Beneath the Stains of Time: The Royal Flush Murders (1948) by Gerald Verner

Beneath the Stains of Time: The Royal Flush Murders (1948) by Gerald Verner: John R.S. Pringle was a veritable one-man factory of crime fiction, who wrote hundreds of novels, short stories and plays, published unde...

Beneath the Stains of Time: The Glass Spear (1950) by S.H. Courtier

Beneath the Stains of Time: The Glass Spear (1950) by S.H. Courtier: During the early days of this blog, I posted an uncommonly short review of a fascinating, imaginative and anthropological mystery novel, ...

Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: The Tipster by Gerald Verner

Gerald Verner (1897-1980) was born John Robert Stuart Pringle. He also wrote under the names Donald Stuart, Nigel Vane, Derwent Steele, and Thane Leslie. His literary output was prodigious: More than 120 books, many of which were adapted for films, radio, and stage plays as well as short stories for mystery fiction magazines.

The Tipster (Wright & Brown, 1949) is book 10 in Verner’s series featuring Superintendent Robert Budd of Scotland Yard, Verner’s longest running series character. Budd finds himself searching for a serial murderer who announced via an anonymous phone call his intent to kill five people, starting with Lord Latimer, the Senior Steward of the Jockey Club. (Like Dick Francis, Verner set many of the Budd books in the world of horse racing.) The recipient of the phone call, the editor of the Daily Clarion, believes the call to be a hoax until Lord Latimer is found dead a short time after the call. Even with the killer’s phone call before each successive attack, Budd is unable to prevent more deaths.

Budd is reunited with journalist Gordon Cross and his wife Vicky, who figured in earlier adventures with Budd. Cross is determined to identify the murderer in order to ingratiate himself with the editor of the Daily Clarion to gain a plum job. His headlong pursuit of someone who has already shown he’s willing to take a human life places both Vicky and himself in jeopardy more than once.

In classic Golden Age style Budd and Cross have a nice assortment of suspects to work with. A likely blackmailer lurks on the edges of the case, providing motivation for suspicious activity by some of the characters. The first victim’s adopted daughter had a brother who emigrated to Canada and then disappeared and now can’t be located. The plot hinges on a turning point that would not hold up under current forensic techniques, one of the reasons these 1940s stories are such entertaining reads. Review based on the Endeavour Media ebook.

·         File Size: 2843 KB

·         Print Length: 189 pages

·         Publisher: Endeavour Media (November 1, 2018)

·         Publication Date: November 1, 2018

·         ASIN: B07K49N61K

Aubrey Hamilton ©2018

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: The Worm of Death by Nicholas Blake

I have taken a break from all of the Bouchercon thrillers that constituted my reading for a few weeks to go back to the Golden Age mysteries waiting for me on my TBR stack. This week’s read was The Worm of Death by Nicholas Blake (Harper, 1961), the 14^th title in the Nigel Strangeways series. Nicholas Blake is the pseudonym of Cecil Day-Lewis (27 April 1904 – 22 May 1972), the UK Poet Laureate from 1951 until his death. His protagonist in 16 of his books is Nigel Strangeways, an upper-class Oxford-educated amateur investigator in the style of Lord Peter Wimsey or Albert Campion. He is the nephew of an Assistant Commissioner at Scotland Yard, giving him status with and access to official crime investigation and law enforcement groups. This series first began in 1935 and ended in 1966, with a hiatus during World War II.

In this story, Strangeways and his partner, sculptor Clare Massinger, have moved into a house in Greenwich. They are invited to dinner to meet some of their new neighbors, Dr. Piers Loudron and his family. Rebecca, the only daughter, has become engaged to a man her father dislikes. The oldest son James followed his father into the practice of medicine but is overshadowed by his brilliant father. Harold runs a business of some sort and has married a beautiful woman with roving eyes. Graham, the youngest, was adopted by Dr. Loudron as a teenager and is openly the doctor’s favorite, to the resentment of the others.

Nigel and Clare are startled to learn a few days after their dinner at the Loudron household that Dr. Loudron has disappeared, leaving his house in the middle of the night during a classic London days-long dense fog. The diary that the doctor mentioned during their visit is also missing. The police are called in but no clue to the doctor’s whereabouts is found until about 10 days later when his body surfaces in the nearby river.

Even though this book was released in 1961, it is classic Golden Age in every way: The unconventional family with its secrets and open resentments, the detective who relies on talking to suspects and witnesses and identifying discrepancies and conflicts in their statements rather than physical evidence, the law enforcement colleague who provides forensic details, the atmospheric setting. The river and the people who live on and near it as well as the ships that frequent it are referenced often throughout and described in exquisite detail. The writing is beautiful and literate, an absolute pleasure to read, although the use of dashes in place of curses and epithets definitely dates it. Highly recommended for anyone interested in classic detective fiction.

·         Mass Market Paperback: 243 pages

·         Publisher: HarperCollins (paper) (January 1986)

·         Language: English

·         ISBN-10: 0060804009

·         ISBN-13: 978-0060804008

Aubrey Hamilton ©2018

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

New Issue of Crime Review

We feature new 20 reviews in each issue of Crime Review (
www.crimereview.co.uk), together with a top industry interview. This time
it’s author Lynda La Plante in the Countdown hot seat:
http://crimereview.co.uk/page.php/interview/5506

We’re on Twitter at:
Crime Review: @CrimeReviewUK
Linda Wilson: @CrimeReviewer
Sharon Wheeler: @lartonmedia

This week’s reviews are:

THE BALTIMORE BOYS by Joel Dicker, reviewed by John Cleal
Three brilliant young men from different branches of a Jewish family all
have dazzling futures until their close world collapses amid lies, jealousy
and betrayal.

WARLORD by Chris Ryan, reviewed by Linda Wilson
SAS trooper Danny Black leads a covert team with orders to take down a
Mexican drug lord.

PARADISE VALLEY by CJ Box, reviewed by Chris Roberts
Cassie Dewell has spent years tracking a serial killer known as the Lizard
King. An attempt at a trap goes spectacularly awry so Cassie must find
another route to finally bring him down.

THE CONSTANT SOLDIER by William Ryan, reviewed by Arnold Taylor
It is 1944 and Paul Brandt, a German soldier, is returning home from the
Russian front, disfigured and having lost an arm. He has no idea what his
future will be once he has recovered from his injuries.

