it.) However, the denouement is dramatic and effective and foreshadowed far earlier in the book, for those who think of <b>Halloween Party</b> as just some sort of hot, hellish mess. I wish all late Christie were as "bad" as <b>Halloween Party</b>. Give the Devil his due.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RpVjjnoVxEo" width="320" youtube-src-id="RpVjjnoVxEo"></iframe></div>The Passing Tramphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-39214653437529886082024-02-06T22:54:00.000-08:002024-02-07T18:58:09.936-08:00No Vacation from Murder: A Caribbean Mystery (1964) and At Bertram's Hotel (1965), by Agatha Christie Part I: A Caribbean Mystery<p>If one looks over Agatha Christie's Miss Marple mysteries one sees that they tend to come in bunches. Thus we have:</p><p><b>1920s/30s</b></p><p><b>The Murder at the Vicarage (1930)</b></p><p><b>The Thirteen Problems, aka The Tuesday Club Murders (1932) (collection of short stories originally published between 1927 and 1931)</b></p><p><b>1940s</b></p><p><b>Sleeping Murder (1940?, published in 1976))</b></p><p><b>The Body in the Library (1942)</b></p><p><b>The Moving Finger (1943)</b></p><p><b>1950s</b></p><p><b>A Murder Is Announced (1950)</b></p><p><b>They Do It with Mirrors (1952)</b></p><p><b>A Pocket Full of Rye (1953)</b></p><p><b>4.50 from Paddington (1957)</b></p><p><b>1960s</b></p><p><b>The Mirror Crack's from Side to Side (1962)</b></p><p><b>A Caribbean Mystery (1964)</b></p><p><b>At Bertram's Hotel (1965)</b></p><p><b>1970s</b></p><p><b>Nemesis (1971)</b></p><p>So almost all of the books fall in these periods: 1930-32 (2), 1940-43 (3), 1950-53 (3), 1962-65 (3). The two exceptions are <b>4.50 from Paddington</b> (Christie wrote the substantial Marple short story <b>Greenshaw's Folly</b> in 1957 too) and <b>Nemesis</b>, which was Miss Marple's coda. So did Christie just have Marplelous bouts of imagination, or what? It's like once she started writing about her, she wanted to keep going for a bit. And then it was back to that old ball and chain, Hercule Poirot!</p><p>Certainly the mod half of the Sixties (pre-hippie) was a Marple era, with three novels and the spate of Marple films around the same time, starring a lovable and indeed wacky, if not actually that faithfully rendered, <b>Margaret Rutherford</b> as Miss Marple. </p><p>All three of these Marple novels are solid books, I would say, with one of them, <b>At Bertram's Hotel</b>, being much undervalued, I would argue. Christie made her last substantive visit to Miss Marple's native village, St. Mary Mead with <b>The Mirror Crack'd</b> (I'm using the shorter American title), a substantial contribution to the Marple canon, I believe, though I need to reread it. Then there were back-to-back Marples with <b>Caribbean Mystery</b> and <b>Bertram's Hotel</b>, which I have recently reread.</p><p>I originally read both of these books around 1977-78 in American Pocket pb eds with a very unconvincing Miss Marple depiction on the back cover and those neat little casts of characters descriptions in the beginning pages (a feature I miss today). As I recollect I liked <b>Caribbean Mystery</b> pretty well but was rather bored by <b>Hotel</b>. Today for me, it's just the other way around.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhprhBoehLJpbt6kxBI9WSSnYE6THg228hMDGtX6rLsGsEVQrMyQ3P5s2s7jC7N01zdkFvvPx2jlMf3TcgUJEPh_R46GkVRWeGzrkAfZcLZcZjqRKvR36ZQqSpKYBaeM999rLVviXvRE-AIw62l4P80dpgK0xJF5smkyw9OlPo1utsoZK2kdsFd9kl4ayRB/s1024/saintlucia.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhprhBoehLJpbt6kxBI9WSSnYE6THg228hMDGtX6rLsGsEVQrMyQ3P5s2s7jC7N01zdkFvvPx2jlMf3TcgUJEPh_R46GkVRWeGzrkAfZcLZcZjqRKvR36ZQqSpKYBaeM999rLVviXvRE-AIw62l4P80dpgK0xJF5smkyw9OlPo1utsoZK2kdsFd9kl4ayRB/w640-h480/saintlucia.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Saint Lucia</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Both books take Miss Marple out of the confines of St. Mary Mead, but Murder, as in the case of Jessica Fletcher of the television series <b>Murder She Wrote</b>, follows Miss Marple wherever she goes. In both books Miss Marple takes a pleasure trip, courtesy of her well-off and devoted novelist nephew Raymond West and his artist wife Joan, or Joyce as she's called in earlier works. (I think Christie missed an opportunity in not devoting a novel to Miss Marple solving a mystery in the arts community, courtesy of her connection to the Wests.)</p><p><b>A Caribbean Mystery </b>is one of those "travelogue mysteries" that a detective fiction author writes after they've taken a trip to some exotic distant location. (Everything is copy!) Christie was hardly the only British mystery writer to take a jaunt to the Caribbean and then set a mystery there, but of course, Christie being Christie, her <b>Caribbean Mystery</b> is one of the best-known examples. </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpUgkzpnVsv-9pd62_trTyZ46SHzg3IeAeOFDNoG_Gjj9i3lB7XKel6UsKHnxbolL7cOpLFOf364kdgEOKXd2uOjM0UXFT8gBeAOZ0rZfQO0i9_jUu1VQ3nhWYsN8NtNQFfNPXdJH4sHihVAzE23wO68uCs6amhfLGqJfVM_ezSjtx0AGe5NvJyCQPeBcT/s4191/carib_000041.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4191" data-original-width="2545" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpUgkzpnVsv-9pd62_trTyZ46SHzg3IeAeOFDNoG_Gjj9i3lB7XKel6UsKHnxbolL7cOpLFOf364kdgEOKXd2uOjM0UXFT8gBeAOZ0rZfQO0i9_jUu1VQ3nhWYsN8NtNQFfNPXdJH4sHihVAzE23wO68uCs6amhfLGqJfVM_ezSjtx0AGe5NvJyCQPeBcT/w242-h400/carib_000041.jpg" width="242" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1969 Fontana pb edition<br />Artist <b>Tom Adams</b> had a great eye<br />for the macabre and could not resist<br />Major Palgrave's glass orb.<br />A later Fontana edition he did<br />was even more surreal, with the <br />major's glass eye elevated into <br />the sky, overlooking a corpse.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>The setting of the novel is Saint Honore, apparently a fictionalization of the island of Saint Lucia in the Lesser Antilles. The novel opens with Miss Marple being bored to death by a garrulous old retired British major (one of Christie's classic stock types as she herself implicitly acknowledges in the book. Major Palgrave loves, repetitively and lengthily, to tell stories of his past. Then the major suddenly asks the old lady if she would like to see a murderer. He is about to show her a photo from his stuffed wallet when, evidently disturbed by something which he spies over Miss Marple's shoulder, he hastily puts it away again. </p><p>What did Major Palgrave see behind her shoulder? Miss Marple can't be sure, but she suspects it was the very murderer he was talking about! This is the looking over the shoulder gambit which Christie had used in at least a couple of earlier novels. The scene also resembles <b>Mrs. McGinty's Dead</b> (1952), one of Christie's last top-flight books, in that there is a piece of information, the photo, relating to a murder in the past which implicates someone present in the here and now. </p><p>So we are very much in classic territory here, and some of the reviews of the novel at the time, resoundingly welcomed the novel as a classic Christie. Declared <b>Maurice Richardson</b> of the <b>Observer</b>: "<i>somewhere near her very best unputdownable form....Old Miss Marple is stimulated and defustified by a change of scene....Not very hard to guess, but quite suspenseful.</i>" Christie's old Detection Club colleague <b>Francis Iles</b> (<b>Anthony Berkeley Cox</b>) chimed in even more enthusiastically: "<i>Mrs. Agatha Christie has done it again....she tells the reader explicitly what is going to happen; yet when it does, nine out of ten will taken completely by surprise, as I was. How does she do it?</i>"</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqCIG051D24sNuExWcYdlTjo3Ml_WgOzSVfrGnfLGCa41n-swmo8zAuAmlbb1pSa36tc2WRQ3Jx-GnwqgRxYN_glpuoTJp9IkUe0nmljobYy7BQhKtEHqEE6Ijh1NmQyhhiSGxIMWf3VjdHg7-cD-2ac9a61kNW5ku55bLxR3w-gt4hVoOtQOVXDiIC2S8/s900/bungalow.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="900" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqCIG051D24sNuExWcYdlTjo3Ml_WgOzSVfrGnfLGCa41n-swmo8zAuAmlbb1pSa36tc2WRQ3Jx-GnwqgRxYN_glpuoTJp9IkUe0nmljobYy7BQhKtEHqEE6Ijh1NmQyhhiSGxIMWf3VjdHg7-cD-2ac9a61kNW5ku55bLxR3w-gt4hVoOtQOVXDiIC2S8/w400-h266/bungalow.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Frangipani Cottage <br />Balenbouche Historic Estate</td></tr></tbody></table><p>This is the third time I have read <b>A Caribbean Mystery</b>, so obviously surprise was out of the picture for me this time around. (I don't believe I ever forget Christie solutions.) </p><p>I'm pretty sure I was surprised by the solution back when I read it at the age of twelve or what have you, but then I never got a Christie mystery right until I was around sixteen or seventeen. (<b>Towards Zero</b>, it was.) </p><p>On this reading, the solution seemed pretty obvious to me, despite Christie's attempt to complicate the picture late in the book with a red herring, or perhaps I should say red snapper, this being the Caribbean. Late in the book Christie uses a gambit from <b>Peril at End House</b>, and another aspect of the book resembles <b>Sleeping Murder</b>. <b>Robert Barnard</b> has suggested that by this point in her career, Christie could not come up with original tricks, but rather repeated old ones. She certainly does that here. </p><p>If you compare <b>ACM</b> to later Christies, it's a better detective novel than most of those, though I would say that despite its longueurs I actually prefer <b>Nemesis</b>, a sort of spinoff of <b>ACM</b>. <b>ACM </b>just feels a bit bland to me, both in its mystery plot and its characterization/setting. None of the characters are particularly memorable, outside of Mr. Rafiel, the cantankerous, crippled business tycoon, who seven years later plays a memorable role, albeit from beyond the grave, in <b>Nemesis</b>. (In fact, ACM even inspired the title of <b>Nemesis</b>). </p><p>On the plus side Miss Marple plays a very active role in <b>Nemesis</b>, featuring in almost every one of the book's scenes. The Caribbean air must have been good for her rheumatism. But the Caribbean atmosphere is pretty mild. "So <i>many</i> palm trees," thinks Miss Marple, "never anything <i>happening</i>."</p><p>Christie references steel bands (Miss Marple hates but patiently abides the cacophony), and the habit of the locals of not marrying when they have children with each other (though they do christen the babies). Several times she mentions the gleaming white teeth of the black people. (Christie became increasingly occupied with teeth in her later books; I suspect that her own, judging from pictures and given her love of sweets, were none too good at this point.) </p><p>However, there is only one black character in the novel of even minor significance, Victoria Johnson (later the name of an American comedian), who is a maid at the hotel where Miss Marple is staying. She is the second act murder, as it were, when she tries to do a bit of blackmailing. (Christie indulgently takes the view that she really didn't think of it as blackmail.) There's a reference to paw paws and to palm trees, but otherwise this book could have been relocated to Torquay or Bournemouth, say, pretty easily. </p><p>Still, <b>ACM</b> is competently done. You can definitely see Christie's writing slacken within just a few years. All the same, though, I would still rather read <b>Third Girl </b>(1966), which while not as tightly plotted, is simply more fun. </p><p>Christie does get a few amusing bits into ACM though. In the beginning Miss Marple is reading a modern novel that her clueless nephew recommended for her and her (and the author's) revulsion for the modern emphasis on the ugly and sordid is made clear. Contra the claims of Christie television adapter <b>Sarah Phelps</b>, who in defending her dark and deliberately repulsive Christie adaptations, insisted that she was merely a medium of what Christie really wanted to write if the poor dear had only been allowed to at the time, Christie through Miss Marple makes clear that Phelps was blowing a lot of smoke, as it were:</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP_LOY83yflBbg-1ORc6fXNeOP5_dq9ckGRur_x7butSAAnV7WONanrZObw0TK7iJjdbTOCm0x-G7-7gdJEKx4hVMHrFuEeDKjIcqEIxn80osB9dBO5BH7X7BR2XPZaqX3JRaH0KGSthC1sw51SmrccZS7D_v5gJsJOTJDXyKbL5n1TnAzqfNJ9KTUCiCy/s703/hippy.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="703" data-original-width="500" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP_LOY83yflBbg-1ORc6fXNeOP5_dq9ckGRur_x7butSAAnV7WONanrZObw0TK7iJjdbTOCm0x-G7-7gdJEKx4hVMHrFuEeDKjIcqEIxn80osB9dBO5BH7X7BR2XPZaqX3JRaH0KGSthC1sw51SmrccZS7D_v5gJsJOTJDXyKbL5n1TnAzqfNJ9KTUCiCy/w285-h400/hippy.jpg" width="285" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Christie was not a fan of the look</td></tr></tbody></table><p><i>"Do you mean you've had no sexual experience at ALL?" the young man demanded incredulously. At nineteen? But you must. It's vital."</i></p><p><i>The girl hung her head unhappily; her straight, greasy hair hung over her face.</i></p><p><i>"I know," she muttered, "I know."</i></p><p><i>He looked at her: stained old jersey, the bare feet, the dirty toenails, the smell of rancid fat...He wondered why he found her do maddeningly attractive."</i></p><p><i>Miss Marple wondered too!</i></p><p>A few lines down, Christie lets us know that Miss Marple over the "<i>course of her duties in a rural parish had acquired quite a comprehensive knowledge of the facts of rural life....Plenty of sex, natural and unnatural. Rape, incest, perversion of all kinds,</i>" Including even things the "<i>clever young men from Oxford who wrote books</i>" seemed not to have heard of. Gracious me! </p><p>I hate to think where homosexuality fits in here. Raymond West refers to the man who will mind Miss Marple's house while she's away, one of his friends he says, as a "<i>queer</i>" who naturally is "<i>very house proud.</i>" And dear Raymond is presumably socially progressive. </p><p>I assume Miss Marple was a lifelong virgin, but Christie, of course, was not; and by the Sixties she was increasingly letting mentions of sex slip into her books, perhaps to let those clever reviewers know she was not so old and fusty after all, even though by this time she had become stout and quite matronly looking, like a jolly grandmother. </p><p>Interestingly Christie liked the looks of young Sixties men, with the colorful clothing and curly long locks, much better than those of young women with their straight hair and miniskirts. She compared the men to Elizabethans and Jacobeans, but the semi-naked and dirty women merely disgusted her. </p><p>I also thought this was a funny observation of Miss Marple's ethical system: "<i>on certain occasions,when she considered it her duty to do so, she could tell lies with a really astonishing verisimilitude.</i>" </p><p>Overall, however, the tone of ACM, as in other late Marples, seems a bit wistful and sad to me. There's a recognition of the difficulties of the aged: the tendency to be discounted, dismissed, ignored. She mentions "the natural loneliness of an old lady: and Major Palgrave's having "had a lonely life and a lonely death." Mr. Rafiel is crippled, as they used to say, and lonely and bored too, despite being rich. The relationship he strikes up with Miss Marple in the course of the murders (three in this book) is the most striking part of the story and Christie was astute to pick up on that thread again in <b>Nemesis</b>. It's almost a romance. Their parting at the end is rather touching. </p><p>By the way. we're told Major Palgrave was over seventy, Mr. Rafile almost eighty; my guess is Miss Marple fell somewhere in between, say 75? Which would make her about the author's age. Clearly that doesn't fit in with the earlier tales from 35 years ago, but it does reveal that Christie in a lot of ways became Miss Marple in the later novels: she aged into her, as it were. She had started writing about her when she was only 37 and I think her grandparents' generation was more what she had in mind. </p><p>Something the cozy-detractors of Christie like <b>PD James</b> miss is there's a lot of moral force to Miss Marple. Christie actually took murder seriously in her heart, more so than the other Crime Queens, I think (except perhaps the later <b>Margery Allingham</b>). You read <b>Ngaio Marsh</b> for example, and you get the impression she's more bothered by vulgarity than homicide. I bet you encounter the word vulgar more than evil. </p><p>In Christie's later books her concerns with justice and evil come very much to the more. As she worries over heading off another murder, Miss Marple reads <b>Thomas a Kempis</b> at night and in bed sends up a little prayer to God: "<i>One couldn't do everything oneself. One had to have help.</i>" Whether the credit goes to God or Miss Marple, an innocent life is saved and justice meted out to the wicked. Just another day in the life of this righteous and fierce old lady. </p>The Passing Tramphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-32562907512692077182024-02-01T00:13:00.000-08:002024-02-01T00:18:50.492-08:00 Second Apparition: A Bloody Child/ By the Pricking of My Thumbs (1968), Agatha Christie<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrzzrJVqNeFGHuLfItcsBaYdlabY5YH8hnOw8zPi82XBJFshOamtDVJJ_LD8MAksOt7ImtWkVDn7_QVk1n9ebVP9H5g7br7-MH2ViROxgEOrPI9yMMsuQPubxKVPLNwG9uQ_zEA9ez0KFpBAniW6ZiWtlsykpVoO_K5ZaUzdbGYpQAg6usp497Nkk4vmdy/s1205/thumbs.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1205" data-original-width="716" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrzzrJVqNeFGHuLfItcsBaYdlabY5YH8hnOw8zPi82XBJFshOamtDVJJ_LD8MAksOt7ImtWkVDn7_QVk1n9ebVP9H5g7br7-MH2ViROxgEOrPI9yMMsuQPubxKVPLNwG9uQ_zEA9ez0KFpBAniW6ZiWtlsykpVoO_K5ZaUzdbGYpQAg6usp497Nkk4vmdy/w238-h400/thumbs.jpg" width="238" /></a></div><p>The penultimate Tommy and Tuppence Beresford mystery, <b>By the Pricking of My Thumbs</b> (1968) was published five years before their final adventure, <b>Postern of Fate</b> (1973), reviewed <a href="https://thepassingtramp.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-crime-is-dementia-postern-of-fate.html">here</a>, and reflects the author's greater control over her narrative powers in her late seventies compared with her early eighties. The narrative has a far clearer beginning and end, though it bogs down in the middle, as was Christie's wont in her later novels. </p><p>From <b>At Bertram's Hotel</b> on, pretty much all of her books, with the exception of the suspense novel <b>Endless Night</b> (1967), get muddled in the middle, as Christie stirs up a cloudy mass of obscure detail that she cannot quite disperse at the end. The mashed pulp may be piquant in taste, but there's the danger of its sticking in the throat. </p><p>The author's ability to produce really "clean" detective novels, with a clearly explicated plot and clueing, had diminished, and she chose more to publish between 1965 and 1973 books which were thrillers or which had strong thriller elements: <b>At Bertram's Hotel (1965), Endless Night (1967), Thumbs, Passenger to Frankfurt (1970)</b> and <b>Postern</b>. Only <b>Third Girl (1966), Halloween Party (1969), Nemesis (1971) </b>and <b>Elephants Can Remember</b> (1972) are pure detective novels, and none of these I would say is a major Christie, though <b>Third Girl</b> and particularly <b>Nemesis</b> have, in my estimation, considerable pleasures. <b>Nemesis</b>, in particular, makes a fine curtain call for Miss Marple, the events in the later <b>Sleeping Murder</b> (1976) clearly having taken place before those in <b>Nemesis</b>. (It's hard to reconcile Poirot's final appearance in <b>Curtain</b>, 1975, which seems clearly to take place in the Forties or perhaps Fifties, with all the "mod" stuff in <b>Third Girl</b>.) </p><p><b>Thumbs</b> brings Tommy and Tuppence back for the first time since they appeared in 1941 in the wartime mystery <b>N or M? </b> Before that they had appeared two decades earlier in the novel <b>The Secret Adversary</b> (1922), which was set in 1920, in the early days after the previous world war. They had also headlined <b>Partners in Crime</b>, a collection of short story pastiches of other mystery detectives, in 1929. With one exception these charming stories first appeared between December 1923 and December 1924, the exception being "<b>The Unbreakable Alibi</b>," a <b>Freeman Wills Crofts</b> pastiche which was first published in 1928. </p><p>Essentially Tommy and Tuppence (TT) were happy creatures of the madcap Roaring Twenties who Christie had decided to bring back in an espionage thriller when a second war with Germany broke out in 1939. (Espionage thrillers understandably become quite the rage during the Second World War, both in the United Kingdom and the United States.) Much is made of TT being a middle-aged couple in that book, as they were the only Christie series sleuths who aged in real time. One might have thought that during the Fifties Christie might have retrieved the couple for a Cold War thriller, but instead she gave us the nonseries spy novels <b>They Came to Baghdad</b> (1951) and <b>Destination Unknown</b> (1954). </p><p>So when TT pop up at in 1968 in <b>Thumbs </b>they had not featured in any Christie mystery for nearly three decades. A whole generation of Christie readers had been born and grown to adulthood since the last one. I wonder how many Christie fans even remembered TT, though it is true that <b>The Secret Adversary</b> was reprinted at least four times in paperback between 1946 and 1967, <b>Partners in Crime </b>at least three times between 1958 and 1963 and <b>N or M? </b>at least six times between 1947 and 1968. <b>N or M?</b> in particular seemed to inspire paperback cover artists. </p><p><b>Thumbs </b>is the purest "mystery" of the TT novels, not really a spy novel or criminal gang thriller like her earlier two, thought, rest assured, references to the activities of a criminal gang do pop up in the story. It's hard to call it a true detective novel, though, because the detection done by Tommy and Tuppence--really one should say Tuppence and Tommy, as the lady is, as ever, the catalyst to it all--is desultory and weak. Tuppence relies more on intuition and hunches and she only solves one part of the mystery herself, the author saving up a big surprise for her (and the reader) in the final chapter.</p><p>But this is getting ahead of myself. The book opens with TT visiting Tommy's cantankerous, possibly demented aunt, Ada Fanshawe, age 83, at a care home for elderly ladies. She's a splendidly done nasty old crone, and Tuppence encounters a couple of additional aged denizens of the place, a woman she dubs Miss Cocoa because she querulously complains she hasn't had her cocoa, and a nice, white-haired, old lady named Mrs. Lancaster, who carries a glass of milk and creepily asks Tuppence whether that's <i>her poor child</i> <i>behind the fireplace</i>. </p><p>As I recently posted about about <a href="https://thepassingtramp.blogspot.com/2024/01/skeleton-in-fireplace-note-on-old-lady.html">here</a>, this notably is the third and final appearance of this strange character in the Christie canon, her two previous ones being in <b>Sleeping Murder</b> and in <b>The Pale Horse</b> (1961), in the latter of which she is only recalled by another character. I think the old woman is actually the same character and not just an incident Christie forgetfully kept repeating in books. It is in <b>Thumbs</b> that the character, named Mrs. Lancaster in this one, has by far her most significant appearance. Incidentally, there is also a Mrs. Lancaster who appears in one of Christie's supernatural tales from the Twenties, and, while the two Lancasters bare some affinity with each other, I don't believe they are the same woman. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpBCU3kEbba7vF-WIM-9wyOvqsdA5BhKjqUQQx_Ws2_7tiXfM0gTgCSY8LRepcGm-82ZUdNKFN6L1bEhdPVtn_ZGdw4cHer78XOixAqRkMaRPqnDVHiBTk4dEhzFTJbNFIwA17wgtt0i_W0RWZXShQFb9dmp2eVuuugm7gbQVDIEGZgXzMFAF2HuggZiLb/s600/cananlhouse.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpBCU3kEbba7vF-WIM-9wyOvqsdA5BhKjqUQQx_Ws2_7tiXfM0gTgCSY8LRepcGm-82ZUdNKFN6L1bEhdPVtn_ZGdw4cHer78XOixAqRkMaRPqnDVHiBTk4dEhzFTJbNFIwA17wgtt0i_W0RWZXShQFb9dmp2eVuuugm7gbQVDIEGZgXzMFAF2HuggZiLb/w640-h426/cananlhouse.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>Not long after TT's visit, Aunt Ada dies in her sleep at the home. They learn that Mrs. Lancaster had given Ada a pretty painting of house by a canal, but when Tuppence sees about returning it to her if she wants it back, she finds that Mrs. Lancaster was taken out of the home by a supposed relative and cannot now be traced. Needless to say this gets Tuppence's dander up and she's tries to find Mrs. Lancaster herself. </p><p>By coincidence, Tuppence is certain that she saw the house in the painting when she was on a railway journey and this becomes her means of locating it, which she eventually does. It turns out that the house is in the vicinity of Sutton Chancellor, a village located a few miles from a favorite fiction haunt of Christie's, the town of Market Basing, In Market Basing she meets a number of locals and hears a lot of strange things and eventually gets to the truth of the mystery, or rather the truth gets to her....</p><p><b>Thumbs</b> is a lot more enjoyable than <b>Postern of Fate</b>, but given that <b>Postern</b> is the worst book Christie wrote, that's a limited compliment. I would still say, though, that this is a decent book, despite the fact that the chronology of the past (this is another book about murders--in this case child murders--in the past) gets pretty muddled. </p><p>For the most part Christie doesn't even try to provide dates for us. Tuppence goes about listening to chatty people who go on and on about the past, a pretty haphazard means of detection. "<i>What the hell am I doing here, anyway?</i>" Tuppence angrily asks herself at one point, as "<i>waves of fatigue swept over her.</i>" One might almost suspect that this was how Christie felt when she was writing the book and trying desperately to provide a coherent, satisfying mystery. </p><p>Later on, Tuppence frets to Tommy: "<i>We've got hold of a lot of things. It's as bad as a village jumble sale....We've got far too much of everything. There are wrong things and right things, and important things and unimportant things, and they're all mixed up together. We don't know where to start.</i>" This almost sounds like a mystery author complaining about the agony of plotting and admitting to her readers that's it's all gotten pretty messy. </p><p>If you've read the book, follow me into the SPOILERS SECTION below, where I try to follow the chronology of the book's mystery plot.</p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>WARNING MASSIVE SPOILERS TO BY THE PRICKING OF MY THUMBS FOLLOW</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjri23szPs-7vnR7OJpVuT4CUblDFsdVfFZhyphenhyphenNd63cWpW8dPJG7KlkgfJRkCaHyWxmfVxb4mBc0tW9t-mFBWNz_1vGRVNF-U3khC-RRWPNsy4xvrzXtChrO44DPclQLsEagVS8cNdBqcZ_95ogAZQMn1-7zVyfVf02F0iRnlEH-EsCwFGpFrPQ2j6NaS_i2/s600/lockcttage1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjri23szPs-7vnR7OJpVuT4CUblDFsdVfFZhyphenhyphenNd63cWpW8dPJG7KlkgfJRkCaHyWxmfVxb4mBc0tW9t-mFBWNz_1vGRVNF-U3khC-RRWPNsy4xvrzXtChrO44DPclQLsEagVS8cNdBqcZ_95ogAZQMn1-7zVyfVf02F0iRnlEH-EsCwFGpFrPQ2j6NaS_i2/w640-h426/lockcttage1.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></span></div><p></p><p>As readers of the book will know, it turns out, when Tuppence, visiting the deserted Canal House, finally encounters Mrs, Lancaster again, that the old woman, aged about seventy-five, is a maniac serial murderer. She tries to poison Tuppence, like a later character in <b>Postern of Fate</b>, and when that doesn't work, she tries to stab her to death with a stiletto, in a scene rather resembling one from an earlier Christie novel. (You probably know which one.)</p><p>Of course mad Mrs. Lancaster is foiled in her attempt to slay Tuppence and she drinks the poisoned milk herself. Exit mad Mrs. L. We learn that she killed "Mrs. Cocoa" with morphine at the care home. (Did she kill Aunt Ada too, I wonder. Aunt Ada was suspicious that something wicked was going on in the place.) </p><p>Mad Mrs. L. was also responsible for the child murders, because she had gotten pregnant when she was running round, for fun, with a gang of crooks, and she had an illegal, botched abortion, which resulted in her becoming afflicted with a mania to provide her child with friends in the afterlife by murdering other children. (This definitely recalls, without the murderous element, the early supernatural story, "<b>The Lamp</b>," where the perfectly decent mother is also named Mrs. Lancaster.) </p><p>We also learn that after Mrs. L. got tired of her criminal career she married local landowner Sir Philip Starke. (She came from a prominent local family that was inbred and dying out, the implication being that they were prone to insanity.) After the marriage she started murdering children and, instead of doing the responsible thing, like telling the police, Sir Phillip, with the help of his loyal secretary, Nellie Bligh, had her placed in a series of care homes, away from children (though she later killed more people). It was Miss Bligh, incidentally, who panicked and coshed Tuppence when she thought she was getting near the truth, putting her into the hospital. Apparently Miss Bligh and Sir Phillip are just to be let off for their misdeeds, because...um, why, exactly?</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn7HIb14caSPI4RLG_UlZdfZOc6sHgUUb0Kxg-387loouMUMqogoe92-9syxcuio1EZ1nSTAMZJmGetFL3zgOjVaxoFGGLDCykjJIwIzxMZxbgH2zFKiqpaPAy_hLLpCbocYHiAbQ5nnbxDxwt2iSHzXWtISE3JS5rhptT6I2C79wBQwNI9J65T8V2A8Bd/s1000/christie6.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="707" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn7HIb14caSPI4RLG_UlZdfZOc6sHgUUb0Kxg-387loouMUMqogoe92-9syxcuio1EZ1nSTAMZJmGetFL3zgOjVaxoFGGLDCykjJIwIzxMZxbgH2zFKiqpaPAy_hLLpCbocYHiAbQ5nnbxDxwt2iSHzXWtISE3JS5rhptT6I2C79wBQwNI9J65T8V2A8Bd/w283-h400/christie6.jpg" width="283" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Young Agatha Christie with dolls<br />colorized by Olga Shirnina<br />Oh, Agatha, you wicked girl!<br />You made this book creepy but<br />rather confusing.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>But the chronology of all this! What a mess. We are told that, in a false story, Sir Phillip's wife died in 1938 and he left for Europe (1938, then, was actually when he committed his wife and told falsely people she was dead.) But wait, Mad Mrs. L, as I will keep calling her, is stated to be about 75. </p><p>So, let's say she was born in 1892, making her about Christie's age. She got pregnant and had her abortion at 17, so that was around 1910. Then we're told she became involved with a gang of crooks, when she was known as Killer Kate. Then she dropped that and was a ballerina (!) for a while. Then she married Sir Phillip. Then she started murdering children. Then she was put away in 1938. </p><p>She would have been, by that time, about 46 years old. She might have been married to Sir Phillip for twenty years, say. The murders must have started in the 1920s or 1930s. But one of the villagers tells Tuppence that the child murders took place about two decades earlier. Since the novel is set after 1965 (that's a year mentioned in the book), this would have been after World War Two, after Mrs. L. had been institutionalized. So how would she have committed the child murders? Or were there more child murders later, after her child murders? It's implied that Alice and Amos Perry, who live at the Canal House, have some hold over them and that Amos might have been the child murderer. </p><p>Which brings us to the gang activity. There is still an active gang of robbers in the area, hiding valuables in old houses. Tuppence finds an old doll in the fireplace of the Canal House, which turns out to be filled with diamonds. But Killer Kate aka Mad Mrs. L. was involved with crooks too. That would have been like in the 1910s! Was a present-day gang using the Canal House to hide loot, or was the Canal House used by Killer Kate's gang too? What a coincidence, like Tuppence actually having glimpsed the same house, the Canal House, that was pictured in the painting that Mad Mrs. L. gave to Tommy's Aunt Ada. </p><p>It's all very confusing, as characters in late Christies say....</p><p>Maybe some of my readers can help me out here! </p>The Passing Tramphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-15788747243145107772024-01-29T22:32:00.000-08:002024-01-31T16:13:27.000-08:00Skeleton in the Fireplace: A Note on the Old Lady and the Poor Child in Agatha Christie's Mystery Fiction and the Gruesome Discoveries in Baltimore in 1950<p><b>I. BABY BUNDLES IN BALTIMORE</b></p><p>The discovery, a bloodcurdling one, made newspaper headlines in April 1950.</p><p>The previous year thirty-eight-year-old divorcee Marie Plage and her seventeen-year-old daughter Janie had moved into the small second-story apartment in a somewhat decrepit three-story row house at 1804 East Pratt Street in downtown Baltimore, Marie's native city. Marie had recently parted ways with her husband of nearly two decades, Richard Plage of Rochester, New York, who had worked as a bus driver and cabbie. To help support herself and her daughter, she now operated a sewing machine in a factory while Janie completed her senior year in high school. </p><p>The mother and daughter had come to Baltimore from Rochester, New York and presumably taken the place on Pratt Street because Marie's young uncle, Fredrick Scheidegger, an electrical pump operator with the Baltimore Water Department, lived at the apartment below, along with his wife Catherine, a "janitress" at the Baltimore County Board of Education, and their daughter Marilyn, a teenager like Janie. </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-VVaUWlXut_aY2Ieap_CYPGmcCNy2b0Ex7ARYWbqo3m1gP29fO6kGsDkW_4ENaGMV2UsphfNNTWkDW1hNgu1NURmeej4p9Pd8orwKBYwTcueAS7ulNUAN4E1Vi6qWtmy1kaGiUMYZQqJVes9hSAN2ySXPvIH0frRn86uBEez_Eb6RJqgfkST2RaHoYxlZ/s484/pratt1.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="484" data-original-width="282" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-VVaUWlXut_aY2Ieap_CYPGmcCNy2b0Ex7ARYWbqo3m1gP29fO6kGsDkW_4ENaGMV2UsphfNNTWkDW1hNgu1NURmeej4p9Pd8orwKBYwTcueAS7ulNUAN4E1Vi6qWtmy1kaGiUMYZQqJVes9hSAN2ySXPvIH0frRn86uBEez_Eb6RJqgfkST2RaHoYxlZ/w233-h400/pratt1.jpg" width="233" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">the house on Pratt Street<br />The skeletons were found behind<br /> the fireplace on the second floor.<br />The woman's suicide had taken<br />place on the ground floor. <br />Were the two terrible events <br />somehow horribly linked?</td></tr></tbody></table><p>On the night of April 12th, 1950, the ex-Mrs. Plage to her vexation inadvertently allowed her wedding ring to slip through a crack in the fireplace mantelpiece. The ring then dropped into the fireplace hearth, which had been long concealed behind a sheet of tin. These sorts of frustrating everyday mishaps have happened to us all, but what happened next was decidedly, thankfully unusual. </p><p>Prying the sheet loose so that she could recover her ring, Mrs. Plage discovered in the hearth an old bundle of cloth, which she proceeded to lift up in her arms and unwrap. Was there some lost treasure hidden in the fireplace? Not exactly that....</p><p>A few second later Marie was running down the stairs to her uncle's place, screaming at every panicked step. After she had hysterically babbled her story out to Fred, he investigated upstairs. Then he came back down and grimly rang up the police. Fred informed the authorities that his niece had just discovered a cloth-wrapped skeleton in the concealed hearth of her fireplace, a skeleton the size of a human baby.</p><p>It got worse. The investigating policemen, Sergeant Blair Overton and Patrolmen Edward Kelly and Charles Lambdin, discovered two more bundles in the fireplace, these both wrapped with newspapers, the one set dating from 1921, the other from 1923. These two packets both contained skeletons as well. Medical examiner Dr. William Kammer confirmed that all three sets of remains were human. </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0tVQYJiFd2XtNfKk08Qc-vo2yu5YzPvQoAu7poMFAFlpECoZquj1UPuO-TGCUBnu3lNB7GWdxn6G3uRqiqvmiCj4FNQMXFJum-iWvByiNFqnaOfBAWhpBd5E8ZsiHNMygcwlN_jzEzN11DWr6BdJVpFsPywgwKaDIMFDeXCd3UevLS5IdRIl_l8nuImvp/s475/pratt2.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="339" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0tVQYJiFd2XtNfKk08Qc-vo2yu5YzPvQoAu7poMFAFlpECoZquj1UPuO-TGCUBnu3lNB7GWdxn6G3uRqiqvmiCj4FNQMXFJum-iWvByiNFqnaOfBAWhpBd5E8ZsiHNMygcwlN_jzEzN11DWr6BdJVpFsPywgwKaDIMFDeXCd3UevLS5IdRIl_l8nuImvp/w285-h400/pratt2.jpg" width="285" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">the staircase at the house</td></tr></tbody></table><p>The story hit the press around the country the next day: "<i>Skeletons of Three Babies Found</i>" ran the horrific headlines. </p><p>Soon Baltimore police were investigating the matter of who had lived at the house at 1804 East Pratt Street in the early 1920s, the dated newspapers being their initial clue. The residents in question turned out to be the family of George Schaub, a twice-married plumber who had died three years previously in 1947 at the age of 71. </p><p>George Schaub had married first, a few years after the turn of the century, to Frances Plitt, who had died in 1914 at the age of thirty and was the mother of George's daughter Louisa and his eldest son, Charles. </p><p>After France Schaub's untimely death in 1914 George the next year wed Anna Strauss, who in rapid succession between August 1916 and December 1919 bore him three additional sons: George, Albert and Frederick. That is three sons in a little over three years. Doubtlessly Anna Strauss Schaub was a hard-pressed mother. </p><p>The Schaubs moved into the Pratt Street place, which appears to have been Anna's former home, after their 1915 marriage. Five years later Anna resided there with husband George, her teenage stepchildren Louisa, 15, and Charles, 14, and her own three sons, aged 3, 1 and one month. Twelve years later, Louisa had married and moved away, but Charles, who worked as a delivery driver for the <b>Sun</b> newspaper, still resided at the place on Pratt Street, along with his father and stepmother and his three half-brothers. </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6S62d4dhyphenhyphenZ2QLitN8ZFO-FRRcNqIsX4jiaJ7YIw3YOMIX1yQE8psDReDhF4dkWiTuEfTA_fIueh5Lg2TP-D3ALE9q2itHh4CW0fOjPQKpMDkBKd1nmg_EsX0Ywrj84NOpdZkSJ38P85qrNJXlARObYhW-18nUiXZWxMCbDtHBOfdCTpfx46HKVJ2rh6zW/s1179/pratt3.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1179" data-original-width="819" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6S62d4dhyphenhyphenZ2QLitN8ZFO-FRRcNqIsX4jiaJ7YIw3YOMIX1yQE8psDReDhF4dkWiTuEfTA_fIueh5Lg2TP-D3ALE9q2itHh4CW0fOjPQKpMDkBKd1nmg_EsX0Ywrj84NOpdZkSJ38P85qrNJXlARObYhW-18nUiXZWxMCbDtHBOfdCTpfx46HKVJ2rh6zW/w278-h400/pratt3.jpg" width="278" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">house in Pratt Street at time of<br />discovery of trio of skeletons</td></tr></tbody></table><p>In December of that Depression year, 1932, less than three weeks before Christmas, young George Schaub, age sixteen, was awakened in his second-floor bedroom by the smell of gas fumes wafting up from the ground floor. Going downstairs he discovered his mother unconscious on the sitting room couch with a piece of gas tubing, connected to the kitchen range, in her mouth. </p><p>Anna Strauss Schaub was rushed to the hospital, but efforts to revive her proved futile. The coroner in charge of the case pronounced a verdict of suicide. Questioned by Sergeant Cornelius Murphy of the Baltimore police, young George Schaub declared he could offer no opinion as to why his mother would have committed suicide. What the other family members said was not reported.</p><p>Anna' Schaub's self-destruction by asphyxiation made the news again in 1950, when the trio of bundled baby skeletons was discovered in the second floor fireplace of the former Schaub home, which had been divided into two apartments after the death in 1947 of George Schaub, Sr. "<i>Skeleton Case Inquiry Bares 1928 Suicide</i>," the <b>Baltimore Sun </b>reported, missing the right date by four years. </p><p>The paper's informant was Charles Schaub, who was still unmarried (he would die a bachelor at the age of sixty in 1966) and still employed by the <b>Sun</b>. Charles confessed both that his father had frequently been an insufficient provider for his family and that his stepmother had made several previous attempts to kill herself, frequently complaining of her poor health.* </p><p>*(You might have noticed, by the way, that virtually all of the actors in this true life tale were of German descent. By 1914 people of German descent comprised nearly 100,000 of the inhabitants of Baltimore, one-fifth of the city's population. Many of them were fluent in the German language.) </p><p>With the report of Anna Strauss Schaub's long-ago depression and suicide, that, as they say, was that, at least as far as newspapers were concerned. There appears to have been no additional reporting on the matter, leaving us to ask our own questions about the dreadful affair. </p><p>Had Anna given additional births in the early Twenties and, suffering from postpartum psychosis, killed these infants? Had she miscarried? Were her husband and her elder stepchildren complicit in covering-up the tragedies? But how could three infant deaths in one family in a Baltimore row house have been concealed so well and so long (nearly three decades)? Yet if the killer was not Anna and the victims not additional children she had born (or miscarried), how on earth had the skeletons gotten there, hidden behind a tin screen in Schaub fireplace? Whose children had they been, in that case? Truly, a conundrum.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPGiwqnHs79xyZYnAXJiQ2XSHsz_KK6qSHeyhxnDlQZUlQukG17xptbLRcDbIV79KosbD4xjY3zx4gZKwwq4zyyyQx72bmYW6UAqf0RAv2oZ-JNsVaEeJkSVUswzgYWserIFoZlsZEuJczAlL2p3cmVdfUSsbvs1Uv0e__xxgpqTE3SlTTcyJv22H_i67R/s384/prattstreet.