Reunion with Murder (1941) by Timothy Fuller

Reunion with Murder (1941) is Timothy Fuller's third novel about Harvard man and amateur sleuth, Edmund "Jupiter" Jones, who appeared in a handful of mysteries starting with Harvard Has a Homicide (1936) – ending with the previously discussed Keep Cool, Mr. Jones (1950). A tightly-packed crime yarn clearly intended to modernize and reboot the series, but Fuller abandoned the series after its publication. Nonetheless, it rekindled my interest in the series and tracked down a copy of This is Murder, Mr. Jones (1943). A mystery from the American murder-can-be-fun school that would have been right at home in the catalog of the Rue Morgue Press. I fortunately had the foresight to also get a copy of Reunion with Murder. Three times must be the charm as it's Fuller's most accomplished, fully rounded detective novel.

The titular event of Fuller's Reunion with Murder is the first reunion of the Class of '31, Harvard College, that brought over a hundred alumni to the Syonsett Beach Hotel.

On the second day of the reunion, two alumni out on an early morning round of golf find the body of Sherman North near the eleventh tee of the Syonsett Golf Club. North's body was still dressed in dinner jacket, color rumpled and black tie twisted, but more concerting is the gaping bullet hole in his chest. North was rooming at the hotel with fellow attendee Edmund Rice, a humorist, who wakes up that morning with a hangover and scraped, bloodied hands. No memory of what happened when he was blackout drunk. What's more, Rice has to be the best man next day at a wedding of his college chum, Jupiter Jones, currently teaching at Harvard's Fine Arts Department. That's when he remembers, "Sleuth Jones."

So the best man getting involved in a murder at his tenth college reunion a day is "damned inconvenient," but Betty Mahan joins her soon-to-be husband for a day of prenuptial sleuthing.

There's much more to the murder than an apparent drunken, motiveless shooting on the golf course under cover of night. Firstly, North was knocked unconscious, driven in his own car to the scene of the crime and shot, which is a reasonable precaution, but why attract attention by firing half a dozen of extra shots – which were noticed. Secondly, there's a trail of high heeled woman's footprints "coming across from the clubhouse and ending at the top of the tee" where they stop and vanish ("...must be some explanation for their disappearance"). Yeah, I didn't expect a (minor) impossible situation of no-footprints variety not mentioned in either Robert Adey's Locked Room Murders (1991) nor Brian Skupin's Locked Room Murders: Supplement (2019). But there are also slightly more traditional clues strewn around the crime scene. Like a broken watch and watch charm in the form of a miniature sword. So both police and amateur detective have their work cut out. Really enjoyed how Jupiter buttered himself up in order to slip himself into the investigation.

Reunion with Murder is as humorous and satirical in tone as This is Murder, Mr. Jones. Fuller lightheartedly poked fun at Harvard culture, detective fiction and reunions ("probably some Stone Age massacre had gone off rather well and the participants vowed to meet again in a year and talk things over"), but Reunion with Murder has a serious pall hanging over it in the shape of the war raging on in Europe and the feeling they'll be soon dragged into it. This comes especially to the front during the second-half of the story fueling discussions, but just as serious is Jupiter transforming into a White Knight for North's widow, Ann North. At one point, Jupiter even comes to see her as the "symbol of the Perfect Girl, the Dream Girl who didn't exist," while Betty is standing right next to her. Over the course of his private investigation, Jupiter breaks enough laws to potentially get him thirty years in prison simply to protect Ann. And he's very serious about it.

So not everything is played for laughs and the armchair detectives out there better keep that in mind when trying to piece together this "macabre puzzle." I think the conclusion, and the twisted path it takes towards that conclusion, is what makes Reunion with Murder Fuller's best contribution to the American detective novel.