RESISTANCE by Val McDermid, reviewed by Linda Wilson
When festival goers start falling sick, journalist Zoe Beck sets out to
clear the name of the man whose sausage sandwiches are being blamed for the
outbreak of the mystery disease.

BUTTERFLY ON THE STORM by Walter Lucius, reviewed by Ewa Sherman
A young Afghan boy is found in the woods outside Amsterdam, apparently a
victim of a hit-and-run. Journalist Farah Hafez realises that he speaks her
native language and decides to investigate the events that led to the
accident.

CAMBRIDGE BLACK by Alison Bruce, reviewed by John Cleal
A young woman sets out to prove her father’s innocence of an arson blaze in
which two people died and her inquiries lead DC Gary Goodhew to two more
connected crimes, including the death of his own grandfather.

EYES LIKE MINE by Sheena Kamal, reviewed by Kati Barr-Taylor
A girl is missing. And it’s Nora Watts’ daughter – the one she gave up at
birth.

THREE DAYS AND A LIFE by Pierre Lemaitre, reviewed by Arnold Taylor
Antoine Courtin is 12 years old and lives alone with his divorced mother.
Something of a loner, he has developed a deep love for the neighbours’ dog
and when it is hit by a car and has to be put down he is devastated.

BUFFALO JUMP BLUES by Keith McCafferty, reviewed by Chris Roberts
PI Sean Stranahan is hired by the beautiful Ida Evening Star to find an old
flame who knows something about a small herd of bison that went over a
cliff.

HOFFER by Tim Glencross, reviewed by John Cleal
Suave William Hoffer is a fixer for the super-rich. When a girl is found
murdered in his flat, his past seems to be catching up with him – and he
must revive old instincts to survive.

EXQUISITE by Sarah Stovell, reviewed by Kati Barr-Taylor
What could be wrong with a spark of chemistry between a mentee and her
mentor – other than everything …

THE LEGACY OF THE BONES by Dolores Redondo, reviewed by Chris Roberts
Inspector Amaia Salazar returns to the valley of her birth in Spain to
tackle a chain of murders linked by the severed arms of the victims and the
one-eyed mythical tarttalo.

THE LONG ARM OF THE LAW edited by Martin Edwards, reviewed by John Cleal
CWA chairman Martin Edwards introduces 15 short stories by some of the
great novelists from the golden age of crime writing.

THE BEST KIND OF PEOPLE by Zoe Whittall, reviewed by John Barnbrook
George Woodbury is a respected and much-loved teacher who saved his school
from the attack of a gunman. He is a pillar of the small community of
Avalon until the day he is arrested and accused of inappropriate sexual
behaviour with several of his students.

NEW GUARD by Robert Muchamore, reviewed by Linda Wilson
In one last highly dangerous and highly deniable operation, CHERUB mission
controller James Adams has to plan and execute the rescue of two kidnapped
oil industry workers from war-torn Syria.

THE FORTUNATE BROTHER by Donna Morrissey, reviewed by Chris Roberts
The Now family are crushed by the loss of the eldest son and thrown into
confusion when a local man is killed, a man who nobody had reason to like.

FALSE HEARTS by Laura Lam, reviewed by John Barnbrook
Tila and Taema are sisters who used to be conjoined twins. They moved from
an isolated cult to live in San Francisco, and here they were separated and
given new artificial hearts. Tila is in serious trouble and Taema agrees to
go undercover to save her.

LIGHT TOUCH by Stephen Leather, reviewed by Linda Wilson
Spider Shepherd is sent undercover to report on whether another operative
from a different agency, also working undercover, has gone rogue. In
addition, he’s dragged into the hunt for a possible rogue SAS soldier.

CONTINENTAL CRIMES edited by Martin Edwards, reviewed by Sylvia Wilson
A collection of stories from the golden age of detective fiction, all set
in continental Europe.

Best wishes

Sharon

Beneath the Stains of Time: Stranded in Paradise

Beneath the Stains of Time: Stranded in Paradise: " All evils are to be considered with the good that is in them, and with what worse attended them ." - Robinson Crusoe (Da...

Beneath the Stains of Time: The Book Case

Beneath the Stains of Time: The Book Case: " But in any case, after another crime, we shall know infinitely more. Crime is terribly revealing. Try and vary your methods as y...

Beneath the Stains of Time: In a Mound of Trouble

Beneath the Stains of Time: In a Mound of Trouble: "... murder sneaked out and invaded the village, upsetting its routine and disarranging the regularity of its program ." - ...

A, B, C, D, E, F, G... (At the Scene of the Crime blog)

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FFB Review: "FAST ONE" by Paul Cain (Reviewed by Barry Ergang)

Friday means Friday’s Forgotten Books hosted by Patti Abbott here. Barry is back today with his review of FAST ONE by Paul Cain.

FAST ONE (1933) by Paul Cain
reviewed by Barry Ergang

I can enthusiastically recommend Fast One to any reader who loves the hardboiled school—especially from the pulp era—but don’t ask me for a detailed plot summary. That’s next to impossible. Suffice it to say that a tough character named Gerry Kells, who is visiting L.A. from New York and who seems to know every major racket boss in southern California, is in the first chapter framed for a murder he didn’t commit, and who spends the remainder of the book either dodging or deliberately confronting cops and hoods with words, fists, and firearms. Along the way he considers trying to take over L.A.‘s rackets himself.

It’s an aptly titled book because the story roars along at a hectic pace. The pace is aided in no small measure by Cain's staccato prose style, which almost redefines “lean and mean.” But the pace and the story’s complexity are the book’s undoing because there is no characterization for readers to relate to. Most of the players—including the principal female—are referred to only by their last names. The absence of character definition reduces them to mere names on the page. It’s frequently an effort trying to recall from one chapter to another who's who and who's done what to whom.

Fast One has long been hailed as the ne plus ultra of hardboiled gangster tales by the likes of Bill Pronzini, E.R. Hagemann, and Raymond Chandler. David A. Bowman, in his introductory essay to the 1987 Black Lizard edition I have, writes: “Cain took the hardboiled style as far as anyone would want to. Fast One is the Antarctica of hardboiled writing. There is nowhere else to go.”