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="294" data-original-width="384" height="490" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPGiwqnHs79xyZYnAXJiQ2XSHsz_KK6qSHeyhxnDlQZUlQukG17xptbLRcDbIV79KosbD4xjY3zx4gZKwwq4zyyyQx72bmYW6UAqf0RAv2oZ-JNsVaEeJkSVUswzgYWserIFoZlsZEuJczAlL2p3cmVdfUSsbvs1Uv0e__xxgpqTE3SlTTcyJv22H_i67R/w640-h490/prattstreet.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">another look at the house on Pratt Street</td></tr></tbody></table><p><b>II. "WAS IT YOUR POOR CHILD?"</b></p><p>The above accounts all were made in American newspapers between Apr. 12-14, 1950. On April 15, however, the story about butchered babies in Baltimore was picked up in English newspapers, in a brief AP story, which was nothing more than a snippet. It one paper it was seven items down in the Little Despatches column, right below news of American comedian's Jack Benny's coming appearance at the London Palladium (see below right).</p><p><i>Skeletons found--skeletons of three babies, dead for more than 25 years, were discovered behind a boarded-up fireplace in a house in Baltimore, U.S.A. </i></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL8B-8bvGhyHhT1fo2q7GZfs7_xxelt077I52jzE8Ac-3AwZdrf7Iy4AsyU92JTiXaVHZg_NpoasFM4CaX0u3iWVTGbODypsgLDOV8JbPE6EfWMIeW0V_BXBVpUFpVCjoj5RP4MTUzNOfzOtbJbw7UcoMi_Df7IwPkPGbaB0t946zUYD4ZgH4FOa6EZz9P/s1200/fireplace.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="991" data-original-width="1200" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL8B-8bvGhyHhT1fo2q7GZfs7_xxelt077I52jzE8Ac-3AwZdrf7Iy4AsyU92JTiXaVHZg_NpoasFM4CaX0u3iWVTGbODypsgLDOV8JbPE6EfWMIeW0V_BXBVpUFpVCjoj5RP4MTUzNOfzOtbJbw7UcoMi_Df7IwPkPGbaB0t946zUYD4ZgH4FOa6EZz9P/w400-h330/fireplace.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">covered-up for over 25 years</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>In 1950, Agatha Christie was making, according to authority <b>John Curran</b>, her final revisions to <b>Sleeping Murder</b>, a Miss Marple detective novel she originally composed a decade earlier and then thriftily set aside for publication after her death. In that novel there occurs an eerie little incident which will repeat itself in two later Agatha Christie mysteries, <b>The Pale Horse</b> (1961) and <b>By the Pricking of My Thumbs</b> (1968). While visiting a care home married protagonists Giles and Gwenda encounter an old, white-haired lady holding a glass of milk, who leans toward Gwenda and asks: "<i>Is it your poor child, my dear?...Behind the fireplace....</i>" </p><p>In <b>The Pale Horse</b>, a character recalls having encountered at a mental home a "<i>nice elderly elderly lady...sipping a glass of milk,</i>" who leans forward and asks him: "<i>Is it your poor child who's buried there behind the fireplace?</i>"</p><p>Seven years later it's <b>By the Pricking of My Thumbs</b> and series character Tuppence Beresford, wife of Tommy, who at a care home is approached by Mrs. Lancaster, an old, white-haired lady with a glass of milk in her hand who says:<i> </i>"<i>I see you're looking at the fireplace....was it your poor child?...That's where it is, you know. Behind the fireplace.</i>"</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpDEnoWXe9p-rpRZvhbDfu0NhoE5X9AcUo_uqcuOvzaL_IOqtKxkwGhQzKdi0KNlB5Zx2PdxMP3ubn_89KJ-8zZvk0ZnRHDhYRqgc_pOYhfWokQG9OsPtdNWIkbzyCUJY2fZ09EzdprRoAUg7_VsMpr0P6Z1fHWM1P8DNxJcR5roncOlR-76bOc5uj05yk/s2984/newscutting1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2984" data-original-width="729" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpDEnoWXe9p-rpRZvhbDfu0NhoE5X9AcUo_uqcuOvzaL_IOqtKxkwGhQzKdi0KNlB5Zx2PdxMP3ubn_89KJ-8zZvk0ZnRHDhYRqgc_pOYhfWokQG9OsPtdNWIkbzyCUJY2fZ09EzdprRoAUg7_VsMpr0P6Z1fHWM1P8DNxJcR5roncOlR-76bOc5uj05yk/w156-h640/newscutting1.jpg" width="156" /></a></div><p>Writers on Agatha Christie have often speculated on the recurrence of this unsettling incident in the Christie canon, asking whether we are to take it that this is the same elderly lady on each occasion or rather to assume that a forgetful Christie just did not remember that she had used this "bit" before. In either case, the macabre notion of a baby's skeleton buried behind a fireplace (coupled with a seemingly sweet old woman making the ghoulish revelation) clearly captured Christie's imagination at some point. </p><p>Could the Queen of Crime in April 1950 have read the AP snippet, quoted above, about skeletons of babies having been discovered behind a boarded-up fireplace in Baltimore? The incident seems quite on point, aside from the brilliantly incongruous addition of the elderly lady, which contributes another layer of creepiness to it. </p><p>Of course anyone of Christie's generation would have known about "baby farms," those ghastly for-profit orphanages where unwanted babies were neglected and even murdered. Concerning them you read accounts of skeletons dug up from unmarked graves and the like, but the detail of skeletons behind a fireplace seems very particular to the Baltimore case. Also the fact that the deaths were long in the past. </p><p>It would not be the first time Christie got ideas for her books from true crimes....</p>The Passing Tramphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-6040342322669062024-01-27T21:40:00.000-08:002024-02-16T22:30:32.849-08:00"The crime is dementia": Postern of Fate (1973), by Agatha Christie <p>"It's the great thing you have to have in life. Hope. Remember? I'm always full of hope."</p><p>*****</p><p>"Ah, well--what fun it is, all the things one used to invent and believe in and play at." </p><p>*****</p><p>"You must try and remember names better."</p><p>*****</p><p>"Oh, dear, I must think what I'm doing."</p><p>*****</p><p>"It really is most exhausting writing everything down. Every now and then I do get things a bit wrong, don't I?"</p><p>*****</p><p>"Fancy you remembering that....</p><p>Yes, I know. One's always surprised when one remembers something."</p><p>--Tommy and Tuppence Beresford in Agatha's Christie's <b>Postern of Fate</b> (1973)</p><p><br /></p><p><i>Fragile and immensely aged, Agatha became, as the old sometimes do, more and more like the child she had been more than eighty years before. Sometimes she was serene...gently leafing through one of her books....At other times she was eccentric, declaring, for instance, that today she would wear all her brooches, from the grandest diamonds to small ornaments children had sent her....</i></p><p>--excerpt from Janet Morgan's biography of Agatha Christie</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKRe25XlXbxqEKmrmX5gJoYXBKpti4DvAhAkQH2FIkIr7s5QZVzVk5ZQFHck4in9pigCuL2oFqlcO8VmcN05b2EsPtjq3aOEHg_EoBjIrPtrMheMJgT3abWYHh3o8tKjrnJTA_ENgjCN5UvIjCumDLP85KGT5JHP5TjBqUozzf0L_s1K2QxVZocoVsoBnJ/s640/rockinghorse.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKRe25XlXbxqEKmrmX5gJoYXBKpti4DvAhAkQH2FIkIr7s5QZVzVk5ZQFHck4in9pigCuL2oFqlcO8VmcN05b2EsPtjq3aOEHg_EoBjIrPtrMheMJgT3abWYHh3o8tKjrnJTA_ENgjCN5UvIjCumDLP85KGT5JHP5TjBqUozzf0L_s1K2QxVZocoVsoBnJ/w640-h480/rockinghorse.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/apr/03/agatha-christie-alzheimers-research">Fifteen years ago</a> linguistic researchers made news when they offered evidence from Agatha Christie's novels indicating that by the 1970s she likely was suffering from Alzheimer's Disease. I don't know that they looked at <b>Passenger to Frankfurt</b> (1970) or <b>Nemesis</b> (1971), but they definitely did at <b>Elephants Can Remember</b> (1972) and <b>Postern of Fate</b>, Christie's final two novels, and they found the evidence of her loss of vocabulary in those books striking indeed. "<i>It reveals an author responding to something she feels is happening but cannot do anything about</i>," one researcher observed of the tellingly titled <b>Elephants Can Remember</b>. "<i>It's almost as if...the crime is dementia.</i>"</p><p>I don't know, however, that any Christie fan needs to be an expert in linguistics or gerontology to know that there is something "off" with Christie's last two books. Indeed, one can tell Christie's writing grip was slackening well before that. If one looks at the Crime Queens last butcher's dozen of novels (discounting <b>Curtain</b> and <b>Sleeping Murder</b>, which were written long before they were published), we have:</p><p><b>The Final Thirteen Christies, 1961 to 1973 (rated on a five star scale; we really devoted Christie fans can add a 1/2 star)</b></p><p><b>The Pale Horse (nonseries, Ariadne Oliver) **** </b></p><p><b>The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side (Marple) ****</b></p><p><b>The Clocks (Poirot, Ariadne Oliver mentioned) **1/2</b></p><p><b>A Caribbean Mystery (Marple) ***</b></p><p><b>At Bertram's Hotel (Marple) ****</b></p><p><b><a href="https://thepassingtramp.blogspot.com/2015/09/deathtraps-dream-bombs-snow-flakes.html">Third Girl</a> (Poirot) ***</b></p><p><b><a href="https://thepassingtramp.blogspot.com/2015/09/dark-elegy-endless-night-1967-by-agatha.html">Endless Night</a> (nonseries) ****1/2</b></p><p><b>By the Pricking of My Thumbs (Tommy and Tuppence)**</b></p><p><b>Hallowe'en Party (Poirot) ***</b></p><p><b>Passenger to Frankfurt (nonseries) 1/2</b></p><p><b>Nemesis (Marple)***1/2</b></p><p><b>Elephants Can Remember (Poirot) *1/2</b></p><p><b>Postern of Fate(Tommy and Tuppence) *</b></p><p>These thirteen novels were published between 1961 and 1973. Interestingly 1960 had been a gap year for Christie, who published <b>Cat among the Pigeons </b>in 1959, but had no novel, only a book of revised short fiction, <b>The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding</b>, in 1960. This was the first time Christie had failed to produce a mystery novel for the year since 1947, when she again supplied a book of short fiction, <a href="https://thepassingtramp.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-pyne-poirot-nexus-part-2-labours-of.html">The Labors of Hercules</a>.</p><p>Still, <b>The Pale Horse</b>, which appeared in 1961 is a top flight in my opinion, and <b>The Mirror Crack'd</b> is well told and plotted, though the big clue is unoriginal and the mystery seemingly hinges on an event drawn from real life. I enjoy <b>The Clocks</b>, but it has marked structural weaknesses, and the travelogue <b>A Caribbean Mystery</b> repeats a trick Christie had used earlier in another novel. <b>At Bertram's Hotel</b> has an evocative setting but a dodgy plot to some degree, while <b>Third Girl</b>, where Poirot returned after three years, is not that well-plotted by Poirot's standard. </p><p>Despite great virtues in my opinion, <b>Endless Night</b> is really a modern suspense novel with the minimalistic mystery plot taken from an earlier short story. <b>By the Pricking of My Thumbs</b>, which brought back an elderly Tommy and Tuppence Beresford after many years, is enjoyable, but the plot is noticeably muddy and huddled at the end, which can also be said of the Poirot mystery <b>Halloween Party</b>, which does rather blether on with a too transparent mystery. At some point in the Sixties Christie started using a Dictaphone and you can definitely tell by the time of <b>Thumbs</b>. </p><p>This brings us to Seventies Christies, which with one exception are a pretty dire lot. There is <b>Passenger to Frankfurt</b>, a nearly incoherent political thriller which I have never been able to finish (it's the only Christie mystery I have never completed), <b>Nemesis</b>, the one relative bright spot in the bunch even if it has narrative weaknesses, <b>Elephants Can Remember</b>, the last Poirot mystery Christie wrote and the most dully and transparently plotted of them and then, finally, <b>Postern of Fate</b>, which by any objective standard is an utter fiasco. It's easy to believe its author was suffering from significant cognitive decline when she wrote it. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibrRz0irJ8b2X1FwB2i4JH8HDjIsCt-4tW4XTzmiO-bJlctcaxCsOSE34-qB66zH91l39P0zt_8k8DSigERW-bc__XS4qQHmzFo4d_nfUahI2Wchmrd4cdpy5E0DcOOOira4nGi6DEMGaXatB1ZLrQgM5gtqVuEJO9haNEXzKzfH4j5WkOWiEQmeRiqbOb/s4142/postern_000038.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4142" data-original-width="2501" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibrRz0irJ8b2X1FwB2i4JH8HDjIsCt-4tW4XTzmiO-bJlctcaxCsOSE34-qB66zH91l39P0zt_8k8DSigERW-bc__XS4qQHmzFo4d_nfUahI2Wchmrd4cdpy5E0DcOOOira4nGi6DEMGaXatB1ZLrQgM5gtqVuEJO9haNEXzKzfH4j5WkOWiEQmeRiqbOb/w241-h400/postern_000038.jpg" width="241" /></a></div><p>But then we Christie fans are not objective, are we? I went back and looked at contemporary reviews of <b>Postern of Fate</b>, which was published just over a half-century ago in late 1973, and they were, for the most part, pretty kind to the author. By this time Christie was a decades long publishing institution and people loved and indulged her, like some beloved elderly family member. The gift of a Christie for Christmas was not to be spurned, even if this case it was likely a grandmother's poorly knitted pair of socks. </p><p>Probably the most widely seen notice of <b>Postern of Fate </b>in American newspapers was a syndicated piece by <b>John Barkham</b>, a sixty-five year old veteran book reviewer and a Pulitzer prize juror of two decades standing. </p><p>Barkham's piece was tinged with nostalgia and a certain melancholy, for anyone reading <b>Postern</b> might well suspect that the sands of time were fast running out on the author's writing life. </p><p><i>For those who look forward to these Christmas offerings [the annual "Christie for Christmas"], it's hard to think of Christmas without one, though inevitably the time will come when they cease to appear. Agatha Christie is now in her 84th year, with something like 400 books to her credit....</i></p><p><i>Agatha Christie's ingenuity in devising plots and concealing the identity of her criminals is legendary. I wish I could report that "Postern of Fate" was one of her better efforts, but the truth is that it lacks drama, movement and mystification. Perhaps the old lady is slowing down. She certainly does a great deal of looking back to the good old days in this exploit....The narrative becomes both an elucidation of a long-past crime and a journey into that past. Running through the narrative is a deep longing for a time when people knew their places and behaved according to a strict code of manners....</i></p><p><i>"Postern of Fate" is not by any means the last "Christie for Christmas." Even if the lady were to depart this vale of woe tomorrow (which heaven forfend), there are completed manuscripts to appear for our delectation. "Postern of Fate" may not be top-notch Christie, but it's still better than most of today's routine whodunits.</i></p><p><b>Jan Zachry</b> at the <b>Lincoln Nebraska Journal Star</b> was more remorseless in pointing out the book's flaws:</p><p><i>Because the puzzle took place so long ago, it never seems important for it to be solved....the villain appears only in the last chapters. Therefore the book fails to build suspense and is boring. To uncover the weak plot, the reader must wade through 13 chapters of pointless conversations, wordy descriptions of each meal and treatises on where the dog, Hannibal, likes to go on his walks. </i></p><p>Even Zachary, however, found the characters of Tommy and Tuppence the saving graces of the book, declaring them "<i>clearly exasperating, but lovable.</i>" </p><p><b>Sheila M. Mitchell </b>of the <b>Cincinnati Enquirer </b>was similarly forthright in pointing out the flaws in <b>Postern of Fate</b>, commenting: <i>"I am sorry to say that this story builds to a very dull middle and ends with a thud. It simply doesn't compare to any previous adventure of the Beresfords or for that matter, any suspense novel Agatha Christie has created." </i></p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje5vu97uBsezMxwPpScLlnfBR44TyE6v432ZXQ8E0hqr1KhcnpUWtxISE0J45C_853cG46SkZ-SF42NhMTR9cUV3eqXNJojSjzOOgMD3-xoCvfMr53PWQXgHxN51a-MJxiB4DOR3d8IUP_PEDye3dv7c9WtFzSTYtxCZizjs41BIVfEvRczD9M5oLfWIZr/s1118/christie20.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1118" data-original-width="720" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje5vu97uBsezMxwPpScLlnfBR44TyE6v432ZXQ8E0hqr1KhcnpUWtxISE0J45C_853cG46SkZ-SF42NhMTR9cUV3eqXNJojSjzOOgMD3-xoCvfMr53PWQXgHxN51a-MJxiB4DOR3d8IUP_PEDye3dv7c9WtFzSTYtxCZizjs41BIVfEvRczD9M5oLfWIZr/w258-h400/christie20.jpg" width="258" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Christie and her husband Max<br /> in the garden<br />approaching the end of their lives.<br />She died in 1976, he two years later.</td></tr></tbody></table>All these criticisms are true. As I stated above, by any objective literary standard <b>Postern of Fate</b> is a terrible book. Surely no one enjoys this book for its meandering, muddled plot. Yet a lot of Christie fans, who have built up a long-term relationship with the author, enjoy it for the Christie nostalgia. Me, I find it a poignant memoir of someone who is suffering from senile dementia, and knows it. <p></p><p>A few words about the plot. Tommy and Tuppence, now in their seventies (Tuppence I suppose is around 72, Tommy a bit older), have moved into another house in another provincial English town and are going through the old books left in the library. They discover a code message in one of the books, written down by a promising fourteen-year-old boy (elsewhere it's said he was eleven) who died young, Alexander Parkinson (Parkinson's Disease?): <i>"Mary Jordan did not die naturally. It was one of us. I think I know which one."</i> </p><p>This starts the old married couple off on a search into a mystery from the distant past, when there was an unnatural death, apparently a murder, at their house, The Laurels, in the years just before the outbreak of the Great War. The rather desultory investigation consists mostly of Tuppence pottering around the house, though occasionally Tommy trots off to London for chats with his geriatric cronies in intelligence. There are also visitors, like old jobbing gardener Isaac Bodlicott (who is even more aged than Tommy and Tuppence), who know things about the area and its past, though they usually can't express themselves that coherently. It's a slow march in a long book by Christie's standards. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNWtTPluEfs0ghHWQXUpZZMIe2DJ6Nqxq6MnElZ9LK3XsfKIqR8PtfJ-n250du2GL2l3RE6XYpR8BmwH104ivGlqBvwAz7ddRoAneXnsNLY4S8vxaqR_3nyVkOeio8RLsdUYwJCni-eMjnypCB1aDkbFPARJ8msUMoDqPnO6NNNHpIFfQ_wXcqPweOOmV8/s4119/postern_000039.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4119" data-original-width="2466" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNWtTPluEfs0ghHWQXUpZZMIe2DJ6Nqxq6MnElZ9LK3XsfKIqR8PtfJ-n250du2GL2l3RE6XYpR8BmwH104ivGlqBvwAz7ddRoAneXnsNLY4S8vxaqR_3nyVkOeio8RLsdUYwJCni-eMjnypCB1aDkbFPARJ8msUMoDqPnO6NNNHpIFfQ_wXcqPweOOmV8/w240-h400/postern_000039.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><p>I actually remember reading <b>Postern of Fate</b> in a treehouse back in 1978, when I was twelve years old, five years after it was published. How's that for nostalgia? Agatha Christie had been dead for just two years. My copy was the first American paperback edition, with an ad for Bantam mysteries in the back. You could check the books you wanted, cut out the "handy coupon," and send them a check and get your books direct from the publisher. No Amazon back then! I got my parents to do this on several occasions. </p><p>There's also an ad insert for the <b>Detective Book Club</b>, for books by <b>Christie, Gardner, Eberhart, Simeon, Francis, Queen, Creasey, Marric</b>: <i>Eleven mysteries for one dollar!</i></p><p>I don't actually remember hating <b>Postern of Fate</b> when I first read it and there are, to be sure, things in it to entertain a youngster who likes mysteries. Discovering an encoded clue in an old book in an old house, it's like a Nancy Drew mystery. But to an adult, the book just drags on and on with endless, dull, meandering, repetitive conversations. I understand that the house and town are stand-ins for Christie's old family home Ashfield and her native town of Torquay and a lot of Christie fans enjoy deciphering the references, but I can only get so much out of that myself. </p><p>Christie, however, obviously must have derived great enjoyment from living over her childhood again with this book. When you have dementia, you forget so much of the present, even things you did a few hours earlier, but often you remember your distant past. You derive comfort from remembering things from your past, when so much else is vacating from your mind. </p><p>Similarly Tommy and Tuppence and Tommy's elderly intelligence cronies enjoy reminiscing about T&T's espionage doings and crime-solving exploits in the past. There's a bit about <b>The Secret Adversary</b> and <b>Partners in Crime</b>, but it's mostly <b>N or M?</b> This is nice up to a point but it eventually gets wearisome. (I never want to hear the words <i>goosey, goosey, gander</i> again.) But for the characters the past is comforting, the present confusing. </p><p>Christie's muddled political thriller from three years earlier, <b>Passenger to Frankfurt</b>, is referenced several times too, and as a political document, if you take it seriously, <b>Postern</b> is on the same indecipherable page as <b>Frankfurt</b>. In <b>Postern</b>, the past case concerns German spies from the Edwardian era and a naval treaty (submarine plans, like in the Thirties Christie novelette), so you might be asking yourself, what does this have to do with anything in the present day? But it seems that there is group of fascist types still hanging around the area, still plotting, <b>Boys from Brazil</b> like, to foment chaos and destruction in the world and quite willing to eliminate anyone getting in the way of their plans, including this nosy pair of oldsters. </p><p>Basically, it's the Christie plot from her Twenties thriller <b>The Big Four</b> all over again, except we have a Tommy and Tuppence instead of Poirot and Hastings and a fascist cell instead of a sinister Chinaman and a ruthless American millionaire. How much did Christie actually believe in this stuff? Tommy's doddering oldsters in intelligence, Mr. Robinson and Colonel Pikeaway, certainly seem to take it all seriously. although they cannot express themselves very clearly. Here's the Colonel:</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmbL015ZxzsbdYRXiRjal848k_egIIHfWtLX_dULJjoOHbTIvr40ES2xwOpQHbacfvNob5I-LknI0wYaZ9axdYSb_K_iDbBVS9ihiowzUBJ7SH8rCjiVNrZC13J2D2ZHvq9Y2f6hMW9EbZILdeUOVvV6MWDRvEVDlnVIkL9CGOx4Hw1eJ4JgbTuHEDFv1r/s752/yomkippur.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="752" data-original-width="500" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmbL015ZxzsbdYRXiRjal848k_egIIHfWtLX_dULJjoOHbTIvr40ES2xwOpQHbacfvNob5I-LknI0wYaZ9axdYSb_K_iDbBVS9ihiowzUBJ7SH8rCjiVNrZC13J2D2ZHvq9Y2f6hMW9EbZILdeUOVvV6MWDRvEVDlnVIkL9CGOx4Hw1eJ4JgbTuHEDFv1r/w266-h400/yomkippur.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What is going on?</td></tr></tbody></table><p><i>There have been secrets, you know....I'm not telling you anything exact, because I don't know anything exact. The trouble with me is that nobody really knows.....We think we know it all, but do we? Do we know anything about germ warfare? Do we know everything about gases, about means of inducing pollution? The chemists have their secrets, medical science has its secrets, the services have their secrets, the navy, the air force--all sorts of things. And they're not all in the present....</i><i>But we've got to find out a little more than we do because things are happening all the time. In different countries, in different places, in wars, in Vietnam, in guerilla wars, in Jordan, in Israel, even in the uninvolved countries. In Sweden and Switzerland--anywhere. There are these things and we want clues to them.... </i></p><p>To be candid this doesn't make enjoyable, or even easy, reading, but it seems to reflect the hazy thinking of a lot of people today, who feel that there are insidious forces pulling strings behind the scenes (like "Q") and that we don't really know what is going on. (<i>What about covid? What about UFOs? What about BLM? What about Taylor Swift?</i>) In her dotage, Christie seems to have felt similarly confused, and very uneasy about it. How much more pleasant to take little nostalgic trips down one's own personal lane of memories--while one could still find the off ramp.</p><p>I think Christie was quite aware of her own confusion. She was a great writer for goodness sake! Look at those quotations above, at the top of this article. Her characters keep talking about how hard it is to remember anything, how everything is confusing and difficult. So many speeches start off with <i>I mean</i> or <i>I wonder</i>, as character struggle to express themselves coherently. And it's not just the old people who cannot speak succinctly and cogently, it's everyone. Here is an ostensibly physically vigorous young man named Angus Crispin (!) on old Isaac, after the latter gets bumped off, offstage, by the baddies, so that we can have a present-day murder to try and give the narrative some urgency (it doesn't work):</p><p><i>Isaac....knew things. Old stories, as you say, but he had a memory. And they talk it over. Yes, in these clubs for old people, they talk things over. Tall stories--some of them not true, some of them based in fact. Yes, it's all very interesting.</i></p><p>I really think this book deliberately reflects the author's own struggle with dementia. Her husband later said the book almost killed her, and afterward she was unable ever to write another. Christie lived just a little over two years after the publication of <b>Postern of Fate</b>. </p><p>So for me all this makes <b>Postern of Fate</b> not a good book--nothing could make it that--but rather an almost unbearably poignant one. That quotation at the top that comes from the book, about hope, that's like something my Dad used to say about Heaven and the existence of God. So many people have gone what Christie went through, but they never wrote about the sad experience like the Queen of Crime did in <b>Postern of Fate</b>. So I'm glad she struggled and lived to give us this book. I suppose the story really should have ended with Tuppence happily pottering around the back garden with the rocking horse Mathilde, holding an imaginary conversation about a confusing mystery concerning Mary Jordan with her long-deceased husband Tommy, but perhaps that would have been too much verisimilitude for the fans, like the video to <b>Elvis Costello</b>'s 1989 hit song <b>Veronica</b>. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zifeVbK8b-g" width="320" youtube-src-id="zifeVbK8b-g"></iframe></div>The Passing Tramphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-50942600036674096222024-01-05T19:36:00.000-08:002024-01-05T20:14:39.864-08:00Meow! Murder of a Mouse (1939), by Mary Fitt<p>"<i>My own theory is, it was a passing tramp.</i>"--Derry Harringdon in <b>Murder of a Mouse</b> (1939)</p><p>I meant to post a review of <b>Mary Fitt's Murder of a Mouse</b> (1939) before the new year, so I could have at least have 30 blog entries for the year (still a pretty pitiful number by my onetime proud standard), but I didn't make it. But after my Dad's death I wasn't sure I would ever be blogging again, to be honest, so I'm doing what I can. Some people thought that Farjeon post from me last year sounded valedictory, and it might have been. </p><p>But here it is is, later rather than never, my review of <b>Murder of a Mouse</b>. </p><p><b>Murder of a Mouse</b> was the fourth Supt. Mallett mystery, published before <b>Death Starts a Rumor</b> (1940) and after <b>Sky-Rocket</b> (1938), <b>Expected Death</b> (1938) and <b>Death at Dancing Stones</b> (1939). It's on the same level as the other two early ones I have favorably reviewed here recently, <b>Expected Death</b> and <b>Rumour</b>: a straightforward country house manners mystery with true detection and an emphasis on character. </p><p>The title <b>Murder of a Mouse</b> has a double meaning. On the one hand there's middle-aged country spinster Margaret "Mouse" Harringdon, who, yes, does indeed get murdered, but Mouse also owns a cat who brings in a dead mouse one night during the course of the tale. So maybe this is a cat mystery? </p><p>The cat does factor into things, but only in a minor way. A couple of people get drugged, likewise the cat. (This is the third time Fitt, perhaps overfond of the device, has used the drugging gambit.) </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBiAPI9gCgAFpf37cRnyBGkYdmq4-MyxboKxEXli8pasAe_v0-QwlXkEPte2O7-izk36mc84CNPdKP7KAgpXCxNJozlcf_TNwGl6ruaBXhUJaRcPH2fAo0sEqPiwa_4e4bTt3kXLqfyE49COkrQCVBsN4BFhFHXdlNE3AZKu6yn2DmqjRMjYYGluVBvQXF/s350/Fitt-Mouse.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="309" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBiAPI9gCgAFpf37cRnyBGkYdmq4-MyxboKxEXli8pasAe_v0-QwlXkEPte2O7-izk36mc84CNPdKP7KAgpXCxNJozlcf_TNwGl6ruaBXhUJaRcPH2fAo0sEqPiwa_4e4bTt3kXLqfyE49COkrQCVBsN4BFhFHXdlNE3AZKu6yn2DmqjRMjYYGluVBvQXF/w354-h400/Fitt-Mouse.jpg" width="354" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">When the cat back, the <br />the mouse gets whacked.<br />We know who killed the mouse, <br />but who killed Mouse?</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Fitt's publisher, Ivor Nicholson, liked the cat motif so much, they used it in advertising and on the jacket of the next Mary Fitt novel to symbolize "cultured crime." And, sure enough, the blurb on my copy of <b>Mouse</b> tells us that "<i>Mary Fitt is a mistress of detection, but she is a novelist as well, and in <b>Murder of a Mouse</b> she has given a brilliant exposition of both crafts.</i>" </p><p>I have to object a little at the idea that a detective novelist may not actually be a novelist, but I know what they mean. In many of her later novels Mary Fitt is more interested in character studies, but in her early Malletts I think the focus unquestionably is much more strongly on detection, albeit with pretty well-developed characters and emotional entanglements. </p><p>Hence in <b>Mouse </b>we have a wealthy, unloved middle-aged spinster who manages to alienate a goodly number of people in the first part of the novel and then get bumped off. It's the classic Golden Age mystery scenario. </p><p>Who are the suspects in her death? Well, heading the list, there's her improvident brother, Harvey Harringdon, who actually owns the Hall next door, but does not actually have the money to keep it up and needs help for that from Mouse, which the latter is refusing to provide. </p><p>Then there's Harvey's daughter Derry, who is supposed to be her Aunt Mouse's heir, though Mouse is planning on making a new will in favor of the handsome, young concert pianist, Francis Hewson, who has been living with (and off) her. It seems that she plans to marry the devilishly attractive ivories tickler, despite what the neighbors will say. </p><p>Derry herself is supposed to marry Dick Stanton-Pell, son of Major Stanton-Pell and his much younger ex-chorus girl wife, Marcia, but she's now talking about a career in medicine, like her friend, the new lady doctor, Pamela Cloud, and her papa needs help from Mouse as well to provide for that education, another costly thing at which Mouse is balking. </p><p>Marcia Stanton-Pell, Dick's young stepmother--she's closer to his age than she is to her husband's--is a spiteful thing, a splendidly catty lady if you will, and she is suing the silly wife of the other village medico, Dr. Stokes, for slandering her about her chorus girl past. Mouse was the only other witness to what Mrs. Stokes said about Marcia, and when Dr. Stokes calls upon her to ask her not to testify (honestly) about what his silly wife said, Mouse refuses, leaving the furious doctor threatening her that she will get what's coming to her. </p><p>That's about the whole cast, aside from the various police figures and Mouse's maid Ruby, who does like her nip (a lot more than she likes her mistress). Each person is distinctly characterized and there's a good little mystery plot here which takes some unexpected turns. At least they were unexpected to me. </p><p>Doubtlessly the depiction of the female medico, Pamela Cloud, was influenced by the author's real life doctor partner, Liliane Clopet. Women doctors aren't too common in Golden Age mysteries, so this was one interesting aspect of what turned out to be an interesting detective story. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVKUAw9kvxC0lIgscg1XKQsjbYivV1UQ-2lOen1V0mTWAut_RhuTmqMUITqiiR-2T6ZglGSAnrn-TWTc1c-T_1YTgjXc6reUWdciCZRP4XlZRE9szXHmDlC1uVOJ_QuOOxLXpd-oTNZzUb9a52iujVa2uocNmIPXky_ivHXxEoFeSkZWb5ZUcNByaOz9-g/s819/fittblurb.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="819" height="492" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVKUAw9kvxC0lIgscg1XKQsjbYivV1UQ-2lOen1V0mTWAut_RhuTmqMUITqiiR-2T6ZglGSAnrn-TWTc1c-T_1YTgjXc6reUWdciCZRP4XlZRE9szXHmDlC1uVOJ_QuOOxLXpd-oTNZzUb9a52iujVa2uocNmIPXky_ivHXxEoFeSkZWb5ZUcNByaOz9-g/w640-h492/fittblurb.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>Will Derry live to become a doctor too? Like a lot of young people she wavers in what she wants to be, but it's at least significant that medicine is something she is thinking about as a career. "<i>Perhaps I'll start a kennels--or a school,</i>" she muses to Dr. Cloud at another point, to which the latter responds: "<i>Kennels, every time."</i> </p><p>I think in the last Gladys Mitchell mystery, <b>The Crozier Pharaohs</b><i> </i>(1984), some women own a kennels. This used to be something ladies did to support themselves independently in old mysteries, like starting chicken farms (or was the latter more retired army men). After all, one can't always get a legacy or a man! Of course both Mary Fitt and Liliane Clopet were college-educated and supported themselves with professions. </p><p>Extra points to Derry when, late in the story, she speculates that Mouse's murderer was a <i>passing tramp</i>. Hooray! I always love to see that old chestnut. Also we learn that the Chief Constable of the county is one Col. Anderson, who resides at a country house near Chode and previously appeared in the best of the early Mallettless Fitts, in my view, <b>The Three Hunting Horns</b> (1937), set in France. </p><p>Thinks Superintendent Mallett somewhat dismissively of Anderson, as they talk over the case in the Colonel's library: "<i>He fancied himself a detective, ever since that case he had solved in France--according to himself, for of course it was impossible to check up on his story.</i>" </p><p>It's always nice to have recurring minor characters in a series. There's another one here who reappeared the next year in <b>Death Starts a Rumour</b>, but I can't say whom, because this person is a murder suspect in <b>Mouse</b>.</p><p>Then there's the character who complains: "<i>We're all in leading-strings now. All the manly virtues are dead. The law exists to protect skunks, not to punish criminals.</i>" A little bit of "little England" sentiment, which doubtlessly we will be hearing more of from MAGA in the US this year, but don't make the mistake of thinking the author necessarily agrees with it. "Miss Fitt" was unorthodox in British detective fiction in some ways, despite her preference for classic country house settings. </p>The Passing Tramphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-3559480011348514522023-12-22T11:25:00.000-08:002023-12-22T15:06:44.781-08:00Another Poisoned Chocolates Case: Expected Death (1938), by Mary Fitt<p><b>Expected Death</b> was the second Superintendent Mallett mystery by Mary Fitt and the one which introduced her series co-sleuth with Mallett, Dr. Dudley "Dodo" Fitzbrown, In these early Mallett and Fitzbrown mysteries, Fitt does more with the characterization of her two sleuths, particularly Fitzbrown. Mallett is a kindly county policeman, more on the uptake than he looks, with a bit of a Scottish burr. The setting, with its two frequently mentioned cities, Broxeter and Chode, resembles the West Midlands area whence the author's herself originally came. (She was born in Yardley in Worcestershire, near Birmingham.) </p><p>Dr. Fitzbrown is the son of a lately deceased doctor and he has taken over his father's practice. His earlier life comes up in a couple of later short stories, which were published in <b>The Man Who Shot Birds</b> in 1954. Here he is earnest, hard-working and even rather Socialistic. Despite this, he is friends with the young insouciant butterfly wards of Miss Elizabeth Vidor, another one of Fitts' splendid aristocratic old ladies who lives in a great country house and lords it (ladies it?) over her relations. </p><p>These young people are Elizabeth's nephew and niece, Geoffrey and Daffodil, and Orchid, the illegitimate daughter of a great friend of Elizabeth's and a Spanish grandee whom Elizabeth has adopted and made her principal heir. Geoffrey and Daffodil are the offspring (legitimate) of Elizabeth's brother and a Paris chorine, whom Elizabeth magnanimously welcomed back into the family after their parent's death. They stand to inherit from Elizabeth too, though not as much as much Orchid. Elizabeth is "<i>one of the richest women in this country</i>," as her bibulous lawyer, Roger Humphrey, tells her. Roger was greatly smitten with Elizabeth when they were younger but she repeatedly turned down his proposals of his marriage, and now, disappointed in love, he lives with his devoted unmarried sister, Rose. </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg-DwSz_WLrNp7QxCdY1p-Be8WiRftfs4bLX9i5B1G67AJpxM7NircvBkTi_KaDW1c9aNj7X5j02JdQKavdZkE8FuPzTYRonWjHTa7FxYtM6uJRyumTAiLlraVv5cA2wlnwQdptU0BVJ3wS_0EE7_33hJZ8tT0QOBmElzfL5M1Auxo9LW2GV7uj_B9ZV0e/s1393/fittfrenched.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1393" data-original-width="1007" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg-DwSz_WLrNp7QxCdY1p-Be8WiRftfs4bLX9i5B1G67AJpxM7NircvBkTi_KaDW1c9aNj7X5j02JdQKavdZkE8FuPzTYRonWjHTa7FxYtM6uJRyumTAiLlraVv5cA2wlnwQdptU0BVJ3wS_0EE7_33hJZ8tT0QOBmElzfL5M1Auxo9LW2GV7uj_B9ZV0e/w289-h400/fittfrenched.jpg" width="289" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">the French edition</td></tr></tbody></table><p>When the story opens Orchid's eighteenth birthday--where she will be presented with the Vidor family's fabulous heirloom diamond necklace--is looming. Present as a houseguest is Jim Gale, a handsome, charming gent who seems very interested indeed in Orchid. Then there is Elizabeth's bespectacled secretary, Miss Cleet, and a chauffeur named Wilmott and a butler named Bowles and the odd maid or two. Elizabeth, who for some reason Orchid has nicknamed Timmy, has come up with this scheme to test Orchid's devotion by sending herself (with Miss Cleet's connivance) a box of chocolate creams that appear to have been tampered with--how will Orchid respond dutifully and protectfully, as a loving ward should? </p><p>Well, Orchid is proactive about the matter and passes the test in her guardian's eyes, but then, you guessed it, Elizabeth winds up dead the day after the party, <i>fatally poisoned from chocolate creams</i>! Who dun it?</p><p>Dodo himself becomes a suspect, and Mallett calls in Scotland Yard, because he is too close to the people in the case. It's a pleasure to see this obnoxious Scotland Yard investigator, Inspector Veall, get his comeuppance from Mallett and the amateur squad. The waspish police doctor, Jones, is really obnoxious in this one as well, really needling Dr. Fitzbrown. He appears periodically throughout the series, though his role is diminished in later books. Here Dr. Fitzbrown is really put through his paces, and you sympathize with his character, and with Mallett too. Dodo is a suspect because of course he had access to the poison, aconitine, and he proposed marriage to Orchid, even though he has been running about with Daffodil. </p><p>Orchid, a very willful and forceful type like her guardian Elizabeth, gets no fewer than three marriage proposals in this book. Does she actually accept one? She's the focal character and a strong one whose fate should engage readers. Indeed, the whole book is engaging and is another one you should read quickly, when you read it, because of the compelling story. (It's also another short book, probably about 65,000 words.) </p><p>I quite enjoyed it myself. Like Mary Fitt's other earlier Malletts, <b>Expected Death</b> is more thickly plotted, so should appeal more to puzzle purists than some of her Forties books. It's very much in the style of the Crime Queens <b>Margery Allingham</b> and <b>Ngaio Marsh</b>. (People even get accused of being <i>vulgar</i>, which is worse, than, possibly, than being a murderer.) </p><p>If there's a weakness in the novel, it's that Fitt is is so true to her character's characters, as it were, that you may see the solution coming a bit of the way ahead. Puzzle purists used to say that was the danger in putting heavy emphasis on character in a detective novel. If death truly is just a game, so the theory goes, the author has to be careful not to tip her hand too soon. On the other hand, <b>Expected Death</b> is a most enjoyable mystery, highly recommended.</p><p>Some contemporary critics:</p><p>"<i>A lively story which secures its effects with an admirable economy, it shows Mary Fitt at her best.</i>"--<b>Sunday Times</b></p><p>"<i>Uncommonly perceptive</i>"--<b>Sunday Post</b></p><p>"<i>Delicacy and subtlety and with streaks of humour.</i>"--<b>Daily Telegraph</b></p><p>"<i>To be recommended to those who like intelligence and style in their crime stories.</i>"-<b>-Liverpool Daily News</b></p>The Passing Tramphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-40010303272825079612023-12-21T00:09:00.000-08:002024-01-05T20:15:13.658-08:00Gossip Girls: Death Starts a Rumor (1940), by Mary Fitt (A Christmas Mystery)<p><b>Death Starts a Rumour</b>, published by Ivor Nicholson in 1940, was <b>Mary Fitt</b>'s ninth mystery and her fifth in a row with series sleuth Superintendent Mallett. (Fitts' first four mysteries were non-series.) There would eventually be eighteen novels in this series, published between 1936 and 1959, plus a collection of short stories, <b>The Man Who Shot Birds</b>, which had Mallett in it. Mallett's friend Dr. Dudley "Dodo" Fitzbrown (usually just called Dr. Fitzbrown in the later books) I believe debuted in the second novel in the Mallett series, <b>Expected Death</b>, and appeared in most of the rest of the books after that, often contributing more to solving the cases than Mallett, being more imaginative. </p><p>But the truth is, beginning in the 1940s, with such books as <b>Death and Mary Dazill</b> (1941), <b>Requiem for Robert</b> (1942) and <b>Clues to Christabel</b> (1944), Fitt began to focus more on mysteries of character rather than material clues, so that many of her books can be seen as transitional to the modern crime novel. Both Mallett and Fitzbrown often functioned as much or more as observers as they did sleuths. </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpeQV_JZK0yaXerpBltgBuRud-FmRn6Ub-lSKUf7j7MZd6IqAct3RZhp9ZB0cShio7rOF1t45pZ1YDHQF3kTVqBA1k-vU15tsfVMuANQMaIpNT3HxuB4ggoOOL7MvwJirFZyEVfoEbVDiSnwKIRcreGsFEv6Vmbcn8laQnyfF4H5ZLgXpJPKomr52kIyDC/s1494/fittrumor_000025.