The Gilded Man - Carter Dickson

Sheer chance led me to choose The Gilded Man as my final read for 2025. And waddya know? The book takes place on Dec 29-31, 1938 (even though it was published in 1942). In another neat coincidence as I was finishing up the book last night it began to snow.  We have about a half of inch covering the lawns and sidewalks (mostly still unshovelled) mirroring the final day in Carr's novel in which a heavy snowfall affects the plot in multiple incidents.

Like most of John Dickson Carr's murder mysteries this book has been covered by several vintage mystery bloggers and I won't go into great detail about the story. In essence it's primarily about a burglary that takes place during a house party, a tiresome cliche in detective fiction during the Golden Age, but in the hands of Carr and with the presence of Henry Merirvale you know you're going to get a lot of frothy farce and amusing incidents. This book is hardly tiresome.  It moves along at a clip, the action begins almost immediately with witty banter and a crucial scene involving two characters eavesdropping while completely unseen on two other characters.  That dialogue sequence pays a very important part in the plot.

The setting as well is pure Carr -- an immense four story mansion previously owned by a hedonistic, vain actress named Flavia Venner. She had a theater built on the top floor beneath the ornate cupola that tops the outside of the house. The architecture of the theater owes a lot to late 18th century theaters including two secret curtained booths called baignores (but spelled beignoir in the book). Nick Wood and Betty Stanhope are hidden in one of these curtained booths when they accidentally overhear the conversation between her father Dwight and his business partner Buller Naseby.

For a while it seems as if there will be no murder in this book. The burglar is stabbed but does not die.  He is dressed like a thief from a French silent movie - all in black with a mask covering his entire head. When the mask is removed they see the face of Dwight Stanhope. No one can believe that the man was burglarizing his own home and in the process of removing an El Greco painting from its ornate frame. We learn that his wife Cristabel wanted to have a masquerade party for New Year's Eve but her husband cannot abide dressing up of any kind and forbade her from staging such a party. Why then did he dress up as stereotypical cat burglar, break into his home, and attempt to remove the painting?

While Dwight Stanhope is recuperating Nick Wood makes sure that his bedroom is guarded so that when Stanhope is better and able to talk he can be questioned about who attacked him. Let's say that plan will not work out to Wood's advantage. When death occurs it is unnecessarily theatrical. Merrivale is astounded that the person who attempted to kill Stanhope would try again. Anyone would realize, Merrivale says, that an attempted murder would result in a punishment of only a few years while an actual murder is a capital offense and leads to the gallows. He is sure they are dealing with a vain individual.

Among the various puzzling elements of the burglary are footprints in the icy stone outside the French windows that forced to gain entry, some strange wounds on Stanhope's body and face that seem to indicate a person of small stature and lightweight physique stomped on him, scratches on some silver plates and bowls that were scattered around Stanhope's body, and a roll of adhesive tape with bloodstains on it. Other unusual clues include an oily saucer washed in a sink, a mini lesson in art history, and an offhand remark from the chauffeur who wants to see Merrivale perform the Indian rope trick. All of these clues and more are cleverly introduced into the story. Remarkably, all of them can be logically explained if one has been an assiduous reader. This is one of the Carr's most intricately laid out fair play detective novels with nearly all of the clues being front-loaded in the first three chapters. One remark in a casual conversation between Eleanor Stanhope (Betty's frivolous and sarcastic older sister), Christabel Stanhope, and Vincent James (a playboy athlete who Eleanor seems to be in love with) may be easily dismissed as fluffy chitchat. But no! It is in fact something that should be filed away because it comes back to play an important part in the final reveal.