Forget about any insights into the human condition or any other sorts of profound meanings. Just buckle up and go along on the wild ride.

For more on this novel or the Golden Age of Detection follow the link to the GA Detection wiki. http://gadetection.pbwiki.com/Fast-One

Barry Ergang © 2007, 2014

Former Managing Editor of Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine and First Senior Editor of Mysterical-E, Derringer winner Barry Ergang's work has appeared in numerous publications, print and electronic. His website is http://writetrack.yolasite.com/.

FFB Review: "The Corpse in the Car" by John Rhode (Reviewed by Patrick Ohl)

Friday means Friday’s Forgotten Books with Patti Abbott hosted here later today. Patrick Ohl is back and his obsession with the Golden Age continues….

Lady Misterton was a general pain in the derrière to everyone she came into contact with. But on this occasion, she really crossed the limit. While driving through Windsor Great Park, she commanded her chauffeur, William Fitchley, to pull over. She had forgotten her handbag back at her residence, Clandown Towers. However, she orders the chauffeur to walk the three-and-a-half miles back to fetch the bag. Fitchley walks off obediently as Lady Misterton sat down and began to knit, while a portable wireless radio played Saint-Saens’ Danse Macabre. When Fitchley arrived at Clandown Towers, he found out that Lady Misterton had taken her bag with her after all…

Furious, Fitchley decides to dally on the way back and stops at a pub for a “quick one”. Unfortunately, when he exits, he fails to notice an oncoming vehicle. He is hit and hospitalized… But what about Lady Misterton?

Unfortunately, the old broa—er, lady, failed to recognize the signs that she was trapped in a mystery. She was, perhaps, at a slight disadvantage, since Jonathan Creek was not around yet to use Danse Macabre as its theme song. However, that doesn’t change the fact that a few hours later, Lady Misterton was found dead in her car, and the cause of death cannot be determined. This forms the plot of John Rhode’s The Corpse in the Car…

Why yes, the book is an impossible crime of sorts, as Dr. Lancelot Priestley is called in to determine how an assassin can strike someone down at will without leaving any traces behind. And what a job Priestley does! The method employed has a diabolical ingenuity underlying it, and the doctor does a bang-up job deducing whodunit, how, and constructing a solid case for the prosecution. Unfortunately, as is often the case with John Rhode, the murderer’s identity is extremely easy to spot. However, that doesn’t change the cleverness demonstrated by the rest of the plot, which had me completely fooled. It also doesn’t hurt that I really like tricks in this general vein.

However, this book contains more than a good plot. I venture to say that it is invaluable for exposing the lie inherent in the idea that Golden Age authors were always romanticizing the upper class. John Rhode is absolutely relentless towards Lady Misterton. She is a genuinely disturbing person at times— she professes herself to be a lover of cats. There’s no harm in that, right? Well… this adoration goes to such lengths that whenever one of her cats dies, she has it stuffed and added to a macabre collection of stuffed cats, of which there are 42 (!!!). While alive, she did her best to distance herself from fellow human beings as much as possible, showing an incredible snobbery that Rhode certainly does not approve of!

Other upper class characters are similarly skewered, particularly Lady Misterton’s brother, Mr. Ormskirk. Nastiness seems to run in the family, as he is only concerned with how he can profit by his sister’s death… now that she’s dead, that is. While she was alive, he was only concerned with what a fool she was being, paying attention to a charming young fellow who professed himself to be a fellow lover of cats. Lady Misterton’s niece, Emily Higson, is portrayed with sympathy— she married a clerk in a legal office who isn’t particularly rich, but they have a decent life together. But Lady Misterton couldn’t stand him, for the simple reason that he didn’t have money. Lady Misterton was able to marry into money, why couldn’t her niece do the same thing?

Then there’s the chauffeur Fitchley, who was hired specifically because his father was a taxidermist and thus, Lady Misterton could continue having her cats stuffed for a meagre 30 shillings a week. Fitchley is ruthlessly exploited by Lady Misterton and he is far more sympathetic— he’s a clever, resourceful fellow who knows how to use his brains. The only reason he’s stuck in her service is because he was desperate for money and there isn’t much of a market for taxidermy any more. The character reminds me of a clever child in Rhode’s Death on Sunday, who is ignored by his mother and disliked by fellow guests at a residential hotel…. But Rhode’s sympathies seem to lie with the child, who is the only person there doing anything really worthwhile!

Overall, John Rhode’s The Corpse in the Car is an excellent book that showcases Rhode’s storytelling talents very well. The plot moves along very rapidly and has several intriguing threads chasing each other, involving the theft of one of the stuffed cats and a potential will that may or may not be missing (assuming it exists). It’s finely-crafted and shows Dr. Priestley at his scientific best, not letting a single anomaly get by him without an explanation. If you’ve never read John Rhode and want a good place to start, this is it.

Patrick Ohl ©2014

Patrick Ohl is a 20-year old Canadian crime fiction aficionado who enjoys hobbies such as taxidermy and runs a dilapidated motel in the middle of nowhere alongside his crazed mother. He enjoys relaxing in his subterranean evil lair while watching his favourite hockey team, the Toronto Maple Leafs, and will occasionally make chicken chow mein to die for. His life is accompanied by a soundtrack composed by John Williams, and James Earl Jones provides occasional voice-overs.

FFB Review: "The Rising of the Moon" by Gladys Mitchell--Reviewed by Patrick Ohl

Friday means Friday’s Forgotten Books with Patti Abbott.  The list will be here later today. In the meantime, set the leftovers aside and put your hands together for the return of Patrick Ohl…

Simon and Keith Innes are two young boys who are supremely excited: the circus is coming to town! It’s true that the festivities will be taking place on a Good Friday, but it only comes once a year and it should be taken advantage of. And in honour of Good Friday, the only reasonable thing to do is to sneak into the circus without paying!

The action begins on Holy Thursday, when the boys sneak out of their house to prepare their route for the following night. But suddenly they see a sinister-looking figure clutching a knife—a knife that looks rather like the knife owned by their elder brother, with whom they live… The next day, a grisly discovery is made—one of the circus people, a tight-rope walker, is found murdered, slashed to death by a Jack-the-Ripper-like murderer… and the bad news is, this is only the beginning.