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1485" data-original-width="1494" height="398" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpeQV_JZK0yaXerpBltgBuRud-FmRn6Ub-lSKUf7j7MZd6IqAct3RZhp9ZB0cShio7rOF1t45pZ1YDHQF3kTVqBA1k-vU15tsfVMuANQMaIpNT3HxuB4ggoOOL7MvwJirFZyEVfoEbVDiSnwKIRcreGsFEv6Vmbcn8laQnyfF4H5ZLgXpJPKomr52kIyDC/w400-h398/fittrumor_000025.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fitt's publisher advanced Mary Fitt as an<br />exponent of "cultured crime" who played <br />cat and mouse with her readers</td></tr></tbody></table><p>With Fitt's very first crime novel, <b>Three Sister Flew Home</b> (1936), critics picked up on her as something different in the crime game and praised her books resoundingly as high-end mystery fare for connoisseurs. "<i>Excellent characterization</i>" and "<i>Distinguished writing</i>" were characteristic observations of her work. "<i>A really high-class murder</i>," declared one critic of <b>Murder of a Mouse</b>, while yet another pronounced of <b>Expected Death</b>:"<i>To be recommended to those who like intelligence and style in their crime stories.</i>" Well, who doesn't like intelligence and style in their mystery reading? Or at least want others to think so? </p><p>Essentially Mary Fitt was being praised in England as a superior writer of clever and insightful manners mysteries, like <b>Margery Allingham</b> and <b>Ngaio Marsh</b>. <b> </b>(<b>Dorothy L. Sayers</b> had retired from crime writing by this time.) Yet Fitt never caught on like those ladies did, either in the United States, where fewer than a dozen of her thirty mystery books were published, or with the even larger market of posterity, being largely forgotten after her death. </p><p>In an entry on Fitt in one of those mystery encyclopedias, crime writer and critic <b>HRF Keating</b> expressed the view that her sleuth Mallett was too featureless for long-term popularity, and certainly there is something to that. Poirot and Henry Merrivale and other Great Detectives had their entertaining eccentricities, while the posh gentleman aristocrat sleuths had IT, one might say. </p><p>One British woman writer dismissed Roderick Alleyn and Albert Campion and their ilk as the "glamour boy" detectives, but there's no getting away from the fact that they and their love lives made popular reading for many, especially for the burgeoning female mystery readership. For every sourpuss <b>Raymond Chandler</b> type who loathed them, there probably were five others (three women and two men, or four women and one man) who adored them.</p><p>What interior life Mallett ever had I have no idea and I have read a lot of books in the series. I don't even recall whether he's married. He's like Agatha Christie's Inspector Battle, except with even less personality. Dr. Fitzbrown's emotional life does get explored in the early books (and he gets married in <b>Death Starts a Rumour</b>), but then Fitt dropped this as well. She was more interested in her suspects' emotional lives than in her sleuths. Which was how it used to be before the glamor boys came along.</p><p>Now that Mary Fitt is finally being reprinted in toto for the first time, after six decades of neglect (except for a stray Dover reprint in English), it's time for a reassessment. On rereading <b>Rumour</b> after two decades I found it quite an enjoyable mystery. For one thing, it's only 60,000 words or perhaps under, which to my mind is an excellent length for a mystery novel. I read it over two nights.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrRqv7jIJEYWtVQqhaDUjLMZTDj17_Aj-f8dWEqfoj49ViWzHYt8CKI4MCij4Q9fneLz4MeuRCobTeiJEMuMWWtmwwih9gBLOGYoWS3LnO5t_iX7_m6X69TLlvYkDetITUN_IEj39r8x4XDnZPRLJdYH_xvDpaag_ksThjCWP1hT311jm5i71ACBDkBlFg/s5573/fittrumor_000026.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4256" data-original-width="5573" height="488" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrRqv7jIJEYWtVQqhaDUjLMZTDj17_Aj-f8dWEqfoj49ViWzHYt8CKI4MCij4Q9fneLz4MeuRCobTeiJEMuMWWtmwwih9gBLOGYoWS3LnO5t_iX7_m6X69TLlvYkDetITUN_IEj39r8x4XDnZPRLJdYH_xvDpaag_ksThjCWP1hT311jm5i71ACBDkBlFg/w640-h488/fittrumor_000026.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>Fitt, a classical scholar, loved to use country houses as a stages for her mysteries and in <b>Rumour</b> she gives us not one but two country house parties, at both of which a murder occurs. It's a very symmetrical construction, as the classical Greeks would have loved. </p><p>The first one commences two days before Christmas but is short-circuited by the sudden death of the homeowner, Evelyn La Planter. Her lazy doctor (not Dr. Fitzbrown) puts down syncope as the cause of death and that is that, but her primary heir, her nephew Michael Le Planter, examines her bedroom after her death and finds clues which point to murder. However, that would mean the murderer would be one of his friends from the house party and he has been heartbroken in love and is just anxious to go off on an archaeological expedition in Mesopotamia and forget all about it (maybe he's been reading Christie), which is what he does. </p><p>However, over two years later Michael starts getting a barrage of anonymous letters accusing him of having murdered his imperious aunt. He decides to return and reopen the house and face the rumors head-on. What better way to do so than by holding another house party where he tries to solve the matter of his aunt's murder (as he and so many others, though not the police, deem it)? </p><p>Of course someone dies at this house party too and this time it's indisputably murder. </p><p>This book reminded me a little of Agatha Christie's <b>Sparkling Cyanide</b>, which appeared five years after <b>Rumour</b>, though Christie's book was partially based on an earlier Christie short story, <b>Yellow Iris</b>, published in 1937, three years before <b>Rumour</b>. So you can't accuse Christie of snitching any ideas in this case.</p><p>Anyway, Fitzbrown is present at the second house party (Michael is aware that he suspected murder the first go-round) and Mallett soon shows up too and actually solves things pretty quickly. Fitzbrown it turns out is falling in love with one of the party guests--and very quickly too I might add.</p><p>Although <b>Rumour</b> is heavily focussed on the characters' emotional lives--much of it deals with who is love with whom and who is going to marry whom or leave whom--there also is some concern with physical clues and the big giveaway in culpritude is definitely the sort of bookish thing you find in Golden Age detective novels. So this one has something in it to please everyone, I think. </p><p>Fitt throws a bunch of characters at us in the beginning and it can be a little confusing at times, but it settles down soon enough. I hope Moonstone will include a list of characters when this is reprinted. Here's mine:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhNtMljJr_XHMW8VgJbf-enpO9ur6KhXpVbDx8NtXMB9kbcCii-Vr6vP2N6lBV6QFEyJpQjJJRCLQuAtpnCh8ZpMK342kK6Og5fWECJe58eE7z99sL_nuYKjkeOqJWGw2qMfRIt6ulnWMaX7Fx4TryDofdyaGgRGmyCqRkUkDtlScoPtZjIas0Ax9vZ2Md/s4240/fittrumor_000027.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4240" data-original-width="2786" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhNtMljJr_XHMW8VgJbf-enpO9ur6KhXpVbDx8NtXMB9kbcCii-Vr6vP2N6lBV6QFEyJpQjJJRCLQuAtpnCh8ZpMK342kK6Og5fWECJe58eE7z99sL_nuYKjkeOqJWGw2qMfRIt6ulnWMaX7Fx4TryDofdyaGgRGmyCqRkUkDtlScoPtZjIas0Ax9vZ2Md/w263-h400/fittrumor_000027.jpg" width="263" /></a></div><p>Evelyn Le Planter, imperious rich aunt and first victim</p><p>Michael Le Planter, disgruntled nephew, who loves </p><p>Claudia, biologist (!), who loves </p><p>Alexander Hart, talented former music student who wants to be an Arctic explorer (those were the days) and loves Claudia though he doesn't think she is good for him</p><p>Thelma Hyde, who was involved with Michael when he and Alexander and Claudia were students in Vienna and is now interested in Alexander. She is the ward of </p><p>musicians Victoria and Hubert Hyde, who want to marry Thelma off to </p><p>Professor Edward Warner, an older man and former music teacher in Vienna who is friends with Evelyn Le Planter</p><p>Erica Le Planter, niece of Evelyn, a musician who is smitten with Alexander</p><p>Paul, a musician who is smitten, seemingly, with both Erica and Michael</p><p>Hope that helps! There are also some servants and a nurse and some charladies who don't feature a great deal but are well handled by the author when they do. There's a nice little subsidiary mystery about the source of the gossip and a neat ironic ending (Greeks loved irony!) that is not at all the norm in Golden Age mystery. So, all in all, I have to give this one high marks.</p>The Passing Tramphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-91930962166491310442023-12-17T23:42:00.000-08:002023-12-18T15:52:04.885-08:00A Really Big Shoe: Foot in the Grave (1972), by Elizabeth Ferrars<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVfuG677ZNNtPy7mhj94-yGUYnofE1XEJmJzcwB2ovFSzn4B5viC9GlysqaCwR1mrrn5qiYoXydFEYoGQIj29Uw9L7s0sqMM4RiyPXOx-x87vrlPYUH_KcTPfBXz5sQ_u1DRwJ8UzmlKemOn3KWk8T_0xW-JHlSdz2IrirboLh7L4Wf4hcoHZ1Mgcssp60/s4106/ferrarsfootfront_000022.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4106" data-original-width="2386" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVfuG677ZNNtPy7mhj94-yGUYnofE1XEJmJzcwB2ovFSzn4B5viC9GlysqaCwR1mrrn5qiYoXydFEYoGQIj29Uw9L7s0sqMM4RiyPXOx-x87vrlPYUH_KcTPfBXz5sQ_u1DRwJ8UzmlKemOn3KWk8T_0xW-JHlSdz2IrirboLh7L4Wf4hcoHZ1Mgcssp60/w233-h400/ferrarsfootfront_000022.jpg" width="233" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In the great English tradition....<br />1981 Anglophiliac<br />US reprint ed. by Bantam</td></tr></tbody></table><b>Foot in the Grave</b> may have been the first <b>Elizabeth Ferrars'</b> mystery I ever read. Certainly it was one of the first, about thirty years ago it must have been. I remember telling my Mom that I quite enjoyed it and she should too. This was back when I was looking for other mystery authors besides Carr, Christie and the other British Golden Age Crime Queens.<p></p><p><b>Foot </b>was originally published in 1972, twenty-two years after Ferrars' <b>Milk of Human Kindness</b>, reviewed here <a href="https://thepassingtramp.blogspot.com/2023/12/milking-murder-milk-of-human-kindness.html">recently</a>. Both are highly domestic murder mysteries, with events mostly confined to a single middle-class house. It's not a country house party mystery, to be sure, but the book does have a confined location with a closed circle of suspects, so it really feels like a modest updating of the classic Golden Age mystery. </p><p>The setting is Helsington, an English provincial city that Ferrars used as the locale for several novels in the Seventies. The protagonist, Christine Findon, is a housewife with no children and a husband, Henry, who is Senior English Master at a local progressive school "<i>where they worry much more about building the children's character than about teaching them anything.</i>" </p><p>Six years ago Henry inherited enough money from his father to buy himself and Christine a Georgian house, which as any reader of GA mystery should know, is just the kind of ordered, symmetrical dwelling in which a rational person should want to dwell. (Golden Agers hated Victorian houses, the abodes of maniacs and victimized women.)</p><p>However, when the novel opens, chaos has descended upon the Findon home, and things only get worse as the story progresses, until Superintendent Ditteridge, a series detective Ferrars briefly employed in the Seventies in the Helsington books, solves the various dastardly crimes in the penultimate chapter. Surprisingly in the Servantless Seventies (and much to her own bemusement), Christine has a housekeeper, an au pair and a daily, respectively:</p><p>Mrs. Heacham, the widowed former housekeeper to Henry's father, who has returned from Canada after the death of her husband and desertion by her adult son, Lew, to take up her family post again, although she is not really wanted</p><p>Marsha Lindale, a lovely young woman majoring in domestic science in the local college, who refused to accompany her mother and stepfather to South Africa, she, Marsha, being anti-apartheid</p><p>and Linda Deeping, a constable's wife who dyes her hair pink but is really traditional at heart</p><p>Marsha helps care for two young children, David and Frances, a nephew and niece of Henry, while their parents are out of the country for several months. This was still the time when parents would do that to their nine and six year olds apparently. (Archie and Agatha Christie went around the world in the Twenties, leaving their young daughter with her grandmother.)</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2zGfoJmoZADGyXXfEl3n4n85z9e19J0ClKidhVVo3AOAZeL2jOmdS67iEk5J8aDF_o3kTzIGjhR3N_NknDYqtry4CTK1xwIbopMzb3XHLqFYp4M5JBFSCerT7muaTt3JwVxxK_8-mumZqDeMRR7Oudz4a9f1krfdTsp1GwnN27eVqf-OGAia6UFcfr_fA/s440/georgianshoe.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="283" data-original-width="440" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2zGfoJmoZADGyXXfEl3n4n85z9e19J0ClKidhVVo3AOAZeL2jOmdS67iEk5J8aDF_o3kTzIGjhR3N_NknDYqtry4CTK1xwIbopMzb3XHLqFYp4M5JBFSCerT7muaTt3JwVxxK_8-mumZqDeMRR7Oudz4a9f1krfdTsp1GwnN27eVqf-OGAia6UFcfr_fA/w400-h258/georgianshoe.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Georgian shoe<br />or perhaps one of Elton John's</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Anyway, then Mrs. Heacham's estranged son Lew shows up, handsome but full of simmering resentment against the Findons for never really making him part of the family. And there's Henry's charming brother, Simon, a former fiancee of Christine, who pops in too. </p><p><i>And</i> Christine's old friend Vivien, an academic type who is head of the footwear department of a costume museum in London. (Think <b>Lucy Worsley</b>, except not at all perky.) </p><p>Vivien, whose third husband, Barry Richmond, by the by, is curator of the London museum, is staying the weekend as Christine's guest to give a lecture on Georgian shoes to the Helsington Costume Society, run by Christine's matronly friend Minna Maskell, wife of Tony Maskell, wealthy kitchen plastics manufacturer, and mother of Rodney, who is smitten with Marsha. Got all that?</p><p>Whew! This is a not a long book, and I really have to admire the way Ferrars is able in the short space both to navigate a complex plot and give her numerous characters some life so that you remember them and get engaged in their fates. Certainly Ferrars has her own stock characters, like all prolific authors. Vivien resembles Susan, the housewife protagonist's sister in <b>Milk of Human Kindness</b>, in that both are extreme egoists (both on their third husbands too, no less) who push the protagonist around for their own selfish ends. Charming but erratic Simon reminded me of roguish Felix Freer who would become a later series sleuth of the author's, as well as Sholto Dapple, another character in <b>Milk of Human Kindness </b>(one of Susan's exes.) These guys always want to play detective (which doesn't mean they can't be murderers too). </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNg6bRF0OCR1WAJFUUsQ3jO9x_Ua4WkLQvL8Sqhgb4ua8Yvn5PMjEFX0OBKEhksp6DQPM6eT1NOPrlNkVjSEoU_CkMKFZgWweZf56IZ0iLfqz4VWSScEs4577LjzH4J-8IIRFs8uYg2bYMDqhAFiEiosXbXi8V5gXUpiCu3ihkUtrsVCKOAscSiMOWqaIV/s2887/ferrarsfootback_000021.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2887" data-original-width="2369" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNg6bRF0OCR1WAJFUUsQ3jO9x_Ua4WkLQvL8Sqhgb4ua8Yvn5PMjEFX0OBKEhksp6DQPM6eT1NOPrlNkVjSEoU_CkMKFZgWweZf56IZ0iLfqz4VWSScEs4577LjzH4J-8IIRFs8uYg2bYMDqhAFiEiosXbXi8V5gXUpiCu3ihkUtrsVCKOAscSiMOWqaIV/w329-h400/ferrarsfootback_000021.jpg" width="329" /></a></div><p>Indeed the two novels as wholes resemble each other to some extent, both in general milieu but also in some specifics, like the fact that murders take place with hammers in storerooms. (In Golden Age mysteries you want to stay out of the library, in Ferrars it's storerooms you really want to avoid.) Also there are a pair of young people, brother and sister, in both books though in <b>Foot</b> they are very young children and in <b>Milk</b> very young adults. </p><p>There are some splendid oddities in the book, like someone stealing the left shoes from Vivien's Georgian shoe collection, which she brought with her for her lecture, and some really nice plot twists. I had forgotten a lot of this book (though not all) in the last thirty years and was able to read it again with much enjoyment. </p><p>To let you know it's the Seventies, Ferrars references long hair and anti-apartheid sentiment, as well as sexual liberation and such things as swinging and foot fetishism (no one besides Vivien is really quite sure what the latter is exactly.) But things really stay pretty cozy despite the odd murder and theft and ruminations about Mrs. Heacham's and Lew's bitterness against the Findons, which feels like it could have come from a <b>Ruth Rendell</b> book. </p><p>When you think how many people have read <b>Elephants Can Remember</b>, Agatha Christie's tired, threadbare-plotted and really rather out of it 1972 opus, compared with those who have perused <b>Foot</b>, it seems a shame. The Ferrars book is much better, as most Christie fans (like me) would admit, I'm sure.</p><p>The only real weakness in the novel has to do with motivation, as <b>Bev Hankins</b> has pointed out on her blog. I think Ferrars could have presented that better at the end, but on the other hand the explanation of the shoe business is really clever and the whole thing is just superbly readable. In my opinion, <b>Foot</b> <b>in the Grave</b> is a modern classic in the Golden Age style, a splendid updating of the old form from one of the major authors of classic mystery. Ferrars, you might say, put on a really big shoe (to reference <b>Ed Sullivan</b>) with this one. </p>The Passing Tramphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-85451598834728432192023-12-10T19:26:00.000-08:002023-12-12T14:02:09.783-08:00Marriage Is Murder: The Little Victims Play (1938), by Anne Hocking<p>Mona Naomi Anne Hocking Dunlop Messer, or <b>Anne Hocking</b> as she is best known, was one of three daughters of native Cornish novelist and Methodist minister<b> Joseph Hocking</b>, a very popular author in his writing day (this being 1887 to 1936), though he has not gotten a great deal of attention from literary critics, on the whole. Joseph and his brother <b>Silas</b>, along with their sister <b>Salome</b>, were purveyors of "<i>pulp Methodism</i>," as one critic who has studied them has called it: popular fiction with a decidedly evangelistic, sometimes anti-Catholic tone. I don't know what he made of Anne's penchant for more secular crime fiction, but he did leave her his money when he died in 1937 at the age of 76.</p><p>Anne's sisters wrote some mystery fiction as well, under the names, respectively, of <b>Elizabeth Nisot </b>and<b> Joan Shill</b>, but Ann, the eldest of the trio, was by far the most prolific. (There was a brother as well, Edward Cuthbert, who died in the Great War, tragically but a couple weeks shy of the Armistice.) </p><p>Anne was born in late 1889 and died in March 1966, like her father at the age of 76, four years after having suffered a debilitating stroke while she was working on her thirtieth Inspector/Superintendent Henry Austin detective novel, <b>Murder Cries Out</b>. (It was completed two years after her death by <b>Evelyn Healy</b>). </p><p>Like <b>Agatha Christie, Josephine Bell, Elizabeth Ferrars</b> and other British women mystery writers of the era, Anne wrote "middlebrow" mainstream novels as well as mysteries, under her married name (at the time), <b>Mona Messer</b>, though she started out in 1930 and 1931 with a pair of what might be termed updated sensation novels, or crime thrillers with a Gothic overlay, concerning naive, young Englishwomen in peril in ancient aristocratic piles on the wicked continent. (Actually there was an abortive first novel fifteen years earlier, written under her married name at that time, <b>Mona Dunlop</b>, but it made little impression.) </p><p>As Mona Messer she then published eleven mainstream novels between 1932 and 1940, but during this time she was also publishing more thrillers, now under under the name <b>Anne Hocking</b>. There were a dozen of these crime shockers published between 1933 and 1941. (We are up to 25 novels between 1930 and 1941; but wait there's more, as they say in the infomercials.) </p><p>The most significant of these thrillers, arguably, was a 1938 number called<b> The Little Victims Play</b>, for it introduced Chief-Inspector William Austen, who would become Hocking's series sleuth in 29 later detective novels, published between 1939 and 1968. It's a convoluted evolution, but an interesting one. </p><p>Anne around the time of the Second World War seems to have deliberately eschewed crime thrillers in favor of the manners mysteries associated, with rising critical approval, with <b>Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham and Ngaio Marsh</b>, authors to whom she refers admiringly in her own crime fiction. (<b>Patricia Wentworth</b>, it should be noted, had a similar evolution to Hocking, decisively committing to the Miss Silver mysteries around this time and relenting from writing more of her thrillers.) </p><p>I don't know that I would call <b>The Little Victims Play</b> a thriller, however. It's really an inverted detective novel of the sort that <b>Julian Symons</b> called the "Iles School" after <b>Francis Iles</b>, though Francis Iles did not originate it. The book concerns an aunt and her niece who check into a seaside place, the Avon Hotel, in Cornwall, with fatal results for the aunt. I'm not telling you anything you don't learn on page one, for it states there, in the first sentence: </p><p><i>When Miss Selby signed the register at the Avon Hotel she was signing her death warrant....</i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmOu16BvZ-p8P9XNI0KAbIfHK7dZdMJtisH1za0Rd8Qy41bdzcUz2BqjjNPVh8VZvP9H8RD-HaKTXa9RIsg5pw1QKnVPspLKRodS-yd9s4Yh6J3JJSITiJ-vrXKadqheMcygYTrCJXQHcEG7BcUNe3NPB8GKBV4FEnFCdWnfCb4ZhtWR8zPr1ot5Ug3xXQ/s1024/ives.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="683" data-original-width="1024" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmOu16BvZ-p8P9XNI0KAbIfHK7dZdMJtisH1za0Rd8Qy41bdzcUz2BqjjNPVh8VZvP9H8RD-HaKTXa9RIsg5pw1QKnVPspLKRodS-yd9s4Yh6J3JJSITiJ-vrXKadqheMcygYTrCJXQHcEG7BcUNe3NPB8GKBV4FEnFCdWnfCb4ZhtWR8zPr1ot5Ug3xXQ/w640-h426/ives.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>Fatefully in Chapter One fifty-year-old Miss Selby meets dreamy Geoffrey Harden, an ex-army man about five years younger than she: </p><p><i>He was...tall, rather over six foot, broad and spectacularly handsome in a florid, full-blooded way. His eyes, black and liquid, were set under heavy black brows, his nose was almost Grecian and his very red, full lips curved seductively over gleaming teeth....at probably somewhere about forty-five, he was beginning to put on weight, not aggressively, but sufficiently to blur his outlines a trifle, to produce the slightest effect of coarseness in his ruddy face. </i></p><p>Men who are a little too handsome in English mysteries are usually bad news in some form or another. Is Major Harden? Well, read it and see (assuming it's reprinted, as right now copies are rare as hens' teeth). I will divulge that the Major and Miss Selby get hitched, and the niece, Merryn Lynton, is not happy about that! </p><p>After Miss Selby dies, in rather suspicious circumstances, Inspector Austen of Scotland Yard is consulted, strictly off the books, about his opinion of the affair. He only appears in the last fifth of the book, mostly in one chapter, functioning mainly as the <i>copus ex machina</i> with handcuffs. </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_juVsJCRP2LL3WIHpgDdkF5zNg-Gw52JcOOwXW8XQ73NqFpXdh0FVoi24Y3JRUi3mNCNSahC28e5fSSm1vcao6tXmQ2L8WhUXRRUuJl3Dm_u0kr7HbuRphstcYYQbwU8gA98CBZDd3U0t4ZYUXUH4z3UV69oba7EsFzqDuP49boJj-XJueYMNP749kFcV/s247/Hocking-Anne-pic.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="247" data-original-width="200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_juVsJCRP2LL3WIHpgDdkF5zNg-Gw52JcOOwXW8XQ73NqFpXdh0FVoi24Y3JRUi3mNCNSahC28e5fSSm1vcao6tXmQ2L8WhUXRRUuJl3Dm_u0kr7HbuRphstcYYQbwU8gA98CBZDd3U0t4ZYUXUH4z3UV69oba7EsFzqDuP49boJj-XJueYMNP749kFcV/w324-h400/Hocking-Anne-pic.jpg" width="324" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mona Messer, aka Anne Hocking<br />A picture from her later years,<br />where she looks rather classically severe.<br />She suffered a stroke while writing her thirtieth<br />William Austen novel in 1962 and died<br />four years later, leaving her last book <br />uncompleted at her death.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>There's some interesting detail about poisoning in this book, for which the author credits doctors <b>George Trustram Watson</b> and<b> Frederick Denison "Denis" Maurice Hocking</b>, chief pathologist of Cornwall for half a century and doubtlessly a family relation. She modestly dedicated the novel to her sisters Elizabeth Nisot and Joan Shill, "<i>Because They Like This Kind Of Thing.</i>"</p><p>Did I like it? Well, it's a quick read and has its points, but on the whole I prefer Anne Hocking's straight detective tales with Inspector Austen: they feel like they have more meat on their bones. One thing there is that struck me, however....</p><p><b>Victims</b> takes, to be sure, rather a pessimistic view of relations between the sexes, with the classic scenario of a plain middle-aged woman newly come into wealth being preyed upon by a designing male anxious to devour her lucre. </p><p>Nevertheless the author stresses that Major Harden did in fact make Miss Selby deliriously happy, while she lived. "<i>Gertrude had gone to her grave thanking God for a perfect husband</i>," observes Hocking trenchantly. "<i>Not many women do that.</i>"</p><p>This set me to wondering about the author's own marital history. Well, it seems that Anne Hocking married twice, the first time at age twenty, after a year at Royal Holloway, a London women's college, to Frederick William Dunlop, a 26 year old native Scottish chartering agent and shipbroker. Dunlop died four years later, shortly before the outbreak of the First World War, leaving his widow just seventy-six pounds, or about about ten thousand dollars today. </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCY1d1yYPZRcKvKR3osBW_Xt_sEWy5Upc4_niRkS7RF2B0SOWLDesIy1g524q7QEcyEl4IcI3JTlFwPx6d9g8qVUv2XF9I0X9Wx26CqRUx2jQ8IWN-78aADHfgUYX-j21i4DX1OexOoSCpgO1SXSVEYSuglwMggGXLovQjWnBN2g8AY-HgeQTfAajdRB0P/s407/messerhoward.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="407" data-original-width="301" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCY1d1yYPZRcKvKR3osBW_Xt_sEWy5Upc4_niRkS7RF2B0SOWLDesIy1g524q7QEcyEl4IcI3JTlFwPx6d9g8qVUv2XF9I0X9Wx26CqRUx2jQ8IWN-78aADHfgUYX-j21i4DX1OexOoSCpgO1SXSVEYSuglwMggGXLovQjWnBN2g8AY-HgeQTfAajdRB0P/w296-h400/messerhoward.jpg" width="296" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Handsome Howard Messer, <br />one of the author's<br />brothers-in-law from her<br />second marriage to Henry Messer</td></tr></tbody></table><p>The next year Anne published her first novel, to little acclaim or attention. Three years after that, near the end of the war, Anne, now twenty-eight, wed forty-six-year-old Henry Richmond Messer, a stockbroker, a man old enough to be her father, as they say. Messer came of a prominent family, his late father having been John Messer, a timber, brick and tile merchant and mayor of Reading. When he died in 1900 Mayor Messer left an estate that would have been worth some 3.5 million today.</p><p>One of Henry's brothers was a prominent Caribbean lawyer, another a mining engineer in South Africa and two were prominent expat architects in Fort Worth, Texas. All the men in the family seem to have loved traveling and boating. A youthful picture of the younger of the architect brothers, Henry, shows rather a handsome man, like our Major Harden from <b>Victims</b>.</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqtLztyB9yzWCln4i2Pz8GD8PB3HxYPbMo4NT9ae6cQn_OCxIL9NAeDTPJzvIXuT_V53XJNwpbbCj2y8WD1Z9yDWeFYSV2EQGxX7UFg8bx_BYI-msEKGwiw_XGzJFHGZE_VRoVmkcbWsYLE9EOHB5JDvtv8t6hM_UVSBPBTvTsNZlINWFBesN-0PtPCIxu/s600/joehocking.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="421" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqtLztyB9yzWCln4i2Pz8GD8PB3HxYPbMo4NT9ae6cQn_OCxIL9NAeDTPJzvIXuT_V53XJNwpbbCj2y8WD1Z9yDWeFYSV2EQGxX7UFg8bx_BYI-msEKGwiw_XGzJFHGZE_VRoVmkcbWsYLE9EOHB5JDvtv8t6hM_UVSBPBTvTsNZlINWFBesN-0PtPCIxu/w281-h400/joehocking.jpg" width="281" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Joseph Hocking, Anne Hocking's father<br />I don't believe he ever learned <br />to smile for a photo</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Two clues suggest, sadly, that Anne's marriage to Henry Messer may have ended in personal estrangement. Remember that Anne took up writing again, most prolifically, in 1930, a dozen years after the commencement of her second marriage. In 1937, when her novelist father Joseph died at St. Ives, Cornwall, he left his entire estate, 5310 pounds, or over 458,000 dollars today, to Anne, referring to her in his will as a <i>widow</i>. </p><p>It was so nice of dear papa to help his daughter out this way, but it turns out that Henry Messer actually died during the Second World War in 1943 at the age of seventy-two in Durban, South Africa. He left his estate to Anne, who was living in England--all of 104 pounds, or about 6275 dollars. Looks to me like Henry had separated from her, at least six years previously, probably rather more.</p><p>Perhaps Henry provided Anne some years of happiness before then, or maybe not. In any event Anne relaunched her writing career, to the good fortune of her readers. She actually entered her best writing phase after her father's death finally left her financially secure and independent, for the first time in her adult life. Perhaps <b>Virginia Woolf </b>was right about a woman writer needing a room of her own....</p><p>There is, by the by, some discussion of God's will in <b>Victims</b>, which Anne would have written during the last year of her pious father's life. Merryn and her doctor boyfriend debate whether she is too vengeful and vindictive toward Major Harden, usurping God's prerogative. But don't let that worry you: on the whole <b>The Little Victims Play</b> is mostly just another nice Golden Age English murder story. </p>The Passing Tramphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-14499611041275647092023-12-09T19:27:00.000-08:002023-12-09T20:02:15.553-08:00Meet Carolyn: My Interview with Rebecca Rego Barry about Her Forthcoming Book on Golden Age Mystery Writer Carolyn Wells<p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: times;">Rebecca Rego Barry</b><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: times;"> is a writer and editor who lives in New York’s Hudson Valley. Her articles and essays about books, history, and collectibles have appeared in </span><i style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: times;">Financial Times, Literary Hub, CrimeReads, Atlas Obscura, Lapham’s Quarterly, Smithsonian Magazine, The Guardian, The Public Domain Review, Fine Books Magazine</i><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: times;">, and elsewhere. </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_wNgTuL1TWZXlMkyGThjuhR57JpUCGnPNOsUve5I-IHSdZVGZgYZZGV1b5bZx_ZNgAxiveuoVIsX5pTb05iE0zLMzD7WuZNedEfeeL9qiHuBSeGzeE_KUx6desUigQ-YsjwaKtfFpLtbPaFpLzKN6f31-htbJxDSUb8afwbykysgKlwmc9g-PMt8f9uOC/s1511/wellsbiobook.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1511" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_wNgTuL1TWZXlMkyGThjuhR57JpUCGnPNOsUve5I-IHSdZVGZgYZZGV1b5bZx_ZNgAxiveuoVIsX5pTb05iE0zLMzD7WuZNedEfeeL9qiHuBSeGzeE_KUx6desUigQ-YsjwaKtfFpLtbPaFpLzKN6f31-htbJxDSUb8afwbykysgKlwmc9g-PMt8f9uOC/w424-h640/wellsbiobook.jpg" width="424" /></a></div><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: times;">Her first book, </span><i style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: times;">Rare Books Uncovered: True Stories of Fantastic
Finds in Unlikely Places</i><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: times;">, was published in 2015.</span><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: times;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: times;">Nearly a decade later, in February 2024, </span></span><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: times; font-size: xx-large;">s</span><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">he is publishing a book about popular
Golden Age mystery writer (and many other things) Carolyn Wells, called <i>The Vanishing of Carolyn Wells: Investigations into a Forgotten Mystery writer</i>, about which I
interviewed her a few months ago.—The Passing Tramp</span></p><p><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">INTERVIEW</span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: times;">PT: It is so nice to talk with you Rebecca.</span><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: times;"> </span><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: times;">So, just how did you get interested in Carolyn Wells?</span></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoM4C2uDLR8s-cuuXslavgelccGgOE-P2rLb6YhwYDxvgu8Z0DNZhOoQHRLOntxhp2DJA3Kt4P4_Xp798q9o38KlOQnZsDlcglP5aygO2OIq6mHE01BvGJZaXjl42Z0sCsLk8bqeOxYAH11y123ZqiJUeoPocfMJrazrryEMOinQ1BLyCNMIxd6AxaTp1j/s4930/wellsphoto.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4930" data-original-width="2793" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoM4C2uDLR8s-cuuXslavgelccGgOE-P2rLb6YhwYDxvgu8Z0DNZhOoQHRLOntxhp2DJA3Kt4P4_Xp798q9o38KlOQnZsDlcglP5aygO2OIq6mHE01BvGJZaXjl42Z0sCsLk8bqeOxYAH11y123ZqiJUeoPocfMJrazrryEMOinQ1BLyCNMIxd6AxaTp1j/w362-h640/wellsphoto.jpg" width="362" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Carolyn Wells</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">RRB: I have always
loved "old books," and am something of a collector. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">In 2011, my
husband bought me a first edition of <i>Walden</i> that had Carolyn Wells’
bookplate in it. I had no idea then who she was, but I began to see her name
(as author) on books at the antiquarian book fairs I attend. It took years for
me to figure out that they were one and the same! </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">Carolyn was an author, also a
librarian before that, and a book collector later in life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Needless to say, I began to buy some of her
books, and some of the books she had once owned.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">When that new edition
of <i>Murder in the Bookshop</i> came out -- the one for which you wrote the
introduction -- everything really came together, and I became more interested
in her as a person, and a writer who had been almost entirely forgotten</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">PT: I remember you
published an article at Crimereads about her.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;">RRB: Yes, that was
really the turning point. Once I wrote that, I thought, hmmm, this could be a
bigger project.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had just finished or
was reading Mallory O'Meara's book called <i>The Lady from the Black Lagoon</i>
that was all about revitalizing the legacy of a creative woman. (</span><span style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.malloryomeara.com%2Ftheladyfromtheblacklagoon%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR2GQazQ4g4D-L434cT3jp8c0SyhZ1kGbur_zjqpwlA68LnV4SbkVwe4sTQ&h=AT2dM4vCs9KbVLE_Fv5l8WKHXp_CFP8v7aveo0xXI-1H_fymWjzorI4iJQYZ2nA0wtxfyBUsw3TBC6uj6WcfXe_sa7QeB4_EAYlYIXkrqqkIyG7N9UmBVCBklqenCKoIUZjgVrx68fhoy2tAIG65zA" target="_blank"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: blue; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; padding: 0in;">http://www.malloryomeara.com/theladyfromtheblacklagoon</span></a></span><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;">)<a href="http://www.malloryomeara.com/theladyfromtheblacklagoon?fbclid=IwAR1NP1zknpVy0Q-mn-xBx-w268D-okvqVB1kphUDzHJEI8R2afkiQeTlksU" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1c1e21;"><o:p></o:p></span></a></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 9pt; vertical-align: middle;"><b><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: blue; line-height: 200%; padding: 0in;"><a href="http://www.malloryomeara.com/theladyfromtheblacklagoon?fbclid=IwAR1NP1zknpVy0Q-mn-xBx-w268D-okvqVB1kphUDzHJEI8R2afkiQeTlksU" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">The Lady from The Black Lagoon — Mallory O'Meara</span></span></a></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 9pt; vertical-align: middle;"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqWc0qnNnT82k_JXLBtmswB51NzDEdBM6ZeUV3Z7K916c5yctMNqQV6V0gYJgdtYCg5hs7G5GK_9aJR860d-sMvKbnFE91DDrB52TfF1BLRW2Gn60FiPC5bk5lGTvq-kFacp6rTXfg-fJMhAqr4I61QXxSGFVQt_au3BZ983fKjN5cRs8bLGUafMxZ0SZ6/s2033/Carolyn_Wells_photo.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2033" data-original-width="1505" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqWc0qnNnT82k_JXLBtmswB51NzDEdBM6ZeUV3Z7K916c5yctMNqQV6V0gYJgdtYCg5hs7G5GK_9aJR860d-sMvKbnFE91DDrB52TfF1BLRW2Gn60FiPC5bk5lGTvq-kFacp6rTXfg-fJMhAqr4I61QXxSGFVQt_au3BZ983fKjN5cRs8bLGUafMxZ0SZ6/w296-h400/Carolyn_Wells_photo.jpg" width="296" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Carolyn Wells</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: times;">PT: I wrote an essay
on her crime fiction in 2014, which was published in a tribute book to John
Dickson Carr biographer Douglas G. Greene.</span><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: times;">
</span><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: times;">Carr, the great locked room mystery writer, was as you know a great fan
of her work in his earlier years.</span></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">RRB: Yes, of course
I've read your essay! Oh, but Carr...! He ended up stabbing her in the back. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was a fan--until he wasn't.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-outline-level: 4;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">PT: Well, that brings up an interesting point: Carolyn Wells’ literary
reputation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ups and downs you might
say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But back in the Twenties and Thirties
she was really tremendously popular in the United States at least.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All during the Golden Age of detective
fiction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why do you think she was so
popular?</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-outline-level: 4;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3iMo9weWOCo9dIYBPOHBoZQCQkxJcP2BW-6gxAn5qw4hArOfK_rnNZYfYaQ62MTgQQ3EvGmPNFEyZjB_kuThrSxgG-yGsx_eXcB43Z-bIoUcsi26tAUeGM2ofOMmsXy5OMWiL0wTl0laxJInAQsR8EY_ZzNIXJ-JLCJ-itQoC_COW_-q39_5dc216lGbE/s704/Wells%20Spooky%20Hollow.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="704" data-original-width="656" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3iMo9weWOCo9dIYBPOHBoZQCQkxJcP2BW-6gxAn5qw4hArOfK_rnNZYfYaQ62MTgQQ3EvGmPNFEyZjB_kuThrSxgG-yGsx_eXcB43Z-bIoUcsi26tAUeGM2ofOMmsXy5OMWiL0wTl0laxJInAQsR8EY_ZzNIXJ-JLCJ-itQoC_COW_-q39_5dc216lGbE/w373-h400/Wells%20Spooky%20Hollow.png" width="373" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: times;">RRB: I think the
phrase you used once was "critically bulletproof," and I borrowed the
"Bulletproof" part for one of my chapters. She was very popular, and
not just because of the mysteries; she had a built a reputation as a witty
poet, a puzzle master, and a Young Adult author, so her name was really
everywhere.</span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-outline-level: 4;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: times;">But to your question: she
said many times she merely wanted to entertain and amuse (and make money). She
wasn't in it to be a literary "genius," even though I think it is an
arguable point.</span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">PT: She wrote in so
many genres, didn’t she?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What were the
children’s book series, Marjorie and Patty?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A few years back I found a blog devoted to those books where the
commenters, who I imagine all were women, were fondly discussing how much they
loved Marjorie and Patty tales, probably into the 1950s and 1960s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig4lSwVoJsfYH8va7BBK1Z1UvvJVO-o4faQMotJNVffl4xnp8wDDlqX-XxM4GCg-4PhTuzen2uE1CX1O07xx66-Oa1e1ZaPzjk0Jup4udj0Jnr09Azn5_BUUBvNriMlMePHgiuEQfFz4UQ_v1zJJP9aKix_E4IRYvU_npf_LLjjDsbUw6E2O99awbeiu5f/s768/wellspatty.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="576" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig4lSwVoJsfYH8va7BBK1Z1UvvJVO-o4faQMotJNVffl4xnp8wDDlqX-XxM4GCg-4PhTuzen2uE1CX1O07xx66-Oa1e1ZaPzjk0Jup4udj0Jnr09Azn5_BUUBvNriMlMePHgiuEQfFz4UQ_v1zJJP9aKix_E4IRYvU_npf_LLjjDsbUw6E2O99awbeiu5f/w300-h400/wellspatty.jpg" width="300" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: times;">RRB:</span><b style="font-family: times;"> </b><span style="font-family: times;">Definitely.
