Cross Marks the Spot (1933) by James Ronald

Last year, the Moonstone Press completed their ambitious, massive reprinting project of James Ronald's nearly forgotten, long out-of-print pulp and detective fiction spread out over a dozen volumes – which started with Stories of Crime & Detection, vol. 1: The Dr. Britling Stories (2023). A volume collecting Ronald's earliest endeavors as a writer and included the once obscure, sought after novel Six Were to Die (1932), but Murder in the Family (1936) and They Can't Hang Me (1938) from vol. 2 and 4 proved to be the true highlights from this run of reprints. A run that closed out with the publication of Stories of Crime & Detection, vol. 12: She Got What She Asked For (2025).

The last time I visited Ronald's pulpy brand of detective fiction was more than a year ago when reviewing The Secret of Hunter's Keep (1931) and The Sealed Room Murder (1934) from Stories of Crime & Detection, vol. 11: The Sealed Room Murder (2024). So high time I returned to Ronald and decided to go with Cross Marks the Spot (1933) collected in Stories of Crime & Detection, vol. 6: Cross Marks the Spot (2024).

Cross Marks the Spot is the first, of two, novel-length novels featuring Ronald's best realized, regrettably short-lived series detective, Julian Mendoza, who's an ex-adventurer turned ace reporter for the Morning World – becoming known the Bloodhound of Fleet Street. Mendoza also appeared in five (short) novels that appeared in The Thriller Library series and a rewrite of Cross Marks the Spot under the title The Frightened Girl (as by "Michael Crombie"). The first chapter here gives an excellent introduction of Mendoza while neatly setting up the plot.

Mendoza has lived the life of a "reckless adventurer" since he was a youth, until a near fatal encounter with a lion left one of his legs "a pitiful scarred and shrunken limb," which forced him to return to London. Restless as ever, Mendoza decided to be come crime reporter ("criminals are merely men with the instincts of animals") and hunt down murderers for the Morning World despite his handicap ("in a civilized city half a man is as good as a whole one"). When the story opens, Mendoza has become restless again and goes out in streets looking for a good story. And what he gets hold of turns out to be next morning's headline. Mendoza spots a young, beautiful, but obvious frightened, woman fleeing the Dorian Building. A building of luxurious apartments where the famous movie magnate, Jacob Singerman, who had an appointment with the frightened woman that went disastrous.

Shortly after this scene, Hyman Singerman arrives at Dorian House to discover his brother's body with a bullet hole in his head. Mendoza worms himself into the case by impersonating a Scotland Yard detective and goes over the scene, before the official police has even arrived. Mendoza discovers the frightened woman is an aspiring movie actress, Cicely Foster, but, when he tracks her down, she says she had only hit him when became physical ("...there wasn't anything he wouldn't do for me if I would be nice to him"). If she didn't shot Singerman, who did and how? As it must have been done within the short window of time between Cicely Foster's hasty exit and Hyman Singerman's arrival. Just in time as the police finally catches up Mendoza, but convinces Inspector Howells to work on the case alongside him. That brings him to Jacob and Hyman Singermans' Colossal Film Company.

Now it has been commented upon in the past how classic British mysteries taking place at film studios rarely tend to be good detective stories, even from normally top-tier mystery authors like Edmund Crispin (Frequent Hearses, 1940) or Carter Dickson (And So to Murder, 1950). One reason given is too much focus on the background and mise-en-scène than story and plot. That's not the case as Ronald opted for a series of short, sharp scenes that show the plain, ugly woodwork behind the scenes of the movie studio business covering everything from struggling, poverty stricken actors to the higher ups at the studio and the power they wield over everyone below them – providing another plot-thread that could have been its own novel. Colossal Film Company is currently paying through their nose to produce a film directed by the mad scientist of the movie industry, Gustav von Blom, who can spend thousands of pounds to make a foot of film. Von Blom is also a typical, temperamental and abusive artist who's notoriously difficult to work with.

The movie Von Blom is shooting involves an internal triangle, but found the emotions and passion of the cast lacking in realism. So fired the whole cast and started from scratch by engaging two actors and an actress, Russell Clayton, Philip Dressler and Norma Lavery, who are involved in a real-life love triangle. Von Blom contracted them separately and only told them a day before rehearsals. They, of course, refuse to take part in, what's essentially, an emotional snuff movie, but they already signed the contracts ("...murder will be done before it's finished"). Add to this Von Blom rooms at Dorian House and has a motive, an attempted murder of a studio employee and Mendoza demonstrating what a one-legged man can do in an ass kicking when he knows his jiu jitsu, Cross Marks the Spot never bores for a second. More importantly, the plot holds up a lot better than the second Mendoza novel, Death Croons the Blues (1934), which fell apart with its ridiculous solution. Fortunately, the solution here held together even when parts of Ronald's pulp roots came to the surface. Not a bad conclusion either. Perhaps not quite as good, overall, as Murder in the Family and They Can't Hang Me, but a good, solid and well-deserved third place. Recommended as a good, fun and fast-paced mystery novel with pulp tendencies and great introduction to James Ronald and one of his best, too short lived detectives.

The Secret of Hunter's Keep (1931) by James Ronald

James Ronald's The Secret of Hunter's Keep (1931) is the second, somewhat shortish, novel in Stories of Crime & Detection, vol. 11: The Sealed Room Murder (2024) originally serialized in Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser during the December month of 1931 – published in book form under the title The House of Horror (1935). The editor, Chris Verner, restored the original title as being more suitable for this lighthearted, tongue-in-cheek spoof of writers like Edgar Wallace and Carolyn Wells. A mystery of adventure and romance packing "enough secret passages and hidden doors to satisfy most readers for the rest of their lives."

The spacious house, or rather mansion, is the remote, richly historied Hunter's Keep belonging to a well-known, celebrated gentleman of leisure and thriller writer, Wilmer Basingstoke. A man of mystery who became interested in crime and "plunged into a wholehearted study of crime from every angle."

Basingstoke had acted first as a criminal, "two burglaries he planned and carried out alone were never traced to him," before becoming an amateur detective "running down burglars and handing them over to justice." Getting bored by the whole thing, Basingstoke toyed with the idea to commit a murder, but a timely discovered talent for writing contained his murderous ambitions to the printed page as he became a bestselling thriller author.

The story takes place during a house party thrown to liven up the place. Basingstoke has invited his two nephews, Percy Hyth and John Ridgeway and young niece, Lucy Halperin, who he hasn't seen since they were children. The cousins meet each other for the first time. Philip Lavery and Irma Dering are bored, flirtatious socialites who amused their host with their trivial conversations and "belief that their own silly little world was the centre of the universe." Reverend Cyril Wootton and his brother, Peter Wootton, who's a Scotland Yard detective ("...at present on holiday"). Someone in the first chapter mentions wonders how someone who can write such thrilling yarns can give such dull house parties, but that changes quickly when they hear bell ringing followed by the maid screaming, "the master—'e's dead" – saying she found him dead and covered in blood. But when they go to look, they find an empty room and a bloodstained dagger. Basingstoke's body is nowhere to be found.