The Merrivale books tend to show off Carr's love of slapstick and low comedy. Apart from The Punch and Judy Murders, an all out farce and probably Carr's most ridiculous detective novel, The Gilded Man is probably his second most successful mystery as a comic farce. It has several and laugh out loud funny moments from some slapstick with snowballs to Merrivale's blustery outbursts. We learn that Merrivale is adept at sleight of hand tricks as well as stage illusions. When the planned entertainment for NewYear's Eve - magician Ram Das Singh, aka the Great Kafoozalum - sends a telegram that he cannot make it due to the snowstorm Merrivale volunteers to be his substitute.  The resulting rehearsal and final performance make for some hilarious scenes. The magic show itself is a huge hit with the invited schoolchildren who make up most of the audience especially when one audience member who loudly spoils nearly every trick by loudly explaining the secrets receives a well-deserved comeuppance. I confess I roared with laughter.

Finally, I thought this was one of Carr's most cinematically written novels.  It would make a terrific movie and wouldn't need much adaptation because it reads as if it were a screenplay. There is one chapter in particular written as if it were a long parallel edited sequence showing five different characters in their bedrooms mulling over the preceding events all at the same time.  It was an excellent sequence which of course included five subtle clues to the solution to the various mysteries. The setting also cries out to be viewed, especially the theater where two crucial scenes take place and where the unveiling of the murderer takes place during which all riddles and puzzles are explained in full.

The Gilded Man is easily obtained in a variety of paperback and hardcovers from both US and UK publishers. I found close to 125 copies offered for sale from several online sellers and most of them are very cheap. While the book has not been reprinted since the US IPL paperback in 1988 I suspect it will turn up soon from one of the reprint houses. It certainly ought to be reprinted! It's one of the most fun reads in the Henry Merrivale series. A breezy read and thoroughly entertaining mystery novel. And it may be the only one that most readers will be able to figure out on their own.

IN BRIEF: Exit with Intent - Philip Loraine

Theater Royal in Grafton is in trouble.  Just before opening night of Here Comes Harry, a variety revue starring Happy Harry Hemple, the comedian headliner star disappears along with Vera Silverini, an acrobat. While the producer and a talent agent swiftly hunt for a replacement Inspector Lundy and his police crew start an investigation uncovering all sorts of shenanigans among the cast and crew.  Two days later a dead body is found in a ravine by a footbridge in the slum neighborhood known as Vale End.  The police are surprised when the body turns out to be neither Harry nor Vera.

Exit with Intent (1950) is Philip Loraine's second detective novel and is a glorious throwback to traditional mystery novels of the Golden Age. Among the colorful cast we have Vera's jealous husband Carlo Silverini, a strongman in the revue who someone is trying to frame for murder; Tommy Barnaby, Hepple's last minute replacement best known for playing Dame parts in pantomimes; Anna Nelson, a singer being blackmailed; Edward Blackett, a reviled dresser up to no good with the secrets he collects; Cohen, temperamental producer; Johnny Campbell, the harried director; and The Great Nimmo, billed as "The Prince of Illusionists", a magician who sees similarity with crime and the art of stage magic.

Though Inspector Lundy may ostensibly be presented as the lead detective it is Nimmo who will unravel all the various puzzles and literally unmask the devious murderer. As with most mysteries in the theatrical realm there is much role playing and deceit. And of course, with a magician acting as a detective we get a lessons in misdirection and how criminals are similar to illusionists. Nimmo has a couple of pithy observations:

 "I tell you what Johnny: committing a crime must be like inventing a new trick in my line of business.  Alibis, you see: pretending to do one thing when really you're doing another."

"You can't force a conjuring trick, Inspector, any more than you can force a fact. The best tricks are the simplest ones and the best crimes -- if my detective stories don't mislead me -- are the same."

I liked the unusual Golden Age style clues like a heavy wardrobe basket and where it ended up, a missing white coat with diamond buttons, the pesky character Colson who wants Nimmo to explain all his tricks to him, a note with the number 6981, and the overall obsession with magic and misdirection. Loraine may not be on the same level as Carr or Rawson but he does an admirable job of using theater, magic and all the artifice of the performing arts to spin a lively tale of duplicitous characters and devilish mayhem. Though ultimately Loraine did not quite fool me (because of one single line in the book!) this does not really undercut the high entertainment value of one of the better detective novels set in the world of people who basically lie for a living.