The circus leaves the town without performing, but soon enough, the villagers cower in fear whenever the full moon is up… for it is then that the ripper strikes, killing women and mutilating their bodies. These events are all seen through the eyes of the two young boys—in particular, the narrator is none other than Simon, and the story is not so much a mystery as a coming-of-age-story. The two boys are thrown into the investigation right alongside the local police inspector and the witch-like Mrs. Bradley, who is sent down to investigate the deaths at the express wishes of Scotland Yard. She takes rather a liking to the boys. They deal not only with the murderer, but must also grapple with their mathematics assignments and they must answer a terribly important question: do Catholics only need to go to church once a year, and if so, should they convert?

It’s a good thing that the other elements in this book are so strong, because the mystery is, to be frank, bloody awful. The murderer instantly became obvious to me on page 9—and my edition of the book doesn’t start with page 1—it doesn’t even start with page 5! But it’s not enough that the killer is obvious—oh, no… we must also endeavour to make the ending as confusing and full of loopholes as possible! For instance, there’s a scene where the boys finally get to see the circus. They are told to keep an eye out for this-and-that while there, but of course they have plenty of fun in the meantime. Then they finally spot this-and-that, and they give the prearranged signal. What relevance does this have to the plot? Absolutely none. It’s never referred to again, and in fact, the ending directly contradicts the idea that this scene ever had any point whatsoever.

As for logical loopholes, if you want to see psychology at its most gloriously subjective, look no further than Mrs. Bradley in this book. The police start with a perfectly reasonable notion of what kind of killer they’re looking for, but Mrs. Bradley gives a completely different psychological profile. Who’s right? Why, Mrs. Bradley of course, for the excellent reason that she’s the detective and therefore can never be wrong. What made the police’s initial assumption so unreasonable? Well, Mrs. Bradley said otherwise. What was the significance of the moon? Well… God alone knows. At least I hope so. I wouldn’t be surprised if God was just as puzzled over this moonshine (pun perfectly intended).

All this sounds as though I hate the book… but nothing could be further from the truth. I have brought up all these problems in the book’s plot because I want to get these over with before I reach the end of the review—I’d hate to finish on such a severely negative note! This book is without doubt a masterpiece of writing, but don’t set the bar high on your mystery expectations.

The book’s best success is the writing from the POV of a child. It’s got that perfect mix of childlike innocence and that manner many kids have of wanting to be treated as grown-up. It all rings perfectly genuine. Simon is a wonderful character, and we see him forced to grow up with this murder investigation. We also see the steps he takes to avoid Sunday school and to protect his elder brother when it seems he might be the murderer. All this is most fascinating, and the relationship Simon has with Mrs. Bradley has a curious note of poignancy and tenderness to it. Mrs. Bradley is just as harsh, witch-like, and cackling as ever, but she teaches Simon a thing or two about life and she’s rather like a mother-figure to him.

The atmosphere meanwhile is brilliant. Just… brilliant. The slowly increasing fear and terror of the villagers… the way the tension is ratcheted up notch by notch… that final chase in the moonlight… everything adds up beautifully, and it’s hard to describe the overall effect. I’m at a loss of words.

So overall, I tend to agree that The Rising of the Moon is a masterpiece from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction… but you have to keep an open mind when the conclusion rolls around, because it is among the most ridiculous, plot-hole-ridden endings in detective fiction. It’s up to you to decide how you will take the ending. Maybe you will decide, as I did, that it doesn’t affect the quality of the book enough to lower it. Maybe you will decide to write your local Member of Parliament to protest. (It's not like they're doing anything important.) But if you’re willing to swallow the ending, you will see that the book is a very worthwhile experience!

Patrick Ohl ©2013

Patrick Ohl is a 20-year old Canadian crime fiction aficionado who enjoys hobbies such as taxidermy and runs a dilapidated motel in the middle of nowhere alongside his crazed mother. He enjoys relaxing in his subterranean evil lair while watching his favourite hockey team, the Toronto Maple Leafs, and will occasionally make chicken chow mein to die for. His life is accompanied by a soundtrack composed by John Williams, and James Earl Jones provides occasional voice-overs.

Double Take FFB Review: "THE CASE OF THE BAKER STREET IRREGULARS" by Anthony Boucher

Friday means Friday’s Forgotten Books hosted by Patti Abbott here. Having offered their double take reviews of THE GREAT MERLINI: The Complete Stories of the Magician Detective by Clayton Rawson and Richard S. Prather’s Strip for Murder in recent weeks, they decided that The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars  by Anthony Boucher should be covered this week.  Believing youth always goes first, Patrick is up first, and then Barry……

Anthony Boucher’s The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars is a delightful book full of wit and humour… but at the same time it is an incredibly frustrating book. Boucher, a prolific author, critic, and editor, was also a big Sherlockian and this really shows in this book, which I own in a highly attractive Gregg Press edition. Although it does not star his usual detective, Fergus O’Breen, it does connect to O’Breen in that his sister is a major character, as well as a police officer who appeared in The Case of the Seven of Cavalry.

When F. X. Weinberg of Metropolis Pictures set out to adapt the Sherlock Holmes story The Speckled Band into a film, the reception was initially enthusiastic. After all, it is a great story for adaptation, as Conan Doyle himself said. Unfortunately, Sherlockians everywhere suddenly turned against Weinberg when he hired the hated Stephen Worth to write the screenplay.

Nobody worse could have possibly been chosen for the job (with the possible exceptions of Michael Bay, who wasn’t around yet, and/or Raymond Chandler). Stephen Worth has expressed absolute hatred of Holmes and his stories, and he vows with his screenplay that he will “toughen up” the Great Detective and show his lily-livered followers just what a real detective does. As the author of several hardboiled detective novels and an ex-private eye himself, Worth seems like the ideal choice to butcher the source material.

Suddenly, F. X. Weinberg finds himself branded Public Enemy No. 1, and when he tries to get rid of Worth, the screenwriter points out a clause that says that if he doesn’t write the script, nobody will. Finally, to appease the Baker Street Irregulars, F. X. Weinberg invites a delegation to come to Hollywood to serve as unpaid consultants. The invitees eagerly accept, and the stage is set for murder: for not long after he crashes the welcoming party, Stephen Worth is found shot. But then his corpse disappears and the Baker Street Irregulars all find themselves involved in adventures that could have come straight from Conan Doyle’s pen… This sounds like a job for Sherlock Holmes himself! But since he isn’t around, the Baker Street Irregulars will have to do.