However, The Secret of Hunter's Keep is not a locked room mystery about impossibly vanishing corpses. Basingstoke's body is not the only one to disappear under mysterious circumstances, but how the bodies disappeared is not some terrifying, unfathomable mystery. Hunter's Keep is known to be honeycombed with concealed passages, hidden doors, secret staircases and subterranean rooms. While their locations and entrances have been lost to time, someone has started to make use of them. Peter Wootton observes "Hunter's Keep was not one house, but two, and it was the house within the walls that held the secret they were bent on solving." It really does appear as if the main building is merely a front for the rabbit warren of hidden passages, rooms and staircases, but that probably makes it sound better than it actually is.

Ronald was an uneven plotter. For every Murder in the Family (1936) and They Can't Hang Me (1938), you have a Six Were to Die (1932) and Death Croons the Blues (1934), but one thing all have in common is their readability and sometimes surprisingly good characterization. The Secret of Hunter's Keep is no exception to the rule, which makes it better than most pulp mysteries of the time festooned with cliches and secret passages. It honestly little more than a very readable, sometimes amusing pile up of turn-of-the-century cliches and sniping at the thriller novel itself. More on that in moment.

The Secret of Hunter's Keep is not wholly an overly cliched, featureless but readable piece of pulp fiction. It has some points of interest. During his day as an amateur detective, Basingstoke helped Scotland Yard to catch a criminal known as "The Basher." Peter Wootton finds an unread telegram informing Basingstoke that John Albert Green, a.k.a. "The Basher," had escaped that morning from Dartmoor prison. And probably on his way to get his revenge.

Their backstory is told to the reader in the form of two excerpts from one of Basingstoke's novels based on him capturing Green. Yeah, it's blatant padding, but didn't dislike it and the only thing in the book to briefly throw me off my game. For a moment, I feared Ronald was lazily going for a variation on a well-known mystery novel (ROT13: fve neguhe pbana qblyr'f gur inyyrl bs srne, oevrsyl fhfcrpgvat onfvatfgbxr unq xvyyrq gur onfure naq jnf uvqvat, nybat jvgu gur obql, vafvqr gur jnyyf bs gur ubhfr). I'll get back to the solution. Another thing that stood out to me was the introduction of a plagiarism plot thread, when someone comes forward claiming Basingstoke plagiarized his work. How this plot-thread is revealed and eventually resolved is not without interest, perhaps the best handled part of the story, but couldn't escape the feeling Ronald was laughing here at his readers – not with them. I know pulp thrillers brandishing book titles like The Ho-Fong Mystery, The Eye of Cho-Fang and The Chinese Dagger aren't known for their quality writing or careful plotting, not without reason nor undeserving of criticism, but this came across as a politely-worded, but somewhat mean spirited, swipe at everyone who wrote and read them (ROT13: “turfr cybgf nera'g lbhef be zvar, gurl ner pbzzba cebcregl” nf gur npphfre vf pnegrq bss gb gur ybbal ova). No wonder John Norris panned the book in his 2019 review!

Well, there's the ending and solution. While I briefly entertained a slightly different solution, the final twist complete with a Scooby Doo-esque unmasking of the villain is not a rug puller of a surprise. You can see it coming from a mile ahead, but think most people will be irked that the solution (ROT13) jnyxf onpx rirelguvat gung unccrarq cerivbhfyl. Honestly, if I had bought The Secret of Hunter's Keep separately, I would have been a bit disappointed. I got this volume for the reprint of The Sealed Room Murder (1934) with The Secret of Hunter's Keep. So got to enjoy it for what it's. A lighthearted romp poking fun at the country house mystery that's fun enough, if you don't expect a serious detective novel.

The Sealed Room Murder (1934) by James Ronald

I didn't expect the Moonstone Press reprint of James Ronald's The Sealed Room Murder (1934), originally as by "Michael Crombie," to be published before 2025, but Stories of Crime & Detection, vol. 11: The Sealed Room Murder (2024) dropped in December – which was a seasonally appropriate surprise. For me, anyway.

This volume comprises of Ronald's ultra rare, long out-of-print The Sealed Room Murder and the serialized novel The Secret of Hunters Keep (1931). The latter is a parody of the country house mystery, containing "enough secret passages and hidden doors to satisfy most readers for the rest of their lives," published in book form under the title The House of Horror. First I'll be taking a look at the former.

John Norris, of Pretty Sinister Books, reviewed The Sealed Room Murder in 2019 noting that from Ronald's seven "Michael Crombie" novels, only "a handful of copies of four titles turn up for sale at outrageous prices" with other three being "so absurdly rare that only one copy each is held in the British Library." So was really looking forward to this reprint, because The Sealed Room Murder was until recently among the rarest of locked room mysteries with promise and potential. However, it has to be mentioned the book title is a little misleading as the sealed room murder is tucked away in the last twenty, or so, pages. That said, The Sealed Room Murder is a blast and blazed through it in one sitting!

The Sealed Room Murder is pulp-style thriller presented as an inverted mystery playing on, and freshening up, the wicked uncle trope from a bygone era. Godfrey Winter, wicked uncle in a question, is "one of the three leading K.C.'s of the day" who "has saved more than one client who, in the hands of almost any other counsel, would have swung," but his passion for racehorses will keep him from a judge – not without reason. Winter's expenses on his hobby has become greater than his income at the bar and compelled his nephew, Eric Winter, to change his will. A short time later, Eric unexpectedly dies and the doctor is satisfied he died of typhoid fever, but his sister believed their uncle murdered him.

Patricia Winter is determined to upset Uncle Godfrey's perfect little murder. She spreads rumors in the village, writes letters to Scotland Yard and Eric's best friend, Alan Napier, who's on his voyage back to England when he receives her message. During his voyage, Alan befriended Larry Milner, a reporter for the Morning Echo, who turns sleuth to help bring Uncle Godfrey to heel. Hilariously, Milner decided to test a colleague's theory and introduces himself to the barrister by whispering "I know your secret" in his ear. And not without consequences!

