IN BRIEF: Last Seen Wearing…- Hillary Waugh

College Girl Missing!

Three simple words that will turn many a head whether it be on a flyer taped to a street sign or emblazoned in 36 pt. type on a newspaper headline. It’s all too familiar to watchers of the nightly news and serves as tempting bait for TV producers looking to spike their ratings. A Massachusetts college girl goes missing in Last Seen Wearing… (1952) the novel that made book reviewers and crime fiction fans take notice of Hillary Waugh whose work previously consisted of a handful of private eye programmers and a couple of suspense novels.

Tired of books populated with dumb cops who are shown up by clever amateur sleuths and wisecracking private eyes Waugh set out to tell a realistic crime story that would reveal an accurate portrayal of how police collaborate. The result is a perfect blend of the traditional detective novel and the contemporary police procedural. Surprisingly, the book still holds up well probably due to Waugh’s choice to focus on a missing person case and setting his story in a college town.

College educated Sgt. Cameron taunts his superior officer Chief Frank Ford by tossing off "three dollar words" like picayune and clairvoyant just to aggravate his boss. Ford is an old school cop who firmly believes there is a boy at the bottom of Lowell Mitchell’s disappearance. Ford is also reminded of an unsolved case of a missing college girl dating back to 1937. Never found Ford believed she went to see a doctor for an abortion, she died on the table, and he disposed of the body. Ford spent a lot of time trying to prove his suspicions but never got enough physical evidence to arrest the doctor.

Still haunted by the case Ford can only think of the worst about young Lowell. Her wealthy and overly protective father insists she’s a good girl who never had a steady boyfriend and can’t imagine she was having sex with the few young men she dated. He has put out a reward for any information that will lead to finding her. Then her body is found washed up in some bushes along the shores of a river running through the campus. An autopsy shows that she was a few months pregnant. Turns out no one really knew Lowell as well as they thought -- not her family, not her roommates, nor the young men she dated. Only Lowell’s cryptic words written in her very frank diary will reveal the truth about her. Just as Chief Ford feared there is a man at the cause of it all. But which one of the many names mentioned in Lowell’s diary belongs to the man responsible?

This is one of those books that shows up on a lot of "Best of " lists and is highly regarded as a landmark novel in the history of the genre. Though writers like Helen Reilly in the US and Nigel Morland in the UK had been writing excellent examples of the police procedural during the 1930s and 1940s apparently it was Hilary Waugh who had readers and critics alike take notice of a new kind of detective novel that would appeal to modern readers. Last Seen Wearing… is indeed one of the best examples and while there isn't as much interesting detail about the relationships between the cops nor the dull bureaucracy that are both hallmarks of Jonathan Craig's 6th Precinct series Waugh still shows that police can be just as clever and insightful as the brilliant amateurs who dominated the genre in the pre-World War 2 era of the Golden Age. This is a highly recommended book for serious fans of the genre. And I think many seasoned writers being published today might learn a thing or two by studying this lean and trenchant book.

IN BRIEF: The Eighth Mrs. Bluebeard – Hillary Waugh

The Eighth Mrs. Bluebeard (1958) is a crime novel that mixes a suspense novel with a caper novel. Basically it tells of a sting operation set up to trap a murderer defrauding a company out of thousands of dollars in life insurance policies. J .B. Stanford, president of his own insurance agency, begins to suspect multiple instances of insurance fraud when he sees a series of claims being paid out on the wives of different men all of whom are named Andrew. The big red flag, besides the highly unlikely coincidence of the first name, is that five of the six wives of these various Andrews died from accidental deaths in the great outdoors, and the repetition of the types of accidents (drowning in a canoe accident, falls from cliff sides) further sets off alarm bells.

Stanford arranges a mindboggling scheme involving Jack Graham, a top salesman; Charles Miles, a private detective; and Gene Taylor, the woman hired to catch Andrew Fisher’s eye as his next wife and future victim. A prized stamp collection is also part of the bait when the team discover that Fisher is a rabid philatelist eager to acquire rare stamps. They arrange that Miss Taylor play the part of a recently widowed woman who inherited her husband’s extremely valuable stamp collection to entice Fisher into meeting her. From there the story becomes a game of cat and mouse between the insurance agency team versus the wily wife killer.

How likely this would happen in the real world is debatable. To me all sorts of ethical issues arise, not the least of which is corporate vigilantism, 1950s style. But as a dramatic treatment of crime Waugh pulls off a couple of neat tricks in what might otherwise have been a routine B movie plot. I also liked that Gene Taylor was not an actress for hire as one might expect, but a desperate woman who needed money fast and was sort of a thrill-seeking tough broad who didn’t mind the element of danger involved. The showdown at a lakeside resort offers up a couple of unexpected twists when it appears the Andrew Fisher is not the only villain Jack Graham has to contend with.