This book is truly a delightful read for the Holmes fan. You will find all sorts of great references to the Canon, such as a police officer named Sergeant Watson who must guard over the house in which the Irregulars are staying. And the next day when their adventures take place, they all have multiple connections to the Holmes Canon and the untold stories Watson alluded to, such as the adventure of the tired captain or that of Colonel Warburton’s madness. These are witty and wonderful, and they form the most delightful part of the book.

Unfortunately, as delightful as the book is, it quite simply falls apart by the ending. This is a book that logically makes little sense. There’s a huge paradox that you simply cannot ignore about Stephen Worth— and as much as you try to forget this gaping hole, the book won’t let you forget it, making it an integral part of the solution. There’s no reason why half the people involved should have acted the way they did. There are inexplicable masquerades that are apparently orchestrated by the same person even though multiple ones take place at the exact same time in different parts of town... There’s the ever-so-convenient aspect of motive, which brings up an entirely new plot hole: how the devil could P.I. Stephen Worth uncover dirty secrets, but these same secrets eluded the efforts of the entire LAPD???

And yet, not even this lack of logic makes for a surprising solution. Half of the ‘twists’ are painfully obvious despite the fact that a sieve holds more water than these revelations. You get sudden, dramatic reversals of character, and a killer who could have very well been anybody else with just a bit of tweaking. That’s not a sign of a strong detective novel.

The book’s saving grace, then, is its wit and the charm of all the Sherlockian references. As much as I enjoyed The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars, I had to swallow a very convoluted and fundamentally flawed mystery. While it’s a fun book, it’s of far more interest to the Sherlockian than to the casual mystery fan. If you absolutely love Sherlock Holmes, you will probably enjoy this book for the Sherlockian references. But if, like Worth, you can’t stand the fellow, or even if you are casually indifferent, your reaction could end up being very different.

The reader is warned.

Patrick Ohl ©2013

The nineteen-year-old Patrick Ohl continues to plot to take over the world when he isn’t writing reviews of books he reads on his blog, At the Scene of the Crime. In his spare time he conducts genetic experiments in his top-secret laboratory, hoping to create a creature as terrifying as the Giant Rat of Sumatra in a bid to take over the world. His hobbies include drinking tea and going outside to do a barbecue in -10°C weather.

THE CASE OF THE BAKER STREET IRREGULARS (1940) by Anthony Boucher

Reviewed by Barry Ergang

Mystery lovers who haven't read it will probably find The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars by Anthony Boucher a lot of fun. It combines bizarre situations, action, humor, lively and intelligent prose, and the advancement of several plausible solutions before the actual one is revealed.

Stephen Worth, ex-private detective turned hardboiled mystery novelist and sometime screenwriter under contract to Metropolis Pictures, is supposed to write a screen adaptation of “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” which will be produced by F.X. Weinberg. When word of this makes the newspapers, Weinberg starts receiving irate letters from the Baker Street Irregulars. The want the screenplay entrusted to someone who reveres the Canon as they do, not a “rat,” as they refer to Worth, who writes hardboiled fare. For his part, Worth contemptuously dismisses the BSI as a bunch of “deductionists.” The studio's publicity director, Maureen O'Breen, who has no liking for Worth, a heavy-drinking lecher and prankster, suggests that Weinberg simply take him off the film and assign another writer. When Weinberg tries to persuade Worth to work on a different project, Worth balks at the idea and points to a contractual clause that effectively prevents him from being replaced involuntarily. From his position between rock and hard place, Weinberg hits on a solution and sends letters to each of the five Irregulars who have written to him, inviting them to Hollywood at his expense to serve as advisors on the film. When they agree, the studio provides a house for them at 221B Romualdo Drive, complete with a housekeeper named Mrs. Hudson.

To help tout the film, Maureen plans a party for the press. On the afternoon of the party, Maureen, trying to coordinate the preparations at 221B, is besieged by mysterious callers, messages, and telephone calls. Once things are under way, Stephen Worth makes a drunken, belligerent appearance. When he tries to hit one of the Irregulars, his wild swing hits instead one of the guests, Lieutenant Jackson of the police department. Jackson knocks him cold and he and some others carry Worth to a room upstairs to sleep it off. That ends the party. Later on, Maureen goes upstairs and finds a still drunk and abusive Worth standing in the doorway of the room. Moments later she hears a shot, blood blossoms under the hand Worth claps to his heart, and he falls back into the darkened room. When she bends to help him, something strikes the back of her head, rendering her unconscious. One of the Sherlockians carries her downstairs. When she revives and reports what's happened, Lieutenant Jackson goes to investigate.

There's a lot of blood in the room. There are other significant things there, too. There just isn't any corpse. The next day, each of the Irregulars has a peculiar, sometimes frightening adventure. Each adventure has its roots in a Holmes story, and each elicits information about another Irregular which he'd prefer not be revealed. The police and the Sherlockians thus have their hands full trying to unravel codes and ciphers, interpret the meaning of the adventures, and discover the whereabouts of Worth's body and the means by which it was removed from the house. There's a cover blurb from the New York Times Book Review on the paperback edition I have which reads, “Delightful...offers a surprise on nearly every page.”

This brings me to the only complaint I have about the book—the edition. Mine was published by Carroll & Graf. I'm not sure about the number of pages containing surprises, but this particular book must have been proofread by someone whose idea of intellectual activity is dwarf-tossing. Even by C&G standards, which generally seem to be abysmal in the typographical error department, this one qualifies for the Guinness Book of World Records. By all means read the book. Just avoid the Carroll & Graf edition if you have options.

Barry Ergang © 2003, 2007, 2013

Among other works, Derringer Award-winner Barry Ergang's own impossible crime novelette, "The Play of Light and Shadow," is available at Amazon and Smashwords. Barry is selling books from his extensive personal collection at http://www.barryergangbooksforsale.yolasite.com/

FFB Review: "The Long Goodbye" by Raymond Chandler

Friday means Friday’s Forgotten Books. Please welcome back Barry Ergang and make sure you check out the other reading possibilities here after you read the review below……

THE LONG GOODBYE by Raymond Chandler

Reviewed by Barry Ergang

Mark Twain defined a classic as “a book which people praise and don't read.” The point is well-made, although Twain was fortunately wrong. People still read Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and The Prince and the Pauper.