After neatly disposing of his nephew, Winter finds himself on the constant defense from his niece, her friends and village gossip. Detective Sergeant Evans, of Scotland Yard, has even come down to the village to question the doctor and gossip mongers. So first tries to imprison Patricia, threaten her with an asylum and eventually makes a serious attempt to kill her, which only makes his position more precarious as now he also has to deal with a blackmailer among his servants ("er... no tricks, sir. I'll be armed"). However, while the suspicious incident and scandal mongering continue to pile on, they have nothing substantial to go on and Winter's standing gives him another layer of protection. Milner is dismissed from the Morning Echo after a complaint from the higher ups to his editor ("his esteemed Lordship was at school with Winter, or something"). So the fight against wicked Uncle Godfrey proves to be an uphill battle.

Towards the end, an apparent suicide is discovered inside a room with the door locked, and bolted, from the inside and the only window securely fastened with a burglar-proof catch – a chimney barely wide enough to allow "the passage of a full-grown cat" ("...far less a man"). Solving this locked room-puzzle could be the final nail in Winter's coffin, but Milner is stumped and consults various mystery writers, a magician and eventually a model scale of the crime scene. There is, of course, only so much you can do with less than twenty pages to go, but appreciated the attempt and spirit in which it was done. I would have loved to have known the solutions proposed by his mystery writing friends. What about the solution to the locked room murder? Well, I wouldn't go as far as calling the locked room-trick routine. No keys turned with pliers, bolts drawn with strings or any shenanigans with the burglar-proof catch after the door was broken down, but you probably have seen the trick before.

But once again, Ronald's didn't allow himself much space to do something really good with the murder giving the book it's title. What surprised me the most about the impossible murder is the choice of victim. Considering the difficulty in gathering evidence against him and the scene in which Winter defended himself, it would have also been quite fitting if he had died in that locked room (SPOILER/ROT13: gur qeht nqqvpgrq ahefr pbhyq unir havagragvbanyyl fgnoorq uvz, juvyr ybbxvat sbe zbecuvar. Naq gur qbpgbe evttrq hc gur ybpxrq ebbz gb znxr vg nccrne yvxr fhvpvqr gb cebgrpg uvzfrys).

So wish more could have been done with the locked room, which is not unreasonable as its titled The Sealed Room Murder, but in every other regard, it's a first-rate pulp mystery. The story never drags or becomes dull as its twists and turn from one chapter to another without becoming a disconnected mess with the characters merely acting on the latest plot developments. James Ronald may be one of the better, traditionally-styled mystery writers to come out of the pulps. Not just as a storyteller, but also someone who had better eye for character than most of his fellow pulpeteers. I don't think The Sealed Room Murder is quite as good as Murder in the Family (1936) and They Can't Hang Me (1938), but it's a good, solid third. Definitely worth a recommendation.

Death Croons the Blues (1934) by James Ronald

Stories of Crime & Detection, vol. 7: Death Croons the Blues (2024) is, as of this writing, one of the recent additions to the ambitious, ongoing project to restore James Ronald's crime, detective and pulp fiction to print – scheduled to conclude next year with vol. 14. The headline novel of this collection is the second of three novels about the morally flexible, ace crime reporter of the London-based Morning World, Julian Mendoza. I wanted to start at the beginning of the series with Cross Marks the Spot (1933), collected in Stories of Crime & Detection, vol. 6 (2024), but remembered John Norris reviewed Death Croons the Blues (1934) in 2019. It sounded exactly like the kind of pulp-style, slightly off-the-wall whodunit I can appreciate.

Bill Cuffy is an ex-convict and reformed housebreaker with a gravely-ill, pregnant wife at home, no income and bills to pay. Molly Cuffy used to do char work for a well-known blues singer, Adele Valée, who's "rolling in jewels and furs." And her apartment is strewn with valuable knick-knacks. It seemed an easy enough job ("the softest of soft cribs") and Cuffy decided to pull the job on the night Valée is supposed to be away, but panics and leaves behind cartoon smoke when coming across her decapitated body in the bloodsoaked bathroom. Cuffy accidentally took the murder weapon with him as neighbors begin to ring the alarms and patrolling police constables blow their whistles.

An exhausted, frightened and Ghurka knife-wielding Cuffy fortuitously ends up at the boardinghouse of Julian Mendoza's housekeeper, Mrs. MacDougal. Mendoza immediately smells a story when he learns the famous nightclub singer has been brutally murdered. Suspects the housebreaker's story is not wholly untrue.

Cuffy not only took the murder weapon with him, but also an expensive, blood smeared coat belonging to a known troublemaker, the Honorable Timothy Brett – who's not the only man involved with Adele Valée. At the crime scene, Mendoza finds proof Valée had intimate relationships with three very rich, highly influential and powerful men. Sir Samuel Judson, an ex-cabinet minister, the department store magnate Neville Walls and the multi-millionaire Hugo Brancker. Their association is not without a hint of blackmail. Mendoza also has to contend with young Lady Constance Gay, who's determined to prevent Brett from hanging, while trying to piece together how the ex-boxer "Tiger" Slavin fits into the story. Not to be forgotten is Inspector Howells, of Scotland Yard, who frowns on Mendoza's shenanigans ("you're a rotten citizen—and a good newspaper man. That's why I don't trust you. You'd lie, cheat, or rob for a story"). So they go at it like rival detectives.

So a pleasantly busy, rollicking pulp-style detective story showing Ronald's towered over other writers when it comes to creating characters and storytelling, especially series-characters. Sketchy, short-lived as they may be. Similar to Six Were to Die (1932) and the other Dr. Britling shorter stories, Death Croons the Blues is carried by series-characters of Mendoza, Howells and Mrs. MacDougal.

John compared Mendoza to early Perry Mason who brazenly tempered with crime scenes, evidence and witnesses as long as it protected his clients. Mendazo takes a similar approach when it comes to chasing the next headline grabber, which he explains to Howells as follow: "That's where I score over you. You're bound up in red tape and regulations. The only tape in my life comes from a newsticker—and I make up my regulations as I go along." So the straitlaced Howells futilely trying to keep the breaks on the roving crime reporter's antics is the perfect foil and considerably livens up the story in addition to the characters, plot-threads and some actual detective work concerning several iron-clad alibis – even Lady Constance gets to play amateur detective. Ronald was smart enough to have Mendoza's cleverness get the better of him on several occasions and in the end he had to pay a hefty prize for his scoop.