First of all, there's the unusual and unforgettable circumstances of the denouement taking place right after the wedding and during the costumed parade closing out the reunion. Jupiter, dressed as Superman, gathers the principle players to explain what happened. Or, at least, the parts he knows about. Jupiter's ingenious, fractured solution is a Golden Age delight of plotting succeeding in having its cake and eat it too. You know what I mean when you read it. The core idea is admittedly not original with Fuller, but he sure did something different and original with it to make it his own. Something that pleasantly took me by surprise, but a lot made sense the moment the truth dawned on me. Of, course, how the murder is resolved among the Harvard boys is something most readers today will find hard to swallow and perhaps is easy to point to the looming war as a motive. However, I think Fuller simply had been reading a lot of John Dickson Carr at the time and got inspired. Everything from the murderer inexplicably attracting attention post-murder and the vanishing footprints to letting a cleverly hidden, but exposed, killer get away for morally dubious reasons just smacks of Carr – not to mention old-world chivalry streaking the characters and plot. No wonder I enjoyed it so much!

Fuller's Reunion with Murder is a first-class Golden Age mystery, one of the better American collegian detective novels, which deserves to be reprinted. It would be a great fit for Otto Penzler's American Mystery Classics line of reprints. I suppose I'll finish the series, backwards, by rereading Three Thirds of a Ghost (1941) next and closing out with Harvard Has a Homicide. Stay tuned!

Note for the curious: while churning out this review, I stumbled across the fact Fuller wrote short stories and one of his stories, "The Second Visitor," features Jupiter Jones. “The Second Visitor” made its first and only appearance in the September, 1937, issue of The American Magazine. So it has slipped through the cracks and forgotten about, but perhaps a short story worth reviving for a future American Mystery Classics anthology. Fuller wrote a few more short stories that appear to be (possibly) criminal in nature: "An Acquaintance with Thieves" (Britannia and Eve, Jun. 1948), "The Husband Who Disappeared" (Cosmopolitan, Jan. 1950), "His Wife Cried Wolf" (This Week, Jul. 10, 1955) and "A Shot in the Dark" (Bluebook, Apr. 1956).

Hold on a second! Just one more thing: Just discovered "The Second Visitor”" was reprinted, only once, in the Spring, 1953, issue of Triple Detective. Strange that the only Jupiter Jones short story was never reprinted in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine or any of the Ellery Queen anthologies. So it either was really overlooked and forgotten about or it's just shit.

This is Murder, Mr. Jones (1943) by Timothy Fuller

Last month, I looked at Timothy Fuller's fifth and final Jupiter Jones novel, Keep Cool, Mr. Jones (1950), which appeared after a seven year hiatus following the publication This is Murder, Mr. Jones (1943) – reads like a soft, updated reboot of the series. Well, I remember Jupiter Jones starting out in Harvard Has a Homicide (1936) and Three Thirds of a Ghost (1941) as a lighthearted, wisecracking take on the Van Dinean, Ellery Queen-style detective. But those memories have become hazy over the years. I recall just enough to notice the leap from young, fresh faced college snoop to a middle-aged man living in the suburbs with a wife and children.

Keep Cool, Mr. Jones is not a success story when it comes to trying to reinvent a Golden Age character for the second-half of the previous century or relaunching the series, but enjoyed it enough to track down a copy of This is Murder, Mr. Jones. That proved to be an unexpected surprise as I expected nothing more than a fun, lightweight mystery with a radio background and locked room murder. It certainly is a nimbly-plotted mystery novel satirizing radio dramas, but This is Murder, Mr. Jones got more out of both than appeared possible at first sight. Among some other noteworthy touches to the story and plot.

Following his outings in Harvard Has a Homicide and Three Thirds of a Ghost, Jupiter Jones is getting a reputation as an amateur detective. Jupiter's status as an amateur detective landed him an invitation from Emerson West to attend to one-year anniversary live show of his radio program, This is Murder. West, "the poor man's Woollcott," plans to mark the occasion with an reenactment of the century-old, unsolved murder at Parker Hall, in Molton, Massachusetts, where "Felicia Parker was done to death" – presumably by her husband. Robert Parker had "ample grounds to murder his wife" and a reliable enough alibi to clear him from suspicion. So the case entered the annals of crime as one of those tantalizingly unsolved mysteries that has been discussed for decades. Jupiter gladly accepts the invitation and travels with his wife, Betty, to now abandoned Parker Hall where the cast and crew has gathered to prepare and rehearse for the broadcast.