There were several series ... Patty, Marjorie, Betty, Dorrance, etc. Patty was
the longest running and most successful. They were middle/upper-middle class
manners stories, very sweet. Librarians liked them, and that helped. </span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: times;">There
weren't many girls' books at the time (1901-19</span><b style="font-family: times;">). </b><span style="font-family: times;">When I looked at digital copies -- through the Internet Archive, etc. -- so many had sweet
inscriptions to young girls from mothers, grandmothers, aunts. They were
cherished books.</span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-outline-level: 4;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">PT: Sort of
forerunners of Nancy Drew and Judy Bolton, I suppose, except that Marjorie and
Patty, et al, didn’t actually solve mysteries, I suppose.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">RRB: Right. They were
on adventures, on holidays, learned how to 'homemakers,' that kind of thing.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">PT: And then there was
the so-called “nonsense” literature Wells wrote.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can you explain that genre to people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9pkYYN9PWY4LUL-9mZAbwLOvaS6VOIGMk8Hr_yLMezAULOWlpSzNTRRZ8qJsTKGGgUkism4g-g6131u03ublORLfxNL4lyZ79q_WZnQnRPOGhu1K5z0TzNzwx4fAuCjx_p3QMvR2I7ESIjzRz1skqQhTw_LDAAKOnHV6IA2xoTRVzfE8vA-kjFHxPy2o9/s2605/wellsnonsense.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2605" data-original-width="1726" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9pkYYN9PWY4LUL-9mZAbwLOvaS6VOIGMk8Hr_yLMezAULOWlpSzNTRRZ8qJsTKGGgUkism4g-g6131u03ublORLfxNL4lyZ79q_WZnQnRPOGhu1K5z0TzNzwx4fAuCjx_p3QMvR2I7ESIjzRz1skqQhTw_LDAAKOnHV6IA2xoTRVzfE8vA-kjFHxPy2o9/w265-h400/wellsnonsense.jpg" width="265" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: times;">RRB: Lear and Carroll
were her absolute favorites.</span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">Actually, I
own one of the editions of Lear that was Carolyn's--what a treasure! The
nonsense is hard to define, but it’s combinations of puns, witticisms, limericks,
etc. </span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: times;">She actually created five anthologies for Scribner, all various forms of
light verse.</span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">Nonsense is how she cracked
into the literary world, pitching magazines like Puck and The Lark in the mid-1890s.</span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">PT: She had a novel <i>Ptomaine
Street</i> I recall, a satire of Sinclair Lewis’ celebrated novel <i>Main
Street</i>, that I have meant to read for years.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">RRB: She didn't seem
to hold grudges, but she had no problem poking fun at authors -- Henry James
was another target -- and she could be deliciously mean.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Parody, she loved!</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 3.75pt;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">PT: So, it seems like
Wells had this really humorous outlook on life, but in real life she faced
tragedy that she concealed behind a smile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Can you tell us about that?</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 3.75pt;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgBdQwahYrW6QFT_9gm2gGE_m8mGeuBRXXatT_r9e84MUY-m41QN2IQHwx7SjG1A3pW7mGjMROOQmode6AFnux3PsZAVwkNsHNJQkQSzM0B6yRlZmdo-9V_Ersr0hloeeHBmc4iO3flvA2iXxzI2eZxVFHp5ZvbnhcBhAz9GgXorC73H1q4HI9adIHrlYY/s2336/wellsphoto3.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2336" data-original-width="1522" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgBdQwahYrW6QFT_9gm2gGE_m8mGeuBRXXatT_r9e84MUY-m41QN2IQHwx7SjG1A3pW7mGjMROOQmode6AFnux3PsZAVwkNsHNJQkQSzM0B6yRlZmdo-9V_Ersr0hloeeHBmc4iO3flvA2iXxzI2eZxVFHp5ZvbnhcBhAz9GgXorC73H1q4HI9adIHrlYY/w416-h640/wellsphoto3.jpg" width="416" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: times;">RRB: True. I mean,
it's important to note that her upbringing was rather privileged. Big house,
maids to help. But she also lost siblings to disease, and, in one case, where
her sister died of scarlet fever, she too contracted it which caused her nearly
complete hearing loss in one ear. That troubled her for the rest of her life.</span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 3.75pt;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Also, she stayed in her parents' home in NJ
until she married, late in life, which probably speaks to her traditionalist
ideas. She married late, and sadly he died only eighteen months later, so that
happiness was fleeting.</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">
PT: That was to Hadwin Houghton? I always loved that name!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like a character from an English mystery.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">RRB: Yes. And everyone
always thinks he worked in publishing -- but he didn't!</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 3.75pt;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">PT: He was a cousin of
the publisher or something like that?</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 3.75pt;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBXUkob2F9U0nFUp8PQt9HugmXdtTv1XgXzFa8uuJI3aJFNP-zMDNrueXKFyy6W0l7672ESx2so9Pw7VzyIBTXhjCpTA3XTgG9I1B8NKOO38dREr1IWJk4abP50LujUlgu-Xnygd6zC9pAeXdp55D38JTPb6cSGvCe-jJ-zHfDNFuuqfCJNRQ659dWu7c5/s230/wellsfoto.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="230" data-original-width="171" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBXUkob2F9U0nFUp8PQt9HugmXdtTv1XgXzFa8uuJI3aJFNP-zMDNrueXKFyy6W0l7672ESx2so9Pw7VzyIBTXhjCpTA3XTgG9I1B8NKOO38dREr1IWJk4abP50LujUlgu-Xnygd6zC9pAeXdp55D38JTPb6cSGvCe-jJ-zHfDNFuuqfCJNRQ659dWu7c5/w298-h400/wellsfoto.jpeg" width="298" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: times;">RRB: She says cousin
in her memoir, but I think it was second or cousin x removed, because I tried
to find more information on him and so little is available. I traced his
parents and brother, but none were in publishing.</span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">Unless you count a trade magazine called </span><i style="font-family: times;">Varnish</i><span style="font-family: times;">
that he and his brother worked on.</span></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-outline-level: 4;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">PT: He worked for a paint company?</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">RRB: Yes, Valentine
& Co. (merged and melded, now Valspar). Made a great living. How they met
is something I discuss in the book because there are two origin stories. The
one I prefer describes him as a puzzle lover, and she made puzzles. Supposedly
he would mail in his answers and they started corresponding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another odd bit of her life: crossword puzzle
maker!</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 3.75pt;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">PT: I thought she
wrote some of her best books during the short time she was with him. I gather
it was a very happy union.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">RRB: Yes, I think so,
he moved her to NYC, and she loved that. Loved living there, and stayed there
until her death.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 3.75pt;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">PT: Well, that brings
us to the mysteries. Carolyn was writing nonsense lit, she was writing parodies
and children's books, how did she get started on mysteries?</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 3.75pt;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMi6u-MpBy-pVA1rvX8iMqhXdCipG0ZOPVYkpwNRPWMDOJAP6MY5K6jxFpXm1Bh7jIRgl11znpjR1jgZn9ejQ9VuprDOKdXIyq3Gq0q0EfE2jSdxZaNLvAltqSvKtlDEcn1YHP7eo0Pq6Nk9QLsHsok6yqtPx6YCDV0an6gjKLVJrlBnVbR_o-cw2dYVce/s577/carolynwellsfleming.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="577" data-original-width="400" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMi6u-MpBy-pVA1rvX8iMqhXdCipG0ZOPVYkpwNRPWMDOJAP6MY5K6jxFpXm1Bh7jIRgl11znpjR1jgZn9ejQ9VuprDOKdXIyq3Gq0q0EfE2jSdxZaNLvAltqSvKtlDEcn1YHP7eo0Pq6Nk9QLsHsok6yqtPx6YCDV0an6gjKLVJrlBnVbR_o-cw2dYVce/w278-h400/carolynwellsfleming.jpg" width="278" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: times;">RRB: I think the short
answer is: she loved reading them, especially Sherlock Holmes, and like all the
other forms she tried, so just figured she could do it, and she did. Her first
mystery story appears in 1905, and the first book form, </span><i style="font-family: times;">The Clue</i><span style="font-family: times;">, in
1909. </span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 3.75pt;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">She saw the market for mysteries,
and worked to fill it. Same with Young adult. Same with film scripts. She was
quite savvy that way. </span></span></span><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Side note: one of the things I love about CW is that she starts this entirely
new career in her mid-forties.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">PT: What was her first
published mystery story?</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">RBB: The first I could
trace is called "Christabel's Crystal" published in a Chicago
newspaper on<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>October 15, 1905</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;">PT: I see that ‘Christabel’s
Crystal’ was published in <i>Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine</i> in 1997. </span><span style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fthe.hitchcock.zone%2Fwiki%2FCarolyn_Wells%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR1PtiYdPTg9G_YEh0ZC_Oexp19MZpKVcUi0WoMrOVbowjimE0U_4uCYE5c&h=AT2dM4vCs9KbVLE_Fv5l8WKHXp_CFP8v7aveo0xXI-1H_fymWjzorI4iJQYZ2nA0wtxfyBUsw3TBC6uj6WcfXe_sa7QeB4_EAYlYIXkrqqkIyG7N9UmBVCBklqenCKoIUZjgVrx68fhoy2tAIG65zA" target="_blank"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: blue; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; padding: 0in;">https://the.hitchcock.zone/wiki/Carolyn_Wells</span></a></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">RBB: Yes! I bought
that 1997 mag recently to read the story for myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She wrote 81 mystery novels in total; 61 of
which were her "Fleming Stone" detective novels. Although, then
again, there's one Fleming Stone novella, “His Hand and Seal,” from 1911
published in Lippincott's and made into a film, but never published in book form.
So, maybe more than 81/61.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggcj42EZhZ8Ci-uUv6bJvL54SdDOHM98MtWzCyI84Ow7IQFXjptjarDOhtvvOnH3DH56ggdQzWsHFovXXGypkRvEKR0GiggYLrta0qhbOoxMOuGIlgGegMUrf1JgCt1L7JA-TaTwUi1pGRUqwEXBGl9KlYGb-5DeGdLXd_34V1pspdWKzd-gKRhnOwiiwS/s350/wellsblades.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="314" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggcj42EZhZ8Ci-uUv6bJvL54SdDOHM98MtWzCyI84Ow7IQFXjptjarDOhtvvOnH3DH56ggdQzWsHFovXXGypkRvEKR0GiggYLrta0qhbOoxMOuGIlgGegMUrf1JgCt1L7JA-TaTwUi1pGRUqwEXBGl9KlYGb-5DeGdLXd_34V1pspdWKzd-gKRhnOwiiwS/w359-h400/wellsblades.jpg" width="359" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: times;">Carolyn was involved
in 16 films, to varying degrees: mainly, writing the 'scenario' as they called
it. Half of those were with Edison.</span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">The
film </span><i style="font-family: times;">His Hand and Seal</i><span style="font-family: times;"> came out in 1915.</span><span style="font-family: times;">
</span><span style="font-family: times;">It was done by the Biograph Co.</span></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 3.75pt;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">PT: So these were
filmed in the New York area? I just checked imdb and saw I think five mystery
films, all from the 1910s, based on her work. Any of those survived?</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;">RBB: Most were filmed
in the New York area, as it was largely before the industry's big move to
Hollywood. I devote a whole chapter to this part of Carolyn's life and my
endeavors to track down one of the films she worked on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here's another neat film she worked on: <i>Dearie</i>
</span><span style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.imdb.com%2Ftitle%2Ftt0017795%2F%3Fref_%3Dfn_al_tt_1%26fbclid%3DIwAR32by4o1OgPr1_CYU3MdOPc3XOhbpnoOF7EPzsI6Ly14YWpUVsHHYgh38E&h=AT2dM4vCs9KbVLE_Fv5l8WKHXp_CFP8v7aveo0xXI-1H_fymWjzorI4iJQYZ2nA0wtxfyBUsw3TBC6uj6WcfXe_sa7QeB4_EAYlYIXkrqqkIyG7N9UmBVCBklqenCKoIUZjgVrx68fhoy2tAIG65zA" target="_blank"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: blue; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; padding: 0in;">https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017795/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1</span></a></span><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That was the last one.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio5LAwNeV0E1iofRsHAxka1K4yYfUFTIAQDO8kr4Ez5IIB83bDkInEScJ2vESu1Zwwg-OXossyPQUgNZc2EL1Da64cidJYVFBGMNPekm-17db55oo4Y1p-s9Ih0BIlkqFR442pmRIXbQpB9YuKbNCXfAL8YhiLZSkl6rBALvIXi1Efn5b9K7M5FxglBs6t/s682/wellsphoto4.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="682" data-original-width="474" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio5LAwNeV0E1iofRsHAxka1K4yYfUFTIAQDO8kr4Ez5IIB83bDkInEScJ2vESu1Zwwg-OXossyPQUgNZc2EL1Da64cidJYVFBGMNPekm-17db55oo4Y1p-s9Ih0BIlkqFR442pmRIXbQpB9YuKbNCXfAL8YhiLZSkl6rBALvIXi1Efn5b9K7M5FxglBs6t/w278-h400/wellsphoto4.jpg" width="278" /></a></span></div><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">PT: So her detective
Fleming Stone was an early film detective too. Let's talk in some more detail
on her mysteries, since this is a mystery blog! Some academic writers have
written in the last decade or so about how Wells actually helped establish some
of the tropes of the Golden Age mystery. Can you elaborate on that?</span></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">RBB: That is part of
my argument, though not just with mysteries. She has helped to define so many
genres, really putting in the world, only to be overlooked later on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But yes, locked-room mysteries and
country-house mysteries -- that was her bread and butter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It's true characterization wasn't her strong
point; she felt the puzzle was the best part of a mystery.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgImyMMcDwVGn9wXBhxoQ8mqaG1jXJsKifJuTLYXS7zoB5ipUYPODbOQlltNXdNgrCECzgyWPWaWkFPoe1iYhTXPoggJZYstLxYYK9ICvGUowtuU7W5M4OTd9cNnLyphXbC3pkSz69AHav441KnsP0gWVNl7CRsFqfgfSQwT5WSBi5YYppITTiE4CpuXWMM/s577/carolyn-wells-vicky.webp" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="577" data-original-width="400" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgImyMMcDwVGn9wXBhxoQ8mqaG1jXJsKifJuTLYXS7zoB5ipUYPODbOQlltNXdNgrCECzgyWPWaWkFPoe1iYhTXPoggJZYstLxYYK9ICvGUowtuU7W5M4OTd9cNnLyphXbC3pkSz69AHav441KnsP0gWVNl7CRsFqfgfSQwT5WSBi5YYppITTiE4CpuXWMM/w278-h400/carolyn-wells-vicky.webp" width="278" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: times;">PT: Well, people
really valued the puzzle at that time. I think my friend Bill Pronzini helped
undermine her reputation with his book </span><i style="font-family: times;">Gun in Cheek</i><span style="font-family: times;">--ironically, the
sort of humorous book she might have written--because he made fun of the lack
of realism in her books, the reliance on secret passages--a no-no in many purists’
eyes.</span></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">RBB: I can see from
contemporary media accounts that she was one of two women credited as a popular
mystery author during the WWI era.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
other being Mary Roberts Rinehart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
appreciate Pronzini's insight though, and at least he included her in the
discussion!</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgekKGnqcyLDmW7bxRCjtKgDv5uphmochkqRBWY4b7JsQpgWB2wQfCPmOKnL9UDNrtfXZX1V60Et5UuA0oSerqD6CLlgvoKXFxRQMhPP9p4oxcQ8KqxRw9mK_MLwGKnjBkFJU0whmCqoaX7RyfvA3Yy5-CV3wPL9Rrt-8xz0RGYtyZXNmudqOibMc6JgKVl/s1600/wellsolder.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1133" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgekKGnqcyLDmW7bxRCjtKgDv5uphmochkqRBWY4b7JsQpgWB2wQfCPmOKnL9UDNrtfXZX1V60Et5UuA0oSerqD6CLlgvoKXFxRQMhPP9p4oxcQ8KqxRw9mK_MLwGKnjBkFJU0whmCqoaX7RyfvA3Yy5-CV3wPL9Rrt-8xz0RGYtyZXNmudqOibMc6JgKVl/w284-h400/wellsolder.jpg" width="284" /></a></div><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">PT: Yes, Mary Roberts
Rinehart was hugely popular and later many critics--male critics--undermined
her for writing what they dismissed as Had I But Known mystery, all full foreshadowing
and grim forebodings.</span></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">RBB: Yeah, there was a
lot of sexism even in the reviews of time, like this book was good, "even
though it was written by a woman." Seriously!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not sure Carr helped on that score, calling Carolyn
and others "lost ladies."</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: times;">PT: I look at my own
evolution on Wells as people can see on the internet, where in 2009 at
MysteryFile I'm taking the line like Bill that she was kind of this magnificently
"silly" writer, but by 2014 I had read </span><i style="font-family: times;">Vicky Van</i><span style="font-family: times;"> and I
actually quite liked that one. </span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: times;">And then over the next several years I found
some more by her I liked, a couple of these </span><i style="font-family: times;">The Furthest Fury</i><span style="font-family: times;"> and </span><i style="font-family: times;">The
Daughter of the House.</i><span style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">So then I do <a href="https://thepassingtramp.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-daughter-of-house-1925-or-how-i.html">this blog piece</a> in 2018, "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Carolyn
Wells."</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcX8SUM3qUyKa4zX4M5eU5wYbvjlKBqqdUV98E42LF6FKmlV4MGm8HvDkhkBs-bRQopH41Y7pZheLiZ-fi4_Mwvn_Gx1ltmYv4A2BsipiffWxytHiI9feUKepF5YI7LNmXMPH7iLFJOxBIdpK_tPZIXT3iceusnyYaQ3NiDqDwy1NkKN-eBE0OTpOmB7dT/s480/wellsTassels.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="331" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcX8SUM3qUyKa4zX4M5eU5wYbvjlKBqqdUV98E42LF6FKmlV4MGm8HvDkhkBs-bRQopH41Y7pZheLiZ-fi4_Mwvn_Gx1ltmYv4A2BsipiffWxytHiI9feUKepF5YI7LNmXMPH7iLFJOxBIdpK_tPZIXT3iceusnyYaQ3NiDqDwy1NkKN-eBE0OTpOmB7dT/w276-h400/wellsTassels.png" width="276" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: times;">RBB: She definitely
wrote some good mysteries! Another blogger, John Norris, has written a good bit
about her and he quite likes her Pennington Wise and Zizi series, though it's
much shorter than the Fleming Stone one. </span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">I too liked </span><i style="font-family: times;">Vicky Van</i><span style="font-family: times;">, also </span><i style="font-family: times;">Murder
in the Bookshop</i><span style="font-family: times;">. </span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">It's funny though, I'll hear how one person (scholar,
collector, vintage mystery buff) loved one of her novels, only to have another
person say it's terrible. It's all subjective!</span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">But for me the point
of the biography was not necessarily to delve into which books are the best,
but just to give credit where credit is due. Obviously, the readers of her time
loved her, so that's important to look at.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: times;">PT: Yes, I think people need to remember she was really very popular. I was just reading, for an article I wrote on Eden Phillpotts, a contemporary author who also wrote mysteries, about how they were corresponding in the late 1930s and Phillpotts dedicated his mystery </span><i style="font-family: times;">Monkshood</i><span style="font-family: times;"> to her. </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: times;">She made some very positive statements about his writing that were blurbed in the press, because her opinion mattered to people.</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLdNR8PmjdUoY86eAwXL5K8Rz6_uyV6joro-PTnnTdxlOrB7XD1LoXXsYSLnGlccASs27FD51QJMjgkxqVpBAJtt0fjTSysf3u22oUlxIXD1mX24ZCP-V5sz1eDjipoviX8RuYrYP2-y0cnyzimWGWt68XqFpjiXW7eM6fw-kkJQmD0_lzWSqyJqXZRxUi/s630/carolynwellspulp.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="441" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLdNR8PmjdUoY86eAwXL5K8Rz6_uyV6joro-PTnnTdxlOrB7XD1LoXXsYSLnGlccASs27FD51QJMjgkxqVpBAJtt0fjTSysf3u22oUlxIXD1mX24ZCP-V5sz1eDjipoviX8RuYrYP2-y0cnyzimWGWt68XqFpjiXW7eM6fw-kkJQmD0_lzWSqyJqXZRxUi/w280-h400/carolynwellspulp.jpg" width="280" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">RBB: That's so
interesting. She did say he was one of her favorites, and they were pen pals --
a packet of their correspondence went to auction after her death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Chesterton was a fan of Wells, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As was Van Dine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vincent Starrett, however, hated her!</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">PT: I wish I had that
correspondence! If you look to Twenties and Thirties America, three of the most
popular prolific mystery writers were Wells, Phillpotts and JS Fletcher, the
latter two Englishmen. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">They were all born around 1862 and later, certainly by the Forties, came to
be seen as terribly old-fashioned, but when people get to read their books today, they often
enjoy them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">Starrett was not a fan of Wells though?</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0nw3Qnzh76rqFEJbCQm3MbGgcsK9eCHv2j0J5jjecFWk9Y1LjMYsYYspsqNCf9gppr473tFHFygPdIwAJVuts-J81N_L8iqDig8sixluDKnncV57tUd26ywZ7MMvnyMvzLcgBfQ6rwnskQvWLS_3S0_FRcg68pch9PxrGgWZ5ZwzI1rhC59a1SFtoJr9t/s264/starrett%20pic.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="264" data-original-width="192" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0nw3Qnzh76rqFEJbCQm3MbGgcsK9eCHv2j0J5jjecFWk9Y1LjMYsYYspsqNCf9gppr473tFHFygPdIwAJVuts-J81N_L8iqDig8sixluDKnncV57tUd26ywZ7MMvnyMvzLcgBfQ6rwnskQvWLS_3S0_FRcg68pch9PxrGgWZ5ZwzI1rhC59a1SFtoJr9t/w291-h400/starrett%20pic.jpg" width="291" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vincent Starrett</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: times;">RBB: Oh, did Starrett
hate her work.</span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">Starrett was a book
collector, like Wells, and I think he was jealous of her wealth and that she
could buy whatever rare books she wanted.</span><span style="font-family: times;">
</span><span style="font-family: times;">He also said nasty things about her books, like: "It would give me
pleasure to annihilate Carolyn, if not for her Atlantic article, for her
abominable detective novels probably the worst ever written.”</span></span></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">PT: Ouch! I'll have to
get the citation for that Starrett review. He made his opinion clear!</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">I found one record
that indicated Wells averaged about 13,000 copies sold per mystery, which
actually put her in the higher echelon of mystery writers throughout the
Twenties and Thirties. So something in her work struck chord with people. And
that is just actual sales, not library rentals. Her reading public must have
been much bigger.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">RBB: I agree, and I
found some archival documents -- royalties, etc. showing some of her books
selling that many and more. Also, a public library survey from 1936 that put
her among the most circulated.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">PT: Very interesting, I
am not surprised about her sales and circulation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think the thing is, though, that she wrote
a lot and was quite varied in her book quality. I especially like the ones with
Fleming Stone's Irish boy sidekick Fibsy MCGuire. They are the Batman and Robin
of GA mystery.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuxSFHFaqr3OmJRFfCjd0HpaKwSoVkPZ4okwPU6JGou65Qr84ce7GFZm_cJ6acBe2zcrg07iG14lrifteJ5KGqQ26glE9o2_TH9xgDUXbV-8_dxeurF0aN2xApYfOzF7XT0m14TXDHzwhcjznyANcgxAJvox6DefWuKO-4XyKdICAT_ZwBL8rmwttQD5Gx/s1172/wellscain.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1172" data-original-width="765" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuxSFHFaqr3OmJRFfCjd0HpaKwSoVkPZ4okwPU6JGou65Qr84ce7GFZm_cJ6acBe2zcrg07iG14lrifteJ5KGqQ26glE9o2_TH9xgDUXbV-8_dxeurF0aN2xApYfOzF7XT0m14TXDHzwhcjznyANcgxAJvox6DefWuKO-4XyKdICAT_ZwBL8rmwttQD5Gx/w261-h400/wellscain.jpg" width="261" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fibsy in action in <br />The Mark of Cain (1917)</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: times;">RBB: Yes, reviewers
liked Fibsy too.</span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">Alas, Mary Roberts
Rinehart always sold more!</span></span></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">PT: So you published
an article about Wells in 2020 and then you wrote a book about her. What is it
called and when is it out?</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">RBB: It's called <i>The
Vanishing of Carolyn Wells: Investigations into a Forgotten Mystery Author</i>
and it will be out Feb. 13, 2024.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Title
based on one of CW's mysteries<i>, The Vanishing of Betty Varian</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">PT: I've been meaning
to read that one! Who is publishing your book?</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;">RBB: PostHill Press: </span><span style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fposthillpress.com%2Fbook%2Fthe-vanishing-of-carolyn-wells-investigations-into-a-forgotten-mystery-author%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR0Y0V9GrSAc24R3dRvkFwPryZRHfzlw1YqHGNGNWlfponGyyrdmb8KoHTo&h=AT2dM4vCs9KbVLE_Fv5l8WKHXp_CFP8v7aveo0xXI-1H_fymWjzorI4iJQYZ2nA0wtxfyBUsw3TBC6uj6WcfXe_sa7QeB4_EAYlYIXkrqqkIyG7N9UmBVCBklqenCKoIUZjgVrx68fhoy2tAIG65zA" target="_blank"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: blue; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; padding: 0in;">https://posthillpress.com/book/the-vanishing-of-carolyn-wells-investigations-into-a-forgotten-mystery-author</span></a></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">PT: I congratulate
you. I certainly found myself getting fascinated with Carolyn Wells over the
years, though of course I look mostly at her mysteries. How notable a figure do
you think she was in American writing, and do you think she will ever get her
due?</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;">RBB: Thanks! I hope
this book will go some way toward bringing her "out of the shadows"
(see this article from earlier this week: </span><span style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://www.nysun.com/article/poem-of-the-day-how-to-tell-the-wild-animals"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; padding: 0in;">https://www.nysun.com/article/poem-of-the-day-how-to-tell-the-wild-animals</span></a></span><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;">)<a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nysun.com%2Farticle%2Fpoem-of-the-day-how-to-tell-the-wild-animals%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR3d_FvX1cBCldPq4B1d-vP1INX0-ftTmV3oVNcD7o808ceDYmaLlrJ8oCk&h=AT07lWOZTgZCvGXYs7qnr1nX6rVe_1ZHa-1npRaD5EtkUoxyorGm8owxQxIiQd27EcPOfVTbJXXC8bH5ZgS4NmfbGXeSfs6BcCdCQrgmWiyqx7ZHCd3AyHRvOc_pdYnqEMXatLVhVuMPpVQ" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1c1e21;"> </span><b><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: blue; padding: 0in;">Poem of the Day: ‘How To Tell the Wild Animals’</span></b></a></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">I think she was
notable in many ways -- a woman who really earned her place in the literary
ecosystem, who not only crossed genre but helped build those genres into what
they became.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She has an incredible
legacy that deserves attention.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN3ZokB2_VPLiWuAXEr1OaWQo3C5JiSJi5sVUhCbXpJf9e1JGFSFfiv-pXThnUQbKXpF0dKSH820QRCyKgT0js8twmdn4JnqWn2w0rdB6M8oA75vwzuYxV4nNqSC1qAK9xuAaizfwfFJvok7b3_n3ZvQKXdPc8FstgIfNx3fyP3nrW7zxZXm5s-xkzkFFL/s600/wellsmegapack.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN3ZokB2_VPLiWuAXEr1OaWQo3C5JiSJi5sVUhCbXpJf9e1JGFSFfiv-pXThnUQbKXpF0dKSH820QRCyKgT0js8twmdn4JnqWn2w0rdB6M8oA75vwzuYxV4nNqSC1qAK9xuAaizfwfFJvok7b3_n3ZvQKXdPc8FstgIfNx3fyP3nrW7zxZXm5s-xkzkFFL/w400-h400/wellsmegapack.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: times;">P</span><span style="font-family: times;">T: I think the thing
is, critics come and go, but readers remain. I was checking on Amazon, one of
the Carolyn Wells Mystery Megapacks has almost 270 reviews of her copyright
free mysteries, average 4 stars. </span></span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: times;">A lot of favorable reviews.</span><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: times;"> </span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: times;">And HarperCollins has reprinted </span><i style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: times;">Murder in
the Bookshop</i><span style="color: #1c1e21; font-family: times;"> as you mentioned and I think Otto Penzler at Mysterious Press
has done some of hers as well. It would be nice to see get some more quality
reprints.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">RBB: I have been
trying to jumpstart a reprint or two. One of Carolyn's stories is in Otto's new
anthology of bibliomysteries, so that's cool.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Otto actually blurbed my book! He said I changed his mind about Carolyn
Wells.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It reads:</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">“The Vanishing of
Carolyn Wells is a remarkably compelling narrative about this astonishingly
prolific author who had great success in numerous genres. While I have never
been a great fan of Ms. Wells’ mystery novels, the sprightly and perceptive
prose of Rebecca Rego Barry’s worthwhile study has convinced me to give her
another try.”</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">Little by little her
name will get out there.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Golden-Age-Bibliomysteries-Otto-Penzler/dp/1613164203/ref=asc_df_1613164203"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">https://www.amazon.com/Golden-Age-Bibliomysteries-Otto-Penzler/dp/1613164203/ref=asc_df_1613164203</span></span></a><br /><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo-qn4i6TCE2omVvemkx65aBlhN41vTDQ89The-5lBeoxZB-RdQ10aMIlbIMA67Fg62zbW1Dy7QdEpbsTK7XbB4coNeAz8sL8WbEiOj8omxms9BvHgh2wgPZ-vj32DilraJ7b3eI8ZbKEY3JxcLb43wEmeMFZfVuRUdViaFjuugMz8Oc9dJn12RmAGhQin/s803/carolynwellsanne.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="803" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo-qn4i6TCE2omVvemkx65aBlhN41vTDQ89The-5lBeoxZB-RdQ10aMIlbIMA67Fg62zbW1Dy7QdEpbsTK7XbB4coNeAz8sL8WbEiOj8omxms9BvHgh2wgPZ-vj32DilraJ7b3eI8ZbKEY3JxcLb43wEmeMFZfVuRUdViaFjuugMz8Oc9dJn12RmAGhQin/w640-h278/carolynwellsanne.webp" width="640" /></a></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">PT: Very nice! Well, I
wish you and Carolyn both great success. I always enjoy getting the chance to
talk about her work. One more thing I wanted to mention, Carolyn's first job
was a librarian in her hometown of Rahway, New Jersey, correct? I wanted to
make a shout-out to all the hard-working librarians out there. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">RBB: Yes, she was a
librarian in Rahway for a decade, another interesting facet to her life!</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">PT: Bless the
librarians in the censorious times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thanks, Rebecca, enjoyed it!</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #1c1e21; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">RBB: Me too! Thanks so
much! </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>The Passing Tramphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-89465601586649800562023-12-03T04:22:00.000-08:002023-12-03T04:55:52.154-08:00Milking Murder: Milk of Human Kindness (1950), Elizabeth FerrarsOver her long writing career, <b>Elizabeth Ferrars</b>' favored milieu in mysteries became the professional classes in an English village within commuting distance of London. Often the lead characters are a couple, the husband someone involved, like Ferrars' own botanist husband, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-professor-robert-brown-1115893.html">Robert Brown</a>, in scientific research at an agricultural station, the wife typically a homemaker. (There may or may not be children.) <div><br /></div><div>Ferrars wrote fifty non-series mystery novels, along with five about journalist Toby Dyke and his enigmatic ex-lag friend George (1940-42), eight about estranged couple Felix and Virginia Freer (1978-92) and eight about Andrew Basnett, an elderly botanist based on her husband, for a total of 71 novels. Until she began writing about the Freers, non-series mystery novels dominated her output, 39-5, whereas afterward series books dominated her output, 16-11. <br /><br />I don't know whether the author ever explained the reason behind her shift--perhaps it was a recognition that readers were increasingly interested in series books, particularly in the developing cozy genre, which her books came more to resemble in the 1980s and 1990s. As late as 1981, she could still a manage a book as comparatively "dark" as <b>Experiment with Death</b>, but her books afterward usually seemed to have a lighter touch, even her non-series ones. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik2pJubnuuKM7z5AfBzBePAn7qLkRif8uNilcV-pI33NZLdW2I9pb0Z1w1vTAo6g9wr95edenyU0BHx4uEUYa1LDjG_yJYdAbTytk1M9-9uY8DleUJvpxv4qsyyWNF2qDeTh9AujsXcGd97t88ppZjXzJZp-SBoKO_2HmMFg5QtzmRMWwQv1pWLrKPjfA1/s933/ferrarsmilk.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="933" data-original-width="591" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik2pJubnuuKM7z5AfBzBePAn7qLkRif8uNilcV-pI33NZLdW2I9pb0Z1w1vTAo6g9wr95edenyU0BHx4uEUYa1LDjG_yJYdAbTytk1M9-9uY8DleUJvpxv4qsyyWNF2qDeTh9AujsXcGd97t88ppZjXzJZp-SBoKO_2HmMFg5QtzmRMWwQv1pWLrKPjfA1/w254-h400/ferrarsmilk.jpg" width="254" /></a></div><div>But even before the Eighties her mysteries included many that were lighter in tone, like her 1950 domestic mystery novel <b>Milk of Human Kindness</b>. This was her second mystery novel of 1950, and her eleventh since she started publishing them in 1940. </div><div><br />Ferrars had wandered rather over the track in the Forties, producing the five Toby Dyke novels, then some very serious crime novels, but <b>Milk of Human Kindness </b>is more of a manners mystery, a domestic comedy of murder with some echoes of HIBK from the Thirties. (See below.) <b>Milk</b> would set the template for many of her later domestic village murder mysteries, though in its case the author brings humor to the fore.</div><div><br /></div><div>The narrator of <b>Milk of Human Kindness</b> is Marabelle Baynes, who on the first page makes a classic Had I But Known observation straight out of a <b>Mary Roberts Rinehart</b> mystery novel. Remembering that she answered the doorbell that certain fateful Sunday morning, Marabelle ruefully reflects:</div><div><br /></div><div><i>...if I had been able to see who was outside, ringing my bell again and again with a rather offensive impatience...I should have never gone to the door. By this I should have been saved a great deal of trouble and disturbance and perhaps should have saved a life. </i></div><div><br /></div><div>But Marabelle answers, thinking it is her pal Peter Frere, whom she might cajole to help her paint the flat. (Her husband John is away in Holland for a fortnight attending a "<i>conference of some sort.</i>") But it turns out it is not Peter Frere, but Marabelle's awful, much-married sister, Susan Beltane! (By the way, the surname of Peter Frere, who never actually appears in the novel, rather resembles that of Felix Freer, Ferrars' antihero of the Felix and Virginia Freer series between 1978 and 1992.)</div><div><br /></div><div>Anyway, Susan, who had two children, Beryl and Maurice, with her second husband, Norman Rice, says she wants Susan to go see Norman to find out why he has forbidden her from his house and their teenaged children. (When she attempted to visit she was turned away by Norman's housekeeper, Mrs. Fawcett.) Susan we can tell is a monstrously egocentric person, adept at pushing around people, including her younger sister; and soon Marabelle is at Norman's domicile, the Victorian house of his parents (deemed "<i>hideous</i>," like most Victorian homes in crime fiction of that day). </div><div><br /></div><div>Here we encounter a raft of characters, including <br /><br /><b>Norman Rice</b>, a kindly if somewhat austere retired colonial civil servant engaged in writing a never-ending book (like Andrew Basnett in the Andrew Basnett series)</div><div><br />Norman's daughter <b>Beryl</b>, now learning gardening professionally, and <b>Maurice</b>, a day student somewhere</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Mrs. Fawcett</b>, a housekeeper who does "<i>extraordinarily little</i>," yet manages "<i>to have herself regarded as a treasure</i>"</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Sholto Dapple</b>, Susan's eccentric first husband</div><div><br /><b>Basil</b>, the Rices' amiable and smoothly competent cleaner ("<i>He looked about twenty-five, was not very tall, was built with extreme neatness and grace, and had curly golden hair and blue eyes. It was a little difficult to believe in him.</i>")</div><div><br /><b>Ernst and Millie Weinkraut</b>, the Rices' neighbors<br /><br />Later on Susan and her third husband, Piers Beltane, show up too. All in all, it's a cast of characters (and murder suspects) that would not shame a Thirties country house mystery, though we are lacking a butler, of course. Ferrars really manages to keep the plot twisting and turning. There are three murders and a denouement which produces three different solutions: one from Marabelle, one from the stolid police inspector and then the one which is actually right. </div><div><br /></div><div>Ferrars doesn't seem to me to get a lot of credit for her puzzle plotting and clueing and detection in this era, perhaps because she doesn't have series detectives and the police are sidelined. But make no mistake, this is an intriguingly plotted whodunit. Ferrars also places a lot of emphasis on characterization and, in this book, dry humor. Susan is a type you see a lot in Ferrars' fiction, the egoist whose pushiness launches the reluctant protagonist into waves of mystery, while Sholto Dapple is an amiable rogue type like Felix Freer. However, more original are the housekeeper Mrs. Fawcett and the cleaner Basil, vivid secondary characters. </div><div><br /></div><div>Mrs. Fawcett really starts to seem insidious with her tales of her former employers, all of whom seem to have been ailing gentlemen who expired and left her "<i>a little something</i>"; while Basil with his tales of his odious brother-in-law is really amusing. Basil, by the way, may that seemingly rarest of things in Ferrars' mysteries: an lgbtq character. Or maybe I have been led astray by his "<i>pale primrose shirt</i>." </div><div><br /></div><div>Also, points to Ferrars for coming up with a name like Sholto Dapple! She compares him to a magician, and I have to say this would be the perfect name for one.</div><div><br /></div><div>The mystery plot turns on myriad domestic details, including yes, a saucepan of milk. Nothing more cozy than that, right?</div>The Passing Tramphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-48802235669672469912023-10-21T21:40:00.005-07:002023-10-21T21:40:35.590-07:00Jefferson Farjeon's Sergeant Pork Saga: Murder at a Police Station (1943) and Interrupted Honeymoon (1945)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdNG4GbUjmHc62llT2fny3hdcFMofZt8rVicx6-cPkrFvPTGGjLo_aTGZg9DuK0FM4ydEUqomW-Y0NboLBkQN7SzSXA9tIxk27Az_odtqjJrdh2doPOMgN40uXdb5ePFT5wqfwS91nDc_NBMLzSkMkBzM3BFoCTHSSmlFrRXBQW-4jmRzDiilkWw9SJn8N/s3181/farjeonpork.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2284" data-original-width="3181" height="460" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdNG4GbUjmHc62llT2fny3hdcFMofZt8rVicx6-cPkrFvPTGGjLo_aTGZg9DuK0FM4ydEUqomW-Y0NboLBkQN7SzSXA9tIxk27Az_odtqjJrdh2doPOMgN40uXdb5ePFT5wqfwS91nDc_NBMLzSkMkBzM3BFoCTHSSmlFrRXBQW-4jmRzDiilkWw9SJn8N/w640-h460/farjeonpork.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>The classic Farjeon thriller formula, as I have alluded to before, is for the author to take several individuals and entrap them in an isolated location, where they eventually have to match wits with some crooks with a criminal agenda. His <b>Mystery in White </b>(1937) was perhaps the apex of this formula, which goes back to his debut Ben the Tramp mystery <b>No. 17 </b>(1926). These thrillers usually make entertaining reading, primarily on account of the author's charming writing, but after a bit one does long for Farjeon ro alter his formula. And he actually did so, especially in the late Thirties and Forties. </p><p>In 1943 Farjeon introduced a new pen name, <b>Anthony Swift</b>, under which he rapidly wrote three mysteries: <b>Murder at a Police Station</b> (1943), <b>November 5 at Kersea </b>(1944) and <b>Interrupted Honeymoon</b> (1945). The first of these is one of his genuine detective novels and one of his best books. It takes place in the English village of Severing, which has a police force of two: the recently promoted Sergeant Henry Pork and his newly imported constable, who goes by the name of Jones. </p><p>One dark and stormy night Sergeant Pork is called out on a case and when he returns to the little station (having found the call was faked), he finds an unknown dead man spawled there! The case, which he solves in one night with the assistance of his farm laborer father Jeremiah, something of a natural genius, manages in its short time to implicate the local gentry and nouveaux riche, a very Scottish Scotsman, a drunken artist, the village shopkeeper and her buxom daughter and a pugnacious farmer named Blythe and his daughter, Mary, in whom Sergeant Prk takes a definite interest (and Vice versa). </p><p>It's an immensely enjoyable book, which is resolved through genuine detection. In the United States it was published under Farjeon's own name and quite well reviewed. (I have never seen the British edition.) </p><p>Now, you may be asking if Sergeant Pork is any relation to Leo Bruce's Sergeant Beef. It may be chicken of my to duck out of this question, but I simply don't know. In both cases, of course, the surname suggests the character's humble social origins. Sergeant Pork is much embarrassed by his surname, because--not get this--he secretly wants to be a poet (even poet laureate)! Yes, Farjeon anticipated <b>PD James</b> and Adam Dalgliesh here. He even works on poems (in his head) during the story, but he always gets stuck on the last line. Still, he dreams of "thin, blue-bound volumes...lauded in the <i>Times</i>.</p><p>One might have thought "Anthony Swift" was to be the author of a Pork series, but the next book attributed to him, Kersea, is a non series London nightclub thriller. Pork returns in the last Swift book (neither of these were published in the US), but disappointingly it's another Farjeon formula thriller. He and Mary, having wed, are on their honeymoon at an Cornish isolated inn, when--well, if you've read much Farjeon, you've read it before, more or less. (Did <b>Dorothy L. Sayers</b> influence this one?) </p><p>Happily, there's a spunky maid named Jane and Pork's father shows up later in the book, but I do wish Farjeon had given us another Pork detective novel rather than another formula thriller, however charming the company. </p><p>And that was the end of the Pork saga. I wish there was more to it. Leo Bruce as I recollect gave us a seven course Beef dinner. But at least he appears in one classic mystery, one of Farjeon's best.</p>The Passing Tramphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-58302815817347590542023-10-12T20:46:00.001-07:002023-10-12T20:48:07.951-07:00Project of a Lifetime: Centipede's Complete Cornell Woolrich Short Fiction Series (2012-?)<p><a href="https://www.centipedepress.com/home.html">Centipede Press</a> is a high end short fiction publisher who does a good bit of vintage crime fiction, including such noted authors as <b>Jim Thompson, Fredric Brown and Cornell Woolrich</b>. They publish beautiful illustrated books with informative introductions in low print runs and, yes, higher prices--but if you think the initial prices are high, just wait until they go out of print! Which they do, quickly. I missed <b>Stories to be Whispered</b>, a collection of Cornell Woolrich short crime fiction. when it was issued in 2016 and never have found an affordable copy (for me) to this day. <br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKLRwd7ZeWrI25zhTaon-QlCSGIGzlXDUPJsP6yeEqb9heZOkHDCJlSAfo-NJr47mOVfdui2Bb9to2EidDpHHRvNUH1Ju7IMKylZsfYMDlt-yqET0fWKfDX_3BwtZYZPbRN7Ke9tG59ut4AhPUlgjkhcLURVTWGJAP7ln1YdlaD0BPxpFiI9u-tq6zcY6A/s800/waltzspread1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="364" data-original-width="800" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKLRwd7ZeWrI25zhTaon-QlCSGIGzlXDUPJsP6yeEqb9heZOkHDCJlSAfo-NJr47mOVfdui2Bb9to2EidDpHHRvNUH1Ju7IMKylZsfYMDlt-yqET0fWKfDX_3BwtZYZPbRN7Ke9tG59ut4AhPUlgjkhcLURVTWGJAP7ln1YdlaD0BPxpFiI9u-tq6zcY6A/w640-h292/waltzspread1.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">one of Centipede's Cornell Woolrich reprints</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>I am one of those people who believe that Woolrich excelled just as much, if not more, at crime fiction in its shorter forms, so last year I got in touch with Centipede, telling them about my Crimereads essay on Woolrich and explaining that I could do a good, original and updated introduction for the next volume. Things went well and I ended up proposing further that Centipede publish a total of thirteen volumes to collect all of the Woolrich short crime fiction. It really is past time that that be done, I felt. So this is now the plan, I am happy to report. I have selected the stories and titles for the future volumes. It total 201 pieces of short crime, horror and adventure fiction, plus the autobiographical pieces from the fragmentary <b>Blues of a Lifetime</b>. (If I am missing something, let me know by all means.)</p><p>There are currently four volumes in the Centipede series--<b>Dark Melody of Madness</b>, which is introduced by my friend <b>Bill Pronzini</b>, for over half a century (he started young) one of the keenest analysts of hard-boiled and noir crime fiction out there--<b>Speak to Me of Death</b>, which I <a href="https://thepassingtramp.blogspot.com/2014/05/mystery-of-night-speak-to-me-of-death.html">reviewed</a> at the blog over a decade ago, <b>Stories to be Whispered</b> and <b>Walls That Hear You</b>, which I <a href="https://thepassingtramp.blogspot.com/2021/12/noiry-not-noiry-walls-that-hear-you.html">reviewed</a> in 2021. The new volume that I am introducing, <b>Silent as the Grave</b>, should be ready for Christmas and I think it would be lovely to start a tradition of having a Cornell for Christmas! Surely nothing says Christmas--Black Christmas--like Cornell Woolrich. </p><p>What follows below is a list of all thirteen volumes in the series, followed by their projected contents. The idea of doing another eight volumes of Cornell Woolrich short crime fiction is appealing, but at the rate these things go, it would take another fifteen years or so at best to get them out, so will see. </p><p>Some might say having thirteen volumes is bad luck, but it seems appropriate for Cornell. By the way, I have no intention of doing all the intros, because I think it is good to have some variety of perspective with these things. I already have other people in mind. (I do want to introduce Vol. 6, <b>One Drop of Blood</b>, however, because I want to make a defence there of Woolrich as a writer of detection.) But we'll have to see what the years bring, this year has been, to be honest, a most unhappy one personally for me, with the deaths of Rupert and my father. </p><p>Cornell would know about loss. I think it's time we showed the man some genuine sympathy, while allowing for his flaws, rather than mock him for his weaknesses and vilify him for things he may not even have done. Certainly some of his problems were self-made or self-exacerbated, but that does not make him any less deserving of empathy. Some of the writing about woolrich reminds me of those old Charles Atlas ads in comic books depicting the bully kicking sand in the 98-pound weakling's face. Give his physical and mental maladies, we should be celebrating Woolrich for all he accomplished. </p><p>And now let's look at the "black series":</p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">1.