They still read Raymond Chandler, too. Chandler, along with Dashiell Hammett and Ross Macdonald, is the chronological second in the Supreme Triumvirate of the “hardboiled” school of mystery writing. All three worked in what was long considered a second-rate genre and elevated it to the status of “serious literature.” Chandler garnered accolades from, among others, cantankerous critic Edmund Wilson and poet W.H. Auden. In his first five novels, Chandler worked within the traditions of the genre but added his own distinctive touches. These included character development well beyond that found in the work of most of his peers and a writing style that was among the most influential of the Twentieth Century. Critics have called Chandler's style “the poetry of violence,” and Chandler “the hardboiled Shakespeare.”

Wisecracks and wry social commentary came from Philip Marlowe, the cynical but never quite despairing shamus with the unstated but steadfast code of honor and incorruptible character in a morally ambiguous world where chivalrous behavior no longer matters, whose brisk, simile-laden first-person narratives set the tone for generations of Chandler's/Marlowe's followers. (The best include Earl Emerson's Thomas Black and Stephen Greenleaf's John Marshall Tanner. The worst is the pretentious Robert B. Parker's Spenser, the Philip Marlowe wannabe with the New England pallor.) Marlowe was not the first private eye in literature, but he became the quintessential one. In his sixth book, The Long Goodbye, Chandler pushed beyond the boundaries of genre conventions. More than either his predecessor Hammett or his successor Macdonald, Chandler succeeded in blending elements of the hardboiled detective story with elements of the mainstream novel. The reader who approaches The Long Goodbye expecting lots of slugfests and gunplay will be disappointed.

There is action, certainly, but not in the quantities found in earlier Chandlers--The Big Sleep; Farewell, My Lovely; The High Window; The Lady in the Lake; The Little Sister--or in Mickey Spillane and Ian Fleming. The Long Goodbye should be approached as a novel that happens to deal with Philip Marlowe, who happens to be a private detective, and who happens to get involved in a murder case. Thematically it is much more. It is the story of a man who tries to do the right thing from deeply felt loyalty and conviction, who is punished and betrayed for his efforts. The story begins when Marlowe lends well-intentioned assistance to a drunken Terry Lennox, abandoned by his much-married wealthy ex-wife Sylvia in the parking lot of a Hollywood nightclub. Over a period of months, their acquaintance develops into friendship. Lennox and Sylvia eventually remarry, but their relationship is neither happy nor healthy.

When, very early one morning, Lennox shows up at Marlowe's home, demanding the detective drive him to a Tijuana airport, Marlowe agrees to play chauffeur. He knows intuitively that Sylvia is dead, but his instincts tell him Lennox is not her killer. Returning to L.A., Marlowe is arrested on suspicion of murder, assaulted by the police, and jailed for several days. When word comes from Mexico that Lennox committed suicide and left a confession, Marlowe is released, disbelieving the confession based on his knowledge of Lennox. As he remarks, “A dead man is the best fall guy in the world. He never talks back.” The next day, Marlowe gets a visit--and a warning--from a powerful local hood named Menendez, who tells him to forget the Lennox case. Menendez, Lennox, and Las Vegas-based hood Randy Starr were in the Commandos together during WWII and Lennox saved their lives. Menendez resents that Lennox, when in trouble, sought Marlowe's help rather than his and Starr's. It also becomes increasingly clear that details of the case have been quashed by Lennox's influential multimillionaire father-in-law, who values his and his family`s privacy above all else.

Soon afterward, Marlowe is consulted by a New York publisher who wants him to babysit a bestselling historical novelist named Roger Wade. Wade, an alcoholic, has been unable to finish his latest novel, and the publisher wants Marlowe to keep him off the booze and at the typewriter. Marlowe refuses the job as an impossibility, but when Wade suddenly disappears, he's hired by the writer's beautiful wife Eileen. When Marlowe finds him and brings him home, he becomes almost inextricably involved with the Wades' tormented lives. The seemingly disparate plotlines eventually converge, other deaths occur, and Marlowe solves two murders--with some undesirable surprises. All of this sounds like standard mystery-novel fare. What sets it apart from the run-of-the-mill are Marlowe's and other's comments about society, crime and criminals, wealth, and power; the interplay among the well-defined characters; strongly visualized scenes; and the motifs: pride; honor; the abuse of official or private power; and the traps we set for ourselves.

Why review a well-known novel originally published in 1954? I recently reread it for the sixth time, rediscovering again Chandler's virile prose-poetry, irresistible storytelling abilities, and timeless observations. I thought it appropriate to recommend The Long Goodbye to readers who have not yet come to it, and to remind those who have that it is eminently worth reading again. To those who have only ever seen Robert Altman's feebly inaccurate film adaptation: read the book! With all due respect to Mark Twain, not all classics are ignored.

(A shorter version of this review originally appeared in
Maelstrom, Volume IV, Issue 3, 2003)


 
Barry Ergang © 2003, 2007, 2013

A Derringer Award winner, some of Barry's written work is available at Amazon and Smashwords.

FFB Review: "The Broken Face Murders" --Reviewed by Patrick Ohl

This is Friday and that means Friday’s Forgotten Books. Patrick Ohl returns today and the rest of the suggestions can be found over at Patti’s blog.

Darwin and Hildegarde Teilhet were British authors who sometimes worked together but sometimes worked separately. I really can’t say much more about them. Teilhet is known among Golden Age enthusiasts as the author of The Talking Sparrow Murders (which I’ve yet to read). Although written in 1934, it had a strong and unrepentant anti-Nazi stance, at a time when the Nazis’ rise to power didn’t seem like an extraordinary issue. After all, Germany had been so unstable it seemed like Hitler was just the latest in a long string of leaders.

But when 1940 rolled along, times obviously changed— in September of 1939, Hitler precipitated World War II by invading Poland, and before you knew it, all of Europe was engaged in warfare. And it was in 1940 that Darwin and Hildegarde Teilhet released The Broken Face Murders, being the fourth adventure of the Baron Franz von Kaz, a comic detective in the tradition of John Dickson Carr’s Sir Henry Merrivale.

