Philo Vance/Needs a kick in the pance....

a pretentious upper class doofus?

So said Ogden Nash, famously, of S. S. Van Dine's (Willard Huntington Wright) affected American gentleman detective, Philo Vance, who once was hugely popular in the United States in the 1920s, where The Greene Murder Case (1928) and The Bishop Murder Case (1929) were bestsellers.

Nevertheless, lots of people couldn't and can't stand Vance, as the Ogden Nash couplet suggests.  One of Dashiell Hammett's most famous book reviews is devoted to ridiculing the original Philo Vance outing, The Benson Murder Case (1926).

Over at the Thrilling Detective website, Vance is rather bluntly referred to as a pretentious upper class doofus and a pompous blowhard.

Granted, Thrilling Detective is partial to hard-boiled private eyes, pretty much the antithesis of Vance, but even Golden Age true crime writer Edmund Pearson, a great admirer of "classic crime," couldn't take Philo.

This is a pretty amusingly-written take-down by Pearson, I think:

The author [of The Canary Murder Case] seems to be enormously pleased with the mannerisms and peculiarities of his amateur detective, Philo Vance.  As Vance is represented as a Harvard man (who has later studied at Oxford and lived in England) I can only understand his creator's animus on the ground that Mr. "Van Dine" is a graduate of Princeton, seeking revenge.  Vance is very nearly the most insufferable ass whom I have ever met in the pages of a novel.  Any man who met him in a club would instantly get up and seek refuge in another room.  He is a dilettante, a flaneur, a poseur, a viveur, and if you can think of any other foreign terms, he is all of them to boot.  He talks like a high school girl during her first year in studying French [Hammett made this charge too]....Surely the author could have suggested this type of man without overloading his conversation with foreign phrases and perpetual airy references to various learned matters.

On the plus side for Van Dine, however, Pearson declares that the "irritating personality of Vance is almost the only weak point in the book."  And judging by the sales of The Canary Murder Case in 1927, plenty of people agreed with him about the quality of the novel!

Who Killed Charmian Karslake? Revisited

Here is the dust jacket to the American edition of Annie Haynes' Who Killed Charmian Karslake? (1930), recently reviewed here.

On the back panel of the jacket Dodd, Mead urges its readers to

Watch for books this Spring by the following well-known authors:

AGATHA CHRISTIE
R. AUSTIN FREEMAN
G. K. CHESTERTON
BRUCE GRAEME
ANTHONY GILBERT
ARTHUR J. REES
J. A. FERGUSON
JOHN RHODE

How many of these authors have you read?  It's interesting that not one is American (all are British).  And only two women (yes, one of the "men" was a woman who used a male pseudonym).  Dodd, Mead did not have much in the way of American series mystery authors at the time (though there was Charles J. Dutton, reviewed by blogger John Norris here, a certain individual named Sinclair Gluck, and a new Dodd, Mead writer named Carl Clausen, who though born in Denmark, lived in the United States).

On the front flap, Haynes' earlier The Crow's Inn Tragedy is praised "for its realistic background and its skillful plot, two necessary qualities of a good detective story."  On the back flap John Rhode's (John Street's) Peril at Cranbury Hall is blurbed.  "Among the present-day writers of detective stories," declares Dodd, Mead, "John Rhode stands in the front rank."

In Masters of the "Humdrum" Mystery, I write about John Street's relationship with Dodd, Mead, having had access to his correspondence with the publisher.  I think it's very interesting material.

Let's hope that one day John Rhode's literary agency will allow him to be (legally) reprinted! It would be nice, for that matter, to reprint Annie Haynes, who died way back in 1929 and hasn't been reprinted in over eighty years and is quite collectible.

One more thing for now: Here's a blog interview I did with Pietro De Palma, over at his blog, Death Can Read.  See also this interview with Rich Westwood at Past Offences, if you haven't already!

Time to Change Hats (1945), by Margot Bennett Part 1

Margot Bennett (1912-1980)

Margot Bennett isn't really a Golden Age detective novelist, unless we extend the period from its traditional cutoff of 1939/40 to the end of World War Two or, better yet, the early 1950s.  She published two detective novels in the aftermath of World War Two, Time to Change Hats (1945) and Away Went the Little Fish (1946), followed by The Widow of Bath (1952), The Man Who Didn't Fly (1955) and Someone from the Past (1958), which won the Golden Dagger from the Crime Writers Association (earlier The Man Who Didn't Fly had been shortlisted by the CWA--in both CWA actions, I detect the fine hand of Julian Symons, who was a great fan of Bennett's later fiction). Two other Bennett novels, The Golden Pebble (1948) and Farewell Crown and Goodbye King (1952) are more in the nature of being thrillers, I believe.