Dark Melody of Madness<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">2.
Speak to Me of Death<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">3.
Stories to Be Whispered<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">4.
Walls That Hear You<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">5.
Silent as the Grave<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">6.
One Drop of Blood<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">7.
Through a Dead Man’s Eye<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">8.
The Light in the Window<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">9.
Too Nice a Day to Die<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">10.
My Lips Destroy<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">11.
Three Kills for One<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">12.
Right in the Middle of New York<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">13.
Of Time and Murder<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Vol.
I: Dark Melody of Madness (5)<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Graves for the Living 1937 DM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Jane Brown’s Body AAF 1938<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Dark Melody of Madness aka Papa Benjamin
DM 1935<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I’m Dangerous Tonight AAF 1937<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Mannequin 1966 SMM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Vol.
II: Speak to Me of Death (15)<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">It Had to be Murder/Rear Window<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Post-Mortem<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Three O’Clock<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Night Reveals<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Dead on Her Feet<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Marijuana<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Murder in Wax (expanded as The
Black Angel)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Speak to Me of Death (expanded as
Night Has a Thousand Eyes)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Corpse and the Kid<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Living Lie Down with the Dead<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I Won’t Take a Minute aka Finger of
Doom<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Corpse Next Door<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Wardrobe Trunk aka Dilemma of the
Dead Lady<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Death of Me<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Dusk to Dawn<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Vol.
III: Stories to be Whispered (13)<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">After-Dinner Story<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">An Apple a Day<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Cigarette<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Detective William Brown<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Endicott’s Girl<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Heavy Sugar<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Case of the Killer-Diller<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Hummingbird Comes Home<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">All at Once, No Alice<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Don’t Wait up for Me Tonight aka
Goodbye, New York<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Guillotine aka Men Must Die<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Murder, Obliquely 1958 Violence
revision of Death Escapes the Eye<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Story to be Whispered<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Vol.
IV: Walls That Hear You (17)<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Death Sits on the Dentist’s Chair<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Walls That Hear You<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Kiss of the Cobra<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Hot Water<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Change of Murder<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Johnny on the Spot<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Double Feature<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">One and a Half Murders<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Momentum<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Mind over Murder<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Book That Squealed aka Library
Book<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Meet Me by the Mannequin<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Penny-a-Worder<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Murder at Mother’s Knee<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Body in Grant’s Tomb<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">When Love Turns aka Je t’aime<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Life Is Weird Sometimes<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;">Vol.
V: Silent as the Grave</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"> <b>(18/17)<o:p></o:p></b></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Even
God Felt the Depression BOAL<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Dime a Dance aka The Dancing
Detective 1938 BM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Two Fellows in a Furnished Room aka
He Looked Like Murder 1941 DFW<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">You’ll Never See Me Again 1939
SASDS<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Murder at the Automat 1937 DD<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Bequest 1942 DT<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Collared 1939 BM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Fountain Pen aka Dipped in Blood
1945 SASDS<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">IOU 1938 DoD<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Silent as the Grave 1945 MBM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">One Last Night 1940 SASDS<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I’ll Take You Home, Kathleen 1956
Nightmare expansion of above<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">You Take Ballistics 1938 DoD<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Red Tide (alt. version Last
Night) 1940 SASDS<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">If the Dead Could Talk 1943 BM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Room with Something Wrong aka
Mystery in Room 1938 DFW<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Wake up with Death 1937 DFW<b> not reprinted<o:p></o:p></b></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Crazy House 1941 DD<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Vol.
VI: One Drop of Blood (20/19)<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Remington
Portable NC69411 BOAL<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Murder Story 1937 DFW<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">C-Jag aka Cocaine 1940 BM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Fire Escape aka The Boy Cried
Murder 1947 MBM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">You Pays Your Nickel slightly rev.
as The Phantom of the Subway 1936 Argosy<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Death in the Air 1936 DFW<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Showboat Murders 1935 DFW<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Screaming Laugh 1938 CDM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Mamie ‘n Me 1938 AAF<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Hot Towel 1938 DoD <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Case of the Maladroit
Manicurist 1941 DD<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Stuck aka Stuck with Murder 1937 DD<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Flat Tire aka Short Order Kill 1938
DD<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">U, As in Murder 1941 DD<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Cool, Calm and Detected 1941 BM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Dormant Account 1942 BM aka Chance<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Orphan Ice 1942 DD<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Leg Man 1943 DD<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Fur Jacket aka What the Well
Dressed Corpse Will Wear 1944 DD<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">One Drop of Blood 1962 EQMM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Vol.
VII: Through a Dead Man’s Eye (20)<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">If I Die Before I Wake 1937 DFW<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Through a Dead Man’s Eye 1939 BM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Eyes That Watch You aka The Case of
the Talking Eyes 1939 DD<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Death Escapes the Eye 1947 SMM <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Bluebeard’s Seventh Wife 1936 DFW<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Cinderella and the Mob 1940 Argosy<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Earring aka The Death Stone DFW
1943 DFW<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Man Upstairs 1945 MBM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Detective’s Dilemma 1940 DFW<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Blind Date with Death 1937 DD<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Riddle of the Redeemed Dips
1940 DD<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Death Diary 1943 FDF (formerly
DFW)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Death in Duplicate aka The Ice Pick
Murders DFW 1940<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Death in Round Three 1937 PD<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Murder on the Night Boat 1937 BM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Funeral aka Your Own Funeral 1937
Argosy<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Silhouette 1939 DFW<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Husband 1949 TBR<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Last Night 1943 expansion of The
Red Tide from I Wouldn’t Be in Your Shoes<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Somebody on the Phone aka Deadly
Night Call 1937 DFW<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Vol
VIII: The Light in the Window (16)<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Light in the Window 1946 MBM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Nightmare aka And So to Murder 1941
Argosy<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I Wouldn’t Be in Your Shoes 1938
DFW<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I’ll Never Play Detective Again
1937 BM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Murder on My Mind 1936 DFW revised
as The Morning after Murder<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Counterfeit Hat aka He Talked
through His Hat 1939 DFW<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Dog with the Wooden Leg SASDS
1939<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif";"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Red Liberty 1935 DD</span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Corpse in the Statue of Liberty
revision of above from Violence 1958<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Cape Triangular 1938 DFW<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Nine Lives 1936 DFW <b>not reprinted</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Mimic Murder 1937 BM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Fingernail aka The Customer Is
Always Right 1941 DT<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Lie 1937 DFW<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I’m Ashamed 1965 Dark Side of Love<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Intent to Kill 1967 SMM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Vol.
IX: Too Nice a Day to Die (20/18)<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The
Poor Girl BOAL<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Preview of Death 1934 DD<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Screen-Test revised version of
above 1956 Nightmare<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Shooting Going on 1937 BM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Picture Frame 1944 BM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Afternoon of a Phony 1936 DFW <b>not reprinted<o:p></o:p></b></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Flowers from the Dead 1940 DD<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Face Work aka Angel Face 1937 BM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Cab, Mister? 1937 BM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Death Rose 1943 BDS<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Death Between Dances 1948 SMM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The
Maid Who Played the Races BOAL<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Soda Fountain Saga aka Soda
Fountain 1930 Liberty rev. SSMM 1960<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Somebody Else’s Life expansion of
teleplay Somebody’s Clothes—Somebody’s Life 1958<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Hopeless Defense of Mrs.
Dellford 1942 DD<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">That New York Woman 1958 Violence
revision of above <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Poker Player’s Wife 1962 SMM/Dark
Side of Love<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Idol with the Clay Bottom 1965
Knight/Dark Side of Love<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">For the Rest of Her Life 1968 EQMM <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Too Nice a Day to Die 1965 Dark
Side of Love<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Vol.
X: My Lips Destroy (17)<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Death of Me 1935 DFW<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Night I Died 1936 DFW<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">You Bet Your Life 1937 DFW<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Borrowed Crime 1939 BM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Waltz 1935 DoD<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">One Night in Barcelona 1947 MBM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Crime on St. Catherine Street 1936
Argosy<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Underworld Trail 1936 Argosy<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Death in the Yoshiwara 1938 Argosy<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Wild Bill Hiccup 1938 Argosy<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Senor Flatfoot 1940 Argosy<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Damn Clever, These Americans 1937
Argosy<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Gun for a Gringo 1936 Argosy <b>not reprinted</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Moon of Montezuma 1952
Fantastic<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Vampire’s Honeymoon 1939 Horror
Stories<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">My Lips Destroy 1959 Beyond the
Night revision of above<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Baal’s Daughter 1936 TM<b> not reprinted<o:p></o:p></b></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;">Vol.
XI: Three Kills for One (18/17)</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">President
Eisenhower’s Speech BOAL<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Blue Ribbon 1949 TBR<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Black Bargain 1956 Justice<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Number’s Up 1959<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Blue is for Bravery 1937 DFW<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">If the Shoe Fits 1943 DD <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Body Upstairs 1935 DD<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Fatal Footlights aka Death at
the Burlesque 1941 DFW<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Charlie Won’t Be Home Tonight 1939
DD<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Three Kills for One 1942 BM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Clean Fight 1965 Dark Side of
Love<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Blonde Beauty Slain aka Newspaper
Headline EQMM 1959<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Murder after Death 1964 EQMM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Steps…Coming Near aka The Jazz
Record 1964 EQMM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">It Only Takes a Minute to Die 1966
EQMM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Divorce—New York Style 1967 EQMM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">New York Blues 1970 EQMM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Dark Oblivion 2021 EQMM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Vol.
XII: Right in the Middle of New York (all previously not reprinted) (21)<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Right in the Middle of New York aka
Murder in the Middle of New York 1936 DFW<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Round Trip to the Cemetery 1937 DFW
<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Mystery of the Blue Spot 1936
DFW <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Blood in Your Eye 1936 DFW <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Vision of Murder 1937 DFW <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Gun but Not the Hand 1937 DFW<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Two Deaths of Barney Slabaugh
1936 DFW<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Come Witness My Murder 1943 FDF (formerly
DFW)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Evil Eye 1936 AHD <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Death on Delivery 1943 DD <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Taxi Dance Murder 1937 TDA<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Never Kick a Dick 1938 DoD<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Woman’s Touch 1938 DoD<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I Hereby Bequeath 1938 DoD<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Holocaust 1936 Argosy<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Black Cargo 1937 Argosy</span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Oft in the Silly Night 1937 Argosy <b>not reprinted</b><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Public Toothache Number One 1936
Argosy <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Money Talks 1962 EQMM<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Crime by the Forelock 1939 BM <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Nelli from Zelli’s 1937 BM <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Vol.
XIII: Of Time and Murder (Novelettes That Became Novels) (6 or 8?)<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Murder in Wax 1935 (expanded as The
Black Angel)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Speak to Me of Death 1936 (expanded
as Night Has a Thousand Eyes)—both included in Vol. 1, would you want to do them again here?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Those Who Kill 1939 DFW (expanded
as Phantom Lady)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Street of Jungle Death 1939 SDM
(expanded as Black Alibi)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Of Time and Murder 1941 DFW
(expanded as Deadline at Dawn)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Havana Night 1942 DFW (expanded as
The Black Path of Fear)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Four Bars of Yankee Doodle 1945 MBM
(expanded as Strangler’s Serenade)<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p>
</p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">They Call Me Patrice 1946 TW
(expanded as I Married a Dead Man)</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p><br /></p>The Passing Tramphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-11465155678562954322023-10-01T23:32:00.003-07:002023-10-04T19:54:14.314-07:00A Kinder, Gentler Thriller: Trunk Call (1932), by Jefferson Farjeon<p><i>In my end is my beginning....And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.</i>--<b>TS Eliot, Four Quartets</b></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUn0_XLxSix68u0R5r-Pk0l_n_eIzdtDls_v-FTuH3jORfwGeZCnPyPgq9xJhcKr1KY2M61Q95X0yzYKFnzBaPf9nBmIOOo69Jwsl16nDsPy0i2Tn5b5okFa2zJqscO3dC12Glq0bJdlDmbW8H89veKUs-F4lk54ULvqcDyDrq1NxCNX7iAEawoOwUcIgA/s310/j-jefferson-farjeon.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="232" data-original-width="310" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUn0_XLxSix68u0R5r-Pk0l_n_eIzdtDls_v-FTuH3jORfwGeZCnPyPgq9xJhcKr1KY2M61Q95X0yzYKFnzBaPf9nBmIOOo69Jwsl16nDsPy0i2Tn5b5okFa2zJqscO3dC12Glq0bJdlDmbW8H89veKUs-F4lk54ULvqcDyDrq1NxCNX7iAEawoOwUcIgA/s1600/j-jefferson-farjeon.jpg" width="310" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jefferson Farjeon (1883-1952) </td></tr></tbody></table><p>So after this blog's near dozen years of existence (it started in November 2011, when I was a mere lad in my forties), I come back to the beginning, to Golden Age English thriller and mystery writer<b> Joseph Jefferson Farjeon</b>. What a time Farjeon and I have had over this period--but more so Farjeon. </p><p>Three years after I posted about the author's Christmas crime thriller, <b>Mystery in White</b>, on the <a href="https://thepassingtramp.blogspot.com/2011/12/late-christmas-number-mystery-in-white.html">day after</a> Christmas 2011, the novel was reprinted as a Christmas release in 2014 by the British Library, who up until that time had enjoyed far lesser success with its reprinting of three forgotten--and decidedly mediocre--detective stories by <b>M. Doriel Hay</b>, a Golden Age back number if ever there were one. (To be sure, a couple of reprints of <b>John Bude</b> mysteries got more favorable attention.) </p><p>But things went differently with Jefferson Farjeon's Christmas number, which became a <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/thirties-murder-mystery-novel-is-surprise-runaway-christmas-hit-9938088.html">bestseller in England</a>, with 60,000 thousand books sold there by December 21, 2014. In truth Jefferson Farjeon really launched the large scale Golden Age publishing revival, which had been going on but fitfully until <b>Mystery in White</b> appeared. </p><p>My book <b>Masters of the Humdrum Mystery</b>, about a trio of Golden Age "Humdrum" greats, <b>John Street (John Rhode/Miles Burton), Freeman Wills Crofts and JJ Connington</b>, had been published in 2012, followed by other books and articles on Golden Age mystery (and many, many blog posts), but it was really <b>Martin Edwards</b>' popular book about the Detection Club, <b>The Golden Age of Murder,</b> published by <b>HarperCollins</b> in 2015, that got widescale attention. Martin occupied his strategic perch with the British Library and the BL since has produced a succession of successful Golden Age revival reprints. Fortunately I have been able to work with other, for the most part, smaller publishers and through them do a lot of things, bringing many authors back into light.</p><p>BL published several more titles by Jefferson Farjeon (and John Bude), but regrettably these authors seem to have been dropped by them of late. By Farjeon there was <b>Thirteen Guests, Seven Dead, The "Z" Murders</b>, I know--I can't recall if they did any others. Nobody at BL ever consulted me about it, though I can't imagine that my blog post on <b>Mystery in White</b> didn't inspire the reprinting of the book. When I started blogging about Jefferson Farjeon back in Nov. and Dec. of 2011 there were literally no other posts about Jefferson Farjeon on the internet. I checked. I never talked to anyone who knew who he was, though booksellers then had plenty of copies of his books to sell. </p><p>Those have mostly since disappeared, but I was able to get copies of all of his mysteries, and actually read them. With my parents in Louisiana, where I had gone to graduate school, I went to visit Rip Van Winkle, the fanciful Cajun country home of Farjeon's once- famed actor grandfather, <b>Joe Jefferson</b>, for whom he was named. I tried to get in touch with his daughter and nieces and nephews, then still living. </p><p>I always felt that Farjeon was one of my finds and was rather proprietorial about him. To have my role in his fantastic, improbable revival go unacknowledged by the people who had been involved in it (one of whom is a great advocate of authors' rights) was a great disappointment, to say the least. But so it goes. Some authors grab the brass ring, others slip and fall and hope they don't break any bones because they may not have the health insurance to pau for mending. I had to move and on and do the best I could.</p><p>Jefferson Farjeon, who like his author father <b>Benjamin Farjeon</b>, a contemporary and friend of <b>Charles Dickens</b>, had great sympathy for the little guy, the underdog, like his series tramp character Ben, would have appreciated this situation, I'm sure. When Jefferson Farjeon died at the age of 72 in 1955, he left an estate of just a smidgen over 2000 pounds--about $68,000 dollars today. He came to writing crime novels late, when he was forty years of age, but between his first, <b>The Master Criminal</b>, in 1924 and and his last, <b>Castle of Fear</b>, in 1954, he published 53 of them, or about five every three years. Let me pause to list them here:<br /><br /><b>1. The Master Criminal 1924 Dial</b></p><p><b>2. Uninvited Guests 1925 Dial</b></p><p><b>3. No. 17 1926 Dial</b></p><p><b>4. At the Green Dragon 1926 Dial</b></p><p><b>5. The Crook's Shadow 1927 Dial</b></p><p><b>6. The House of Disappearance 1928 Dial</b></p><p><b>7. Shadows by the Sea 1928 Dial</b></p><p><b>8. Underground 1929 Dial</b></p><p><b>9. The 5.18 Mystery 1929 Dial</b></p><p><b>10. The Person Called Z 1930 Dial</b></p><p><b>11. The Mystery on the Moor 1930 Dial (The Appointed Date)</b></p><p><b>12. The House Opposite 1931 </b></p><p><b>13. The Murderer's Trail 1931 </b></p><p><b>14. The "Z" Murders 1932</b></p><p><b>15. Trunk Call 1932 Dial</b></p><p><b>16. Ben Sees It Through 1932</b></p><p><b>17. The Mystery of the Creek 1933 Dial</b></p><p><b>18. Dead Man's Heath 1933 Dodd, Mead</b></p><p><b>19. Old Man Mystery 1933</b></p><p><b>20. Fancy Dress Ball 1934 Bobbs-Merrill, 1939</b></p><p><b>21. The Windmill Mystery 1934</b></p><p><b>22. Sinister Inn 1934</b></p><p><b>23. Little God Ben 1935</b></p><p><b>24. Holiday Express 1935</b></p><p><b>25. Detective Ben 1936</b></p><p><b>26. Dangerous Beauty 1936</b></p><p><b>27. Holiday at Half-Mast 1937</b></p><p><b>28. Mystery in White 1937 Bobbs-Merrill</b></p><p><b>29. Dark Lady 1938</b></p><p><b>30. End of an Author 1938 Bobbs-Merrill (Death in the Inkwell)</b></p><p><b>31. Seven Dead 1939 Bobbs-Merrill</b></p><p><b>33. Exit John Horton 1939 Bobbs-Merill (Friday the 13th)</b></p><p><b>33. Aunt Sunday Sees It Through 1940 Bobbs-Merrill</b></p><p><b>34. Room Number Six 1941</b></p><p><b>35. The Third Victim 1941</b></p><p><b>36. The Judge Sums Up 1942 Bobbs-Merrill</b></p><p><b>37. Murder at a Police Station (as Anthony Swift) 1943 Bobbs-Merrill</b></p><p><b>38. The House of Shadows 1943</b></p><p><b>39. November 5 at Kersea (as AS) 1944</b></p><p><b>40. Greenmask 1944 Bobbs-Merrill</b></p><p><b>41. Interrupted Honeymoon (as AS) 1945</b></p><p><b>42. Black Castle 1945</b></p><p><b>43. The Oval Table 1946</b></p><p><b>44. Peril in the Pyrenees 1946</b></p><p><b>45. Prelude to Crime 1948</b></p><p><b>46. The Shadow of Thirteen 1949</b></p><p><b>47. The Disappearances of Uncle David 1949</b></p><p><b>48. Cause Unknown 1950</b></p><p><b>49. The House over the Tunnel 1951</b></p><p><b>50. Ben on the Job 1952</b></p><p><b>51. Number Nineteen 1952</b></p><p><b>52. The Double Crime 1953</b></p><p><b>53. Castle of Fear 1954</b></p><p>Farjeon wrote screenplays too, and some of his books were adapted as films, most famously his first Ben the Tramp book, <b>No. 17</b>, in 1932, in a film helmed by on the rise director <b>Alfred Hitchcock</b>. Where did all the money go? Or did not as much come in as we may think?</p><p>One problem for Farjeon was that his publishing in the huge American market was erratic. His first eleven crime novels were published in the US by <b>Dial</b>, plus a couple of later ones, before Dial dropped him. Dodd, Mead published one. Then another nine of his were picked up by <b>Bobbs-Merrill</b>, beginning with<b> Mystery in White</b> in 1937 and ending with <b>Greenmask</b> in 1944. But that would be only 23 of his 54 mysteries, about forty percent of his total output. </p><p>Perhaps Farjeon's thrillers were too mild for the American market. The critics quite liked him though, on both sides of the pond. The believed retired Yale English literature professor and influential public intellectual <b>William Lyon Phelps</b> was a great booster of his. He died in 1943, a year before America gave Farjeon the boot. <b>Mickey Spillane</b> would come along just a few years later with his crude and nasty hymns to violence. Farjeon must have seemed terrible antiquated. </p><p>Jefferson Farjeon was what you might call a kind, gentler thriller writer, not only in comparison with the hard-boiled pulp writers of America like Spillane but even to other British thriller writers like <b>Sapper</b> and <b>Sax Rohmer</b> and <b>Peter Cheyney</b>. The classic Farjeon thriller is about <i>anticipation</i>, with a good dollop of whimsical humor along the way. You might compare it to some of the lighter Thirties film thrillers of Alfred Hitchcock. (Farjeon also wrote light, noncriminous novels of humor and romance.)<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqAaaN_BrwgizPgKjGTe8p-ZtsPPN8tyKWOIraP70m3-7fg1L4AETxYb559YN9JUoUY365ZQc_SJfECxVwArylfYzDcVDVtTH5G-osIeAQ2zbBYkip80JwQgMxYOgW5bUAkBZdvXmGxXMDiHPFqSAJn8dsDMnRjYoFRnhwp-s8UHx1SxIKoSEi2CGC52MX/s1201/farjeontrunkcall.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1201" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqAaaN_BrwgizPgKjGTe8p-ZtsPPN8tyKWOIraP70m3-7fg1L4AETxYb559YN9JUoUY365ZQc_SJfECxVwArylfYzDcVDVtTH5G-osIeAQ2zbBYkip80JwQgMxYOgW5bUAkBZdvXmGxXMDiHPFqSAJn8dsDMnRjYoFRnhwp-s8UHx1SxIKoSEi2CGC52MX/w400-h400/farjeontrunkcall.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>Let's now take a short look at <b>Trunk Call</b>, a 1932 Farjeon mystery, his sixteenth, one by no means remarkable in his output, but certainly representative of it in many ways. In this one the mystery novelist Tony Everard has just finished writing his latest book and now is heading out to Torquay for a spot of seaside rest and relaxation. Little does he know what lies in store for him!</p><p>Farjeon's writing here is amusing and no doubt wryly autobiographical. As Tony passes the railway bookstall, he notices regretfully that it is "<i>bristling with P. G. Wodehouse, Ian Hay and Edgar Wallace</i>," but that it "<i>did not seem to have heard of T. Everard.</i>" Well, that's Farjeon, a humor writer not as popular as Wodehouse, a thriller writer not as popular as Wallace. </p><p>Anyway at the Torquay hotel Tony happens to be by the phone booth when he hears a man in there <i>asking for his London number</i>. When the connection is made, the man gets an answer to his trunk call, <i>from Tony's ostensibly empty house!</i> Who in the world could this be? Unfortunately, Tony loses track of the phone caller, distracted by that pretty girl from the train, who has turned up at the hotel too. It seems that pretty girl keeps turning up around him....</p><p>Farjeon always knew how to open a thriller, but sometimes the endings don't live up to the splendid openings, and this is one of times. By the second half or so of the novel I was more interested in it for Farjeon's philosophical musings, often rather pithily phrased, like:<br /><br /><i>Queer ideas come to you at 3 A.M., and you do not refer to them at the breakfast table next morning.</i></p><p><i>Life is a tussle between joy and sorrow, gloom and happiness, and while we experience the one, the other becomes just a theory.</i></p><p><i>...he regarded himself in the mirror--and like all palin people he did this frequently in the hope of one day encountering a miracle....[this about Tony's friend Claude; I suspect this is somewhat autobiographical too, though I rather like Farjeon's face]</i></p><p><i>The best thing on the journey--apart from the actual end of it--was a cup of tea.</i></p><p><i>Everything is how you look at it. In your happiest moment you may form a sad memory to a stranger with a load on his back. You funeral may be merely a point on the way to a cricket match.</i></p><p><i>Holiday-makers, revelling in the late summer's attempt to make good its early omissions....</i></p><p><i>The only reason Mr. Waverley's eyebrows did not continue to rise was because they had now reached the limits of their elevation. </i></p><p><i>Even in emotional moments, only the greatest writers writers can escape from the lure of alliteration.</i></p><p><i>How wonderful even terror is...if one goes through it with companionship! I expect that's all life amounts to, really. Loneliness is the only real terror in it!</i></p><p>Near the very end of the novel Tony and that pretty girl, who goes by the Christian name of Elizabeth, discuss the nature of badness--or rotterdom, shall we call it?--and Tony once again waxes philosophical: </p><p><i>We're all Jekylls and Hydes, you know. The quantities of Jekylls and Hydes with which we've got to go through life are determined for us long before we've had any chance of influencing the chemistry....To judge people by one pattern--and, as a rule, the pattern most convenient to the judges--is the hopeless mistake so many of us make. There are millions of patterns. We don't all start even....One can't see in the darkness....I expect [the villain's] excuse [for his villainy] is that he's never been given a light....</i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivP3F-Eu9UghIGiOXbD8BMowuIUU6QSf8RH555Q3A82BWTicy5ejWxOO9JrM7k2ZNJ5zCp3XtNr9C9Ll7bInphXeXRBbw3nrsJxRBQxyvcsnYwkeiZj63cSBLxpsblTSeHFg4jt9ugMU2PUSemCuw8QLLT5CSGmaUAenzBtVt4hOxdUoh9XvcqtSU1zTEo/s156/jjeffersonfarjeon.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="156" data-original-width="110" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivP3F-Eu9UghIGiOXbD8BMowuIUU6QSf8RH555Q3A82BWTicy5ejWxOO9JrM7k2ZNJ5zCp3XtNr9C9Ll7bInphXeXRBbw3nrsJxRBQxyvcsnYwkeiZj63cSBLxpsblTSeHFg4jt9ugMU2PUSemCuw8QLLT5CSGmaUAenzBtVt4hOxdUoh9XvcqtSU1zTEo/w282-h400/jjeffersonfarjeon.jpg" width="282" /></a></div>This generous and optimistic social philosophy is a direct descendant of Charles Dickens and Farjeon's father, who represented the generous and optimistic side of Victorianism. (For more on this, and the more crimped and pessimistic opposing side, see this <a href="https://crimereads.com/19th-century-reading-habits/">Crimereads piece</a> by me.) It's a world away, I think, from Sapper and his followers, whom Farjeon might be chiding here in this passage:<p></p><p><i>My theory is that sneaks and listeners often crumble into dust if you give them one good square British bulldog look!</i></p><p><i>Yes--that would be your theory. </i></p><p>Farjeon's hero agonizes about whether he can call the pretty girl by her first name, a scruple I find charming in this age when people use your first name immediately upon meeting you, whjether you want them to or not.</p><p>So there's a great quaintness to Farjeon's niceness. Farjeon is the <i>nicest</i> thriller I have ever encountered. Sometimes this quality may undermine the thrills, but it makes reading him withal a pleasant experience.</p><p>A few days before Christmas 1954, less than six months before he died at the age of 72, Farjeon in a newspaper letter concerning the recent controversial airing of a television adaptation of <b>George Orwell</b>'s bleak futuristic dystopian novel <b>1984</b>, took issue with Orwell's representation that human nature could be so remorselessly manipulated and transformed:<br /><br /><i>[I]n Orwell's grim conception, the spirit of man had no reality, and instead of glowing from an eternal source, it can be snuffed out like the flame of a candle. That surely is not true. </i></p><p><i>I share the belief that evil is self-destructive, while good goes on....I think there is only one answer we can give to [the problem of evil]...to attend to our own hearts....When enough of us do this the world will not need to to worry--nor will it require armies.</i></p><p>How Dickensian a view, as George Orwell would have said. In fact, Orwell <a href="https://www.george-orwell.org/Charles_Dickens/0.html">did say it</a>. </p><p>Farjeon did lose faith once, in his own grim apocalyptic novel <b>Death of a World</b>, a superb though sad book published in 1948, a year before the Russians tested their own atom bomb. But his crime thrillers are hopeful and comforting. If there is such a thing as a cozy crime thriller, Farjeon wrote it. He was also a natural writer, making his books invariably good reads, even when the plots seem on autopilot. Highly prolific mystery writers have to come up with plot after plot, year after year, we must recall, and these harsh authorial regimes can wear out a mystery writer. Even Christie and Carr and Queen were worn down eventually. During his thirty-year crime writing career, Farjeon did come up with some excellent plots, however, and they grace his best books. I will review one of those next. It's the beginning of the end. And the end of the beginning.</p>The Passing Tramphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-73384793722982425542023-09-14T19:08:00.001-07:002023-10-11T20:30:03.141-07:00Brother, Can You Spare a Dime Detective? Cornell Woolrich's Great Depression and the Pulps<p>Note from The Passing Tramp: This is an introduction that will appear with a new Cornell Woolrich short story collection by high end publisher Centipede. It's 5500 words, so pull up your chair and set a spell.<br /><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_MVq5i-lhMJGH3YEnKQ-MKPVxl8YJiLuEZ1hJ_YUR7DTtOnmK5wPndlIefXq0G_2Xtk3pUTspAH8QeFsKtat-s--PEIRXag3pBILR486ztodUxIubUeKkfl5NAIefEs8ugeZJrsC7zzqOxwUn9dc_WiNjpQO3-I0NuPvYwdehR0aE0-GmD-Fc3MDxl6KJ/s807/woolrichpulp.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="807" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_MVq5i-lhMJGH3YEnKQ-MKPVxl8YJiLuEZ1hJ_YUR7DTtOnmK5wPndlIefXq0G_2Xtk3pUTspAH8QeFsKtat-s--PEIRXag3pBILR486ztodUxIubUeKkfl5NAIefEs8ugeZJrsC7zzqOxwUn9dc_WiNjpQO3-I0NuPvYwdehR0aE0-GmD-Fc3MDxl6KJ/w298-h400/woolrichpulp.jpg" width="298" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">The Great Depression, which commenced in the United States with the calamitous stock market crash in the autumn of 1929, spread rapidly over the wasting country like a plague of locusts, devouring both American livelihoods and lives. Yet adversity--sometimes with a little help from friendly Franklin Roosevelt’s WPA, or Works Product Administration--also fostered creative art. Adversity even gave us the crime fiction of Cornell Woolrich. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> In 1929 Cornell Woolrich was still a Jazz Age wonder boy in his twenties living it up—to the extent that he ever truly lived anything up—in sunny southern California, where he had been lured by Hollywood to write screenplays on the strength of the success of his popular novels <i>Cover Charge</i> and <i>Children of the Ritz</i> and his slick magazine boy-girl romances. In his own personal romance, this press-dubbed “California boy” eloped on December 6, 1930 with Gloria “Bill” Blackton, the younger daughter of a pioneering Hollywood filmmaker, but the marriage collapsed like a house of stock certificates, barely making it past Christmas. “Bill” soon took up with another, evidently more virile, man: a colorful carnival hypnotist who used her as a shill for his stage act. Woolrich for his part returned to New York City, where his mother, Claire Tarler Woolrich, who had been long estranged from Cornell’s half-Mexican father Genaro Woolrich, resided at the old Tarler home with her widowed sister Lillian. