Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Gone West: The Norths Meet Murder (1940), by Richard and Frances Lockridge

Richard Orson Lockridge (1898-1982) was born in St. Joseph, Missouri. He entered journalism and in 1923 settled in New York to work with the New York Sun; he became the newspaper's drama critic in 1928. In 1932 he published Darling of Misfortune, a biography of actor Edwin Booth, brother of the infamous presidential assassin John Wilkes Booth.

In the 1930s Lockridge created the New York socialite characters Mr. and Mrs. North for a droll series of New Yorker sketches, some of which were collected in the book Mr. and Mrs. North in 1936. When his wife, Frances Louisa (Davis) Lockridge, conceived a plot for a mystery novel, Richard, who would do the actual writing of the Lockridge mysteries, placed the Norths, Jerry and Pam, into the book.  As Frances Lockridge pithily put it, "I think up interesting characters, and Dick kills them off."  The Norths stayed alive and kicking in Lockridge mysteries for nearly a quarter century, however.

the Lockridges plot murder while a fan looks on

The Lockridges published 26 mysteries with the Norths between 1940 and 1963, the year Frances Lockridge died (they also published crime novels without the Norths and Lockridge continued to publish North-less crime novels after his wife's death). Especially in the 1940s the North mysteries were quite well-received (New York Times mystery critic Anthony Boucher was a great fan).

The Norths make a gruesome discovery
in Mr. and Mrs. North Meet Murder
(aka The Norths Meet Murder)
In the first North mystery, The Norths Meet Murder (the publication year customarily given as 1940, though my paperback edition gives the first printing as December 1939), the Lockridges introduced not only the Norths, but the recurring character Lieutenant Weigand (known to his underlings on the force, like Detective Mullins, as "Loot"), who "doesn't seem like a policeman" to the Norths and their society friends (he's too much like them, don't you know).

The Norths start off their career as a mystery fiction couple in classic fashion, finding a man's naked, battered body in a bathtub in the empty top floor apartment of the Greenwich Village brownstone where they live. This discovery brings Weigand and Mullins into their lives. Soon Weigand, through some clever police work, identifies the corpse as one of the North's own social set! And the Norths are suspects!!

I often see the North mysteries described as "zany," but I did not find The Norths Meet Murder so. Much of the book is devoted to the investigations of Weigand, and these parts of the novel feel much more like a police procedural than a "madcap" mystery. The Norths pop in and out and they (well, mostly Pam) play an important part in the novel's denouement, but they don't behave especially zanily, in my view--though, to be sure, they drink a lot of cocktails and Pam displays a positive penchant for seeming non sequiturs!

I enjoyed the book, although I early on tagged the culprit, based merely on what you might call general mystery fiction principles. Still, there's a clever alibi problem and a pleasingly-portrayed NYC milieu; and I plan to read additional Lockridge tales in the future.

10 comments:

  1. I've been reading the North novels in order. My most recent one is Death of a Tall Man (1949). They're enjoyable enough. I like the New York society milieu, but I find that too much time is spent speculating on differing theories of whodunit. Pam and Jerry and Lt. Weigand and Mullins get together and run through all their theories of who the criminal might be. This does not make for great story telling. I also find Mullins to be the stereotypical dumb cop. I believe Jerry North even describes him in the first book as "right out of central casting." I'd like to be able to ask the Lockridges, if you knew that why didn't you make him more unusual and interesting?

    I find myself comparing the Lockridges novels to Helen Reilly's. They're set pretty much in the same world but Reilly's characters are usually far more interesting. Her plots certainly are.

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  2. There does indeed seem to be a similarity to Helen Reilly, Mark. What are your favorites by Reilly? I liked the Norths book, but I wouldn't call it compulsive reading. However, I'm interested in looking at some additional ones, as there were definitely good points.

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    1. It's hard to pick a favorite. Much as I like them they tend to run together in my memory. I suppose McKee of Centre Street would make a list of favorites though. That was the first one I read. The ones from the thirties and the fifties and sixties tend to be better than those from the forties. That's just a general rule, however.

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  3. I had the same reaction as you did, althought it was to A PINCH OF POISON. I was surprised at how small a part they really paid in the actual plot. In fact, if I had not been told that it was about Mr and Mrs North, I might have assumed that Weigand was the main character. Are they all like this?

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    1. Yeah, the next couple in the series have a lot about Weigand and his wife-to-be. Very Lord Peterish! I would say in the first one Weigand is the main character.

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  4. I don't think I've read this one, P.T. Though I suspect I probably read all the Mr. and Mrs. Norths once upon a time. I also remember being a fan of the television series.

    Not a heavyweight series of books, but still entertaining. I recently read a couple - they're listed on my Books Read This Year List. MURDER BY THE BOOK and MURDER IS SUGGESTED. Liked them both.

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  5. Well, unlike Yvette I couldn't stand the TV show. There is a DVD set of nine volumes of the entire two seasons out there, but I don't recommend any of them even for the mildly curious. Richard Denning is amiable enough actor as Jerry North (can't remember who played Pam) but the two or three shows I watched from season one were inept as mysteries. And since they come form the early days of TV the shows are lacking in high quality production values, have flubs still intact, obvious examples of actors reading from cue cards, and some atrocious rudimentary "acting" from the supporting players. Later in the series seasoned guest stars like Isabel Jewell, Raymond Burr and Jack Elam would turn up but I didn't see any of those. Maybe they're the better episodes. Oddly, *none* of the episodes were based on the books! I have one Lockridge novel with the Norths (MURDER WITHIN MURDER) that I'm hoping to get to in September. With my luck that's one of the books you will be planning to write about. Am I right, Curt?

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    1. John, I have that one, but actually was thinking of reading them in order. So you should be safe!

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  6. I've only read one of the series (DEATH IN THE AISLE) and enjoyed it without dinding it especially memorable but do want to try another as I know there is a lot of affection for them out there, though they undeniably seem very Thin Man-ish (sic). Great review Curt, thanks.

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    1. Thanks, Sergio, I read your review and found it interesting. I do like PQ better, but am interested in looking at some more Lockridges, at least from the 1940s.

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