Margot Bennett's debut detective novel, Time to Change Hats, which introduces series detective John Davies (who also appears in Away Went the Little Fish) is a highly discursive English rural comedy of murders that is quite reminiscent, I think, of Edmund Crispin's detective fiction in the same period.  At the same time there's a genuine mystery puzzle at the heart of the tale.  I'm finding it an entertaining though slow-moving tale, rather long at over 110,000 words. Tomorrow I hope to have a full review up, wherein /I render a final verdict.  In the meantime, enjoy Martin Edwards' piece on Bennett over at his blog.

Who Killed Charmian Karslake? (1929), by Annie Haynes Part Two

The murder of Charmian Karslake, a celebrated American stage actress, occurs during a house party at Hepton Abbey, near Hepton, a village located in England somewhere near Wales (I'm thinking Shropshire, lads).

Hepton is the "quaintest of old villages," and to the typical villagers the Penn-Morton family, the ancestral owners of Hepton Abbey, represent "the ruling class, all that they knew of rank, or wealth, or culture....[T]he King and Queen were higher, but then the King and Queen did not come in the way of the Heptonians. Sir Arthur and Lady Penn-Moreton were enough."

Charmian Karslake is shot in her locked bedroom at Hepton Abbey (apparently no one heard the shot, though this matter is passed over by the police) and her famous sapphire necklace has disappeared. Soon Scotland Yard Inspector Stoddart is on the scene, along with his mysterious...assistant? colleague?, Mr. Alfred Harbord.

I have to admit that I was confused by Harboard's exact position in the police.  He appears with Inspector Stoddart in at least four of the dozen Haynes novels, The Man with the Dark Beard (1928), The Crime at Tattenham Corner (1929), Who Killed Charmian Karslake? (1929) and The Crystal Beads Murder (1930)--maybe his exact position is better explained in one of those books!*

*(another police detective, Inspector Furnival, is the sleuth in Haynes' earlier The Abbey Court Murder, 1923, and The House in Charlton Crescent (1926) and The Crow's Inn Tragedy, 1927)

Stoddart is an appealing British copper, of the solid Inspector French school of Freeman Wills Crofts, a tremendously popular British detective novelist in the 1920s.  No scintillatin' gentleman amateur detectives here, although Dicky Penn-Moreton certainly talks like one, eh, what?

Potential suspects in Charmian Karslake's murder are Sir Arthur Penn-Moreton and his wife Vita; Dicky Penn-Moreton and his wife Sadie, daughter of Silas P. Juggs, American millionaire (canned soup); and brilliant barrister John Larpent and his fiancee, Paula Galbraith.  And of course there are a couple servants to consider, Charmian's French maid, Celeste ("she knew the value of her smiles too well to be prodigal of them"), and the Hepton Abbey butler, Mr. Brook ("like Homocea, always on the spot").

Most of the novel consists of engrossing delving by Stoddart and Harboard into Charmian Karslake's personal history.  Interestingly, while Haynes' country house denizens are a gallery of country house cliches (although amusing ones), Haynes' shopkeepers, workmen and show people are more substantive.  I especially liked the the music hall performer Tottie Villers, who I suspect Haynes based on the infamous Dr. Crippen's slain wife, Cora (aka Belle Elmore).  The Crippen case is referenced in the novel, along with the Thompson-Bywaters murder (1922).

Surprisingly, an occasional sentiment antagonistic to the upper classes appears in the novel.  Former Heptonians tell Stoddart "I have no use for such a place as Hepton with its petty class restrictions" and "Many's an errand I've done for 'em [the Penn-Moretons] and had a copper chucked to me like as if I was a dog."  There's a bitterness to that last comment that has a ring of historical truth.

Overall, however, Who Killed Charmian Karslake? is very much a British country house mystery in the classic mold.  The plot does not have the technical dexterity of the Humdrums nor the sheer ingenuity of a Christie, but I found the narrative fast-paced and enjoyable.  Haynes even manages something of a surprise ending, although I felt some plot strands were left dangling (for example, there's the matter of that locked room....).