Unfortunately, Death Croons the Blues went from the best the pulps have to offer to the worst with a ridiculous, weak and unconvincing solution. Firstly, the combination of murderer and method strikes a false, unconvincing note (SPOILER/ROT13) orpnhfr V qba'g ohl gung gur zheqrere, nf cerfragrq urer, jbhyq hfr n zrgubq erdhvevat uvz gb eha nebhaq anxrq ba n ebbsgbc be qrcraq ba fhpu n syvzfl, evfxl nyvov. N oevqtr-qhzzl nyvov pna jbex jura gur wbo pna or qbar va n pbhcyr bs zvahgrf. Sbe rknzcyr, Inyér vf nyernql qehttrq naq gvrq hc fbzrjurer va uvf ubhfr, fgnof ure juvyr orvat qhzzl naq gur obql vf yngre oebhtug onpx gb ure bja syng gb znxr vg nccrne fur jnf xvyyrq gurer. Ohg abg jura gur fpurzr erfrzoyrf n fznyy bofgnpyr pbhefr! Vg jbhyq yrnir uvz gbb ihyarenoyr ba nyy sebagf naq ab thnenagrr gur bguref jbhyq or fb nofbeorq va gur tnzr, gurl jbhyqa'g abgvpr uvf cebybatrq nofrapr nsgre zber guna gra zvahgrf. On top of that, (SPOILER/ROT13), gur zheqrere guerngrarq gb trg evq bs gur gebhoyrfbzr Zraqbmn naq Ynql Pbafgnapr ol qvffbyivat gurve obqvrf va npvq. Frr? Gung'f zhpu zber va punenpgre guna ehaavat nebhaq jvgu n Quhexn xavsr yvxr n qrzragrq ahqvfg gelvat gb chyy bss n zrffl senzr wbo. Why not do that in the first place?

So, plot-wise, Death Croons the Blues is not a patch on the excellent Murder in the Family (1936) or the superb They Can't Hang Me (1938), but it still stands as a fun, well written pulp-style mystery carried by its characters and storytelling – rather than a wildly imaginative premise or solution. Normally a hallmark of these pulp-style takes on the traditional detective novel. I'm still glad to finally have an opportunity to poke around the work of once truly forgotten mystery writer and hopefully the next one will be another Murder in the Family or They Can't Hang Me, instead of a repeat of Six Were to Die.

A note for the curious: Mendoza also appeared in a handful of novellas published by The Thriller Library and the first of these novellas, "Baby-Face” (1937), appears in this collection under the title "Angel Face." In addition to two non-series short stories, "The Other Mr. Marquis" (1930) and "The Joke" (1930). I'm not discussing them here, because I'm saving up Ronald's shorter work and review them separately in two, three compilation reviews.

They Can't Hang Me (1938) by James Ronald

In 2023, Moonstone Press published Stories of Crime & Detection, vol. 1: The Dr. Britling Stories (2023), collecting three novelettes, the once elusive novel Six Were to Die (1932) and an excellent non-series short story ("Blind Man's Bluff," 1929), starting the process of reprinting all of James Ronald's novels and short stories – spread out over fourteen volumes. The stories collected in the first volume are better written than to be expected from the pulps with a regrettably short-lived detective character, but the plots left something to be desired. However, Murder in the Family (1936), marquee title from Stories of Crime & Detection, vol. 2: Murder in the Family (2023), proved to be a surprisingly sophisticated, character-driven crime drama. And an excellent crime drama at that.

I wanted to sample Ronald's often praised impossible crime fiction and Six Were to Die failed to scratch that itch. So looked forward to the release of Stories of Crime & Detection, vol. 4: They Can't Hang Me (2024) which include one of Ronald's reputedly best impossible crime novels.

John Norris called They Can't Hang Me (1938) "a corker of a mystery novel" with two impossible crimes "one of which is worthy of Carr," while Jim Noy gave the book a five-star review ("freakin' loved it") and included it in his "100 Books for a Locked Room Library" – commenting that "the impossible gassing is as good a ploy as any Carr dreamed up." High praise indeed! But is They Can't Hang Me good enough to be included in the "New Locked Room Library" currently being compiled? Time to find out

Twenty years ago, the eccentric Lucius Marplay owned the London newspaper the Echo, but the paper was stolen from underneath him by the current managing editor, Mark Peters. He and his cronies made a personal fortune from their hostile takeover. Marplay was locked up as a certified lunatic and forgotten about. Even his young daughter, Joan, was told he had died and was buried abroad when she was a baby. When the story begins, Joan overhears a conversation at a garden party and learns her father is still alive. So the people around her have something to explain. Naturally, Joan wants to meet her father, however, this demand sets in motion a series of events culminating in wholesale murder at the Echo office building.

Lucius Marplay is sane most of the time except on one point: an unquenchable desire to kill the men, Mark Peters, Ambrose Craven, Sinclair Ellis and Nigel Partridge, whom he holds responsible for his situation. Marplay whittled away the decades by filling "dozens of notebooks with ingenious schemes to end their lives" ("Oh, but they aren't wild plans. They're amazingly shrewd"), which gets to put into practice when he manages to escape during a mental evaluation ("MADMAN TRICKS ALIENIST!"). Before too long, the first death announcement is made and one of the four partners, Ellis, is bludgeoned to death in his private office as the Echo building is locked down and swarmed with armed policemen – resembling a beleaguered fortress. However, Marplay continues to strike with impunity. Every murder is preceded by a death announcement and a note is left with each victim reading, "PAID IN FULL." A familiar setup for the pulp-style "miracle menace" thriller!

An important man under police protection getting bumped off in a locked and guarded or a group of people trapped in a house under siege is a popular setup for a pulp-style locked room. I have encountered them time, and time, again in my admittedly still limited reading. John Russell Fearn's Account Settled (1949) and the posthumous The Man Who Was Not (2005) come to mind as does Gerald Verner's novella "The Beard of the Prophet" (1937) and The Last Warning (1962). Some other examples include Brian Flynn's Invisible Death (1929), T.H. White's Darkness at Pemberley (1932) and more recently Anne van Doorn's short story "De man die liever binnen bleef" ("The Man Who Rather Stayed Inside," 2021). However, Ronald might very well have written the delivered the masterpiece of these pulp-style, beleaguered locked room mysteries with They Can't Hang Me and so much more heaped on top of it.

Firstly, the plot is pleasantly busy with multiple characters working at cross purposes without the story becoming a tangled mess. Joan is determined to learn the truth in order to clear her father's name by coaxing a confession from one of the four men and goes undercover as a secretary/typist, which places her in the cross-hairs of the lecherous, fittingly named Ambrose Craven. Fortunately, she has two allies in her guardian, Miss Agatha Trimm, and the Echo's gossip columnist, Lord Noel Stretton, who has fallen in love with Joan. There's an ex-newspaper reporter and Fleet Street drunk, Flinders, who's always hanging around the Echo building trying to make a buck. My favorite character is unquestionably the Scottish private detective, Alastair MacNab, attached to the New World Investigation Bureau. MacNab has been hired by the asylum to help sniff out Marplay, "I've aye had the knack o' understanding whit goes on in an unbalanced br-ain," who's granted unrestricted access to the building ("if he had been able to foresee how much of nuisance Alastair MacNab was to be..."). A fine character in the tradition of Leo Bruce's Sgt. Beef and Carter Dickson's Sir Henry Merrivale ("you aren't one of Doctor Hammond's patients by any chance?"). Secondly, beside the characters, plot, excellent storytelling and pacing, there's the setting itself. James gives an insight look of the newspaper business and these specialized backgrounds or setting are always a plus when handled properly (i.e. not an info dump of the author's research or first-hand experience). More importantly, Ronald fully exploited the setting to enhance and further the plot.