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> Evidently not suffering overmuch from the first wave of the Depression (though the six Tarler siblings would soon sell their late father’s house, dispossessing Claire and Lillian), Woolrich and his mother in 1931 set out on a several months long recuperative tour of Europe, returning to New York in November. Upon their return Woolrich tried independently to live apart from Claire on his own money, just as he had when, at the age of twenty-three, he had moved out to California in 1927. Back the young man had won a prize of $10,000 (about $150,000 today) and a film contract for his second novel, <i>Children of the Ritz</i>, but now, according to his recollection in <i>Silent as the Grave</i>’s first selection, “Even God Felt the Depression,” a chapter from his fragmentary memoir <i>Blues of a Lifetime</i>, the prize money was running out on him, like grains of sand shifting to the bottom of an hourglass. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> The market for those winsome romances which Woolrich had once spun in magazines like <i>College Humor</i> and <i>Live Girl Stories</i> had gone decidedly stale, like a year-old box of chocolates, and in all of 1932 he scored only two sales, both of them to <i>Illustrated Love</i>, for “Orchids and Overalls” and “Women Are Funny.” “No one cared who got the girl in the story anymore,” Woolrich ruefully reflects in “Depression.” “They knew he couldn’t keep her very long, nowadays.” By February 1933 the once-celebrated author had only sixty-one dollars left to his name. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> When his attempt, drawing on his recent European tour, to publish, with an aim to selling the film rights to Hollywood, a frothy novel called <i>I Love You, Paris</i> ignominiously failed, Woolrich decisively dropped the manuscript in an ashcan. During the crisis then sweeping across America, he noted in “Even God Felt the Depression,” women, whom he deemed “less fit for a nomadic life,” had been moving “back under their parents’ roofs, if they were lucky enough to have parents who still had roofs.” Fortunately for Woolrich, he had, like those lucky women, one parent to fall back upon in his moment of desperate economic and emotional need. He took the womanish part, as it were, and joined his mother when she moved into a suite at the Hotel Marseilles. There he would remain with Claire until her death twenty-four years later in 1957. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> Meanwhile, in 1932 the woman to whom Woolrich had remained married, Bill, had boldly traversed the continent from Los Angeles to New York City in order to pursue a career on the stage, having awakened from her passionate but ill-advised fling with the carnival hypnotist. In July 1933 Bill, like a vengeful bride in black, to great newspaper fanfare sued Cornell in a New York court to annul her marriage on grounds of nonconsummation, subjecting her unsatisfactory husband to a summer of national humiliation as a pallid aesthete who had “loved his wife too well to kiss her.” Not altogether helpfully divulging, during an ostensibly confidential chat with newspaper reporters, that Cornell was so distraught over the whole wretched affair she feared he might leap to his death from one of the hotel windows, Claire for her part vowed to nurse her sensitive boy through this, the latest of the Tarler family crises. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> Meanwhile the urge to write—and the need actually to make some money as the Depression dragged on and on—still burned within the author, who had reached his thirtieth year. While love may have soured in fiction during the early Thirties, crime seemed more relevant than ever, with the fearsome likes of John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie and Clyde, Ma Barker and the Lindbergh Baby kidnapper (revealed as Bruno Hauptman in 1935) running murderously amok. Perhaps with thoughts of death still uppermost in his mind, Cornell in May 1934 typed out his first crime story for the pulps, “Death Sits in the Dentist’s Chair.” The story appeared in <i>Detective Fiction Weekly</i> three months later and netted its author the sum of $105 (about $2100 today). It proved a popular piece, and Cornell took to crime like he was Public Enemy Number One. “Chair” would be the first of some two hundred pieces of short fiction which he would publish in the crime pulps, making Woolrich one of the most prolific pulp crime writers of the period, not to mention one of the very best. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> Throughout the Thirties and into the Forties, when his career as a crime novelist began to overtake his shorter work in the crime pulps, Woolrich published frequently not only in <i>Detective Fiction Weekly</i> (fifty-one works, not counting the serialization of his novel <i>Phantom Lady</i>), but <i>Dime Detective</i> (thirty-one), <i>Argosy</i> (twenty-three), and, last but not least, <i>Black Mask</i> (twenty-two), fabled home of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and other hard-boiled writers. The pulps offered the now publicity-averse author a mouse hole in which to hide while he furiously typed a succession of tales of detection, thrills and--most notably of all--<i>anxiety</i>. Doubtless there were tougher pulp writers than Cornell Woolrich, but not one of them was as <i>anxious</i> as he and the harried characters that he created. The pale, auburn-haired, anemic-looking man holed-up, like a bantamweight Dillinger, in his room at the Hotel Marseilles seemingly was harried by a thousand fears; and he gave those fears free reign to roam amid the looming shadows of his unforgettable crime fiction. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><o:p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">*******<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> “Dime a Dance,” the first of the sixteen entirely fictional pieces included in <i>Silent as the Grave</i>, originally appeared in <i>Black Mask</i> in February 1938 and was published in book form as the title and lead story in the Woolrich short fiction collection <i>The Dancing Detective</i> in1946. One of the author’s finest and eeriest crime novelettes, “Dime a Dance” has been reprinted numerous times; and it was grippingly adapted for both productions both on radio (a 1944 <i>Suspense</i> episode starring Lucille Ball) and television (a 1995 episode of the series <i>Fallen Angels</i>, directed by Peter Bogdanovich and starring Jennifer Grey). <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> The narrator-protagonist and “dancing detective” of the story is Ginger Allen (so named on account of her red hair, of course): a hard-bitten, pugnacious taxi dancer in the city who daringly goes on the trail of a mad serial killer when her best friend, another taxi dancer, is murdered. The pathos inherent in the scuzzy, soul-enervating milieu of Depression-era dance halls clearly inspired Woolrich’s melancholy muse, resulting in his classic novel <i>Deadline at Dawn</i> (1944) as well as the novelette “Taxi Dance Murder,” published in the obscure pulp magazine <i>Ten Detective Aces</i> in 1937, and this terrific <i>Black Mask</i> novelette from the following year. “Dime a Dance” also draws on Woolrich’s own youth, when, according to the first chapter of <i>Blues of a Lifetime</i>, his cosmopolitan Grandfather Tarler took him in 1912, when he was just eight years old, to see Giacomo Puccini’s great tragic opera <i>Madame Butterfly</i> (then itself just eight years old) at Mexico City’s Palace of the Fine Arts. It seems that our dance hall killer in “Dime a Dance” is obsessed with a popular standard tune, inspired by the opera, called “Poor Butterfly.” Today’s readers may also be reminded of the morbid award-winning video to Tom Petty’s hit song “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” (1993), with Kim Basinger playing the title role.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> There is one caveat to the story, however: one has to wonder whether Woolrich’s account of seeing the opera in Mexico City is imaginary, for the Palace of Fine Arts, started in 1904, was barely even a shell in 1912, when Woolrich was eight years old. Authorities suspended construction the next year and it was not resumed for two decades. The magnificent building was finally completed and the inaugural performance held in 1934, the same year Woolrich published his first crime fiction. Perhaps Woolrich and his father really saw the opera at New York City’s Metropolitan Opera House, built in 1883 and demolished in 1967, a year before Woolrich’s death.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> “Two Fellows in a Furnished Room,” originally published in <i>Detective Fiction Weekly</i> in 1941 under the title “He Looked Like Murder,” is another of Woolrich’s classic crime novelettes, although surprisingly it was little anthologized, aside from its appearance in 1946 as the second tale in the Woolrich collection <i>The Dancing Detective</i>. However, the novelette was adapted to film in 1947 as <i>The Guilty</i>, starring Don Castle, one of the better flicks based on a Woolrich crime tale; and more recently, in 2019, Otto Penzler included it in his <i>Big Book of Reel Murders</i>. “Fellows” is a prime example of what Woolrich biographer Francis Nevins has classified as one of the author’s “oscillation” thrillers: a story in which one character fretfully fluctuates between belief and disbelief as to another’s guilt of a crime (usually murder). Here the doubter and the doubted are roommates and besties Stewart “Red” Carr--another redhead like Ginger Allen, Lucille Ball and the author himself--and John Dixon. Put the names together, incidentally, and you get John Dixon Carr. Surely the resemblance to the name of the great locked room detective novelist John Dickson Carr, an American contemporary of Woolrich’s, is not coincidental. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> Over the course of the story narrator Red agonizes over whether John Dixon guilty of the horribly brutal murder of his pretty young girlfriend Estelle Mitchell (who shares the name of Woolrich’s own aunt, Estelle Tarler Garcia)? The author skillfully manipulates his tale to make Red’s convictions--and the reader’s--oscillate wildly over the matter of John’s guilt. The anxiety that is resultantly induced is terrific, while the Depression-era milieu of the modest rooming house and the neighborhood bar is memorably conveyed and there is admirable detection concerning fingernails on the part of our amateur sleuth, Red. (This is something for which Woolrich tends to get little credit, but it would surely have pleased none other than John Dickson Carr, who himself was no slouch either at tension and atmospherics). <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> Indeed, Red Carr and Ginger Allen would have made a good sleuthing couple. Both “Dime” and “Fellows” are moving tales of same-sex friendship, although when “Dime” opens, Ginger’s best friend, Julie Bennett, is already dead. (We learn she was off men, however.) The ultimate fate of Red’s and John’s friendship is one of the points of interest of “Fellows” and it is handled with characteristic poignancy by the lonely author. In the film version of the novelette, male friendship contrastingly is much downplayed in favor of more traditional boy-girl love interest, with an added twist in culpritude.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> The memorably titled “You’ll Never See Me Again” is the third and last of Woolrich’s major “annihilation” tales (as Francis Nevins terms them) published by Centipede, in which the male protagonist’s wife/girlfriend seemingly vanishes without a trace. (The other two are “I Won’t Take a Minute” and “All At Once, No Alice.”) All three of the trio draw upon the teasing urban legend known as the Paris Exposition story, about a young Englishwoman whose mother disappears from a Parisian hotel during the 1900 Exposition Universelle, with all the hotel staff claiming never even for a second to have glimpsed her parent. Other notable fictional tales inspired by the Paris Exposition story are Marie Belloc Lowndes’ early novel <i>The End of Her Honeymoon</i> (1913), her rather more famous opus <i>The Wheel Spins</i> (1936; filmed two years later by Alfred Hitchcock as <i>The Lady Vanishes</i>), John Dickson Carr’s radio play <i>Cabin B-13</i> (1943; filmed a decade later as <i>Dangerous Crossing</i>), Anthony Thorne's <i>So Long at the Fair</i> (1947; filmed three years later by Terence Fisher) </span></span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: xx-large;">and Evelyn Piper’s novel </span><i style="font-family: times; font-size: xx-large;">Bunny Lake Is Missing</i><span style="font-family: times; font-size: xx-large;"> (1957, filmed in 1965 by Otto Preminger), not to mention the 2005 film </span><i style="font-family: times; font-size: xx-large;">Flightplan</i><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">, starring Jodie Foster. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> "You'll Never See Me Again" originally appeared in <i>Street & Smith’s Detective Story</i> in 1939 and, like Woolrich’s crime classic “Marihuana,” it was published singly a dozen years later in Dell’s dime novelette series. It also was performed twice on the nail-biting radio series Suspense, in 1944 and 1946, and later adapted for television three times, in 1959,1973 and 1986. Arguably it is the best of Woolrich’s three great annihilation novelettes. Certainly it is the most plausibly explained!<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> “Murder at the Automat,” another of Woolrich’s finest novelettes, was originally published in <i>Dime Detective</i> in 1937 and has been reprinted multiple times, including in Francis Nevins’ seminal 1971 Woolrich collection <i>Nightwebs</i> and the excellent 1982 anthology <i>Tantalizing Locked Room Mysteries</i>. (“Automat” is often classified as an “impossible crime” story.) A tale of the police investigation into the death of a man who expires after consuming a poisoned bologna sandwich at an “automat”--a type of fast food restaurant serving simple foods and beverages via vending machines that became very popular in New York in the Twenties and Thirties and was evocatively depicted in Edward Hopper’s 1927 painting <i>Automat</i>--Murder at the Automat scores decisively both as a searing picture of Depression-era life in New York and as an intriguing murder mystery problem. There is as well some of Woolrich’s (and the genre’s, and real life’s) police brutality on the part of a blustering, vicious police precinct captain, who is determined to pin the crime—through force if necessary--on an innocent man. Happily heroic Officer Nelson isn’t “the kind of a dick that would have rather had a wrong guy than no guy at all, like some of them.” For “Murder at the Automat” Woolrich earned $140, or about $2640 today—an upgrade from the $105/$2120 which Woolrich made for “Death Sits in the Dentist’s Chair” three years earlier.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> “Bequest,” originally published in <i>Detective Tales</i> in 1942 under the title “Implacable Bequest,” and “Collared,” originally published in <i>Black Mask</i> in 1939, are more minor, although interesting, works. “Bequest” was reprinted in the Woolrich collection <i>Nightmare</i> in 1956, while “Collared” was reprinted in 1950, coincidentally, in both the hardcover edition of <i>Somebody on the Phone</i> and the paperback <i>Six Nights of Mystery</i> (under the title “One Night in Chicago”). “Bequest” is a grim little number which opens with a husband and wife on the run, in an automobile somewhere along the Texas Gulf Coast, from the consequences of a crime which the husband committed back in Pennsylvania. The scrupulous wife parts permanently from her husband, leaving him to face the wicked devices of a couple of exceptionally nasty hoodlums similarly fleeing from ill deeds done. A couple of ironic twists of fate follow. In “Collared” a gangster’s moll tells of the creative revenge she connives upon her physically abusive boyfriend—but does the dish she serves to him instead choke her? “Collared” is a good story, constructed around its clever punning title, though it is a bit robbed of dramatic force, perhaps, by the moll’s relentlessly flippant patter in “gangsterese.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> “Fountain Pen,” originally published under the title “Dipped in Blood” in <i>Street & Smith’s Detective Story</i> in 1945, is a clever exercise in deadly irony about a booby-trapped fountain pen that is reminiscent of the earlier Woolrich story “Cigarette,” published nine years earlier, although to my mind it is better written in Woolrich’s more mature style (i.e., less gangsterese). “I.O.U.,” originally published under the title “I.O.U.—One Life” in <i>Double Detective</i>, was reprinted in 1956 in <i>Nightmare</i> and in 1965 in <i>The Ten Faces of Cornell Woolrich</i>, under the title “Debt of Honor.” It tells of a gangster who saves the life of a cop’s daughter—and what he expects to extract from the cop in return. Does he collect?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> The title story, “Silent as the Grave,” was originally published in <i>Mystery Book Magazine</i> in 1945 and the next year was adapted as an episode of radio’s <i>Molle Mystery Theatre</i> and reprinted, in abridged form, in <i>The Dancing Detective</i>. Moreover a 1954 French film, Jean Delannoy’s <i>Obsession</i>, was adapted from “Silent as the Grave,” along with Woolrich’s story “If the Dead Could Talk” (see below). This “oscillation” tale is one of Woolrich’s cruelest exercises in wringing mental anguish out of one of his tortured characters. It recalls “Bequest” and “The Red Tide” (see below) in evaluating what it means to love another person. Do you really surrender yourself entirely and forgive <i>anything</i> if you are with your beloved “all the way”—or are there some transgressions which go too far for even love to follow?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> In “Grave,” which is back set during the early years of the Depression, Frances Mitchell, a classic naïve, young, almost masochistically self-effacing Woolrich heroine (“She wanted everything to belong to him, even her first name”), learns from her newlywed spouse Kenneth that he once murdered another man: “[He] had it coming, he deserved it. He’d done me an injury. And I never forgive an injury.” Moonily telling herself that this revelation is something from “that other plane, the man’s world,” and that it “had nothing to do with her” and could never “affect their love,” Frances vows to Kenneth: “You’ll never hear me speak of it again….It’ll never pass my lips. <i>I’ll be as silent as the grave, dear heart. As silent as the grave, forever.</i>” This lover’s resolution is put to a test years later when Kenneth loses his job during the Depression due to the caprice, as he tells Frances, of a malicious boss; and the boss turns up dead in a street, murdered. Another man is arrested for the crime, tried, convicted and sentenced to die in the chair, even though, Frances fearfully suspects, her husband may have been the actual culprit. Does her secret knowledge of her husband’s prior vengeful murder matter now? Should she still remain, as she romantically promised, silent as the grave, forever?<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> “I’ll Take You home, Kathleen,” presents an interesting illustration of Cornell Woolrich’s revision and recycling process with his work. In his biography of the author, Francis Nevins often righteously flails Woolrich for dishonesty in frequently presenting, during his later years, revised republished material as “new,” yet the truth is that Woolrich in this thrifty practice was hardly unique among prolific crime writers. Off the top of my head, British crime writers Andrew Garve, Richard Hull and Leonard Gribble, for example, each essentially published the same novel twice under different titles. The harrowing novelette “One Last Night” originally was published in <i>Street & Smith’s Detective Story</i> in 1940 and, doubtlessly entirely forgotten by the vast majority of Woolrich’s readership by this time, reappeared sixteen years later in <i>Nightmare</i>, in slightly revised form and evocatively retitled “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen”—this title recalling the title of the popular 1875 song by Thomas Paine Westendorf, recorded by such artists as Bing Crosby, Deanna Durbin, Slim Whitman and Elvis Presley. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> One of the author’s rare stories with a southern setting (though Woolrich himself, due to his half-Mexican father’s engineering jobs in Texas, must have had some familiarity with the region), “Kathleen” tells of socially ostracized “jailbird” Denny Burke, who after his release from prison returns to his home town to get one last glimpse of his beautiful former girl, Kathleen Leary, now affianced to Larry Kirby, the snooty, privileged son of the town banker. When a fall hobbles Larry at a dance, Denny offers to take Kathleen home in his stead and, to the consternation of her friends, she assents to Denny’s desire. When Kathleen disappears during their walk home and her violently slain body is discovered in the woods, Denny is immediately suspected of her murder and--this being the South--threatened with lynching. Can his only friend, parole officer Bill Bailey, get to the bottom of the affair and save him from the untender mercies of a lynch mob? A sassy southern number by the name of Mary Lou Davis also has a key role to play. Extending the musical resonance, by the by, “Bill Bailey” recalls the 1902 Dixieland standard tune “(Won’t You Come Home) Bill Bailey”—surely no coincidence on the part of Woolrich, who frequently draws upon popular music in his writing. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> “Kathleen” is a fine “wrong man” noirish tale with several points of interest, particularly its depiction of male friendship, which Woolrich sharpened in the revised version of the novelette. When queried by the scoffing town sheriff as to just what he expects Bill Bailey to accomplish for him when the evidence is piled so high against his favor, Denny in the original version chirpingly replies: “You don’t know Bill Bailey!” In the later version, however, Denny soberly explains: “Nothing. I don’t care if he does nothing. It’s just that you got to have a friend. Just one friend, at a time like this. That you know is around, somewhere around. Or else there’s nothing to go on for, anymore.” Those familiar with Woolrich’s life will know how closely this plaintive credo hit home with the author in his later, lonely years. In the revised version Woolrich also gives the final paragraph of the novelette a darker impact, especially with its last line. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> Additionally, “Kathleen” is distinguished by its sympathetic portrayal of the novelette’s minor black characters. It even manages to remind readers which race was overwhelmingly the most common target of savage southern lynch mobs, which were still active in the Thirties. When the temper of the crowd at the dance turns ugly after it learns of Kathleen’s disappearance, Sam and Leah, the black ticket taker and hat checker, quietly draw together and converse about the deadly predilections of white people:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><o:p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> “Ain’t going to be so good for somebody, the way it looks tonight,” Sam told Leah.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> “If they do, it will be the first white one they’ve had around here since my grampas’s time. He told me about seeing one once.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><o:p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> “You Take Ballistics,” originally published in <i>Double Detective</i> in 1938, is a clever little detective tale pitting police up against an ingenious murderer who thinks he has committed the perfect crime. Over the years Woolrich wrote quite a few of these sorts of stories, which are more in the vein of detection vein than noir. Francis Nevins deems them greatly inferior to Woolrich’s noir fiction, but to my mind they have considerable entertainment value. However, “Ballistics” offers, as Nevins approvingly notes, some particularly repellent police third degree, which certainly shifted the sympathies of <i>this</i> reader, like those of Nevins, over to the side of the murderer. The thuggish, abusive precinct police captain, Leffinger, gives booming voice to a standard police plaint, once often heard today as well, that it is not the cop but the criminal whom the law unjustly favors: “If we whack a confession out of him, all he’ll have to whisper is ‘police brutality,’ and the jury will throw it out. They always do, the soft-hearted slobs. The way the system is run in this state, the police have two strikes against them. All the breaks are the criminal’s.” Ballistics was collected in the Woolrich anthology <i>Dead Man’s Blues</i> in 1947 and, with the odious police brutality evidently much toned down, adapted for radio the same year (<i>Suspense</i>) and television a decade later (<i>Heinz Studio 57</i>). <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> “The Red Tide” originally appeared in <i>Street & Smith’s Detective Story</i> in 1940, four months after “One Last Night” was published there. Like “One Last Night,” “The Red Tide” later popped up again, revised and retitled, this time in the debut Woolrich short fiction collection <i>I Wouldn’t Be in Your Shoes</i> (1943). Titled “Last Night,” it was substantially expanded and given a much different outcome. Francis Nevins, who published “The Red Tide” in <i>Nightwebs</i>, greatly prefers the original version of the story, which I personally find savors a bit too pungently of the penny dreadful at the climax. However, both versions are superb oscillation thrillers, in which Jacqueline Blaine comes to fear that her moody and tight-lipped husband Gil has, Macbeth-like, robbed and murdered a wealthy guest at their house. “Last Night” also appeared as a 1943 episode of <i>Suspense</i>, possibly scripted by Woolrich himself, which was broadcast a few months after the novelette was published in <i>I Wouldn’t Be in Your Shoes</i>. An interesting minor character in both print versions is the Blaines’ black maid Leona. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> “If the Dead Could Talk,” a bleak 1943 novelette that was Woolrich’s penultimate publication in <i>Black Mask</i>, moodily tells the tragic tale of a love triangle among circus trapeze artists that culminates in death. “That’s the way life goes; death beckons someone out of line, but the line keeps closing up,” reflects the narrator of the story. The original angle to this tale of the triangle is that it is narrated by none other than the dead man himself. “If the Dead Could Talk” has been reprinted several times, including in the Woolrich collection <i>Dead Man’s Blues</i>. Additionally it was adapted for a 1949 <i>Suspense</i> episode starring Dana Andrews of <i>Laura</i> fame and, as mentioned above, served, along with “Silent as the Grave,” as the partial basis for the 1954 French film <i>Obsession</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> “They thought it was the Depression the first time it happened,” is the opening line—perhaps Woolrich’s finest--of <i>The Room with Something Wrong</i>, a long novelette which originally appeared in <i>Detection Fiction Weekly</i> in 1938 under the title <i>Mystery in Room 913</i>. The novelette secured Woolrich one of his comparatively few covers, with a striking illustration of a pajama-clad man falling to his death from the window of his hotel room; and, indeed, it is arguably his greatest effort in the pure mystery vein. It has been reprinted numerous times, perhaps most notably in Douglas G. Greene’s and Robert C. S. Adey’s landmark 1987 anthology <i>Death Locked In</i>. For the story Woolrich earned $575, or about $11,400—an impressive sum!<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> “Room” tells of a series of seeming suicide dives taken during the 1930s from unlucky room 913 at the Hotel Anselm (just a few doors down, presumably, from room 923, which serves as the setting for Woolrich’s 1958 mainstream episodic novel <i>Hotel Room</i>). In the Forties Woolrich observed that he had lived out most of his life in hotel rooms and he richly evokes this setting in his novelette. “[F]ew writers could equal Woolrich in capturing the despair of the Depression and its seedy hotels and often shabby characters,” Douglas G. Greene noted in <i>Death Locked In</i>. The memorably rendered lead character and sleuth of the story is hotel detective Striker, who “didn’t look much like a hotel dick, which was why he was good for the job.” “Strike” might well have been the spiritual father of crime writer and frequent Woolrich anthologist Bill Pronzini’s pulp-collecting Nameless detective—or so it, um, strikes me:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><o:p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">He’d had his salary cut in ’31, and then again in ’32, but then so had everyone else on the staff….He was a tall, lean, casual-moving guy….lacked the usual paunch in spite of his sedentary life….had a little radio in his top-floor cubbyhole and a stack of vintage “fantastics,” pulp magazines dealing with super-science and the supernatural, and that seemed to be all he asked of life.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><o:p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> </span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> When in 1933 a guest goes out of the window of 913 for the first time, the police, personified by unimaginative Officer Eddie Courlander, write it off as suicide: “It’s the depresh. They’re poppin’ off like popcorn all over the country this week. <i>I</i> ain’t been able to cash my paycheck since Monday.” So written off, as well, are the fatal falls—jumps?—from room 913 which take place in 1934 and 1935. Striker thinks differently, however, and, his warnings having gone unheeded by others, he takes increasingly desperate measures to get to the truth behind the series of deaths in 913, which to himself he terms “that hell box, that four-walled coffin, that murder crate….” Will Strike finally “get” the room, or will the room get him? <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> Arguably Woolrich’s finest detective story—and it is a true detective story—“Room” is also one of the author’s best works, period. Woolrich’s take on the classic “killer room” plot—other notable examples of which include Wilkie Collins’ “A Terribly Strange Bed” (1852), Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” (1892) (which is explicitly referenced in “Room”), Eden Phillpotts’ <i>The Grey Room</i> (1921) and John Dickson Carr’s <i>The Red Widow Murders</i> (1935)—is clever and legitimately clued, while the hotel milieu is persuasively portrayed and there is some fine wry gallows humor in the tale, a talent which the author too seldom indulged. At one point readers might worry that Woolrich is going to crib a solution from Agatha Christie, but, never fear, dear readers, the author stoops to no such thing. There is also a distinctively Cornellian dose of bracing irony administered at the end of the tale. Nevins deems the novelette “one of the indispensable Woolrich classics,” a judgment with which I fully agree, though his characterization of the heroic Striker as “psychotic” and “warped” seems to me a product of Nevins’ unalterably noiry-eyed gaze. Not everyone in Woolrich’s fictional universe is nuts! “Room” seems to me a missed opportunity (so far) for filmmakers.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> The characterizations in “Room” are well worth noting too. Particularly notable, to my mind, aside from Striker himself, is Woolrich’s handling of the Chinese lawyer Young and his Chinese songstress wife, who in an era and format rife with prejudice against Chinese-Americans, are portrayed respectfully, without resort to pidgin English and other egregious stereotypes of that time, despite their being suspects in the case. Striker himself forthrightly reflects : “It’s because they’re Chinese that I was so ready to suspect them. They always seem sinister to the Occidental mind.” With all the aspersions cast against Woolrich’s personal character over the years—his own biographer portrays him as nothing less than a weak, neurotic, mendacious and malicious “self-hating homosexual”--not enough has been said, in my view, about his relatively Cosmopolitan attitude toward other races than his own, despite his working in a genre admittedly filled to the rafters with negative racial tropes. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> “Wake up with Death,” which was originally published in <i>Detective Fiction Weekly</i> in 1937, is one of the comparatively small number of Woolrich crime tales that has never been reprinted until now. It features a plot device that Woolrich would use in such better known stories as “C-Jag” and “Nightmare,” of a man who wakes up from a binge believing he has killed someone. This time around the murder evidence is right in front of the man’s, Don Stewart’s, eyes: there is a dead woman in the hotel room with him! Nevins deems “Wake up with Death” a “fascinating tale, a sort of rough sketch for [the author’s] 1942 classic ‘Rear Window’.” (A man in a room overlooking his own claims to have seen Stewart murdering the woman.) However, to my mind the narrative tension is drained, as in “Collared,” by excessive flippancy in the telling. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="line-height: 32px;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"> Finally there is the aptly-titled “Crazy House,” which was originally published in <i>Dime Detective</i> in 1941 and later reprinted in 1985 in <i>Blind Date with Death</i>, one of Carroll & Graf’s Eighties Woolrich collections. Set in San Francisco, where the author’s father Genaro had gone to business college back in the 1890s, “Crazy House,” as Francis Nevins has put it, packs “into less than twenty book pages enough story for a hundred.” The story, in which by happenstance itinerant Bill Ingham pays a call one night upon wealthy Diana Miller at her family mansion and all hell breaks loose, has more resemblance to a mystery by the once hugely popular English shocker writer Edgar Wallace than to doomful American noir, but it certainly makes for a thrilling read while it lasts. Cornell Woolrich may have been a poor haunted soul for much of his life, but the showman in him never forgot how to entertain his audience—and he continues to do so today. Certainly that particular issue of <i>Dime Detective</i> was worth its cover price, even during the Depression. Which, incidentally, was still a dime, though <i>Black Mask</i> had been marked up to fifteen cents.</span></span></p>The Passing Tramphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-1000073195007866382023-09-08T22:27:00.005-07:002023-09-14T15:29:58.354-07:00Auctions! Some new listings at eBay<p>Here's a <a href="https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?item=204453020454&rt=nc&_trksid=p4429486.m3561.l2562&_ssn=the-passing-tramp">link</a> to my latest book auctions at eBay. Check it out. I'm planning more listings next week. I will try to get back to normal postings at my blog, but there has been a death in the familyand I have been very down about it. I'm sure my readers will understand.</p>The Passing Tramphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-71660566615305497792023-08-16T10:34:00.005-07:002023-08-16T10:34:35.797-07:00Auction!<p> <a href="https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?item=204430599418&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.m3561.l2562&_ssn=the-passing-tramp">Some auctions</a> by me in which you might be interested. Check out the listings, vintage mystery fans.</p>The Passing Tramphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-15530385323018152023-07-26T20:18:00.002-07:002023-07-26T20:49:19.512-07:00Back to Eden: Will the Crime Fiction of Eden Phillpotts Ever Really Be Revived? <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdOlyxSSMzdMrPM2HDlNavQ_4zEfW9tWM6gdhDeu6XiPJaQyeXIiDnQ8CLD45Pyl5YfbeDAcHyBHTVPKC6MkUNfQDxt9uPUZVSyAf4sV_CR6edG5qHfuTVrf1yWAp6JiauCZrYjDXbY3hZGqem8yDXptcDFe-fLU8TeRQBLO7KShzdQuQqnCDQQWF-kFAm/s350/eden%20phillpotts%20younger.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="226" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdOlyxSSMzdMrPM2HDlNavQ_4zEfW9tWM6gdhDeu6XiPJaQyeXIiDnQ8CLD45Pyl5YfbeDAcHyBHTVPKC6MkUNfQDxt9uPUZVSyAf4sV_CR6edG5qHfuTVrf1yWAp6JiauCZrYjDXbY3hZGqem8yDXptcDFe-fLU8TeRQBLO7KShzdQuQqnCDQQWF-kFAm/w259-h400/eden%20phillpotts%20younger.jpg" width="259" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">When he was forty-six years old<br />Eden Phillpotts advised his <br />nineteen-year-old Torquay neighbor<br />Agatha Miller to stick with the writing<br />thing and she would achieve success. <br />And so she did--as Agatha Christie.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>During the Golden Age of detective fiction, <b>Eden Phillpotts</b> (1862-1960) was deemed one of the major contributors to the mystery genre, yet today he seems barely remembered at all. Had Dover not reprinted his novel <b>The Red Redmaynes</b> (1922) four decades ago and <b>Martin Edwards</b> more recently mentioned the book in his own work, it seems likely almost no one would today would know anything of him the author. </p><p>I blogged about Phillpotts' crime writing and his unexpectedly controversial life back in 2013 and 2014 respectively, but those pieces, posted here at <b>The Passing Tramp</b>, seem to have made little dent in public consciousness. Yet if you go back and look at the period, Phillpotts, an incredibly prolific "serious" writer who produced works in a multiplicity of genres, was considered rather a significant figure in detective fiction.</p><p>Phillpotts, who was born not long after the Battle of Antietam in the American Civil War and died at the venerable age of 98 around the time the Beatles were playing in Hamburg, in the seven decades between 1888 and 1958 is said to have published some 250 books, nearly 120 of which were, by my count, novels. </p><p>Although he was best known for his mainstream novels, particularly those which constituted his acclaimed Dartmoor Cycle" of tales, about one-third of his novels by my estimation were crime, mystery and adventure fiction. </p><p>Yet Phillpotts did not become a regular producer of crime fiction unto 1921, when, a few months after his former near neighbor, <b>Agatha Christie</b>, published <b>The Mysterious Affair at Styles</b> (1920), he published the quasi-supernatural "room that kills" mystery <b>The Grey Room</b>, a book which critics of the day immediately hailed as a classic of the genre. </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjihf9PUvmTkMlMaDx7uVo0-7RKog6A6w2NGOk9eJlTA6Nf_GIjnjzdgd9WO_IRQ_-iCtDVIzk8WuN0Mdw4ViGO7pBnyeBngKYndZlUv4i5h99Tv5rovRDei-Ul_4MvKeys-muAOKIAGYbTSDuTs9DK4jpCk6EBEYSmDkpqOl2qVKLvknX0dbq22bPstPxX/s275/kerswell%20(2).jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjihf9PUvmTkMlMaDx7uVo0-7RKog6A6w2NGOk9eJlTA6Nf_GIjnjzdgd9WO_IRQ_-iCtDVIzk8WuN0Mdw4ViGO7pBnyeBngKYndZlUv4i5h99Tv5rovRDei-Ul_4MvKeys-muAOKIAGYbTSDuTs9DK4jpCk6EBEYSmDkpqOl2qVKLvknX0dbq22bPstPxX/w400-h266/kerswell%20(2).jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kerswell House, Broadclyst, Devon<br />the Victorian Gothic house where<br />Eden Phillpotts resided between 1929 and 1960</td></tr></tbody></table><p>"<i>At last we have come upon a horror story which horrifies, a mystery story which mystifies</i>," cheered journalist <b>Heywood Broun </b>in his Books column in the <b>New York Herald Tribune</b>. </p><p> "<i>Eden Phillpotts has given us a tale that will chill the very marrow in the reader's bones</i>," pronounced the <b>LA Times</b>. "<i>[A] worthy addition to the few splendid mystery stories of the last ten years,</i>" concurred the <b>Oakland Tribune</b>. </p><p>I think the Twenties Phillpotts mysteries went over even bigger in the U. S.