I think fans of the British cozy should enjoy this one and that it thus merits reprinting.  As Dicky Penn-Moreton noted over his breakfast bacon and kidneys, British balls can bring on sticky wickets; but, gracious me, for the classical mystery fan these deadly country house kerfuffles can make most enjoyable reading.

"If You Will Give Balls You Have To Put Up With The Aftermath" Who Killed Charmian Karslake? (1929), by Annie Haynes

"Beastly mess the place seems to be in," grumbled Sit Arthur Penn-Moreton," looking round the room with a disgusted air.

"Well, if you will give balls you have to put up with the aftermath," said Dicky, his younger brother, screwing his monocle in his left eye as he spoke.

--Who Killed Charmian Karslake? (1929)

And at a country house too!
The nerve of the miscreant!

The monocled Dicky's utterance of these supremely fatuous and presumably inadvertently double entendre-ish words, while he is "seated at the table devouring kidneys and bacon with apparent relish," inspired Bill Pronzini to include the above quotation in Gun in Cheek, his survey of bad mystery fiction. It's a classic utterance, indeed.

Yet I didn't find Charmian Karslake a bad book, despite what might be termed the Dickyisms.  In the spirit of Gun in Cheek, I will note some other amusing comments of that order:

"This affair has got to be probed to the very bottom.  That a woman should be murdered in my house and the assassin go unpunished is unthinkable." (apparently it's open season on the men).

"How many people have you staying in the house now, Sir Arthur?"
Sir John looked surprised.  "Only my brother and sister-in-law, Mr. John Larpent and Miss Paula Galbraith. And the usual servants, of course." (oh, yeah, them)

"I tell you, sir, we United States men will not stand it.  This last affair is about the limit and we shall know how to avenge it.  Guess we aren't too proud to fight when it is a question of our women. Guess we shall make your government look alive." (Silas P. Juggs, 100% All-American)

"Just the man we wanted to see. You are a good old thing, Brook. Like Homocea, always on the spot, don't you know.  Now it's just a tot of whiskey and soda that we are after." (yes, it's Dicky again--this actually is not a bad joke, Homocea having been a Victorian-era patent medicine with this motto: "HOMOCEA touches the spot")

So, we have old money gentry; a desperately American American millionaire, canned soup king Silas P. Juggs; murder; a stolen gem with a history of death; lovers divided; a dignified butler, Brooks; and a scheming French maid, Celestine.

Annie Haynes clearly aimed squarely at the country house mystery subgenre with Who Killed Charmian Karslake?  How did she succeed?

More coming in part 2.

Lost Ladies of Mystery Fiction: Annie Haynes, Who Killed Charmian Karslake? (1929)

We hear a lot about the Crime Queens, of course, but what about the lost ladies of Golden Age crime fiction?

Women like Annie Haynes, for example.  Haynes wrote a dozen crime novels before her death in 1929, but practically nothing is known about her within the classic mystery community, despite the fact that her books were well-regarded in England, where they were published by The Bodley Head, the same company that published the earlier Agatha Christie novels (though Christie, exasperated with her penurious contract with The Bodley Head, moved on to the Collins Crime Club; The Bodley Head thus lost out on a certain novel called The Murder of Roger Ackroyd).

Only three Haynes mysteries were published in the United States, however (two by Dodd, Mead) and she was soon forgotten after the posthumous publication of her twelfth mystery, The Crystal Beads Murder (completed by another woman mystery writer).

Ada Heather-Bigg, a prominent Victorian-era feminist and advocate of women entering the labor force, wrote the foreword to Haynes' last novel, in which she revealed that during the last fifteen years of her life Haynes suffered from a painful, debilitating illness that kept her confined to her house.  It was during this time that she wrote her dozen crime novels.

Before her illness, Haynes had been a very active woman, intensely interested in "crime and criminal psychology."  Ada Heather-Bigg wrote that Haynes had cycled "miles to visit the scene of the Luard Murder, [pushed] her way into the cellar of 39 Hilldrop Crescent, where the remains of Belle Elmore were discovered, and [attended] the Crippen trial.