Robert Adey's Locked Room Murders (1991) lists only one impossibility for They Can't Hang Me, but there are three and understand why the second one got overlooked, but the third, non-deadly impossibility deserves to be acknowledged – which is a small gem. Peters and the Echo suddenly find themselves in a competitive fight with the rivaling Evening Dispatch. Despite the entire building being under lock down and closely guarded, the Evening Dispatch beats the Echo throughout the story in putting out the news of the developing murders first. Sometimes complete with photographs of the crime scene. But who was leaking information? And how? Not only is the building locked down and guarded, but the switchboard monitors every telephone call. The impossible leakage information is, in my opinion, the best of the three impossibilities as the culprit is what makes its solution great and loved the clue of (SPOILER/ROT13: gur yvivat yhapu).

Marplay having seemingly unfettered access to the building can be counted as a quasi-impossible and ongoing situation, but found Marplay's earlier actions after escaping to be more interesting. After a twenty year spell in an asylum, Marplay proves to be surprisingly resourceful, once outside, collecting and trading money or items to be used in his shenanigans. Such as pawning the coat he stole from the psychiatrist or taking a curtain cord from one scene to use it another like it's a video game. And his presence throughout the story is very well handled. But what about the two locked room murders?

One of the men is shot in a locked and tightly guarded room "as impregnable as one of the vaults of the Bank of England," while policemen were sitting only a few steps away in the anteroom. Another one dies of cyanide, while surrounded by police guards, but no apparent way the poison could have been administrated. The shooting is definitely the better of the two with a novel new way to shoot someone in a locked and guarded room. A trick that by itself could have been developed into something really good as it has enough aspects to have carried a novel-length locked room mystery. The problem with pulp writers (for us, anyway) is that the finer plot details and clueing aren't always treated with exactly the same care or rigor as their Golden Age counterparts. Something that can be a problem for the uncompromising plot purist, but nothing that should deter you from enjoying this lively, well written and characterized story mixing the lurid pulp-thriller with the traditional locked room and impossible crime story.

James Ronald was a pulp writer, but not your average, dime-a-dozen second-stringer who dominated the pulps. Ronald could very well have been one of its best writers, certainly better than my favorite second-stringers, who surprised me with Murder in the Family and entertained me on every page of They Can't Hang Me ("incredible, unbelievable, fantastic, impossible"). They Can't Hang Me is fun with a capital F and pulp with a P. So bring on the reprints of Cross Marks the Spot (1933) and Death Croons the Blues (1934)!

Murder in the Family (1936) by James Ronald

Last month, I reviewed James Ronald's Six Were to Die (1932) and a handful of his shorter works collected in Stories of Crime & Detection, vol. 1: The Dr. Britling Stories (2023), which is the first in a reportedly 14 volume reprint project by Moonstone Press – aiming to reprint all of Ronald's crime fiction over the next few years. The first volume is a sampling of Ronald's earliest, tentative steps as a writer of crime stories and pulp mysteries. So quality tended to vary between stories, but what difference a few years makes!

Stories of Crime & Detection, vol. 2: Murder in the Family (2023) collects a novel, a novelette and a short story. I'm going to save the two shorter works for another time and concentrate on the titular novel.

Murder in the Family (1936), alternatively published as The Murder in Gay Ladies and Trial Without Jury, is a novel of crime rather than detection, but there's nothing pulpy about this deeply human, sometimes downright uneasy crime novel. This book is not what I expected from the man who wrote the Dr. Britling series and have never agreed with Jim so much when he wrote this about Murder in the Family, "something that's so far from the sort of thing I'd expect to like that I honestly don't know what to make of it." Not only because it's a character-driven crime novel, but, in a way, it can be read as a criticism of treating murder as a parlor game. Not my poison, yet I loved it.

Stephen Osborne, a man in his fifties, worked for the firm of Samuel Padbury & Son for more than two decades, "twenty-four years of clerical drudgery," but a small sacrifice in order to support a large, loving and everyday family – a family he started with Edith in the small, charming village of Gay Ladies. They have a handful of children, Dorothy, Ann, Michael, Marjory and Peter, who range from twelve years to twenty-three. This loving household is rounded out by the house help, Hannah Gale, who's dog loyal to the family and sporadic stays from the children's Uncle Simon Osborne. A "graceless reprobate" whose only legitimate source of income was occasionally churning out "a thriller for the publishers of twopenny bloods," but there was always a bed waiting for him at Gay Ladies when he needed to get away from his creditors. So with five children to feed, cloth, educate and helping out Uncle Simon every now and then, they had never been able to save money. And when, one day, Stephen is let go from his job with no prospect of finding a position elsewhere. Just like that, Stephen's dreams of a better life for his children are shattered.

There is, however, one option still open to Stephen, but not one he relishes. Stephen has a rich half-sister, Miss Octavia Osborne, who cut him off without a penny when he married Edith against her wishes ("that's why he's been slaving his heart out on an office stool..."). Uncle Simon explains to his niece Ann that with her Aunt Octavia "quarrels may slumber, but they never die," predicting she'll turn down her father ("her veins flow with vinegar"). The family is not exactly looking forward to a week-long visit from "acid-tongued, sniffy-nosed old megalomaniac" as she's only happy when she can fault in the children, criticize how the house is run and generally having a beastly temper. When she arrives in Gay Ladies, Octavia makes short work of establishing herself as top 10 material for most murderable victim in a detective story.

Just as predicted, Octavia not only considers it her duty to withhold her assistance, but, gleefully, announces she has taken steps of drafting a new will – which cuts out her brother and his children completely. So tempers begin to flare and think a lot of readers will get some satisfaction from this unvarnished confrontation, but Octavia simply brushes it off and informs them she'll be leaving immediately. But while waiting in the sitting room, someone sneaks up behind her and tries to strangle her, causing a fatal heart attack. Ann was in the room reading Shakespeare, but says she didn't hear or see anyone enter the room.