Exit with Intent is unfortunately rather scarce. But you can buy my copy in my eBay listings. Click here if interested.

Let the Man Die - S. H. Courtier

Supt. Ambrose Mahon comes to Corelia Bush Nursing Hospital to prevent a murder.  An anonymous note implies someone will die on night of May 11-12, the anniversary of a hatchet murder that took place 22 years ago.  Let the Man Die (1961) also features a ghost legend and weird activities that add a tinge of supernatural to the story. Red roses are mysteriously left beneath the portrait of a man who was accused of the murder and who later committed suicide in prison.  Along with the rose is a note: "No one sent roses the day I died." Whenever the ghost appears witness say it smells of the hospital -- an odd antiseptic or oil-like aroma lingers in the air after it vanishes. Suspects include a variety of oddball residents of the nursing home each suffering form a different ailment, the doctor in charge, and two nurses on staff.

With all the ghost business I can't help but think that this is Courtier's homage to Carr.  But also it must be a homage to Clayton Rawson.  Two of the  characters turn out to be magicians. A young woman named Estelle figures out how a card trick is done and Courtier goes to great lengths to describe how it works.  Another character is good at quick changes into street clothes. It is clear that illusion and trickery will figure in the plot and the reader should be on his toes the moment that magic appears. I know I was paying too close attention. And yet in the end I was thoroughly surprised in the the eyebrow raising final pages. It was bloody brilliant! Talk about misdirection. He nearly matched the master John Dickson Carr himself with a genius surprise.

And the ultimate retro touch:
a plan of the Nursing Home!

I don't want to discuss the plot of this very involved and multi-layered story with all the mysteries being traced back into the past. The story truly must be experienced with as little as known as possible. The unraveling and the slow reveals keep piling up on one another but the plot tricks never seem messy or convoluted.  Not only is there the murder and suicide of 22 years ago, there is another mysterious death uncovered, a possible suicide and loads of masquerade and illusions. For a book published in 1961 its remarkably retro. The book is teeming with Golden Age conventions and truly feels like a love letter to the plot heavy books of the 1930s and 1940s.

Hands down I think this is Courtier's masterpiece. Always a innovator when it comes to finding new ways to commit murders or set crimes in unique Australian settings, Courtier almost always remains very contemporary in motives and characterizations. Let the Man Die is very different. It is perhaps the closest Courtier came to replicating an old-fashioned traditional detective novel.

Unfortunately, it's very scarce and only one copy is available for sale online. However, I will be selling my shortly! I'll put it up as an auction because I know there will be lots of interest. Oh! Mine has the equally scarce DJ (seen above), unlike the other copy for sale.

The Ghost of Thomas Penry – Kenneth O’Hara

Howard Stavey is tasked with creating a treatment for a TV program the subject of which will be Thomas Penry, a Welsh man known for his research into the occult and psychic phenomenon. If it meets with director and production team approval he may be allowed to write the script.

After meeting with one of the Penry’s sole living acquaintances Howard uncovers some intriguing info on Penry’s wife Madeleine who froze to death with her child one winter decades ago. Her death was always thought to be a tragic accident, but Howard’s research reveals she may have been killed and that the child may not have been Penry’s. Madeleine claimed to have psychic abilities her husband was envious of coupled with the fact that letters reveals she most likely was apparently in love with another man who could be the child’s father. Prime motive that signals Penry killed his wife. This murder mystery angle decides the director that the story is worth filming and he orders the script be written and he starts to gather up a production team.

O'Hara does an excellent job in displaying the conflict between writers, actors, director and crew members. We also get unusual insight into dealing with actor’s egos, especially since they are planning to portray real people. Initially reluctant to do a movie about a man who played with spooks Tom, one of the actors, changes his mind when he starts to believe he has psychic ability. He begins to not only believe in The Ghost of Thomas Penry (1977) but that he is the reincarnation of the man he has been hired to play on film.