West attracted three well-known actors, Carla Blake, Gordon Dane and Katherine Moore, to play to principle players in the drama ("...amazing what blackmail can do"). The people behind the scene is the director, Rocky Davenport, Foley, the sound man, and the announcer, Burroughs. West is further assisted by his personal ghostwriter, Grant, and lovely "feminine assistant" named Miss Terry Stewart. There are also several guests, beside Jupiter and Betty Jones. Elmo T. Gillespie, "a fellow criminologist," is a collector of murder weapons who actually brought the knife from the Parker case along. A Mr. Brown, real estate agent and current owner of Parker Hall, who's brought along his wife. Finally, Mr. Jerome, a representative of the show's sponsor, who's also accompanied by his wife. Show goes off without a hitch, but when they go off the air, West announces to the group he's going to present them with the solution to the Parker case. A private showing, of sort, requiring "a short re-enactment of the crime itself" in which West locks himself away in the bathroom. But never comes back out. When they break open the door, they find West lying in a pool of blood. His throat cut with the Parker knife. What appeared to be suicide quickly proves to be an impossible murder. Not only how the murderer vanished from the bathroom, but how the knife was brought into the bathroom.

I should note here that the impossibility is quickly resolved and the bare-bones mechanics of the locked room-trick is nearly as old as time, but how this hoary, time-worn trick is employed was pleasingly original – a new wrinkle to an old trick. Basically, (SPOILER/ROT13) Jrfg unq uverq n pnecragre gb pbafgehpg n frperg qbbejnl va gur onguebbz, orpnhfr gur ubhfr jnf tbvat gb or qrzbyvfu naljnl. Fb gur cyna jnf gb cergraq ur unq sbhaq gur tncvat ubyr va Eboreg Cnexre'f onguebbz nyvov, ohg hajvggvatyl cebivqrq uvf zheqrere jvgu n tbyqra bccbeghavgl. Genuinely enjoyed that aspect of the plot, minor as it may be. What makes This is Murder, Mr. Jones a noteworthy mystery is not its locked room murder, or how it was treated, but its radio background.

After the first shock, they realize they can make radio history by doing "a direct broadcast from the scene of the crime" and "put the investigation on the air." And triple their audience over night. This part of the story feels decades ahead of its time and, to my knowledge, not something that has been used during the Golden Age of Radio. By the way, Orson Wells and his 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast gets a mention ("it made Welles" and "it didn't hurt the Martians"). But my favorite part of this plan is the discussion on whether, or not, it would be appropriate to break the show for a word from their sponsors. Because, you know, one of them probably killed the show's host. So, breaking the show with this killer of a line, "well, ladies and gentlemen, any minute we may find that the lovely Carla Blake was the one who slashed Mr. West's throat, but in the meantime eat Chummies, the dandy candy," is perhaps bad optics.

That the police not only play along, but even allow the first round of questioning to be aired to a nationwide audience is preposterous. But therefore not any less fun. Not only a fun, cleverly done slant on the normally routine questioning of suspects, but really something that feels ahead of its time.

So the broadcast is howling success with the audience baying for more. And, as that second broad is prepared, the case continues to develop off-air. Those developments include two additional bodies, however, they're not page-filling corpses dropped to pad out the story, but flow directly from the first murder – provide clues to the who and why. Fuller continued to show some innovation and creativity with the ending, especially how Jupiter solves and resolves the whole case. Firstly, the way in which Jupiter finally puts together all the pieces together is not exactly conventional and "may well open up a whole new field of criminal detection." I'm sure Ronald Knox would disapprove, but it fitted the overall tone of the story and piled on another memorable feature to the story. The traditional gathering of the suspects for the denouement is conventional enough, despite taking place live on air, but became worried at this point the century-old murder case was forgotten about and doomed to remain an unresolved mystery. Right before signing off, only half a page left to go, Jupiter quickly gives his solution to the historical case and reminds the listeners/readers "to invest in War Bonds and Stamps."

I think it goes without saying This is Murder, Mr. Jones is grand fun with some clever, creative and even memorable touches to plot and a couple of old, dusty tropes. Even the motive came across as fresh and original for the time. It all added up to something surprisingly good and unexpectedly rewarding. However, I do fear my enthusiastic rambling might be misinterpreted. So don't expect This is Murder, Mr. Jones to deliver a locked room mystery from the caliber of John Dickson Carr with an Agatha Christie-style rug pull of an ending, but neither should you expect a solid second-string mystery. It's a little too good, and too original in parts, to be relegated to second-tier status. This is Murder, Mr. Jones is very much in the tradition of the better American murder-can-be-fun mysteries Rue Morgue Press specialized in reprinting like Kelley Roos, Stuart Palmer and Craig Rice. That's not a bad company to be in.