These events described by Heather-Bigg took place in 1908-10, a few years before Haynes was afflicted with her grave illness, probably around 1914.  The Luard Murder refers to the death of Caroline Mary Luard, a general's wife who was found shot dead in a summerhouse in the village of Ightham, Kent.  It's a situation out of a classic British mystery novel if ever there were one, and crime novelist Minette Walters recently published a short book about it, A Dreadful Murder. The Crippen murder case is, of course, concerned one of the most infamous of British murders.

Although not charged with the crime
General Luard was subjected to poison pen letters
accusing him of it and he committed suicide
by throwing himself in front of a train.

How does Annie Haynes' penultimate mystery novel (also published posthumously), Who Killed Charmian Karslake? (1929), compare with these notorious British murders and the celebrated tales of Agatha Christie, her colleague at The Bodley Head? Check in this weekend and see.

Meanwhile, here's a list of the Annie Haynes crime novels:

The Bungalow Mystery (1923)
The Abbey Court Murder (1923)
The Secret of Greylands (1924)
The Blue Diamond (1925)
The Witness on the Roof (1925)
The House in Charlton Crescent (1926)
The Crow's Inn Tragedy (1927)
The Master of the Priory (1927)
The Man with the Dark Beard (1928)
The Crime at Tattenham Corner (1929)
Who Killed Charmian Karslake? (1929)
The Crystal Beads Murder (1930, completed by another hand)

Note: This blog entry is dedicated to Carl Woodings, possibly the only other living person in the world besides Allen Hubin, Bill Pronzini, and your own Passing Tramp who actually has read a book by Annie Haynes!  In fact I think we can say that Carl probably has read more Annie Haynes novels than anyone else in the world.--TPT

Far Cry Man: The Far Cry (1951), by Fredric Brown

Black Lizard paperback edition (1991)

Opinions differ over the matter of what is "the best" crime novel by Fredric Brown (1906-1972). Some people say The Fabulous Clipjoint, some Night of the Jabberwock, some say The Screaming Mimi, some The Far Cry, some yet something else.

Me, I'm a Far Cry man.

In the 1990s Vintage's excellent Black Lizard imprint reprinted some Fredric Brown titles, including The Far Cry, but it has since let him lapse.*

*(last year a $75 edition of The Far Cry was issued by Centipede Press in a limited edition of 300 copies, now sold out; that is very nice, but surely there is some middle ground between high-end and dead-end!).

Now people tend to be more familiar, among notable mid-century crime writers, with Patricia Highsmith, Jim Thompson, and David Goodis.

This is good for these writers, but too bad for Brown!  I think Brown's comparative neglect is a shame, because he is my personal favorite of the bunch.

Bantam paperback edition (1953)
a typically salacious cover
in the manner of the period

It is hard to see why a book like The Far Cry is so overlooked today. Unlike Brown's Murder Can Be Fun, reviewed here last week, The Far Cry is not remotely humorous or "light."

The Far Cry has that "noir" quality of despair and impending doom that is all the modern rage, combined with a Christiesque plotting skill that is rather less respected today (among Brown's contemporaries, I would compare his plotting deftness to that great psychological suspense writer Margaret Millar).

In his critical biography of Fredric Brown, Martians and Misplaced Clues (1993), Jack Seabrook has written acutely about The Far Cry, though he gives away plot spoilers right and left and I can't do this, here, on a blog.  So I will try to be circumspect!

George Weaver, a Kansas City real estate man--married, rather unhappily, with two kids--is recovering from a nervous breakdown near Taos, New Mexico (there appears to be quite a bit of autobiographical detail in The Far Cry, as well as Brown's usual depiction of nearly non-stop alcohol consumption among his characters, which also may well be autobiographical).

In Taos George comes across an eight-year old local mystery in the "Lonely Hearts" knifing murder of pretty Jenny Ames by an artist named Nelson. He sees a chance of making some money by writing an article about the murder, but he becomes increasingly fascinated with the case for its own sake--or, really, for the sake of Jenny Ames. Meanwhile George's slovenly wife, Vi, comes to join him in New Mexico, and the novel develops two wicked prongs of interest. At this point, it takes an abstemious reader indeed to stop reading.

With its strongly-conveyed setting, high degree of narrative suspense and deft plotting, The Far Cry is a classic among crime novels.  Why it does not get the attention of a number of Jim Thompson or David Goodis titles I don't know (the two latter authors have now both been canonized by the Library of America). Could it be Brown's plotting genius that is held against him? In some literary circles it seems that cleverness can be a crime.