Conventional enough for something written in 1936 and the following police investigation does not immediately dispel the illusion of a typical, Golden Age village mystery, but the police soon retreat into the background of the story. Simply for the reason that they can make a good case against every member of the family, even its youngest members ("a child could have done it"), but they can't put them all on trial. So the focus of the story shifts to showing the often brutal fall out the family has to endure of being implicated in the murder of a close relative in their own home. Firstly, there's the press descending on Gay Ladies and having to read about themselves in the papers complete with descriptions of each family members and "veiled hints that no outsider could have been responsible" ("...cunningly enough to avoid an action for libel"). Secondly, the heart breaking way in which the family is cast aside by their own community or at best treated as a morbid curiosity. There's a gaping crowd at their garden gate, their letterbox is over flowing with hate mail and their ghoulish neighbor, Miss Whipple, talked her way into the house to sit in the murder chair – delighted that she now had a story to tell. The eldest daughter, Dorothy, was about to be engaged, but the parents of the boy immediately packed him off to France when the news broke. And the two youngest find that they have no friends left at school.

The blows to this sympathetic family keep coming, one after another, which only appear to stop to take a breather, but never veering into over the top dramatics. On the contrary. Murder in the Family is uncomfortably homely with on the one hand a once loving and caring household put through hell, while the outside world sees their situation as nothing more than a good story that sells newspapers or give people something to speculate over at the pub. This stark difference becomes painfully clear at the end when you see just how much they're willing to sacrifice in order to protect each other. After all, someone knotted that scarf around Octavia's neck. But who?

I feared Ronald had written himself in a corner here, because how can you possibly deliver a murderer who's not coming across a letdown or cop-out? Do you actually pick someone from the household, because whether they're allowed to get away with it, or not, it would be dark, unrewarding end either way. The preceding events made that abundantly clear. But picking an outsider would be a cheap cop-out to go for a happy ending. So became increasingly more skeptical towards the end as there appeared to be no way for the story to deliver a worthy ending that was not going to feel like a letdown, one way or another. My first response to the murderer finally being pulled out in the open was thinly veiled disappointment. Only to be then told the motive for the murder! What it implied as to what happened after the murder. Someway, somehow, Ronald's pulled it off in the end and created, what's essentially, an anti-detective story which even a proponent of murder-as-a-parlor-game can enjoy. You can call me a radical, if you want, but I believe the only place for murder in a civilized world is in fiction. So I'm not going to apologize for being a ghoul who enjoys a good game of whodunit crammed with locked rooms and dying messages, but appreciated the point that was being made. More importantly, how it was made. If I'm ever redoing my list of 101 all-time favorite crime-and detective novels, Murder in the Family has secured a spot on it! So never let it be said I only care about the nuts-and-bolts type of detective story. Anyway, highly recommended!

A note for the curious: you know what I haven't done in a while? Share one of my half-baked, incorrect armchair solutions I concocted and entertained while reading. On the day of the murder, Peter gets into a fight with the village bully, Ernie Piper, but get pulled apart by Marjory. She returns in kind everything Ernie throws at them ("Ernie hated games that two could play") and beats a hasty retreat, while vowing revenge. Octavia died of shock from suddenly having a scarf pulled across her throat without any force. Not strangulation. Which is why the police couldn't discount the two youngest as the deed required no strength whatsoever. So began to wonder if Ernie could have been sulking around the house, looking for an opportunity to settle his score, noticed Dorothy's scarf and Octavia in the sitting room with his back towards him. Why not scare the hell out of the old bat and place the blame with the Osborne children? Ernie is the post office messenger boy and could approach the house without arousing curiosity. For example, from the all-seeing of Miss Whipple's telescope. Of course, the intention was to frighten, not to kill, but Ernie is a cowardly bully who would initially keep his mouth shut, but, over a long enough time, would probably give himself away. It would not have been best solution, but it would have made for an interesting enough ending. After all they went through together, the police stroll back into their home to casually announce the whole matter has been resolved complete with a confession. A terrible tragedy and all that. No hard feelings or harm done and take their leave. A solution that likely would have deflated the entire story, but a possibility I seriously considered. Fortunately, Ronald came up with a much better conclusion.

Six Were to Die (1932) by James Ronald

Last time, I reviewed the three novelettes and bonus short story from Stories of Crime & Detection, vol. 1: The Dr. Britling Stories (2023), which is the first of twenty-some planned volumes by Moonstone Press and Chris Verner – aiming to collect all of James Ronald's detective fiction by 2025. The first installment in this series of reprints introduces the regrettably short-lived characters of Dr. Daniel Britling and his twin sister, Miss Eunice Britling, who only appeared in three novelettes and a single novel. That pulp-style locked room novel is also included in this first volume.

Ronald's Six Were to Die (1932), marking the final appearance of Dr. Daniel Britling, was originally published as a Hodder & Stoughton's Yellow Jacket Original, reprinted in 1941 by Mystery House as 6 Were to Die by "Kirk Wales" and a Cherry Tree digest edition in 1947. Verner used the version that was serialized in various newspapers around the world under the penname "Peter Gale" ("...minor punctuation and text differences between these and other versions"). Just to give you an idea that the publication history of pulp writers like James Ronald or John Russell Fearn are detective stories unto themselves.

Six Were to Die deceivingly begins with blissful scene of domesticity at the little flat in Orchard Street, which Miss Britling shared with her brother. Dr. Britling annoyed his sister by staying in bed late, delaying their breakfast and "adding insult to injury" by singing and splashing around in the bath. If I didn't know beforehand what the story is roughly about, I would have assumed from the first few pages it was going to be one of those lighthearted mysteries from the murder-can-be-fun school of Kelley Roos and the Lockridges, but the arrival of a parcel pulls it right back to the pulps. The package comes with a letter warning for the police surgeon, "this morning one Jubal Straust will call upon you and request your aid on behalf of himself and five associates," but advises Dr. Britling not "to be drawn into an affair which is none of your concern" or risk a swift, sudden and untimely death – package included a poisonous death trap as a demonstration ("...you will receive no warning with the next deadly message"). Something that has the completely opposite effect on Dr. Britling ("I don't like to be threatened. I regard it as a challenge"). Dr. Britling explains to Straust he's willing to listen to him not in spite of the anonymous threat, but because of it.

Jubal Straust is a prominent financier, "one of the crookedest members of the London Stock Exchange," who twelve years ago was one of the six partners in the Eldorado Investment Trust. There were, of course, financial shenanigans afoot that eventually caught up with them. So they scapegoated their partner and friend, Arthur Marckheim, who was sent to prison for ten years ("Besides, what is friendship? Its commercial value is nil"). After the trial concluded, they all went their separate ways, considerably richer, but now Marckheim has returned to remind them that the penalty for their double-cross is death. And knowing their former partner, they take the threat very seriously. So the five partners, Gideon Levison, Mark Annerley, Hubert Quail, Jubal Straust and has old father Israel Straust, buried themselves away in Grey Towers near Leighton Buzzard. Home of the old Straust. The sixth person on Markheim list of people to kill is his ex-wife, Cora, who's the current Mrs. Annerley.