Note for the curious: I don't have a brilliant and dazzling alternative solution for the Parker murder case, but a simple possibility that was never mentioned. Now the details of the murder itself are scant and a bit sketchy, but one thing stands out. West mentioned many pet theories emerging over the years, "even heard scholarly gentlemen suggest that the good gardener perpetrated the dastardly crime," but no mention of the proverbial chink in the armor – namely the nurse who alibied Parker. So here's how I figured it (ROT13 to obscure plot details): Eboreg Cnexre jnf fvpx ng gur gvzr naq arrqrq n ahefr. Jura uvf jvsr jnf fgnoorq, Cnexre jnf va gur onguebbz jvgu gur ahefr jnvgvat bhgfvqr gur qbbe. Cnexre qvq vaqrrq fgno uvf jvsr naq rfpncrq whfgvpr jvgu uvf uloevq ybpxrq ebbz-nyvov, juvpu znxrf vg n dhrfgvba bs ubj ur qvq vg. Guvf nyfb tvirf ebbz sbe na nygreangvir rkcynangvba, orpnhfr vg zrnaf Cnexre qbrfa'g gnyx gb uvf ahefr jura ur'f va gur onguebbz. Naq fur whfg jnvgf hagvy ur pbzrf bhg. Fbzrguvat ahefr pbhyq hfr nf fur jbhyq cebonoyl xabj ubj ybat vg gnxrf ba nirentr sbe uvz gb or qbar. N ahefr gnxvat pner bs vainyvqf, be frzv-vainyvq, vf svg rabhtu gb eha orgjrra gjb sybbef, xabjf jurer gb fgno naq abg znxr n zrff bs vg. V fvzcyl nffhzrq gurl jrer univat na nssnve naq nyvovrq rnpu bgure, ohg vg jbhyq or rira orggre vs gur ahefr unq gur rknpgyl fnzr, gentvp zbgvir nf gur cerfrag-qnl zheqrere. History never repeats itself, but it rhymes from time to time.

Keep Cool, Mr. Jones (1950) by Timothy Fuller

Timothy Fuller was a member of the class of 1936 at Harvard and the son of Richard Fuller, head of Boston's Old Corner Book Store, who reportedly (PDF) penned Harvard Has a Homicide (1936) as a bet with his father to get out of college – stating "he would have a book published within twelve months." Not only was Harvard Has a Homicide published, but "the first contemporary mystery story ever to be serialized" in The Atlantic Monthly. The book introduces Fuller's series detective, Edmund "Jupiter" Jones, who assists the police when his professor is murdered. Fuller returned to Jupiter Jones five years later with Three Thirds of a Ghost (1941), Reunion with Murder (1941) and This is Murder, Mr. Jones (1943). A fifth and final novel, Keep Cool, Mr. Jones (1950), appearing seven years later.

I read Harvard Has a Homicide and Three Thirds of a Ghost, but only dimly recall thinking they were decent, lightweight mysteries. Not enticing or quite good enough to immediately grab Keep Cool, Mr. Jones from the big pile where it has languished ever since. Recently, while tidying up my shelves, I came across my Dell edition of Keep Cool, Mr. Jones and the plot description caught my interest right away.

First of all, Keep Cool, Mr. Jones was published after the series apparently ended following the publication of This is Murder, Mr. Jones, seven years earlier, which reads like a soft reboot of the series – suggesting an intended continuation along modern lines. It's also why I wish I remembered more details about Harvard Has a Homicide, Three Thirds of a Ghost and Jupiter Jones. I believe Jupiter started out as a wisecracking version of 1930s Ellery Queen, but Keep Cool, Mr. Jones finds an older Jones living in the suburban Boston village of Saxon with a wife and three young children. Jupiter had hung up his deerstalker nearly six years ago, however, "much as the banker must bank or the preacher preach," Jupiter "had been grotesquely conditioned to deduce amateurishly." Something that had been suppressed for years when incident made the old urge to detect and deduce resurface.