--where they were raving as well over the mysteries of Phillpotts' Yorkshire mainstream writer contemporary <b>JS Fletcher</b>--than in the UK, but across the pond <b>The Guardian</b> declared approvingly of <b>The Grey Room</b> that Phillpotts "<i>essays the mystery story, and brings it off with considerable success and the right amount of thrill.</i>" </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsckVjnbYUGtr9T8gkbLneQr9L7bThTU0AV9VQuxok1TUQRVmpaXwAcOX6rI9BjzmojZTltK4eTdMfA3oYS0ucBraF0aNVJgHEbGddBZZhWlqF5qbrzYH0T0LHGpBg7vihm3C00v3IB7TiHmng1mZCxMrXiowlh460hDgRx4JbZtiJAnieCPEXxWT2Yr2F/s1373/pocketadams%20001%20(2).jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1373" data-original-width="823" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsckVjnbYUGtr9T8gkbLneQr9L7bThTU0AV9VQuxok1TUQRVmpaXwAcOX6rI9BjzmojZTltK4eTdMfA3oYS0ucBraF0aNVJgHEbGddBZZhWlqF5qbrzYH0T0LHGpBg7vihm3C00v3IB7TiHmng1mZCxMrXiowlh460hDgRx4JbZtiJAnieCPEXxWT2Yr2F/w240-h400/pocketadams%20001%20(2).jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On this Seventies Pocket edition <br />of <b>Peril at End House</b>,<br />which Agatha Christie dedicated to <br />her brief mentor Eden Phillpotts,<br />the house which artist Tom Adams <br />drew rather resembles Phillpotts' own <br />Devon home, Kerswell House. The <br />novel is set at a fictionalized Torquay,<br />where Christie and Phillpotts had been<br />near neighbors in the 1890s and the<br />early decades of the twentieth century.</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Between 1921 and 1927, Phillpotts published a total of nine highly praised detective novels, four of them under an alliterative pseudonym <b>Harrington Hext</b>. He then halted for four years, a period during which his first wife died from cancer and he remarried and relocated to another home in Devon, his place of residence for seventy years. He published another mystery novel in 1931, the same year in which Agatha Christie published <b>Peril at End House</b>, a book which saw the return of Hercule Poirot to print after a hiatus of three years. </p><p>Christie admiringly dedicated <b>Peril</b> to Phillpotts, who as a close neighbor of hers in the Devon seaside resort town of Torquay had encouraged her to continue with her writing way back in 1909. </p><p>Between 1931 and 1944 Phillpotts would publish a total of 18 mystery novels, followed by a final one, <b>George and Georgina</b>, in 1952, when he was ninety years old. His crime writing would continue to receive predominantly strong notices from reviewers, although by this time some American critics, the most notable of them being <b>Anthony Boucher</b>, began criticizing his writing as old-fashioned, even ponderous and dull. </p><p>However, even in this period he produced some fine works, in my estimation. I'll be discussing some of his work this week. There is also a 11,500 word piece by me coming over at Crimereads on the author's crime writing and life. </p>The Passing Tramphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-12760864368866148232023-07-05T12:11:00.003-07:002023-07-05T12:18:07.096-07:00Bringing Coles to New Readers: Shedunnit and Me and Douglas and Margaret Cole<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG3em9DsA9KouY32saRgn0Nl-6LECnbQ6-E-vbcVB3mS8tRPMweKWEX4k9umZ7mC2gdG1PZV5yOa0JqJkrncgqSXw_oStYzVZzFY5N9hnlELODxLq5Pc0iRy14HiI-DRXpw_iCK9Ho3nRrEmLg9lKqcsTFzhW_I8S1vzsxDii73qviY6xii-cnAM-DM_F1/s2232/colesphotos%20(2).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2232" data-original-width="1462" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG3em9DsA9KouY32saRgn0Nl-6LECnbQ6-E-vbcVB3mS8tRPMweKWEX4k9umZ7mC2gdG1PZV5yOa0JqJkrncgqSXw_oStYzVZzFY5N9hnlELODxLq5Pc0iRy14HiI-DRXpw_iCK9Ho3nRrEmLg9lKqcsTFzhW_I8S1vzsxDii73qviY6xii-cnAM-DM_F1/w263-h400/colesphotos%20(2).jpg" width="263" /></a></div><p>I was pleased to participate in a <b>Shedunnit</b> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASDLlUT0wFg&t=1s">podcast</a> this month on the spousal mystery writing team of <b>GDH (Douglas) and Margaret Cole</b>, who were active in the English mystery world from 1923 into the mid-1940s, publishing twenty-eight detective novels and four books of short fiction, plus some odds and ends here and there, a few additional, uncollected short stories and a novella. </p><p>During the Golden Age of detective fiction the Coles--prominent left-wing intellectuals who wrote crime fiction for kicks and a modest competence--were well-known in the mystery field, with most of their books published in the US as well as the UK. </p><p>Although the authors when murderously moonlighting were dismissed as "unserious" about life by that ever-reliable Silver Age mystery writer, critic and occasional obtuse chowderhead <b>Julian Symons</b>, the Coles' mystery fiction did in fact include leftist political and social commentary that was uncommon in detective fiction at the time time.</p><p>One of their books (the highly satirical <b>The Affair at Aliquid</b>) even earned them a testy scolding in print in the <b>Sunday Times</b> from <b>Dorothy L. Sayers</b> for over harshly mocking Britain's clergy and aristocracy. She Who Must Be Obeyed was Decidedly Not Amused.</p><p>Although the Coles signed both their names to most of their detective fiction, in fact the books were written primarily by one or the other, Margaret writing ten of them and Douglas writing eighteen. (However, the non-writing spouse for any given volume would read over the completed manuscript and make suggestions.) </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnj1h5u82zJgJbRbJ-GcuNBsus_vJbh5bEI1UCKikmfcX_MoKN68-wr-4ZRJ0AzkjrKjdvaIiRHMUyTTnFkY1e6LOS6oiJI4X_SayC7f6Px4jAnxB7xodLTTW_wOiSPN_u_yOFxkMvAyjSovg_jGgVCEQGJOBPXklUH-Jii9SOZWJVyDMvIjygUpx0LCDc/s3072/colesstarmillionaire%20(2).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2227" data-original-width="3072" height="464" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnj1h5u82zJgJbRbJ-GcuNBsus_vJbh5bEI1UCKikmfcX_MoKN68-wr-4ZRJ0AzkjrKjdvaIiRHMUyTTnFkY1e6LOS6oiJI4X_SayC7f6Px4jAnxB7xodLTTW_wOiSPN_u_yOFxkMvAyjSovg_jGgVCEQGJOBPXklUH-Jii9SOZWJVyDMvIjygUpx0LCDc/w640-h464/colesstarmillionaire%20(2).jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_z2eLgsND7dVzbOaPkt5LlB_enQwUp5JLidN9dzDTHmyzVgz_NghMOMAqABYshJ8zmeecXFwx0yOfGQgECMThsKmgWkyKk6pQwIYybZAJ7WY9JH4dEkiw6QaCDaguUxl5OKjSMShZwQ8KHHyawGrlmLVbOBOriUtOIZoYPNwtfB7gKGHaWfzfSyC8Y8Np/s3300/colessackend%20(2).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2477" data-original-width="3300" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_z2eLgsND7dVzbOaPkt5LlB_enQwUp5JLidN9dzDTHmyzVgz_NghMOMAqABYshJ8zmeecXFwx0yOfGQgECMThsKmgWkyKk6pQwIYybZAJ7WY9JH4dEkiw6QaCDaguUxl5OKjSMShZwQ8KHHyawGrlmLVbOBOriUtOIZoYPNwtfB7gKGHaWfzfSyC8Y8Np/w640-h480/colessackend%20(2).jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>The spouses similarly divided authorship of their sizeable body of short crime fiction, which includes, to my knowledge, nearly forty short stories and a novella. Their two most notable series characters are Superintendent Henry Wilson, a Scotland Yard detective in the mold of F<b>reeman Wills Crofts</b>' Inspector French (though he actually preceded French into fiction by a year) and Everard Blatchington, an insouciant amateur sleuth, like Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey. </p><p>Douglas Cole wrote the first Cole mystery, <b>The Brooklyn Murders</b> (1923), on a dare from his wife while convalescing from illness. It shows hugely the influence of Freeman Crofts, with a policeman sleuth and ample alibi busting. </p><p>Next, also from Douglas' hand, came the altogether more original <b>The Death of a Millionaire </b>(1925), a murder mystery that is also a biting satire of English Jazz Age political corruption, complete with a unrequited same-sex love story. (Cole himself was bisexually--arguably more homosexually--inclined, though he fathered three children with Margaret before he lost interest in sex altogether.) The next year came the very amusing country house mystery <b>The Blatchington Tangle</b>, which decidedly resembles <b>Agatha Christie's The Secret of Chimneys</b>, published the previous year.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix6b8ZFy-hNYlE4cUa9XsRuv7kOjI9Hjhto1ew0yoPSLF3oFjrvUN--FPSZN38JJHR6p8gU5BJD-5w9IQj5OxhEPcYIXY9ZhKstcmu0szoqdLGWTlRznEy2ko8YPueFx5AATeJfYg10-WSf_xinZR5NPqdYHh-VeMtP5FzFpy193_RiN65ORg1oVFwSJQG/s3080/colesheaddark%20(2).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2251" data-original-width="3080" height="468" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix6b8ZFy-hNYlE4cUa9XsRuv7kOjI9Hjhto1ew0yoPSLF3oFjrvUN--FPSZN38JJHR6p8gU5BJD-5w9IQj5OxhEPcYIXY9ZhKstcmu0szoqdLGWTlRznEy2ko8YPueFx5AATeJfYg10-WSf_xinZR5NPqdYHh-VeMtP5FzFpy193_RiN65ORg1oVFwSJQG/w640-h468/colesheaddark%20(2).jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiddzJrlkxolBSZwDYiptlIE4pc6xDvWCjzGTkCtniSskCmrTicI9urkhPm1d8hcpFylqRdXUQkf6uoy_jRUXp7p6aBtJw9zTdgrEMzEXIffMwHl2xtrNU4Q_cdgEY_N3z8ariZAFHIpUq05ckeAtKsn1geVJR9RFIpLNghFdbiCrTcvASPG62Badqu3TpM/s2305/coles%20man%20river%20(2).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1521" data-original-width="2305" height="422" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiddzJrlkxolBSZwDYiptlIE4pc6xDvWCjzGTkCtniSskCmrTicI9urkhPm1d8hcpFylqRdXUQkf6uoy_jRUXp7p6aBtJw9zTdgrEMzEXIffMwHl2xtrNU4Q_cdgEY_N3z8ariZAFHIpUq05ckeAtKsn1geVJR9RFIpLNghFdbiCrTcvASPG62Badqu3TpM/w640-h422/coles%20man%20river%20(2).jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>After that Margaret got in the game, with the non-series <b>The Murder at Crome House</b> (1927), which <b>Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor </b>in <b>A Catalogue of Crime</b> proclaimed "<i>the Coles' masterpiece...terse, witty, and to the point.</i>" Four of her ten novel-length mysteries would feature Everard Blatchington, introduced in Douglas' <b>Blatchington Tangle</b>. Her best mysteries, in my view, aside from <b>Crome House</b>, are <b>Burglars in Bucks (1930)</b>, a witty epistolary crime novel like Dorothy L. Sayers' <b>The Documents in the Case</b> from the same year,<b> <a href="http://thepassingtramp.blogspot.com/2014/09/actors-death-of-star-1932-by-gdh-and.html">Death of a Star</a> (1932)</b>, a proto police procedural, <b>Death in the Quarry </b>(1934), <b>Scandal at School (1935)</b><b> </b>and<b> Counterpoint Murder (1940)</b>. All but <b>Crome</b> and <b>Counterpoint </b>feature Everard Blatchington. <b>Counterpoint </b>is arguable Superintendent Wilson's greatest case.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxuML-fSe-koSnKymFFtKLMOWg0HVBihg58RmsLKsxA-yD7qU983ss3hhMvZWgwCkCGdmRRUiKUPa7eAlcGwSpjmAK2HlqwrUQkCqXrqVRqQ8uxWArmgBs1VKMaGaYQLkHl_HdXlYZWQWq7YAHsK-ie7CNxWUPadSiWokl-k4OyiQe6RQ89dxqHu0tbQ72/s2997/coleslessonbride%20(2).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2247" data-original-width="2997" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxuML-fSe-koSnKymFFtKLMOWg0HVBihg58RmsLKsxA-yD7qU983ss3hhMvZWgwCkCGdmRRUiKUPa7eAlcGwSpjmAK2HlqwrUQkCqXrqVRqQ8uxWArmgBs1VKMaGaYQLkHl_HdXlYZWQWq7YAHsK-ie7CNxWUPadSiWokl-k4OyiQe6RQ89dxqHu0tbQ72/w640-h480/coleslessonbride%20(2).jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>Margaret also wrote the five short works that comprise the interesting book <b>Mrs. Warrender's Profession</b> (1938), which chronicles the cases of a Miss Marple/Miss Silver like elderly gentlewoman sleuth. Mrs. Warrender appears in a single Margaret Cole novel, her last, <b>Knife in the Dark </b>(1941). </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2yA1Lpn49fCx67q6yn-YDX7WX-vBSqbbIgG5y8H3wQISS8PyegntwJ3UAcR5WbvXkH-w1ZPd-JcUyIT2fEaPcKFxnIwmegvUVLqGxRfN0tXxu78Zt7knzMNjG0uZ7dB1e9PlSu9iQGFwr_8O4twpDn2DUCw7QJniI4zJzKhJs9mDTOAKHPkRtT8PVx7oz/s2224/coles%20birthday%20gifts%20(2).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2224" data-original-width="1484" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2yA1Lpn49fCx67q6yn-YDX7WX-vBSqbbIgG5y8H3wQISS8PyegntwJ3UAcR5WbvXkH-w1ZPd-JcUyIT2fEaPcKFxnIwmegvUVLqGxRfN0tXxu78Zt7knzMNjG0uZ7dB1e9PlSu9iQGFwr_8O4twpDn2DUCw7QJniI4zJzKhJs9mDTOAKHPkRtT8PVx7oz/w268-h400/coles%20birthday%20gifts%20(2).jpg" width="268" /></a></div><p>Douglas' best novels, in my view, are the aforementioned <b>Death of a Millionaire </b>and <b>Blatchington Tangle</b>, as well as <a href="http://thepassingtramp.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-man-from-river-1928-by-gdh-and.html">The Man from the River</a><b> (1928), Corpse in Canonicals (1930)</b>, which introduces Supt. Wilson's friends Hubert and Emily Welsh, <b>The Brothers Sackville (1936), Disgrace to the College (1937)</b>, another Everard Blatchington mystery,<b> </b>and <b>Double Blackmail (1939)</b>. </p><p>Of the roughly forty Coles short crime stories, I think the Coles split those about evenly, with Margaret authoring the classic satire "<b>A Lesson in Crime</b>" and the very darkly shaded "<b>Glass</b>" and probably the excellent late novella <b>Death of a Bride </b>(1945). </p><p>Douglas wrote some classics like "<b>Supt. Wilson's Holiday</b>," the ultimate "footprints" mystery and the racism-skewering "<b>The Oxford Mystery</b>," as well as "<b>In a Telephone Cabinet</b>" and "<b>Birthday Gifts</b>," a neat pair of gadgety mysteries reminiscent of <b>John Rhode</b>.</p><p>All in all, an ample and impressive crime fiction legacy that merits dignified repriting.</p><p>For more on the Coles's mystery writing see my book <b>The Spectrum of English Murder</b>, available for purchase <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Spectrum-English-Murder-Detective-Aubrey-Fletcher/dp/1616462973/ref=sr_1_1?crid=N1VA0AA19C5P&keywords=spectrum+of+english+murder&qid=1688584402&sprefix=spectrum+of+englsh+murder%2Caps%2C573&sr=8-1">here</a>. It's loaded with spoiler warnings, no fear!</p>The Passing Tramphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-8201847751012621412023-06-25T15:30:00.006-07:002023-06-27T08:14:35.978-07:00From Stage to Page: Milton Herbert Gropper's and Edna Sherry's Inspector Kennedy/Homicide and Is No One Innocent? (with a tease on Edna Sherry's Sudden Fear)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuzLbUD48F5aDPMyFZYhu5BqVVJo09ON6EH1dZUaxcOCVE8AsftTmnUj9v2ECrxCB8h2mrvKZApM_p8RIorSOYgK6MuwXiputPyEbFAXzBrMrTTawE-fwquqbB5ZIGFolSNyWCThpHHwk0a-4eafd7bnKqDbNQqxMYc19DbR9o3P0Ua-YnjNbImfZhj-F5/s640/bijou%20(2).jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="521" data-original-width="640" height="326" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuzLbUD48F5aDPMyFZYhu5BqVVJo09ON6EH1dZUaxcOCVE8AsftTmnUj9v2ECrxCB8h2mrvKZApM_p8RIorSOYgK6MuwXiputPyEbFAXzBrMrTTawE-fwquqbB5ZIGFolSNyWCThpHHwk0a-4eafd7bnKqDbNQqxMYc19DbR9o3P0Ua-YnjNbImfZhj-F5/w400-h326/bijou%20(2).jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Bijou Theater, where Inspector Kennedy played, <br />adjacent to the Morosco, where the Bat started it all</td></tr></tbody></table><p>In December 1929, <b>Inspector Kennedy</b>, a mystery play co-scripted by <b>Milton Herbert Gropper</b> and <b>Edna Sherry</b>, premiered at New York's Bijou Theatre. The decade of the Twenties had commenced with a roar on Broadway with the staging of the hugely popular mystery thriller <b>The Bat</b>, adapted by <b>Avery Hopwood and Mary Roberts Rinehart</b> from Rinehart's 1908 landmark mystery novel <b>The Circular Staircase</b>. Although no <b>Mousetrap</b> (though it shares many points of similarity with <b>Agatha Christie</b>'s mighty hit), <b>The Bat </b>was hugely influential in American theater, launching the so-called "old dark house" sub-genre of neo-Gothic mystery in stage and film. </p><p><b>The Bat</b>, which ran for two years and 867 performances, inspired many a playwright to take a stab at a crime thriller, particularly of the old dark house type like <b>The Bat</b>, loaded with clutching hands, sliding panels, masked murdering fiends and terrified, wilting, imperiled heroines. Just from 1922 there came <b>The Cat and the Canary</b> (the best known of these plays after <b>The Bat</b>), <b>Whispering Wires</b>, <b>The Monster</b> and <b>The Last Warning</b>, none of which, it must be allowed, enjoyed the success of <b>The Bat</b>, though they performed decently to quite well, <b>Cat and Canary</b> leading the way (101 to 349 performances). </p><p>Soon the old dark house thriller and its cinematic incarnations (all of these plays were adapted as films in the Twenties and Thirties) became utterly clichéd in the eyes of the critics (and audiences too, at least in New York), who resultantly became jaded rather than thrilled with the shocks they had to offer. Later plays like <b>The Gorilla</b> (1925) and <b>Sh! The Octopus</b> (1928) bombed on Broadway, <b>The Gorilla</b> managing to stay open for just 15 performances and <b>Sh! The Octopus</b> for 47. </p><p>There were as well numerous mysteries staged in the 1920s that dispensed with the gothic trappings of <b>The Bat</b> and its fearsome progeny in presenting less spooky murders, more akin to those found in classic detective novels of the 1920s. (In England thriller writer <b>Edgar Wallace</b> made a cottage industry out of both types of crime plays, with <b>The Terror</b>, 1927, being his most notable contribution to the old dark house mystery.) Milton Gropper's and Enda Sherry's <b>Inspector Kennedy</b> is one of these. Though it takes place entirely within the walls of a wealthy New Yorker's brownstone house and the lights do go out a couple of times, its thrills are not really of the Gothic order, but rather the modern Twenties murder mystery (including a couple of locked room situations).</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN5ZdQ2-T_yc1BM4a0Fci60r-ojHCi1FMrWmu1e59iqMFHt9j2VnvE2NPKDs_jNByReACXiMlXujD_3YqJGUvFajTkKMn472xQnn7hVersc6gZmOZEfCtSCn_olkCF4rt438OBhu2tTRp4HqAQV20IyhxDOEECjCbvRYpV90eSQb9kTd2Ine8J2VjKHpQv/s1000/sherryinnocent.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="696" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN5ZdQ2-T_yc1BM4a0Fci60r-ojHCi1FMrWmu1e59iqMFHt9j2VnvE2NPKDs_jNByReACXiMlXujD_3YqJGUvFajTkKMn472xQnn7hVersc6gZmOZEfCtSCn_olkCF4rt438OBhu2tTRp4HqAQV20IyhxDOEECjCbvRYpV90eSQb9kTd2Ine8J2VjKHpQv/w279-h400/sherryinnocent.JPG" width="279" /></a></div><p>In 1929, when <b>Inspector Kennedy</b> premiered on Broadway at the Bijou Theater, Edna Sherry was a comparative neophyte in the world of stage. Six years earlier in 1923 when she sold the stage rights to her play <b>Guilty?</b> to theater impresario <b>Albert Herman Woods</b> (formerly Aladore Herman), she was nearly forty years old and the married mother of two children. Woods tried the play out in Baltimore on March 5 in a production starring lovely silent film actress <b>Hazel Dawn</b> and dashing English actor <b>Henry Daniell</b>, the latter of whom went on to a distinguished film career of over thirty years' duration, which for mystery fans included a definitive turn as Sherlock Holmes' nemesis Professor Moriarty in the <b>Basil Rathbone-Nigel Bruce</b> film <b>The Woman in Green</b> (1945). </p><p>A review of <b>Guilty? </b>in the <b>Baltimore Sun</b> deemed the play's dialogue "<i>stilted and unconvincing</i>" but pronounced the plot "<i>remarkably good</i>" and and concluded that the play held promise if considerable revisions were made. (The critic also panned Hazel Dawn, but singled out Daniell for praise for acting his part of the "<i>neurotic artist</i>" with "<i>grace and finesse</i>" despite "<i>being killed three times during the performance.</i>") </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC51rA5vywxIVtcey5oz1NTAY_Y8JyRVM9quPC7XBR8_V1TrbVBRLAapzS1y6M3Ys2WG552AxIwnsqwKmqC6vWWLMdwd3_NcZ78cBtBOhFPNTzpW5UjggREMnLmnSmym8S-5V9nuSXQGPxZ2Ec9AyHUyI23-iY0tQ9TJlco18QCv_kA0eBWm4ThviiE5xu/s1256/sherryroughsketch.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1165" data-original-width="1256" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC51rA5vywxIVtcey5oz1NTAY_Y8JyRVM9quPC7XBR8_V1TrbVBRLAapzS1y6M3Ys2WG552AxIwnsqwKmqC6vWWLMdwd3_NcZ78cBtBOhFPNTzpW5UjggREMnLmnSmym8S-5V9nuSXQGPxZ2Ec9AyHUyI23-iY0tQ9TJlco18QCv_kA0eBWm4ThviiE5xu/s320/sherryroughsketch.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"rough sketch" of the first floor of<br />wealthy dead man <br />Dwight Mortover's brownstone</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Sadly for Sherry, however, the production's electrician turned the play into an unintended farce by repeatedly turning on the lights while the hands were still on stage shifting scenes, inducing in the audience "<i>roars of laughter</i>" as startled men rushed "<i>for elusive exits.</i>" The play died a quick death in Baltimore and has never been heard from again. </p><p>When Sherry and Milton Gropper together wrote Inspector Kennedy six years later, Sherry drew on elements of the plot of <b>Guilty?</b> for her new play. The contribution of Gropper--a handsome playwright and screenwriter of Rumanian Jewish origin who, though a decade younger than Sherry, had already had a half-dozen plays performed on Broadway, including the provocatively titled hit <b>Ladies of the Evening</b>, adapted in 1930 by F<b>rank Capr</b>a as the hit film <b>Ladies of Leisure</b>, starring a youthful <b>Barbara Stanwyck</b>--seems to have been with the dialogue. </p><p>The same year Gropper and Sherry had collaborated on a Hollywood courtroom mystery film (another popular stage mystery subgenre in the Twenties), <b>Through Different Eyes</b>, which innovatively was told in a series of flashbacks from three different perspectives, recalling the classic Japanese film <b>Rashomon</b> (1951). The <b>New York Times</b> deemed the film an "<i>ingeniously conceived murder trial story</i>."</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIViBv7ce7gPgYs92A1Zs6O1IopPH7QyEJSD65KwlXgH8GOECk-kLLRPffWvMPsiCkFTMlgZM68V94vFE5UuaJhE_kIgk4rdY0LvOkSHU7FdtNr5d0y381D4Q0AHeXVvuAtavJR577Q3Q-T3zSBC8dfx_2CbpiRxTko-DdqYTHf057BCz2W8ZZegJmcpMh/s1549/sherryhomicide%20(2).jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1549" data-original-width="716" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIViBv7ce7gPgYs92A1Zs6O1IopPH7QyEJSD65KwlXgH8GOECk-kLLRPffWvMPsiCkFTMlgZM68V94vFE5UuaJhE_kIgk4rdY0LvOkSHU7FdtNr5d0y381D4Q0AHeXVvuAtavJR577Q3Q-T3zSBC8dfx_2CbpiRxTko-DdqYTHf057BCz2W8ZZegJmcpMh/w296-h640/sherryhomicide%20(2).jpg" width="296" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">William Hodge and Margaret Mullen<br />in<b> Inspector Kennedy/Homicide</b></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Unfortunately, <b>Inspector Kennedy</b> fared less well with New York critics and died a fairly quick death there, running for only forty-three performances over December 1929 and January 1930, despite starring, in the title role, popular actor <b>William Hodge</b>, who also directed the play. However, later that year Hodge took the play, retitled <b>Homicide</b>, on the road, performing in Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Wilmington, Boston and Windsor, Ontario, among other locales, to much greater praise and success. </p><p>The same year Gropper and Sherry published a novelized version of <b>Inspector Kennedy/Homicide</b>, retitled<b> Is No One Innocent?</b> </p><p>The novel adapted the plot of the play, concerning the murder of a despised rich man by the name of Mordaunt in a locked room (the living room in this case), actually changing the identity of the murderer. "Rough sketches" of the first and second floors of the house are provided, along with a raft of suspects, all of whom, with one exception (and he ends up as the second murder victim) confess to the crime! </p><p>Let's see, there's the pretty secretary, the business partner and his son, the glamorous movie star, the professor and Mary Ann...Wait a minute, let me start over! </p><p>The pretty secretary, the business partner and his son, the lawyer nephew, the housekeeper, a drug-addicted girl, and the visiting telephone repairman....There's also a Chinese butler named Wong, but he gets dispatched before he ever gets to utter more than a few lines. He never had a real chance to confess to the crime had he been so inclined! He's killed in the locked living room too, under similar circumstances to the first murder, right under Inspector Kennedy's eyes, though in the dark. </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCOJvNdmpKyqizYdZ525rjfwkuRisrs7SnP4ajL7vnv1xr1ZSSh31dC9eXED8Wb-b2m4EFQOyk-dORsEU4CEZMmKTX7VVkxr7indjl5lwHERs9hCFULoPl9occ9UjazyoECSu-HsRNL1A7UNlKQ48CQ4d5Lek9PhJx1hN9q0sio84d2tCI5WkR4d9XGP4B/s590/goo%20chong.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="525" data-original-width="590" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCOJvNdmpKyqizYdZ525rjfwkuRisrs7SnP4ajL7vnv1xr1ZSSh31dC9eXED8Wb-b2m4EFQOyk-dORsEU4CEZMmKTX7VVkxr7indjl5lwHERs9hCFULoPl9occ9UjazyoECSu-HsRNL1A7UNlKQ48CQ4d5Lek9PhJx1hN9q0sio84d2tCI5WkR4d9XGP4B/w400-h356/goo%20chong.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Goo Chong on stage</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Aside from William Hodge, the play's cast included in the role of the secretary one <b>Margaret Mullen </b>(Margaret Mullen Root), a tall, pretty brunette then only nineteen years old, who later became a fixture at the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, Pennsylvania, which Philadelphia mystery writer <b>Milton Propper</b> fictionalized in his detective novel <b>The Station Wagon Murder</b> (1940), reviewed by me <a href="http://thepassingtramp.blogspot.com/2018/11/death-drives-woodie-station-wagon.html">here</a>. There's a nice interview with the actress, who died in 2003, <a href="https://soleburyhistory.org/margaret-mullen-root/">here</a>, </p><p>The chinese butler Wong was play by <b>Goo Chong</b>, or <b>Peter Chong</b>, a pioneering American Asian stage and film actor, though his film roles mostly went uncredited. (He was credited, however, as <b>Ingrid Bergman</b>'s cook in <b>The Inn of Sixth Happiness</b> and Fred Astaire's valet in <b>Easter Parade</b>.)</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxG4vmSc25uUFQryHpOFmn9MeJPr6CarP2894rXNUbq3wTd48oo-yzXns9NXjfgZitWrXME2x87EpMyCAp_0RBCEyQz9VdT9dhOKgbkSvyp8oiPe3VQGqkCIwiOJCz9ko1flQp7EWSfyV2ycI9e50V110twMIHfLEtZ2y6mLIjTf-Se0mFiQ5bOnrPWxER/s992/goochongeasterparade.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="992" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxG4vmSc25uUFQryHpOFmn9MeJPr6CarP2894rXNUbq3wTd48oo-yzXns9NXjfgZitWrXME2x87EpMyCAp_0RBCEyQz9VdT9dhOKgbkSvyp8oiPe3VQGqkCIwiOJCz9ko1flQp7EWSfyV2ycI9e50V110twMIHfLEtZ2y6mLIjTf-Se0mFiQ5bOnrPWxER/s320/goochongeasterparade.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Peter Chong as Fred Astaire's <br />manservant in Easter Parade</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Gropper's and Sherry's collaborative work ended after this and Edna Sherry faded from the world of the New York stage, never having made, truth be told, a lasting impression. Her early stage writing did serve her well, however, when, eighteen years later at the age of sixty-three, she published her second novel and most famous work, the suspense thriller <b>Sudden Fear</b> (1948). This classic, filmed in 1952 as a highly-regarded <b>Joan Crawford</b> vehicle, will soon be back in print, courtesy of <b>Stark House</b>. More on this soon!</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlPkB6uWDC_bPs8KYUwa-GRWW7FggExpTkuYTdSEQbqRiSPqYtbd1n2QXxg6ab4HJwFQyMfeTNi17Hn28KYghXFY5XsvJ5x-FIoytmxjOei70lovEiVNezGqpk6ol6fDPJsx4yh-huJSbrwNk8Uky6jwDhjmrakwfSh2WK1SXmkxPuTowf11uT5Yf5rqDv/s1669/IMG-2202%20(2).JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1669" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlPkB6uWDC_bPs8KYUwa-GRWW7FggExpTkuYTdSEQbqRiSPqYtbd1n2QXxg6ab4HJwFQyMfeTNi17Hn28KYghXFY5XsvJ5x-FIoytmxjOei70lovEiVNezGqpk6ol6fDPJsx4yh-huJSbrwNk8Uky6jwDhjmrakwfSh2WK1SXmkxPuTowf11uT5Yf5rqDv/w414-h640/IMG-2202%20(2).JPG" width="414" /></a></div>The Passing Tramphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-45816837260352153722023-06-03T14:31:00.005-07:002023-06-03T14:32:12.033-07:00Children's Hour--Lady Bountiful in a Red Roadster: The Hidden Staircase (1930) and The Secret of Red Gate Farm (1931), by "Carolyn Keene"My sister's bedroom in our ranch house in Northport, Alabama back in the 1970s was decorated in colors of pale yellow and blue. In the corner, by the only window in the room, which looked down the sloping lawn, was a metal bookcase, painted yellow, where she kept her books. Being extremely bookish from a young age, I naturally took peeks at them now and again. She had some books my Grandmother Ada from California had bought her, like <b>The Borrowers</b>, <b>Mr. Mysterious and Company</b>, the first two of Frank Baum's Oz novels and a number of Nancy Drew mysteries, the yellowbacks with the pictures directly on the front covers (no dust jackets). I can still remember the ones she had from looking up the covers on the internet: <b>The Secret of the Old Clock, The Hidden Staircase, The Mystery at Lilac Inn, The Secret at Red Gate Farm, The Clue in the Diary, The Sign of the Twisted Candles, The Secret in the Old Attic, The Clue in the Old Album</b>. (I don't recognize any others.) <div><br /></div><div>I don't know that my sister was too devoted to Nancy Drew; she wasn't a big reader in general. I remember being intrigued by that <b>Hidden Staircase</b> cover with Nancy, looking rather school librarian-ish in her sensible blue blouse, skirt and shoes, intrepidly traversing that old stone staircase, that beaming flashlight in her hand. I never read any of them, however, at least that I can recall. </div><div><br /></div><div>By 1974 I had started reading Agatha Christie mysteries, starting with four Pocket paperbacks that my Mom bought when we lived in Mexico City (<b>Easy to Kill</b> as it was called, <b>Ten Little Indians</b>, as it was called, <b>Funerals Are Fatal</b> as it was called, and <b>The ABC Murders</b>). Before Agatha my favorite book compulsion was L. Frank Baum's Oz series of fantasy children's books. (I was the only kid in my set who knew there was more than one.) Nancy had to wait. As for the Hardy Boys, I had one my Mom got me, when I was in the fourth grade I think, called <b>The Scarlet Claw</b>. I don't believe I ever even cracked the covers. Oddly enough I did read a Bobbsey Twins book that had mysterious elements, but I forget the title.</div><div><br /></div><div>When the 1990s rolled around and I was in graduate school studying history (and a great mystery reader), I bought some of the facsimile eds. of Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys mysteries reissued by the publisher <b>Applewood</b>. The fact that these were replicas of the actual stories from the 1920s and 1930s interested me. Beginning in 1959, the year my sister was born, the older Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys were heavily edited and updated, in some cases essentially rewritten. I had no interest in any of that. A love of history and "Golden Age," between-the-wars mystery, I wanted to read those books, if I ever got around to reading them, as they originally appeared, within the true context of their times.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9tyHLqXlJN3Xd19b44ZLSqfQkoEKn3c3nTee4XnfnV_koK1APh35CMvLN8PJvcZPpvWy_6LEOcQdY60Tiep4a6hSIxvwc_68J5le1Fy9oTcKRZBIlJuEgDRYaDHBfs-I-W6UPFfkstAYVbdyZFLUVcFRKRW2FNSnnF3mYioUBedmnc6iIXUSrp08tCg/s3088/drewredhidden%20(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2296" data-original-width="3088" height="476" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9tyHLqXlJN3Xd19b44ZLSqfQkoEKn3c3nTee4XnfnV_koK1APh35CMvLN8PJvcZPpvWy_6LEOcQdY60Tiep4a6hSIxvwc_68J5le1Fy9oTcKRZBIlJuEgDRYaDHBfs-I-W6UPFfkstAYVbdyZFLUVcFRKRW2FNSnnF3mYioUBedmnc6iIXUSrp08tCg/w640-h476/drewredhidden%20(2).jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Finally I've gotten around to reading a couple of Nancy Drews: <b>The Hidden Staircase</b> (Yes!) and <b>The Secret of Red Gate Farm</b>, the second and sixth books in the series, originally published in 1930 and 1931 respectively, in the heart of the Golden Age of detective fiction. </div><div><br /></div><div>Many of you will be very familiar indeed with the plots of these beloved children's mystery novels. <b>Hidden Staircase</b> may be the single most famous Nancy Drew title. It opens when privileged, blonde, sixteen-year-old teenage do-gooder Nancy, all alone at the Drew home in River Heights (her father, big shot attorney Carson Drew, has been called out of town on a case, and the housekeeper, Hannah Gruen, has her day off), gets a visit from a repulsive, rude stranger from nearby Cliffwood, Nathan Gombet, who to Nancy accuses her father of having cheated him in a land deal. Nathan, you see, is a miser and frankly rather off his rocker. </div><div><br /></div><div>After Nancy gets rid of this objectionable person, the book rather hangs fire for a bit. The teen gets a visit from Allie Horner, one of the many people, it seems, who has benefitted from Nancy's crusading goodness. Allie and her sister Grace had lived on a farm, where they "<i>were undernourished and beset with financial worries</i>," but, all due to the efforts of Nancy, "<i>the girls had come into an inheritance and their troubles had vanished.</i>" (All this is detailed in the debut mystery in the series, <b>The Secret of the Old Clock</b>.) They discuss Nathan Gombet a bit and Allie confirms he is bad news. Then Carson Drew gets home and they discuss Nathan some more. </div><div><br /></div><div>A few days late Nancy visits the cottage of Abigail Rowen, another beneficiary of Nancy's decsive intervention in the Old Clock case: "<i>Nancy had found in her deplorable condition. There was little food, or money with which to buy it, and Abigail had firmly refused medical attention because she could not pay for it. It was through Nancy's instigation that she had received her inheritance from the Crowley estate....</i>"</div><div><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg0Y3FiXqVo5AzW5saxYXcOqqndZdDMKcqGmPPG3mbcvspI8isVoMYOuVDm9sa7YpuFB82w3WDevMqECxJkf41131pt9m9mnABr2bYJD44GM_8vjYiV_77caJaEkiBVVtoqhgpF9eCtcCUXvKnUVt56-Y0cWgzFHKV7EC_4017Z3-PiwEIVaDXh7H8vw/s850/rohnen_mansion01%20(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="567" data-original-width="850" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg0Y3FiXqVo5AzW5saxYXcOqqndZdDMKcqGmPPG3mbcvspI8isVoMYOuVDm9sa7YpuFB82w3WDevMqECxJkf41131pt9m9mnABr2bYJD44GM_8vjYiV_77caJaEkiBVVtoqhgpF9eCtcCUXvKnUVt56-Y0cWgzFHKV7EC_4017Z3-PiwEIVaDXh7H8vw/w400-h266/rohnen_mansion01%20(2).jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.thestonecityfoundation.com/rohnen-mansion/">Ronen Mansion</a>, Stone City, Iowa</td></tr></tbody></table><div>Abigail introduces Nancy to her friend Rosemary Turnbull, "<i>an elderly maiden lady</i>" (she's actually no more than forty-five by my calculation) who resides in Cliffwood with her twin sister Floretta at an old stone mansion, naturally called The Mansion. It seems that, like all the other maiden ladies mentioned above, the Turnbull sisters have a problem for Nancy Drew to solve: <i>their house is infested with poltergeists</i>! </div><div><br /></div><div>Noises all over the house, shadows on the walls and objects disappearing, even when all the doors and windows are locked. Yes, technically this is a locked room mystery, though you will have about as much trouble answering that riddle as you would in a <b>Carolyn Wells </b>detective novel.</div><div><br /></div><div>Finally, after forty pages and five chapters, Nancy gets to The Mansion, where she finds Floretta all aflutter! She wants to move out of the house immediately! Hey--could this be someone's clever plot to drive the Turnbull sisters out of their ancestral home, built before the Civil War? I'll bet you a bag of Scooby snacks it could!</div><div><br /></div><div>Nancy quickly decides that the Turnbulls are worthy objects of her benevolence and gets to work trying to find the true guise of the poltergeist. Gazing at the family portraits that adorn The Mansion, she realizes "<i>that once the Turnbulls had been the leading family in Cliffwood</i>." Although Rosemary and Floretta, the last of the local Turnbull line, are decayed gentlewomen with "<i>an income only sufficient for their needs,</i>" they are, Nancy appreciates, "<i>welcome in the best of society.</i>" (Okay, this is apparently Iowa, so let's not get too carried away with pretensions.) </div><div><br /></div><div>As Nancy tells her father, "<i>They come from an excellent family. I believe The Mansion has belonged to the Turnbulls ever since it was built....It would be a tragedy if they had to sell the place now...I want so badly to help them."</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Carson Drew has to go on a business trip to Chicago, but he hands daughter Nancy a revolver and tells her you go, girl, basically. Which she does. The gun doesn't play any real role in the novel, however, it's mostly just Nancy snooping around at the Turnbull place and later at another stone house that looks a lot like theirs. It turns out that the pair of houses were built by two Turnbull brothers who were once close but then became enemies during the Civil War....And that wicked Nathan Gombet lives in the other house....And that he has been pressuring Rosemary and Floretta to sell their house to him cheap....</div><div><br /></div><div>Solved the mystery yet? Could a <b>hidden staircase</b> be involved somehow? One thing you can say, at least this story has truth in advertising. </div><div><br /></div><div>Truth is, Nancy is no great detective here, just very determined. But it's an enjoyable story nevertheless. If there's one thing kids love, it's mysterious, secret passages in old houses and you sure get them in this novel.</div><div><br /></div><div>A few books later Nancy is at it again, trying to discover <b>The Secret of Red Gate Farm</b>. This time she has two pals, cousins George and Bess, whom she meant in the previous books when she was deciphering <b>The Secret of Shadow Ranch</b>. George is a tomboy type and Bess is girly type of girl, with Nancy naturally being the golden (literally) mean. (Wait for the modern adaptation where George is a lesbian of color.) I think these two were added to the series because Nancy seemed a little lonely in <b>Hidden Staircase</b>. (In that book her only friend, as opposed to charity case, who appears is Helen Corning, whom Nancy deems too gossipy to bring into the case.) Never fear, though, George and Bess take orders from Nancy, who is very much the "Head Girl" type. </div><div><br /></div><div>Red Gate Farm opens with Nancy and Bess and George finishing a shopping trip in a nearby city. They find a "<i>quaint Oriental shop</i>" on their way to the train station and stop in the place. There they encounter an unpleasant Eurasian shopgirl, Yvonne Wong, and request to purchase from her a certain "<i>Oriental scent</i>" which pervades the shop; but the shopgirl does not want to sell it to them. Finally, after being repeatedly badgered by the girls, she offers it to them for three dollars (about $53 today), and the girls chip in to buy it. Of course this perfume will figure significantly into the story....</div><div><br /></div><div>The girls head for the train station, grousing all the while complaining about the Eurasian shopkeeper. "<i>Snippy,</i>" pronounces George. "<i>I didn't like her looks. She was too flashy or something.