tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post4762239485232467086..comments2024-03-28T10:31:55.774-07:00Comments on The Passing Tramp: Reefs: The Lesser Antilles Case (1934), by Rufus KingThe Passing Tramphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-12067478775951983912013-04-14T16:59:40.781-07:002013-04-14T16:59:40.781-07:00Dear gentlemen, John and Passing Tramp,
I am thr...Dear gentlemen, John and Passing Tramp,<br /> I am thrilled to be reading in your blogs about Rufus. He was a dear family friend, and I can remember him saying, while laughing heartily, a propos of Murder on the Yacht, that he had a letter from a reader saying, "You're a damn fool -- you have that yacht in the middle of Texas." This was a reference to a latitude and longitude given in the story.<br /> Rufus was a Yalie, a few years younger than my father. His world was that of the affluent East Coast establishment, -- and he loved to write about gangsters and relished their lingo! A good example of this combo can be found in The Deadly Dove. I am a murder mystery fan, and still find that Rufus's plots are fantastically original.<br /> I have several of his books, inscribed, and one of them to my mother has the following inscription. (She, knowing him, had said, "Now Rufus, please write something I can show to my dignified friends.") So he wrote, "For Jane, to show to her dignified friends, with love to her and nuts to them."<br /> JaneC.janechttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01868738482719162013noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-26922886568034866232012-09-05T05:19:35.748-07:002012-09-05T05:19:35.748-07:00If I remember correctly, Rufus King was radio oper...If I remember correctly, Rufus King was radio operator during the First World War. This explains his knowledge of life on ships.<br />Pietro De Palmahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06051060020493340331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-66287630848813262822012-09-04T16:53:58.192-07:002012-09-04T16:53:58.192-07:00That's interesting, Pietro, I haven't read...That's interesting, Pietro, I haven't read all the Latimers so didn't know that.<br /><br />I'm wondering just how many of the King books involved sailing, seems like a large number.The Passing Tramphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-7681559592724090812012-09-04T16:52:28.937-07:002012-09-04T16:52:28.937-07:00I thought it was a great point, but worried it rev...I thought it was a great point, but worried it revealed too much of the murder method. People always tell me they hate the spoilers. Sometimes I feel I don't give enough detail in blog reviews because I've become so spoiler-phobic!The Passing Tramphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-76305470559786171582012-09-04T16:51:00.090-07:002012-09-04T16:51:00.090-07:00Look forward to it, John! I will leave off King fo...Look forward to it, John! I will leave off King for a bit (I've now blogged three of the eleven Valcours!). Anyway, I've still got nearly 300 pages of an Ian Rankin book to finish (oh, these long modern crime novels!).The Passing Tramphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-49707172251749982012012-09-04T16:42:07.898-07:002012-09-04T16:42:07.898-07:00I got MURDER BY LATITUDE in the mail last week -- ...I got MURDER BY LATITUDE in the mail last week -- purchased because of your rave -- (don't you wish you got kickbacks from the online booksellers? I do!) but wanted to read LESSER ANTILLES... first since I thought perhaps you hadn't realized it was one of the maritime books. I was hoping I might sneak in a review before you. My psychic powers failed me obviously. And I was in Florida for Labor Day weekend so I hadn't a chance to write anything. I have MURDER MASKS MIAMI, I think the last in his sea/shipbound detective novels of the 1930s and will be reading that fairly soon. I'll see what I can unearth about King and his work that you haven't already dug up. He's one of my favorite discoveries this year and I've enjoyed reading your posts on him.J F Norrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06473487417479127354noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-361105232374845132012-09-04T16:30:45.837-07:002012-09-04T16:30:45.837-07:00I thought perhaps I went too far. No offense taken...I thought perhaps I went too far. No offense taken. A lot of people think I write spoiler ridden reviews and have told me outright they skim most of what I post on my blog. Oh well.J F Norrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06473487417479127354noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-5417164175717502472012-09-04T15:47:46.569-07:002012-09-04T15:47:46.569-07:00At a long article I wrote two years ago for Mondad...At a long article I wrote two years ago for Mondadori Blog in Italy, I plugged the story of the diver in The Lesser Antilles Case, to "Headed for a Hearse" by Jonathan Latimer, which uses a diver to retrieve the gun. Latimer's novel was written a year after that of Rufus King. Nothing remains that he could have used that reference to his novel. Moreover Latimer was a great re-user of subject of others. But it does not end here. The character of the diver is in another Rufus King novel "seafaring", Holiday Homicide, a novel that looks at Rex Stout. It seems that, in turn, Rufus King has used the subject of Latimer, because the diver "locates" at the bottom of the sea a gun, which is rather the bluff which diverts police attention from the real object that the diver brings up .<br /><br />Pietro<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-61696244358564313462012-09-04T12:06:24.887-07:002012-09-04T12:06:24.887-07:00John,
I deleted your comment because of what I t...John, <br /><br />I deleted your comment because of what I thought was something of a spoiler and copied it, minus the spoiler, above. Hope that's okay! When I did my Humdrums book I went through the whole thing posting spoiler warnings for the final draft!<br /><br />I thought the poisoning very clever and it did remind me of Rhode and also another author.<br /><br />I thought the diver was a great character and was going top quote a bit from that chapter, but got lazy! I liked King's portrayal of the relations between the upper and lower classes in the 1930s.<br /><br />Murder by Latitude seemed to me to have really strong gay subtext (Mike Grost thinks so too and calls it King's "tragic gay novel," as opposed to his humorous one, Murder Masks Miami). Antilles seemed not nearly as striking to me in that regard, though he certainly does have acid tongued characters! Like I said in my first piece on King, I suspect he's one of the lost gay mystery writers from the 1930s. <br /><br />I hope you do somethign on King. I need to leave off his books here for a while, but was really enjoying them. He's a great find, although some of his others books that I had read earlier I hadn't liked as much as these maritime ones.<br /><br />Thanks for the comment, appreciated as ever.The Passing Tramphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-32455285162821480632012-09-04T11:56:52.167-07:002012-09-04T11:56:52.167-07:00John said:
Just read this and was going to do a J...John said:<br /><br />Just read this and was going to do a John Rhode analogy in my review. The poisoning bit is right out of a Rhode novel, don't you think?...Not as odd as VEGETABLE DUCK, though.<br /><br />I liked the diving sequence and the suicidally desperate diver who takes the job to locate the wrecked yacht. Lillian Ash, the numerologist is another of his unusual female characters. She was one of the best parts of the book, IMO. Aunt Helen was another of the matrons who seem to be a sort of King staple the more I read his early books.<br /><br />Though there may be no "gay subtext" the women are the stronger characters here and the dialog has a tendency to get acid tongued and a bit bitchy. That's pretty close for me. The Passing Tramphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-137677673775151256.post-80925264568041174272012-09-04T10:47:39.812-07:002012-09-04T10:47:39.812-07:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.J F Norrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06473487417479127354noreply@blogger.com