This incident takes place at Jack Maney's second annual, old-fashioned barn dance to raise funds for the local library. In the barn's basement, Maney has installed a large, state of the art walk-in deep freezer stocked with food ("...the handiest symbol of the Dream..."). During the party, Maney goes down to the freezer to show Mrs. Parker Madison, Harry Dexter and Dr. Wren some birds, but never return. When they go out to investigate, they find the closed freezer door securely padlocked from outside and the four inside. Not dead or even seriously injured, but badly shaken and Jupiter believes the padlock proves intent to murder. However, if it was attempted murder, the murderer had a motive "powerful enough to account for the cold-blooded disposal of three extra, presumably uninvolved, victims." So identifying the primary target is key, but "the unharmed victims unanimously denied having enemies."

Following night, the investigation turns into a full-fledged homicide case when Howie Howland, Chief of Police, is found shotgunned to death in the cabin of the local character, Arnold "The Indian" Baxter – who's nowhere to be found. Jupiter takes Howland's place as acting police chief as the manhunt for Arnold begins, but the case is not as clear cut as it appears on the surface. And is there a link to freezer incident? So not your typical, Golden Age village murders or college slayings from previous decades peppered with social commentary and observations on America bracing itself as it's about to enter the second-half of the twentieth century. In this modernized, updated whodunit a decidedly classical trope is introduced concerning the local legend of old Hiram Potter and his fortune in buried gold. Something his family and treasure hunters have been digging for in the Potter woods the better part of a century. Only clue old Hiram left behind are six couplets found scattered through his diary. I instinctively knew where the gold was secreted away, however, it's solution is perhaps a bit tropey (SPOILER/ROT13: gur tbyq jnf ohevrq va gur przrgrel naq cebcbfr gb anzr guvf gebcr va juvpu n cybg cbvag unf gb or qht hc va n tenirlneq "ohevny cybgf"). Between acting as police chief and amateur treasure hunter, there are a few other minor plot-threads involving the various inhabitants of Saxon that need to be tidied up. Jupiter's basically plays a cross between a fairy godmother and a diplomat on a peacekeeping assignment.

All of this is packed tightly in a svelte 155 pages making for a compact, breezy story, but, needless to say, the plotting is not terribly complex and layered. Nevertheless, the way in which Fuller tied together the freezer incident, the shooting, the disappearance and the buried treasure made for a pleasant tangle with a light sprinkling of those good, old-fashioned fair play principles. Unsurprisingly, Jupiter finds himself trapped inside the freezer towards the end and how he keeps warm, and gets out, is genuinely clever (ROT13: abg gur fahttyvat hc naq xvffvat jvgu Fyvz Znarl, juvyr uvf jvsr naq xvqf ner ng ubzr, ohg gur znxrfuvsg vtybb cneg naq hfvat n pbva gb xrrc oybjvat gur shfrf gb nggenpg nggragvba gb gur serrmre). And had it been whittled down, Keep Cool, Mr. Jones would have made for an excellent, first-rate mystery novella. But it's fine as it stands. More substantial than most of these 1950s traditionally-rooted, but light-on-plot, mysteries (e.g. E.G. Cousins' Death by Marriage, 1959). More importantly, I enjoyed it.

In fact, I enjoyed sufficiently to go hunt for copies of Reunion with Murder and This is Murder, Mr. Jones. After all, the latter is a locked room mystery and they have been a little neglected lately. So... very likely to be continued.

Notes for the curious: Firstly, yes, I hadn't forgotten or overlooked Jupiter Jones also happens to be one of the protagonists from Robert Arthur's The Three Investigator series, but don't believe it has ever been confirmed whether it was a nod to Fuller's detective or just a coincidence. It's not unlikely Arthur had read the books and perhaps was a fan. I can see him appreciating how Fuller handled the buried treasure and its clue, because it's Jupiter's daughter who makes an astute observation about the couplets. So, yeah, possibly. Secondly, it was never suggested in the story, but another possibility to the freezer incident is that one of the four people pulled "The Loubet Sacrifice" to take out the other three. That would have made for an interesting take on the classic locked room situation: how can someone inside a walk-in freezer leave the door padlocked on the outside with three other people present? Now there's a challenge for today's locked room experts.