Grey Towers is very well protected as the ten foot high fence around the estate has an integrated burglar alarm and the grounds outside are constantly patrolled by armed men, "all ex-policemen or ex-pugilists," who are armed – blowing a whistle turns on the rooftop search lights. What could go wrong? Jubal Straust is fatally poisoned while driving Dr. Britling to Grey Towers. A simple, but clever, poisoning trick demonstrating the murderer's creativity and resourcefulness. Particularly when it comes to playing on the victim's personalities, weaknesses or simply habits to help them along to an early grave. One by one, the men are poisoned under seemingly impossible circumstances or get shot in locked rooms or speeding cars.

Six Were to Die has more impossible situations than Robert Adey listed in Locked Room Murders (1991). For example, a warning from Marckheim is found inside a sealed package of playing cards or the overarching impossibility of how Marckheim can enter or move around the house without being detected. Some are better and more convincing than others, of course, but all the tricks are firmly rooted in the tradition of the pulps. I think the best of these pulp-style locked room-tricks is the poisoning of Hubert Quail, because the method to introduce the poison is ludicrous. A trick you might actually have heard about and wondered if anyone actually used in a detective story. Well, yes. Ronald tried not unsuccessfully to make it sound somewhat plausible and turning it into a locked room problem certainly helped towards that end. Another quasi-impossible situation I enjoyed is how one of the characters gets thrown out of the house and manages to sneak back in without getting caught or even spotted by the guards. It's cartoonishly clever. Something you can imagine Bugs Bunny doing to get into the house.

When it comes to the impossible crimes, Six Were to Die gives you, more or less, what can be expected from a pulp-style locked room mystery with a group of people under siege and dying under inexplicable circumstances – comparable to Brian Flynn's Invisible Death (1929) and Fearn's Account Settled (1949). Not always credible, as far as method goes, but always bubbling over with wildly imaginative, downright crazy ideas or tricks. Where it differentiates itself from other pulp stories like it is simply plot management. There's never more than a chapter between one of the impossible crimes taking place and it's solution, which made for a far tidier and tighter plot and story than had they accumulated until a lengthy explanation was needed. Not to mention adding to the overall mystery how a murderer can have the run of the place without getting caught or seen. It also cleared the way for the ending when it was time to abandoned any pretense of being a detective story and barreled full throttle into pulpville, which is where the story managed to loose me.

In the previous review, I noted that pulp writers like Ronald and Fearn wrote for a less demanding audience than the Golden Age aficionados who are discovering them today. Now I don't think anyone expects the rigor of a Golden Age mystery from a pulp novel nor will the outlandish nature of the locked room-tricks be a stumbling block for many, but after such a well written, nicely balanced and above all entertaining mystery I expected something slightly better from the conclusion. Something more inspired fitting everything that preceded it. And how the murderer had the run of the place is ridiculous. Something that's always tricky to pull of convincingly, but didn't buy it here at all. But it comes with the territory of the pulps. For every good, wildly imaginative or original idea, they do half a dozen things that makes most GAD fans want to pull out their hair at the roots.

Sorry to have to conclude this on a somewhat sour note, but I really did enjoy Six Were to Die right up until the last handful of chapters. Until then, Six Were to Die is an incredibly entertaining pulp mystery dispatching its cast of characters, left and right, under seemingly impossible circumstances and the ominous presence of the killer constantly looming over them – eating away at their nerves. It deserved a better ending. Just like Dr. Britling deserved a longer run as a series-character, because, once again, he shined as a leading character. Even his twin sister has a strong, off-page presence when she begins to exchange letters with her brother. So much more could have been done with them. However, I also realize the three Dr. Britling novelettes and this novel merely represents some of Ronald's earliest, tentative steps as a writer of pulp mysteries. Six Were to Die is perhaps not a rival to the plots of John Dickson Carr or John Rhode, but possesses all the promise, ingenuity and freshness to eventually deliver on that promise. So eagerly look forward to the coming reprints of Murder in the Family (1936), They Can't Hang Me (1938) and the "Michael Crombie" novel The Sealed Room Murder (1934).

Stories of Crime & Detection, vol. 1: The Dr. Britling Stories (2023) by James Ronald

James Ronald was a Scottish-born writer of detective stories, pulp-style mysteries and thrillers, but, despite receiving high praise for his "ingenuity, freshness, and sharp sense of humour," Ronald passed into obscurity upon his death in 1972 – going out-of-print practically immediately. So nearly all of his work became scarce, often expensive collector items and, if they were not completely forgotten, mentioned every now or then in passing (see "99 Novels for a Locked Room Library"). That slowly began to change in the 2010s with the rise of the Golden Age mystery blogs.

The first to bring up James Ronald was John Norris, of Pretty Sinister Books, who reviewed They Can't Hang Me (1938) in 2013 and Death Croons the Blues (1934), The Sealed Room Murder (1934; as by "Michael Crombie") and The House of Horror (1935; as by "Michael Crombie") in 2019. Jim Noy, of The Invisible Event, began adding to the intrigue in 2018 with four and five-star reviews of Six Were to Die (1932), Murder in the Family (1936) and This Way Out (1939). So included Ronald's work in "Curiosity is Killing the Cat: Detective Novels That Need to Be Reprinted" on the strength of those reviews, but John turned up in the comments with some bad news. Moonstone Press tried and nearly succeeded in securing the rights to five of Ronald's novels, but family members put a stop to it ("...they do not have fond memories of the man and they would prefer if he were not back in print"). It looked as if Ronald was doomed to obscurity for the foreseeable future and only sheer serendipity would get me a copy of Six Were to Die, The Sealed Room Murder or They Can't Hang Me.

Somehow, someway, Moonstone Press managed to resolve the dispute and secured the rights to not only five of those elusive, long out-of-print novels, but Ronald's entire body of works – covering everything from his early short stories to those ultra rare locked room mystery novels. A 14-volume reprint project scheduled to be published over the next two years!

Stories of Crime & Detection, vol. 1: The Dr. Britling Stories (2023) was published last December and collected three pulp fiction novelettes, a short story and one of Ronald's elusive impossible crime novels. I also recommend you read the introduction by Chris Verner, son of Gerald Verner, who gives both background details about the author as well as the Herculean task in tracking down, piecing together and restoring all those stories ("a treasure hunt for lost tales"). Many of which were published under a retinue of pseudonyms in newspaper serials or obscure pulp magazines. Not to mention that a lot of his work exited in multiple, slightly differing versions from one publication to another. It reminded me of the exhaustive, decades-long archaeological detective work Philip Harbottle had to undertake to disentangle John Russell Fearn's labyrinthine publication history and tangle of pennames in order to get his work back in print. See, for example, Harbottle's 2017 guest-post "The Detective Fiction of John Russell Fearn."