Only the Baron’s adventure is hardly a comic one. Perhaps it was just in this book, but this is a dark and sombre tale, with plenty of greed, corruption, and racism. The Baron von Kaz gets married to Caryl Miquet (a presumably recurring character), to kick the book off with a bang. They then get in a car and head to Los Corrales, where they’ve signed a lease for two years on a lovely “dream home”, complete with ten acres of land. And it’s unbelievably cheap, too— the Baron managed to get it from the owner, Mr. Gulthwort, for a mere $100 a month.

Now, I know there’s been a lot of inflation since the 1940s, but even for that time, $100 monthly for such a property is a staggeringly small amount. And the Baron von Kaz finds out that there is indeed a catch when Mr. Gulthwort stumbles in on him and Caryl as they prepared to spend the night together. Gulthwort gets talking to the Baron alone, and starts to babble about how he’s got the baron in a corner, that the baron simply must help him now, and that his enemies will never find out from him what the “broken face” is.

Caryl, meanwhile, is not happy at being left alone upstairs. She calls the Baron upstairs and demands that he force their late-night visitor to leave. So the Baron, full of resolve, comes lumbering downstairs. But a grisly sight awaits him—Mr. Gulthwort is lying slumped in his chair, a hole in his head caused by impalement on a paper file. Suddenly, a gun is jammed in the Baron’s back, and the assailant demands to know the location of the broken face. He seems disinclined to believe the Baron’s protestations that he really doesn’t know where the broken face is…

Enter Caryl Miquet, who has grabbed her husband’s gun and come downstairs. She fires two shots, and by sheer mischance, one of them manages to lodge itself in the dead man’s head, obliterating the traces of the paper file. When the cops arrive, they decide that Caryl shot Mr. Gulthwort and the Baron made up a fairy story to cover it all up. They take her away… and that’s just the first two chapters.

The rest of the story is an extremely complex one but with simple ideas at heart. Basically, this is an investigation in the Phillip Marlowe routine— there’s a lot of emphasis placed on corruption in politics, in the police force, and anti-Semitism. The Baron gets in a few fights that Phillip Marlowe would have been proud to partake in, but it seems somewhat odd to see him in the melee. It seems that the mayor of Los Corrales and the head of police are somehow in cahoots with one another. They seem anxious to cover up the crimes, and all this seems to tie up with the death of the previous mayor, supposedly by accident.

The tale is dark and unrelenting— in one of the opening chapters, the murderer even kills a dog that may have recognized him. It’s a chilling moment. Other moments, such as a confrontation in the mayor’s house full of veiled threats, are equally disturbing. So when the comic relief comes, it feels like a desperately needed source of relief. These scenes of comic relief are often rather brief, but quite funny. One of the best is when the Baron gets information out of an uncooperative shopkeeper by threatening property damage. Another very funny moment is when the Baron eagerly destroys a priceless painting looking for a hidden message, and decides that his “altered” version is undoubtedly a major improvement.

And yet, as appreciated as these moments are, they do seem somewhat out of place in this story. Its dark and unrelenting nature does not make it an unequivocally fun read, and at 300 pages, it sometimes feels quite padded. There are also uncomfortable parallels with Hitler’s rise to power, as we see the mayor is head of a very similar organization that absolutely hates Jews. The Baron, who is sympathetic to the Jewish cause under Nazi oppression, is not an entirely welcome guest as a result.

The “broken face” is a clever plot device, and its ultimate location has a perverse sort of simplicity behind it. However, it succeeds only in making the Baron von Kaz and the police officers look like complete morons for having overlooked it, and it seems like an unnecessary moment. Even the Baron seems to consider it a futile discovery, for reasons he analyzes in the finale. Nevertheless, the ending is excellent, with a very suspenseful and skilfully-written shootout followed by a memorable scene between the Baron and... oh, maybe I’d better not say who.

Despite some reservations, I’d recommend The Broken Face Murders. It isn’t an unheralded classic in the genre, but it is undoubtedly worth a look for its scathing portrait of anti-Semitism and, in some ways, American society.

Patrick Ohl ©2011, 2013

The nineteen-year-old Patrick Ohl writes reviews of the books he reads on his blog, At the Scene of the Crime. In his spare time he plots a takeover of the world, being careful to factor everything except for Bruce Willis into his equations.

FFB Review: "The Case With Nine Solutions"

In addition to cardiac surgery for Sandi this morning, Friday means Friday's Forgotten Books. Please welcome back Patrick Ohl to the blog. For the complete list of books, authors, and reviewers, please surf over to Patti Abbott's excellent blog........

Most men, they'll tell you a story straight through. It won't be complicated, but it won't be interesting either.

—Ed Bloom, Big Fish (2003)

Alfred Walter Stewart had a long career as a professor in chemistry and a university lecturer in Glasgow and Belfast, but more importantly for the purpose of this review, he also wrote detective novels under the name “J. J. Connington”. He was a well-regarded figure in his day, and John Dickson Carr gave him some praise in his famous essay The Grandest Game in the World. One of Dorothy L. Sayers’ better novels, The Five Red Herrings, is in part an homage to his book The Two Ticket Puzzle.

Unfortunately, academic disinterest and snobbery levelled against the Golden Age of Detective Fiction have seriously harmed Connington’s reputation. If you hear about him at all nowadays, it will be classed alongside the similarly-maligned John Rhode, Freeman Wills Crofts, Henry Wade, or R. Austin Freeman. (None of these writers were mentioned by P. D. James in Talking About Detective Fiction, and Julian Symons mentions some of these authors only in passing.) He will be called an ingenious technical writer but someone who couldn’t entertain a drunken fish— a Humdrum, in other words. After reading his book The Case With Nine Solutions, I can propose two explanations to explain this nonsense. Either Connington and his fellow Humdrums have been unfairly attacked, or I need to start hanging around drunken fish more often.

The first explanation seems more likely, because unlike, say, Freeman Wills Crofts, Connington succeeds admirably in bringing his characters to life and making them seem like real people with real emotions. Not only that, he manages to throw in social commentary that would confound anti-Golden Age snobs if they bothered to read his books, and he combines it with a brilliantly-clued puzzle and some small asides about chemistry that make me wish he was my lecturer in university.