</i>" On the train, however, they encounter an altogether nicer girl, Millie Burd, who will become the latest object of Nancy's benevolence. They learn that Millie is seeking a job in the city because she and her grandmother, who live at Red Gate Farm, have to pay off the farm's mortgage and don't have the money. Nancy accompanies Millie to her job interview and becomes suspicious that her would-be employer is a nogoodnik. (He has "harsh features," saucy manners and wears a "bold" suit and "gaudy" necktie.) Millie, who is rather a noodge really, doesn't get the job, and Nancy decides that she, along with Bess and George, will spend part of their summer vacation at Red Gate Farm as boarders to help out the Burds financially. </div><div><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilVGW2DgT-TWEtcowGtZ0zr0r2S9i5OwoGIyJgK9kEnXn8wTF-acQFhlRPbuokg_i1pjv2hPiZDA5ThPdSTZLMCLNbZWTgHTxUrHEntxx3EkwDSOeWEycl593D_g40OPUgrVnOBEc0VncccuJMDqYoU4y_JyHNiavTFtdZluopsjXxCxa7G4YDvYQvOQ/s750/naturecult.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="560" data-original-width="750" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilVGW2DgT-TWEtcowGtZ0zr0r2S9i5OwoGIyJgK9kEnXn8wTF-acQFhlRPbuokg_i1pjv2hPiZDA5ThPdSTZLMCLNbZWTgHTxUrHEntxx3EkwDSOeWEycl593D_g40OPUgrVnOBEc0VncccuJMDqYoU4y_JyHNiavTFtdZluopsjXxCxa7G4YDvYQvOQ/w400-h299/naturecult.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">not quite the nature cult the author had in mind</td></tr></tbody></table><div>So off they all go to Red Gate Farm, where they are soon plunged in another mystery! It seems that Grandma Burd has let part of her land (including a cave) to a weird nature cult of some sort, the Black Snake Colony, who dress up in white robes that make them resemble Ku Klux Klan members and dance about in the moonlight. Well, of course Nancy has to get to the bottom of this! And she does, but not until she and her chums face grave peril. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Red Gate Farm </b>is an enjoyable story, more eventful, than <b>Hidden Staircase</b>, but the whole edifice is built upon a succession of coincidences: Nancy and her chums <i>just happen</i> to go into the Oriental shop and buy the bottle of perfume, which they they <i>just happen</i>, when a certain nogoodnik is present, to break on the train, where they <i>just happen</i> to encounter Millie Burd, who <i>just happens</i> to apply for a job at a place connected with the Black Snake Colony, which <i>just happens</i> to rent some land at Red Gate Farm, where Nancy and her chums <i>just happen</i> to board out for the summer. Wow! The gods surely know Nancy loves solving mysteries and are doing everything they can to help her along. Fortune's child, that girl!</div><div><br /></div><div>From the perspective of a Golden Age mystery fan, it's interesting to see a spurious religious cult popping up in Red Gate Farm, for these insidious organizations often are up to no good in adult mysteries of that time. And of course there's the crooked Eurasian, with no "good" minority character to balance her. In <b>Hidden Staircase</b> wicked Nathan Gombet--whom some have argued is Jewish, although I don't believe Gombet is a specifically Jewish surname--has a wicked black housekeeper accomplice, who is only ever described as "the colored woman" and has a hosts of negative descriptions: <i>"fat," "slovenly," "surly-looking," "positively vicious," "looks as though she were an ogre."</i> </div><div><br /></div><div>All the characters whom Nancy helps was well-born (by American standards), "nice" WASPish women, down on their luck. The only minorities depicted in the book are villainous. The other villains are obvious gangster types and are all marked by cruel faces and colorful dress. One woman in R<b>ed Gate Farm</b> declares that you can't tell who the criminals are these days, but I would say that so far in the Nancy Drew tales that is precisely wrong. Villainy is openly revealed to Nancy, at least, in countenance and costume. </div><div><br /></div><div>Thankfully Nancy is more than capable of combating it. Does Nancy ever actually attend high school, I had to wonder, when reading these books. She seems to have ever so much free time. My thought after reading these novels was Nancy is a Lady Bountiful type and sure enough when I searched those terms I came up with <b>"American Sweethearts" Teenage Girls in Twentieth-Century Popular Culture</b>, an academic monograph by <b>Ilana Nash</b>. She notes that <b>Harriet Stratemeyer Adams</b>--who for over half a century ran the <b>Stratemeyer Syndicate</b>, which published the Nancy Drew books, and wrote the original outlines for most of the Nancy Drew novels (many of which actually were then written by <b>Mildred Wirt Benson</b>)--very much believed in the Lady Bountiful ideal. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh7--vX__OR8SS2LVAh5nLi4RgHsfAudf9VjS_NOz6oatvHY6l0e29uWZhn80s4ntvcc-8t8gmymJKRCyYAuSam9s8JA1AYdW6SLTi35dAbWPYv8TixgbRpn6OaDZNqi726ZbOGnl2nxtPAUh45IIMABdudco8PxPGKHcuNlmMYuK2CGeUstd23yRNhg/s400/ladybountiful%20(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="257" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh7--vX__OR8SS2LVAh5nLi4RgHsfAudf9VjS_NOz6oatvHY6l0e29uWZhn80s4ntvcc-8t8gmymJKRCyYAuSam9s8JA1AYdW6SLTi35dAbWPYv8TixgbRpn6OaDZNqi726ZbOGnl2nxtPAUh45IIMABdudco8PxPGKHcuNlmMYuK2CGeUstd23yRNhg/w258-h400/ladybountiful%20(2).jpg" width="258" /></a></div><div>A Wellesley College graduate and high society matron, Harriet Adams, according to Nash, adhered to a "<i>model of female citizenship predicated on noblesse oblige, in which women influence the public sphere by uplifting the less fortunate and performing acts of philanthropy. Adams frequently told interviewers that she used the Wellesley College motto to inform the character of Nancy Drew: "Non ministrari, sed ministrare ('Not to be ministered unto, but to minister')."</i> </div><div><br /></div><div>Nash describes all this as a "<i>vision of the ideal woman as a sort of Lady Bountiful,</i>" informed with "<i>the ideas of first wave feminists of the turn of the century, whose vision of proper womanhood remained conservatively focused on the white privileged classes....</i>"</div><div><br /></div><div>I really sensed this myself reading these two Nancy Drew books and it put me off Nancy a bit, even though I enjoyed the books. Nancy just seems so perfect and remote, almost like a Greek goddess or Amazonian princess. She doesn't even seem ever to attend school and of course does not hold a professional job, instead devoting herself, in the classic manner, to amateur sleuthing, in order to charitably help those less fortunate than herself, these being, so far, entirely white women of good stock who through ill fortune and a certain lack of pluck have fallen on hard times.</div><div><br /></div><div>Famously the Stratemeyer Syndicate in 1959 began revising the earlier Nancy Drew titles, a task not completed until 1975, when all the novels published between 1930 and 1956 were revised. Certainly a character like the "colored woman" from <i>Hidden Staircase</i> could never have survived to the present day. That she even made it up to 1959 is striking. Harriet Adams herself carried out the revisions of that novel. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'll keep looking at the Nancy Drew books, however (along with those from the rival Judy Bolton series). These books will always take me back to my youth and my sister's little Nancy Drew collection. Later on she began reading <b>Seventeen, Madeisemiselle and Cosmopolitan </b>and Seventies potboilers like <b>Harold Robbins' The Betsy and John Jakes' The Bastard</b>. (I looked at those too.) Nancy Drew and her more innocent mysteries of life had been left far behind, with George and Bess and her shiny red roadster.</div>The Passing Tramphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-62829471504145805922023-05-28T21:32:00.004-07:002023-05-28T21:35:28.135-07:00Prince Albert in a Can: Out of the Dark/Child's Play (1964), by Ursula Curtiss and its film adaptation I Saw What You Did (1965)To a great extent, children were neither seen nor heard in Golden Age detective fiction, though they certainly pop up in <b>Dorothy L. Sayers</b>' humorous short story <b>Talboys</b>, say, <b>Margaret Cole</b>'s novel <b>Scandal at School</b> (1935), where the murderee is a blackmailing teenage girl, and <b>Agatha Christie</b>'s <b>Crooked House</b>, where--well, I'd better not say more about that one! <div><br /></div><div>I have the impression that the depiction of children in crime fiction owes rather more to the Americans than the Brits, Americans like like <b>Craig Rice </b>with her classic <b>Home Sweet Homicide</b> and the various mid-century mistresses of domestic suspense, like <b>Ursula Curtiss</b>. Indeed, Curtiss, the mother of five children, went so far as to base her 1964 crime novel <b>Out of the Dark </b>(<b>Child's Play</b> in England), on her own family. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsMTXNLJldxaPUXtKLC4auviFdTSQnmbVTdMWk5UTkEgEqsbNiBMq9aHnTfLqqVCBQR01Lu1-amhuxXmEcWXbCkWOvlNULo_e2qvr4n4ptPMqfVXusNmWY_4U6w_N5S_6FHEvuq0l59FEI9dSem84YQzMXDNRnpXJqIfYrBzUHeDeZYSe0pK448XebKQ/s2256/childsplay%20(2).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2256" data-original-width="1549" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsMTXNLJldxaPUXtKLC4auviFdTSQnmbVTdMWk5UTkEgEqsbNiBMq9aHnTfLqqVCBQR01Lu1-amhuxXmEcWXbCkWOvlNULo_e2qvr4n4ptPMqfVXusNmWY_4U6w_N5S_6FHEvuq0l59FEI9dSem84YQzMXDNRnpXJqIfYrBzUHeDeZYSe0pK448XebKQ/w275-h400/childsplay%20(2).jpg" width="275" /></a></div><br /><div>The book reads something like <b>Shirley Jackson</b>'s popular domestic child-raising comedies, <b>Life among the Savages</b> and <b>Raising Demons</b>, crossed with a tale about a psychotic killer. It's a rather weird combination, to my mind inadvertently making the case for keeping kids out of crime stories, unless they are themselves killers like the sociopathic tot in <b>William March</b>'s <b>The Bad Seed</b>--tales of morbid psychology, in other words, where anything narsty goes. </div><div><br /></div><div>Tales about the mirthful doings of wacky kids, on the other hand, don't really mix well with murder, in my view. But that is rather what we got here!</div><div><br /></div><div>The basic scenario in <b>Child's Play</b>--the title I'm used to, and the better one I think--is clever, and it's not surprising the novel was adapted as a film by that great American impresario of horror schlock, <b>William Castle</b>. In the novel a pair bored girls, "home alone" as it were, decide to make a series of prank phone calls to unsuspecting victims, and soon get in over their heads.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's the old "<b>Prince Albert in a can</b>" ruse, I suppose you know that one? It's where kids call a store asking if they have "<i>Prince Albert in a can?,</i>" referring, don't you know, to the Prince Albert brand of tobacco. If the victim unsuspectingly answers, "<i>yes, we do</i>" then the kids scream: <i>"Let him out!" </i> Hilarity ensues. I did this one myself, but disappointingly the person on the other end of the line anticipated me by saying, "<i>No, we let him out.</i>" <b>Stephen King</b> used this bit in his horror novel <b>It</b> and it appeared as well in the television adaptation. It's referenced in the Curtiss novel as well.</div><div><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkhPI2V7yHlnxgIK7nN8X-KbVFN1j0OAq90aXjWlSZ12OfnvjK9c9G8qCXX8iDO5EBDX-x8kXWw6A6VPFzHQcDRFjgikxl0_KqMnI7nB4_Ckwu3IPz1KBHQDNP7vuR0_HxYVMFW_sPEjqZYVWilhQAabDIC_J2i0k6YHMyYB82qqs3xUBQtMnTiw-f3g/s1480/princealbertcan%20(2).jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1480" data-original-width="990" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkhPI2V7yHlnxgIK7nN8X-KbVFN1j0OAq90aXjWlSZ12OfnvjK9c9G8qCXX8iDO5EBDX-x8kXWw6A6VPFzHQcDRFjgikxl0_KqMnI7nB4_Ckwu3IPz1KBHQDNP7vuR0_HxYVMFW_sPEjqZYVWilhQAabDIC_J2i0k6YHMyYB82qqs3xUBQtMnTiw-f3g/w268-h400/princealbertcan%20(2).jpg" width="268" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Let him out!</td></tr></tbody></table><div>In the Curtiss novel, which is set in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the author's place of residence from 1960, the teen girl pranksters are Libby Mannering and her visiting friend from Chicago Kit Travers. In the book Kit--a sort of urban sophisticate who seems older than her fourteen years (Libby is fourteen as well)--is the instigator of the phone calls, uttering to her victims, all for fun, the threatening line: <i>"I know who you really are, and I saw what you did...."</i> </div><div><br /></div><div>This lands the girls in trouble when they utter the line on the phone to a man who years ago got away with a terrible murder....</div><div><br /></div><div>As I mentioned above, this is a classic suspense scenario and kudos to Curtiss for being the first, apparently, to use it. </div><div><br /></div><div>Unfortunately, however, from my perspective, Libby happens to have four younger siblings, three brothers and a baby sister, and their antics, lovingly dwelt upon by the author, undermine the suspense. It seems that Curtiss, herself the mother of five children, based the kids in the book on her own. She told the <b>Albuquerque Journal</b> that the novel "<i>was written around the five Curtiss children, Katy, 15, John, Paul, Kieran and Mary, 8.</i>" Based on the antics in this book I would say that the Curtiss children must have been quite the hellions! More than a match for any mere murderer, indeed.</div><div><br /></div><div>But the book is not a murder comedy either. To me it's schizophrenic. Early on there's a rather frightening depiction of the original murder that makes clear the killer is a very bad dude, a sociopathic type, and it should make us fear powerfully for the safety of the kids, but it really doesn't. I could never really make myself believe Curtiss' brat pack was in true danger, despite the atmospherics. (The somewhat feckless Mannering parents are spending the night in Santa Fe and had gotten the kids an adult babysitter, who never shows.) </div><div><br /></div><div>Perhaps had Curtiss confined the cast of kiddie characters to just the two teenage girls, it might have worked better. If three's a crowd, five is a calamity, at least as far as suspense is concerned. The author's slightly earlier suspense novel, <b>Hours to Kill</b>, a <a href="http://thepassingtramp.blogspot.com/2018/01/murders-little-helper-hours-to-kill.html">superb study in terrifying isolation</a>, is much stronger as pure suspense, I believe. </div><div><br /></div><div> *******</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU-SFDrRL-nK-RWmDx_E2vPSUEG1NAFCjl7rf5BqmbH6RaOK3b4pnwAVrGnGjgfrm6AQOzruGiptLzrtV2PjGemw17f-1g8Ut58OTCtm1AZcYlQqO8nY1y5f2hes2EwhMU7FQc1DmA6uFh3Xg7q1Tw4fyOmkefpV4wwFd7ScAXnX7TIqeTVlY8pld0ag/s800/IMG-2038.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="599" data-original-width="800" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU-SFDrRL-nK-RWmDx_E2vPSUEG1NAFCjl7rf5BqmbH6RaOK3b4pnwAVrGnGjgfrm6AQOzruGiptLzrtV2PjGemw17f-1g8Ut58OTCtm1AZcYlQqO8nY1y5f2hes2EwhMU7FQc1DmA6uFh3Xg7q1Tw4fyOmkefpV4wwFd7ScAXnX7TIqeTVlY8pld0ag/w640-h480/IMG-2038.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Some reviewers voiced similar complaints about the book as mine, but on the whole the novel received boffo reviews (specially in England) and it became one of only two Curtis novels to be filmed. The 1965 film version of <b>Out of the Dark</b>, entitled <b>I Saw What You Did</b>, is an interesting movie to thriller fans, though ultimately I think it is deeply flawed. </div><div><br /></div><div>It was directed by <b>William Castle</b>, the last film by him, I believe, that anyone ever talks about, though he would direct five more. Its main stars were two teenage unknowns, <b>Andi Garrett </b>and <b>Sara Lane</b>, as Libby and Kit respectively. (Lane was fifteen at filming; I'm not actually certain how old Garrett was.) </div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjox-kryMim8V4e13hbLEQxhhPC_Da2iGHY0rTglECaJwq-MCUe41Lbbqz8bF8GTlfarztYyiBLnbtYtHnf1VQPfwMOMzes8mUcjVaRzoMK1XX9IQ5yFbGNYqkB56R8QP5475PxjhvmA-Qt1rdkRbMBkT26XDtYrNWst0OBBSqX-yEyRTPXvqGB2sF4Ig/s728/IMG-2034.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="410" data-original-width="728" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjox-kryMim8V4e13hbLEQxhhPC_Da2iGHY0rTglECaJwq-MCUe41Lbbqz8bF8GTlfarztYyiBLnbtYtHnf1VQPfwMOMzes8mUcjVaRzoMK1XX9IQ5yFbGNYqkB56R8QP5475PxjhvmA-Qt1rdkRbMBkT26XDtYrNWst0OBBSqX-yEyRTPXvqGB2sF4Ig/w640-h360/IMG-2034.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Girls Night In</td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div>However, the main adult co-stars in the film were big movie stars then in their fifties: <b>Joan Crawford</b>, 58, and <b>John Ireland</b>, 50. Both stars had drinking problems and if anything looked older than their ages. It's stated a couple of times that John Ireland's character is, or looks like, around forty old, which is laughable, while Crawford, saddled with a horrendous beehive hairdo and some sort of costume jewelry collar contraption that looks like it was lifted from the Temple of Doom, is positively matronly. (Originally <b>Barbara Stanwyck</b> was supposed to play the role, which would have been more plausible, though Stanwyck was only a year younger than Crawford.) However, Joan and John still lend an air of needed seriousness to the film. </div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMyH7gLD_dmVQL1EAqfsq5gafYCcxOeq_lz_MSwOaSEyeeEG0ra0s3zpxGh6BgpcbvqCgK-lgfagPOeaHdN8OxrsT8UXzD-jY2tOqPeLf_6PB_q-RHp1ft5k_hBbxnd6GP89d7zYWdqw5DK-KDFthYq7zyWXDyMgp-5o05f4dW3YgWYxKCHFIDi3J54g/s884/IMG-2071.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="701" data-original-width="884" height="508" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMyH7gLD_dmVQL1EAqfsq5gafYCcxOeq_lz_MSwOaSEyeeEG0ra0s3zpxGh6BgpcbvqCgK-lgfagPOeaHdN8OxrsT8UXzD-jY2tOqPeLf_6PB_q-RHp1ft5k_hBbxnd6GP89d7zYWdqw5DK-KDFthYq7zyWXDyMgp-5o05f4dW3YgWYxKCHFIDi3J54g/w640-h508/IMG-2071.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Ireland can't figure it out either.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>Fifty-three year old actor <b>Leif Erickson</b> is in the film too, in the throwaway part of Libby's father, like Crawford and Ireland looking old for his age. The only other sizeable part belongs to nine-year-old <b>Sharyl Locke</b>, as Tess Mannering, Libby's baby sister. Libby's three brothers from the book, all have been expunged, surely a necessary move for cohrency's sake. However, little Sharyl does enough mugging for all of them. <br /><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo5r04vZyicKSuG5hTJZKYM27YHBC-KumyHFpg5WyyJ-YAbmwJPocIkO_bOwacgsmSMli8PXQuw58WGAAS5amsCfYi3Iw2Uruv_O3C1wVsymFHbh1XR3w-zzifHEuFKKmSVDe05Qr0kscaRom_Fiq2vLwZXtSYxKtMlte6oprfT3lM17CntpCjqiSlSA/s942/IMG-2072.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="942" data-original-width="753" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo5r04vZyicKSuG5hTJZKYM27YHBC-KumyHFpg5WyyJ-YAbmwJPocIkO_bOwacgsmSMli8PXQuw58WGAAS5amsCfYi3Iw2Uruv_O3C1wVsymFHbh1XR3w-zzifHEuFKKmSVDe05Qr0kscaRom_Fiq2vLwZXtSYxKtMlte6oprfT3lM17CntpCjqiSlSA/w320-h400/IMG-2072.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">more glamorous days<br />Joan Crawford and John Ireland in the <br />melodrama <b>Queen Bee</b>, from 1955</td></tr></tbody></table><div>For the film, it must be noted, is as schizophrenic as the book, if not more so. The teenage actresses have been much criticized as terrible, but I don't know that this is such a fair charge. Basically they are tasked with playing a pair of silly teenage girls and at that job I think they succeeded well enough. (Andi Garrett gets a bit goofy at times though.) </div><div><br /></div><div>The biggest problem I had with the film is the godawful silly sitcom music on the soundtrack, which made the film seem like more like a wacky episode of the contemporary "identical cousins" sitcom, <b>The Patty Duke Show</b>. The lightness of the portions with the kids doesn't blend well with the murderous goins-on among the adults, which, come to think of it, is a pretty fair translation of the book, only more so! </div><div><br /></div><div>In particular, the first murder--a blatant rip-off of <b>Alfred Hitchcock</b>'s infamous shower scene from<b> Psycho--</b>is quite violently presented and rather off kilter with much of the rest of the film. So, what's the first murder, you ask (if you haven't seen the film already)? Well, John Ireland, playing Steve Marak (Leonard Whelk in the book), knocks off his pretty young wife Judith (<b>Joyce Meadows</b>) in a rage because she is leaving him. When he gets a call from Libby, in the sexy guise of Suzette, telling him, <i>"I saw what you did....and I know who you are!</i>," he goes bananas of course. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQtTztZiB5AiK5TMX43ZkHTNvhQYJipsLUD8nEbmcqU8nAVrNK1F8Y30OVaHlIfr00g7E-Aba0AzK1dED9nS4r_f8D2rxg3BKoG-nNy_0QpWzfue-5jbUMWwWgXPxHHeM0j7eW1ffyTyRk3Sk9uKiyHsrN4TQvN3R1Vkq4rd-JZtvqLurcVk--h4C6fQ/s847/IMG-2065.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="639" data-original-width="847" height="482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQtTztZiB5AiK5TMX43ZkHTNvhQYJipsLUD8nEbmcqU8nAVrNK1F8Y30OVaHlIfr00g7E-Aba0AzK1dED9nS4r_f8D2rxg3BKoG-nNy_0QpWzfue-5jbUMWwWgXPxHHeM0j7eW1ffyTyRk3Sk9uKiyHsrN4TQvN3R1Vkq4rd-JZtvqLurcVk--h4C6fQ/w640-h482/IMG-2065.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div>Joan Crawford, who starred in William Castle's 1964 horror film <b>Strait-Jacket</b> (a much better flick), has been shoehorned into this film in the part of Amy Nelson, a seriously overdressed neighbor who has the hots for Steve and is always spying on him from her window. Amy comes up with the brilliant idea of blackmailing Steve, with her knowledge of the murder, into marrying her, which predictably only succeeds in prompting Steve to slay Amy too. Before Amy--okay, let's just say Joan, cause this is who Joan really is playing here--kicks the bucket, however, she has a great scene confronting Libby, who has come to get a gander at Steve (she thinks he sounds sexy on the phone), scolding and shoving her and denouncing her as a tramp. Why, if they had gotten Joan's daughter Christina to play Libby, Joan wouldn't have had to do any acting at all! </div><div><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw_5KrTxgMoH7lNUl9DHjXO3lfglHAiAbX1zrRugpytC1xqLxWThsBDOIbeplo3gbj4iTTUtGu5v2CiVBTavDGbWD4gJeUmjyOKPGtl3StpRSz2XD7f1JPlSGlZicEttDAqlzQJTg2AEXGyknXWghDNThNkzKfVXyt-bEgN0uPOiEQfT9g9qq2i7GwTA/s500/IMG-2066.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="500" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw_5KrTxgMoH7lNUl9DHjXO3lfglHAiAbX1zrRugpytC1xqLxWThsBDOIbeplo3gbj4iTTUtGu5v2CiVBTavDGbWD4gJeUmjyOKPGtl3StpRSz2XD7f1JPlSGlZicEttDAqlzQJTg2AEXGyknXWghDNThNkzKfVXyt-bEgN0uPOiEQfT9g9qq2i7GwTA/w400-h225/IMG-2066.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Get outa here, you tramp!"<br />the scariest thing in the film</td></tr></tbody></table><div>Apparently in real life, however, Joan got along with the teenagers just fine. It was the adult and sexy Joyce Meadows whom she felt threatened by and banned from the set. (Joan and John Ireland had had a fling during the filming of <b>Queen Bee</b> a decade earlier.)</div><div><br /></div><div>"Amy" really wasn't much of a part for Joan, in truth, but after <b>I Saw What You Did</b> all she would have left to do on film was two indifferent English horror flicks, <b>Berserk</b> (1967) and <b>Trog</b> (1970). The Oscar-nominated <b>Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?</b> in the end proved no career-saver for Joan. Soon we may take a look at the late career of Joan's arch-nemesis from <b>Baby Jane </b>(and real life), <b>Bette Davis</b>, and she how she fared!</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJV6-jIsZYE47OLahKSu-rkgjYdFdlzUxOJnxpGFKuBHrjO3Bt9ebOAmsdTmedNmPh9kSRtrXmDLaLI5RfxNX_E0jlnpzy0mq_L1pXuLB9zuMuQuJr1ParyCoWF-QvcT9aFihA5CdvL71cW5EhEjpnBqT0UlqQ6hHSFzQoTHkqzXjdcW-M_x45KTEyTw/s851/IMG-2067.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="643" data-original-width="851" height="484" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJV6-jIsZYE47OLahKSu-rkgjYdFdlzUxOJnxpGFKuBHrjO3Bt9ebOAmsdTmedNmPh9kSRtrXmDLaLI5RfxNX_E0jlnpzy0mq_L1pXuLB9zuMuQuJr1ParyCoWF-QvcT9aFihA5CdvL71cW5EhEjpnBqT0UlqQ6hHSFzQoTHkqzXjdcW-M_x45KTEyTw/w640-h484/IMG-2067.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Murder's nothing a nice little drinkie won't solve!</td></tr></tbody></table>The Passing Tramphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-50556055623734257782023-05-07T21:57:00.240-07:002023-05-09T18:03:25.309-07:00Cozy Sundays: "Fee Fie Ho Hum!" The Blood of an Englishman (2014), by MC Beaton<p>At the time of its publication, <b>The Blood of an Englishman</b> (2014) was advertised as something of an "event" in crime writer <b>MC Beaton</b>'s long-running Agatha Raisin mystery series, as it was the author's 25th book in the series. Only five more Raisins from the author's hand (ostensibly) followed it before her death at age 83 on the last day of 2019. The series has since continued under the hand of <b>R. W. Green</b> (a man, <b>Rod Green</b>), who has been described as a longtime friend of Beaton.</p><p>Personally, I suspect Mr. Green, not of having done it with the revolver in the billiard room, but of having helped in the writing of the last of the Beatons ostensibly produced by his benefactor, <b>Beating about the Bush</b>, published the year of her death, because to me it doesn't read quite like Beaton herself and it is a huge improvement on her previous two Raisins, <b>The Witch's Tree</b> (2017) and <b>The Dead Ringer </b>(2018), which are, to be brutally frank, two of the worst mysteries I have ever read. Sadly, they are practically unreadable, like <b>Agatha Christie</b>'s <b>Postern of Fate</b> (1973) without that novel's dotty, meandering charm. I haven't read the two Raisins which come between <b>Blood</b> and <b>Tree </b>(<b>Dishing the Dirt</b> and <b>Pushing up Daisies</b>), but <b>Blood</b> comes off like a work of sheer genius compared to <b>Tree</b> and <b>Ringer</b>, though in fact <b>Blood</b> is very much adulterated in my view.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmjEWli9G3lSndIeIngZbWnd1_z1NpoOUzvShYO6q2f6k3kbpypzknsdN6Z-VC3s6rhfaPfLepFjQDOWnw-uI2A3blp9Sm49Ppj1S5vG_z_Q_1sPBzc_STlHxlHH_kACN3DMCpebjOgHHVWhKHj-htq-1ktNUsvPAKiSG3J1-aowtpsB_Vq0Y4l2y6yA/s2025/beatonblood%20(2).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2025" data-original-width="1210" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmjEWli9G3lSndIeIngZbWnd1_z1NpoOUzvShYO6q2f6k3kbpypzknsdN6Z-VC3s6rhfaPfLepFjQDOWnw-uI2A3blp9Sm49Ppj1S5vG_z_Q_1sPBzc_STlHxlHH_kACN3DMCpebjOgHHVWhKHj-htq-1ktNUsvPAKiSG3J1-aowtpsB_Vq0Y4l2y6yA/w239-h400/beatonblood%20(2).jpg" width="239" /></a></div><p>When <b>The Blood of an Englishman</b> was published in 2014, the Agatha Raisin series had been in sharp decline for some time, since approximately 2008. The year before that, in the rather charming (if you like the series) <b>Kissing Christmas Goodbye</b> (2007), the eighteenth Raisin novel, Beaton had introduced Toni Gilmour, a young, beautiful sidekick for Agatha Raisin, who had graduated from amateur village snoop to licensed private detective in the fifteenth Raisin novel, <b>Agatha Raisin and the Deadly Dance</b> (2004). The first few PI Raisin books aren't bad, in my opinion, but the wheels start to come off the dead cart with <b>A Spoonful of Poison</b> (2008). I don't blame Toni for this but rather structural changes that Beaton made in the books at the time.</p><p>The books start to rely much more on barking mad murderers, the body counts rise to absurd levels, the plots become disjointed and chaotic, Agatha is put in more perils of her life than Pauline and there's this weird thing where the murderers get revealed early and then the last chunk of the novel concerns the murderer plotting, futilely of course, to kill Agatha, after which there is an epilogue introducing the setup in the next, apparently already written book. </p><p>Beaton's cast of longtime supporting characters continue to make appearances, but these appearances feel ever more rote. The charm of life in the Cotswolds village of Carsley, so well-depicted in the debut novel in the series <b>Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death</b> (1992) and others which followed it, is lost.</p><p>Indeed, after <b>Kissing Christmas Goodbye</b>, the lone bright spot in the series for me has been <b>Something Borrowed, Someone Dead</b> (2013), which immediately preceded <b>The Blood of an Englishman</b>. Although it shares the same narrative structure of the later Raisins, <b>Borrowed</b> benefits from a better plot and choice of murderer. But let's look in more detail at <b>Blood</b> below, shall we? Following this list of the Raisin novels, provided so that you can better follow what I have been saying, along with my ratings of them. (Imagine they are raisins rather than stars.)</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death 1992 ****</b></p><p><b>Agatha Raisin [hereafter AR] and the Vicious Vet 1993 ***</b></p><p><b>AR and the Potted Gardener 1994 ***</b></p><p><b>AR and the Walkers of Dembley 1995 ***</b></p><p><b>AR and the Murderous Marriage 1996 ***</b></p><p><b>AR and the Terrible Tourist 1997 ***</b></p><p><b>AR and the Wellspring of Death 1998 ***</b></p><p><b>AR and the Wizard of Evesham 1999 ***</b></p><p><b>AR and the Witch of Wyckhadden 1999 **</b></p><p><b>AR and the Fairies of Fryfam 2000 ****</b></p><p><b>AR and the Love from Hell 2001 ****</b></p><p><b>AR and the Day the Floods Came 2002 ***</b></p><p><b>AR and the Curious Curate 2003 ****</b></p><p><b>AR and the Haunted House 2003 ***</b></p><p><b>AR and the Deadly Dance 2004 ****</b></p><p><b>AR and the Perfect Paragon 2005 ***</b></p><p><b>Love, Lies and Liquor 2006 ***</b></p><p><b>Kissing Christmas Goodbye 2007 ***</b></p><p><b>A Spoonful of Poison 2008 **</b></p><p><b>There Goes the Bride 2009 *</b></p><p><b>The Busy Body 2010 -</b></p><p><b>As the Pig Turns 2011 *</b></p><p><b>Hiss and Hers 2012 *</b></p><p><b>Something Borrowed, Someone Dead 2013 ***</b></p><p><b>The Blood of an Englishman 2014 **</b></p><p><b>Dishing the Dirt 2015 -</b></p><p><b>Pushing up Daisies 2016 -</b></p><p><b>The Witch's Tree 2017 NONE</b></p><p><b>The Dead Ringer 2018 NONE</b></p><p><b>Beating about the Bush 2019 (with R. W. Green?) -</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6fLX1QIQaI5QOhIhQOPGPL8u0WM_CuqR1PPBJDRfnOTCa26EbXflcLmO_KmtKN8zUf8_UjxmQkGzvx1OHW6IcLS_Xfs9L7NqduLZsEkCwWGlG2E77b-npdt4mS6Te4AxCPwcAbm83jUfU_wIRt43HPBtgiwCXF_Qggckox1cBw9YSFglEhZUNoDQlnQ/s500/beatonbloodeng.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="310" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6fLX1QIQaI5QOhIhQOPGPL8u0WM_CuqR1PPBJDRfnOTCa26EbXflcLmO_KmtKN8zUf8_UjxmQkGzvx1OHW6IcLS_Xfs9L7NqduLZsEkCwWGlG2E77b-npdt4mS6Te4AxCPwcAbm83jUfU_wIRt43HPBtgiwCXF_Qggckox1cBw9YSFglEhZUNoDQlnQ/w248-h400/beatonbloodeng.jpg" width="248" /></a></div><p>In <b>Blood</b>, Agatha attends a pantomime of <b>Babes in the Wood </b>(mashed up with <b>Mother Goose</b>, <b>Jack and the Beanstalk</b> and other tales) in the nearby village of Winter Parva with her saintly friend and moral mentor (to the extent this is possible with Agatha), Mrs. Bloxley, the wife of the rather less patient and forbearing vicar of Carsley, improbably named (as Agatha herself thinks) Alf. When the man playing the ogre, bullying baker Bert Simple, is eviscerated by a metal spike when exiting the stage via a trapdoor drop, Agatha is hired by the play producer, Gareth Craven, to find the depraved culprit. Agatha is not notably successful in this endeavor (to be fair, neither are the police), for it's not long before, after a performance of <b>The Mikado</b>, another actor is decapitated with the (real) sword of the Lord High Executioner.</p><p>Why do they call these books cozies again? These are very unpleasant killings (and there's another one, which I can't divulge, which is even worse). Even Mrs. Bloxley doesn't mince words (well, not much) in reference to the neutering of Bert Simple, commenting that the villain "<i>plotted not only to kill him but to destroy his manhood in the process.</i>" Nice to know that cozies can encompass emasculation and decapitation and--well, I can't mention the other thing. With some tonal shifts this book could have been written by <b>Jo Nesbo</b>!</p><p><b>Blood</b> has a lot of the flaws characteristic to the late Raisins, including the sidelining of a great many of the series' longtime supporting cast members and an overemphasis on Agatha's dysfunctional love life, or more accurately lust life. Anyone reading many of these books must surely start to wonder how much MC Beaton actually liked women. So many of them, including Agatha herself, are messes, hot and cold.</p><p>Aside from the fact that Agatha Raisin, in the depiction of whom the author said she drew upon herself, repeatedly denounces feminism for ruining romantic relationships between the sexes, there's the fact that Agatha is such a basket case in her relationships with men. In Book 5 her marriage ceremony to her handsome neighbor James Lacey, a Jane Austen hero with the stodginess and emotional repression dialed up to 99, is interrupted when her long lost (and conveniently assumed dead) husband Jimmy shows up, then in Book 11, when Agatha and James finally do marry, the union is a train wreck that lasts out only this one novel. </p><p>There are other men whom Agatha gets interested in and even sleeps with over the course of the series, including charming if rakish aristocrat Sir Charles Fraith, but usually they turn out to be utter scoundrels. Still over and over Agatha falls head over high heels (she hates flats) in love with any handsome man she meets. No wonder in <b>Blood</b>, her friend with occasional benefits Sir Charles thinks: "<i>It would be hopeless being married to her....He would never be able to trust her. Agatha would always be one woman looking for an obsession.</i>"</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqXTO1QfSR_qBz45xFktazsHO3U3uL9VicCY5g00u4OtcWtafeGlbQ31NNQgsrHykXjriqGbgW-3IPLxtrep_rqEmptnmykKHnFbOCALchbrWE1vF4UOuUwKyINxGmg1jlk5UCsIJHhppzUx_pSNBRIFDc7206YZPBsbzbo8DoIsyYycdZH_rjJTpIng/s800/beatonmatt%20(2).jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqXTO1QfSR_qBz45xFktazsHO3U3uL9VicCY5g00u4OtcWtafeGlbQ31NNQgsrHykXjriqGbgW-3IPLxtrep_rqEmptnmykKHnFbOCALchbrWE1vF4UOuUwKyINxGmg1jlk5UCsIJHhppzUx_pSNBRIFDc7206YZPBsbzbo8DoIsyYycdZH_rjJTpIng/w320-h240/beatonmatt%20(2).jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"<i>If I were only fifty years younger!</i>"<br /><b>MC Beaton</b> tweeted this sentiment<br /> in 2017 concerning this pic of herself<br />and scrumptious actor <b>Matt McCooey</b>, <br />who plays cop kindhearted Bill Wong,<br />Agatha's first friend by her own admission, <br />in the Agatha Raisin television series</td></tr></tbody></table><p>When I started this series I had a notion that Agatha, she of the breakfasts of back coffee and cigarettes and the perpetual gins and tonics, was some sort of tough feminist icon, but she's really nothing of the sort, even though she's a highly successful, frequently ribald, retired PR executive. Her neuroses. mostly over men and her appearance but also concerning her lower class social origins, pull her down constantly. She does have her genuine feminist, girl power moments, like when she storms the woman-averse pub in <b>Fairies of Fryfam</b>, one of the best books in the series, but all is canceled out with her desperate man chasing and pathetic obsession with her looks. </p><p>I recall there was a woman character in a satirical meta episode of the American sitcom <b>Newhart</b>, the horny middle-aged single woman neighbor, who was introduced as "<i>Man-crazy Smitty.</i>" Well, that's Agatha to a "T." Despite all her professional successes she just can't get along without a man in her life. She even goes about with her ambiguously gay "toy boy" pal from the City, Roy Silver, when no other man is available, pale and weedy and effeminate as Roy is invariably described.</p><p>In <b>Blood </b>Agatha gets smitten with handsome men four (!) times, though in the one case the passion is somewhat lukewarm because the man has a weak chin, that bane of Golden Age crime fiction, at least as far as men were concerned. (Conversely with women <i>strong</i> chins were problems.) </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8AD3pEoUpelsPGNqoeO05PU0Hm3B6QsmHbwCLT70vueFQLmPw2gkqtzhyI5l09x_5ehCO-Z4X0PzzFQgpJmOziVe_Xe0EzWmBMAC-v8J7qdLBSOwbAvm2FZLaSAZNQlvRrv8cdFA4euAdhHMdPE0sr6U5aY0301hm0CPvBpkS16E2DXXqOvqLEH3Gbw/s247/eltonjohnstill.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="247" data-original-width="204" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8AD3pEoUpelsPGNqoeO05PU0Hm3B6QsmHbwCLT70vueFQLmPw2gkqtzhyI5l09x_5ehCO-Z4X0PzzFQgpJmOziVe_Xe0EzWmBMAC-v8J7qdLBSOwbAvm2FZLaSAZNQlvRrv8cdFA4euAdhHMdPE0sr6U5aY0301hm0CPvBpkS16E2DXXqOvqLEH3Gbw/w264-h320/eltonjohnstill.jpg" width="264" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">just your typical gay shindig</td></tr></tbody></table><p>In another case, the man sadly turns out to be gay, a fact to which Agatha tumbles when he invites her to a party he has thrown where the parking attendant is wearing a "<i>hat, black leather thong and nothing else.</i>" I'm guessing Beaton got her notion of this little shindig from watching <b>Elton John</b>'s forty year old "<b>I'm Still Standing</b>" video. </p><p>There at least is some relationship to the plot in all but one of these cases, but at this point in the series I just find Agatha's obtuseness in regard to men and her low self-esteem not sympathetic but simply exasperating. She's like the Bill Murray character in the Nineties romantic comedy <b>Groundhog Day</b>, had he never learned anything whatsoever from repeating the same day over and over again. </p><p>Was the author herself really anything like this? If so I think I can see how she ended up handing off authorship of the series (and the Hamish Macbeth one too)not to anoither woman writer but to a ruggedly handsome male friend--no toy boy he--named Rod. She strikes me as rather a man's woman.</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy-LrxGRFb1AN-yWTQ5e1xEOtvst5JFLXl-1sYRgU6Ox9e2Hrv4AiPULLYq_r09SBnT-0qIXteVlZHU0hpSH1F3RVJMWxqxbXEQToj3zjb4hnVb5gdW-cMAuex3VNwQ5PTAglrc85w3EEdveeKlyddpI3zRmHk0ync-CQ8uhGiUd-kukLi3W9kC4blVw/s253/rodgreen.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="253" data-original-width="199" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy-LrxGRFb1AN-yWTQ5e1xEOtvst5JFLXl-1sYRgU6Ox9e2Hrv4AiPULLYq_r09SBnT-0qIXteVlZHU0hpSH1F3RVJMWxqxbXEQToj3zjb4hnVb5gdW-cMAuex3VNwQ5PTAglrc85w3EEdveeKlyddpI3zRmHk0ync-CQ8uhGiUd-kukLi3W9kC4blVw/w252-h320/rodgreen.jpg" width="252" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rod Green</td></tr></tbody></table><p>The plot in <b>Blood</b> isn't bad, actually. The climax, which occurs when a fifth of the book yet remains, is actually intriguing, though it's stolen from another, rather famous crime source. (Let's call it an homage, since the source is actually mentioned in the book.) </p><p>Unfortunately, everything then is dragged out as the murderer pursues Agatha, even abducting her a <i>second</i> time and trying to kill her by throwing her in a river while confined in a barrel. (It really is very <b>Perils of Pauline</b>.) By my count this is only a 60,000 word novel, but at least 10,000 words could have been profitably cut from it. </p><p>Agatha's great days in book form were the fifteen years between 1992 and 2007, when you could still hold out hope that Agatha might come to her senses about men. Really, she and Charles, who latterly carried the series on his nattily-clad, aristocratic shoulders (Mrs. Bloxby and Roy help), should have married after <b>Love, Lies and Liquor</b>, by which time any fan of the series should have wanted to see James Lacey get his richly deserved comeuppance. <br /><br />The popular ongoing television adaptation of the Agatha Raisin novels makes the characters more likeable generally, including Roy Silver, James Lacey and, most crucially, Agatha herself. The TV series is genuinely warm and cozy, <b>Sex and the City</b>-ish gay sex jokes notwithstanding. That the Agatha Raisin novels are "cozy" is something I have to question. The tea has a lot of gin in it, and the saucer is littered with stubbed-out cigarettes.</p>The Passing Tramphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.com6