I'm going to tackle this collection in two parts. First up are the three novelettes and short story. Six Were to Die is going to be discussed separately in the next post.

These three novelettes introduce a regrettably short-lived series-character, Dr. Daniel Britling. A short, slim and meticulously dressed police surgeon with a Vandyke beard and a pearl-gray fedora on his large head, "nothing of his association with crime or the police was suggested by his appearance," but Dr. Britling does more than merely examining bodies – playing "an active part in unravelling more than one mystery." Dr. Britling is a student of crime and acting as a quasi-official amateur detective a favorite pastime ("criminology was his hobby..."). Scotland Yard had to admit that whenever Dr. Britling "put his enterprising finger into the pie of criminal detection, he almost invariably pulled out the plum that the detective in charge had groped for in vain."

"The Green Ghost Murder," originally published in the April, 1931, issue of Hush Magazine introduces Dr. Britling and his twin sister, Eunice, who rented a furnished cottage in Carstow where Dr. Britling is recuperating from a bout with pneumonia. Eunice knows her brother's weakness for any kind of mystery and, as she expected, her brother becomes very interested in the news that the Green Ghost of Heaton Forest, "famous in local legend," has returned from nearly a century of slumber ("...to protest against the houses which now stand where its forest, dark and impenetrable, once stood?"). However, the problem of the mounting sightings of the luminous green ghost is not the primary problem of the story, which is easy to see through, but that makes it all the more baffling when the green ghost apparently stabs Carstow's leading bookmaker to death inside his garden. A murder that was witnessed by the victim's cook!

A great, promising and even clever setup as knowing who plays the ghost makes the murder seem even more baffling, but, as remarked elsewhere, "The Green Ghost Murder" is pure pulp fiction written against a hard deadline – polishing never took place. More importantly, they were written for a less demanding audience than the Golden Age aficionados that pour over these stories today. And the ending shows it as the story takes a sharp turn into pulpville! So not much here in terms of a proper detective story, but the two elderly Britling twins shine as characters in this story. For example, Dr. Britling has to deal with a nosy newspaper reporter who's desperate for an interview, but gets a hard no from the police surgeon, "if I allowed you to tell your readers how much cleverer than the police I am, do you suppose the police would ever allow me to 'nose' about the scene of a murder again?" ("they'd simply point to the body, allow me to make my examination, then lead me gently but firmly to the door"). What a waste, the Britlings only made a handful of appearances.

"Too Many Motives" predates the first story in this series, originally published in the April, 1930, issue of 20-Story Magazine, but Chris Verner suspects "The Green Ghost Murder" must have had "a preceding publication somewhere, or the story sat on the shelf." The publication histories of these pulp, or pulp adjacent, writers are practically detective stories by themselves. Anyway, the story begins with a birthday dinner in honor of an enormously wealthy financier, Mark Savile, who "was despised even by fellow-financiers" ("thousands of small investors lost their savings in the crash of his bubble company"). Savile's grim sense of humor tempted him to invite four men with a motive to kill him and spends the evening needling them, until one of them assaults him, but did he, or one of the other three, came back to finish the job? Dr. Britling is called upon to make sense of a murder with too many motives, but Ronald borrowed the solution from a Sherlock Holmes. A particular kind of solution I loath as much as others dislike Conan Doyle's "Birlstone Gambit." That being said, Ronald appears to be the first to have employed this particular variation on that now shopworn idea and some credit should go his way for not making it a locked room mystery. Only serious problem the story has is that the murderer's plan makes no sense, psychologically or simply long term (HUGE SPOILER/ROT13: Fnivyr jnf “n pbjneq ng urneg,” ohg fubg uvzfrys va gur urnq naq znqr gur tha qvfnccrne hc gur puvzarl va beqre gb pnfg rgreany fhfcvpvba ba gubfr sbhe vaabprag zra... Jul abg fvzcyl gnxr cbvfba juvyr gurl jrer qvavat naq svtugvat, orpnhfr gung tha vf tbvat gb or sbhaq fbbare be yngre. Naq gung jbhyq ehva gur ybat grez nvzf bs gur cyna. So not a personal favorite.

Fortunately, the next two stories are much better. "Find the Lady" was originally published in the May, 1931, issue of Hush Magazine and is the best of the three novelettes. Dr. Britling is asked by Lord Clavering to track down his niece, Lady Frances Dorian, who disappeared without a trace from the Royal Lancaster Hotel – where she had been living for some months. One day, she packed her belonging, settled the bill and went away. Yet, nobody saw her leave the hotel. The aunt of Lord Clavering and Lady Frances, Lady Agatha Dorian, is screaming blue murder, but refuses to call in Scotland Yard. Lord Clavering asks Dr. Britling to nose around the hotel and he's only to eager to oblige ("I love to dabble in these things, but I have no wish to profit by my hobby"). So the police surgeon and hobby-horse detective begins to nose around the hotel and questions everyone from the manager and doorman to the chambermaid and switchboard operator, which comes with a stronger spot of clueing than the previous two stories. Not the most intricate or complicated detective stories written in 1930s, but not too bad on whole and loved Dr. Britling acting as a spirited, buzzing amateur sleuth. Note that "Find the Lady" also has some Sherlockian echoes ("The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax," 1911), but that's all they are. Just echoes. Ronald wrote a different story around the idea of a Lady Frances vanishing from a hotel.

"Blind Man's Bluff," originally printed in the October 5, 1929, publication of the Daily Mail and is Ronald's first published short story. It's not a detective or pulp-style mystery, but a simple, very well done crime story. Martin Longworth is a blind man who learned over the decades to rely on his other senses and his sharp hearing noticed a few familiar characteristics about the new owner of the local tobacco shop. But where has he heard them before? And in what connection? Ronald only has about 10 pages to tell the story, but Martin Longworth feels as fleshed out and convincing as Baynard Kendrick's blind detective, Captain Duncan Maclain. So not bad for a first stab at the crime-and detective story.

Going into this collection, I expected "The Green Ghost Murder" and "Too Many Motives" to emerge as my unsurprising favorites. After all, you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes or Nostradamus to know whether, or not, something is to my liking. And those two novelettes appeared to fit the bill. But no. "Find the Lady" and "Blind Man's Bluff" proved to be the two unexpected standouts. Still a very mixed bag of tricks with the characters of Dr. Daniel Britling, Eunice Britling and Martin Longworth carrying the plots. So these four shorter works have not entirely convinced me of Ronald's reported genius as a mystery writer and crafty plotter, but the novel-length Six Were to Die is next on the list. Don't touch that dial and stay tuned.