But I’m really getting ahead of myself here. Let’s tackle the plot first and foremost. Dr. Ringwood is sitting comfortably at home when a colleague, Dr. Trevor Markfield, drops in to visit. The social call is short-lived, however, as the maid of the SIlverdales telephones: a fellow maid is seriously ill and she requires Dr. Ringwood’s help. The fog outside is intense, so Dr. Markfield kindly offers to pilot Ringwood to the correct street, but Ringwood manages to get muddled up and drives up to the wrong house. He enters, suspecting something is amiss, and inside, he finds a young man who has been shot twice in the lung. He spurts out a mysterious cryptic dying message and expires.

There’s no phone in the house, so Dr. Ringwood goes next door, to the correct house this time, and diagnoses a case of scarletina before calling up Sir Clinton Driffield to ask for help. He decides to wait at the house, since he can do nothing for the ill maid, and when the police arrives, Sir Clinton makes some excellent deductions to prove that the murder took place elsewhere. They then head to the Silverdale residence, but nobody answers the doorbell. This is because the maid has been strangled in the interim, and the other girl has only escaped with her life due to her illness…

Thus begins a hunt for a particularly unlikeable killer, who seems to have murdered three people when the corpse of Mrs. Silverdale is discovered. The dead man next door turns out to be her potential lover, Hassendean, and he seems to have been universally disliked: a nasty bit of goods whose only advantage in life was his connections. But is this a case of double murder? An accident? A suicide pact gone wrong? What are the titular nine solutions?

Well, The Case With Nine Solutions is an impressive title, but a more appropriate one might be The Case With Nine Possibilities. This is because the book focuses on the deaths of Mrs. Silverdale and Hassendean, and the nine solutions are the nine possible combinations when you consider that every unnatural death must be the result of accident, suicide, or murder (unless you’re in a John Rhode novel, but that’s a discussion for another day). This is the only thing that comes close to a disappointment in the entire book— everything else weaves itself into a complex web of cryptograms, anonymous messages, footprints in the soil, alibis, deceptions, love affairs, and disguises. The solution turns out to be a simple one, and the final chapter consists of entries in Sir Clinton’s notebook, with some clues so ingenious I never spotted them, and my jaw dropped in surprise and admiration when I read the clue that was the key to Mrs. Silverdale’s death. The solution is not mind-blowingly original – the publisher is not the killer, if that’s what you were betting on— but it’s excellently constructed. The clues slip right under your nose.

Sir Clinton’s deductions are truly admirable— take note in particular of his opening scene, where he deduces just why Hassendean was murdered elsewhere, and the reconstruction of the maid’s murder in Chapter 4 is a particularly impressive passage. (It’s little wonder Carr thought highly of Connington’s work— you can see some influence on Carr’s own work, particularly the impressive reconstructions of Dr. Gideon Fell.)

So the plot is a triumph, and that makes the engaging characters and social commentary interesting extras to an already superb book. Golden Age authors are much maligned for not striving towards literary ends, and Connington indirectly thows his two cents into the argument early on:

All three of them were experts in death, and among them there was no need to waste time in polite lamentations. None of them had ever set eyes on the victim before that night, and there was no object in becoming sentimental over him.

Critics like P. D. James love taking authors to task for their supposed upper-class worship— you’d get the idea that every amateur detective was a Philo Vance or Lord Peter Wimsey clone! But this is an outrageous lie invented by people who have no idea what they’re talking about—take a look at this unflattering portrait of an upper class character, an influential relative of the dead man:

Dr. Ringwood, watching the change in the situation, reflected sardonically to himself that a title had its uses when one came to deal with a snob.

“That old bounder was rude to the Inspector on principle; but when Sir Clinton Driffield asks precisely the same question, he’s quite amenable,” he thought to himself. “What a type!”

If that wasn’t enough, you even get some social commentary in the opening pages, after Dr. Ringwood complains at length about the difficult life of a medical practitioner:

“Still got the notion that human life’s valuable? The war knocked that on the head,” Markfield commented, rubbing his hands together to warm them. “Human life’s the cheapest thing there is. It’s a blessing I went over to the scientific side, instead of going in for physicking. I’d never have acquired a good sympathetic bedside manner.”

And then there are some great side-lectures on chemistry, which are interesting, clearly explained, and not too long. In Chapter 8, for instance, Sir Clinton lectures about the purpose of taking a mixed-melting point. It is an informative and clearly-worded passage, and I just love asides like this from people who knew what they were talking about. Connington wasn’t some fellow who pulled the first complex-sounding term out of a chemistry textbook to artificially inflate his level of intelligence—he was a lecturer in the subject and dealt with this kind of stuff daily. When these explanations are given, they sound like a professor is having a one-on-one with a student who’s having trouble understanding the course material.

Overall, The Case With Nine Solutions is a triumph, and I’d argue a masterpiece in the genre. Connington keeps a firm grasp on all his plot threads and the resolution is most satisfactory. It’s a must-read for fans of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, and it’s a good book from an unfairly maligned author. It shows creativity in its set-up and pure ingenuity with its clues, and that’s a quality that can’t be scientifically quantified. An author either has that magic or hasn’t got it— and Connington puts on a grand performance that proves he’s definitely got it. It’s combined with skilful writing that makes this an unadulterated pleasure to read. I highly recommend it.

But where can you find this masterpiece? The good folks at The Murder Room have got you covered. A Kindle edition of the book has been released, and it is a bargain, especially when you consider how much sellers ask for copies of the old hardcover. You can find the Kindle edition here. For a list of the currently available books by Connington (more are apparently due in February if The Book Depository is to be believed) visit The Murder Room’s website.

Patrick Ohl ©2013

The 19-year-old Patrick Ohl spends his spare time writing controversial reviews in order to expel his bitterness at the world. For this reason, he was awarded a multimillion dollar contract to publish his memoirs, entitled I Can’t Stand Postmodernism. Unfortunately, after signing on the dotted line, he woke up and has been unable to return to the dream since to see if the book was a success. However, that doesn’t faze him, and he still intends to make millions of dollars and use his international fame and influence to bring some well-deserved attention to forgotten authors like this one. His reviews can be found on his blog, At the Scene of the Crime.