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Reading Challenge update:  Golden Age card, space O2 - “Number or quantity in book title”

FFB: The Late Mrs. D - Hillary Waugh

Let's get a few things out the of the way first. 1. Hillary is not a woman. 2. He is not related to that other androgynously named author who wrote Brideshead Revisited, A Handful of Dust, The Loved One, etc. He was an American crime fiction writer, winner of the Grand Master award from the Mystery Writers of America and a former president of the same group. None of his books are in print and that's a crime. He's best known for his engaging, well plotted police procedurals like The Late Mrs D (1962). But much to my surprise it also turned out to be a top notch courtroom mystery. It was an excellent starting point to discover this underappreciated and nearly forgotten writer.

I picked the book for it's unusual title and the fact that it got a fairly good write up by Barzun and Taylor in A Catalogue of Crime. I knew only the basic plot taken from this brief blurb inside the Crime Club edition I found: "An anonymous note and $50,000 policy on her life suggested that Celia Donaldson had not died of an abscessed liver, as the medical report indicated. This became a case for Chief Fred C Fellows when the coffin of The Late Mrs. D was exhumed and opened -- and her body wasn't in it." How can you resist that tantalizing hint at a John Dickson Carr style impossible crime? Well, turns out that blurb is a bit misleading. There was a body in the coffin; it just wasn't Celia's. But there's so much more to this well constructed, surprise filled, highly original spin on the well known "suspected wife killer" plot.

From the moment the First Selectmen takes an anonymous letter to Chief Fellows to the legal wizardry displayed in the courtroom climax The Late Mrs. D is one of those rare crime novels that continues to impress and dazzle the reader with unusual characters, unexpected plot developments, and some ingeniously planted clues. On the surface it seems like just another police procedural set in a suburban Connecticut. As the story progresses Waugh reveals some insightful observations about non-urban life in the 1960s. Fellows and his officers work in a small town police station where keeping the peace is largely confined to speeding motorists and teenage vandals. The cops engage in cribbage competitions during the work day to pass the time in the largely crime-free town of Stockford. Then what seems to be a natural death is tainted by murderous suspicions with the arrival of the anonymous letter. And the investigation begins.

The story incorporates the usual ingredients of a police procedural like the bureaucracy involved in running the department and the politics of dealing with a D.A. more interested in his re-election than prosecuting. We get not one but two autopsies, and two inquests due to a bizarre switching of bodies. And the added bonus of a courtroom sequence that rivals anything Erle Stanley Gardner wrote. I suspect Waugh might have been heavily influenced by that famous TV series when he wrote this because the finale had me gasping and laughing in amazement. It seemed as if I suddenly tuned into an episode of Perry Mason with the melodramatic accusations, courtroom trickery and one of the most outrageous courtroom confessions in print.

The characters are insightfully realized portraits of small town Connecticut. They certainly ring true to me as I grew up in a Connecticut town very much like Stockford (we even had a First Selectmen instead of a mayor). The charming Dr. Donaldson who has only female patients can do no wrong. He reminds me of an American version of Dr. Dysert in Joan Fleming's The Deeds of Dr. Deadcert reviewed here last month. There is his mousy maid Kathleen Dunkirk whose closely guarded secret will eventually explode the case; Kathleen's smarmy philandering salesman husband; Miss Barnes, a prim and proper nurse as equally devoted to Dr. Donaldson as she is to her profession. Then there is David Johns, Celia's brother. He and his parents opposed Celia's marriage to the doctor. He has little good to say about the doctor accusing him of being both an abortionist and a wife killer. Donaldson has been married three times in five years, each of his wives dying shortly after he married them.

Though Fellows doesn't care for the acrimonious tone David Johns uses in making his case it's hard for him to ignore what seems obvious. When the evidence is sorted out the police, D.A. and coroner relent and end up agreeing with Johns. Donaldson is arrested and put on trial. His wily defense attorney has a few tricks up his sleeve and it seems as if the doctor may be acquitted. Chief Fellows is troubled, however, by some inconsistencies in the case. One simple sentence uttered on the witness stand gives him the final piece of evidence he needs to unmask the real murderer of Celia Donaldson. And when it comes there is quite a fireworks display.

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Reading Challenge update: Silver Age card, space I6 - "Book with woman in title"