Gwenillen, owner of the house and distant relative to Penry, after much dilly dallying finally takes the production crew and actors into the basement and reveals the chapel. It’s vast and apparently untouched since the scandalous ritual that ended with the death of Ruthven Douglas back in the WWI era. Chests contain silver, medieval tapestries and ritual wardrobe. Ros who has an eye for lavish clothing is drawn to the purple and gold cloak. Natalya, the production designer, has a fit. “Don’t touch it!” The fabric is of course fragile and it may fall apart in the hands of the careless actress. Tom & Ros go up to a balcony and fight. An enormous vase comes crashing down barely missing Adrian the director. Is it an accident? Or an angry ghost?

Eliphas, a former professional magician, is the production’s magic and occult consultant. He finally speaks on p. 104 with a lengthy discussion of the house, Penry and the group of amateur psychics who gathered in the underground chapel. Howard replies, “I’d like to believe” in a long monologue. Eliphas laughs then offers his opinion of Penry and the chapel. A disagreement of ceremonial magic follows. Howard says there is no proof. Eliphas points out the care given to the chapel and its contents proves otherwise. Harriet (researcher and co-writer) prefers to come straight to the point. “He tried to summon demons.” But Eliphas says there is no proof of any of that. Penry was too evasive in his diaries and notebooks. He thinks Penry had psychic power and was ashamed of it.

Eliphas tells Howard that Tom had a vision of what the interior of the house looks like just before he entered the building. Tom described to Eliphas in great detail the furniture, the architecture, the layout, and when he enters it is almost exactly what he uttered. Does he have genuine psychic ability? A vase levitates when he mutters some mumbo jumbo near the art object and he is convinced that he has “the gift.”

During a second visit to the chapel another vase falls – or is shoved – and someone is killed. Everyone thinks it’s Ros because the corpse is wearing the purple and gold cloak. But when the body is turned over they discover it is someone else.

Joe, the crew's cameraman and electrician, Howard and Harriet piece together all the accidents and chicanery. The trio turn sleuths to find out who among them is a murderer and why. A major clue in the victim's wallet leads Harriet to uncovering the dead person’s true identity and why he got himself hired onto the crew. The ultimate reveal is a gobsmacking surprise and explains all of the serious psychic moments and mysterious phenomenon in the supposedly haunted chapel.

 This is a highly recommended read for those like me who can't get enough of detective novels that feature supernatural phenomenon -- be it genuine or faked.  There is plenty to admire here, especially the completely unexpected manner in which all events unfold, the identity of the victims, and the unmasking of a devious killer. The background of a TV film crew is 100% authentic, too.  Read on to learn of the author's real name and various professions.

THE AUTHOR: Margaret Jean Morris (1924 - 1996) began her writing career with the mainstream novel Man and Two Gods (1953).  She also penned a handful of plays and several detective and crime novels using the pseudonym Kenneth O'Hara.  Her first mystery novel, A View to a Death (1958), features Dr. Alun Barry, a director of research at an engineering firm, who accidentally becomes a detective while on a vacation.  She is probably best known under her other pen name, "Jean Morris",  as the author of several juvenile fantasy novels starting with A Path of Dragons (1980).   Her young adult books have been compared favorably to Ursula Le Guin's.  Morris also spent much of her life as a TV scriptwriter and notably wrote episode four ("Anne of Cleves") for the BAFTA and Emmy award-winning series The Six Wives of Henry VIII  shown on both BBC and American TV on PBS in the early 1970s.

The Magic Grandfather - Doris Miles Disney

Something Special!  The exclamation mark in a circle on the bottom of the front flap of The Magic Grandfather's hardcover 1st edition dust jacket indicates that this Doris Miles Disney mystery defies simple subgenre categorization. I was excited to read it.  Would it deliver the goods like so many of L. P. Davies' similarly tagged and utterly unique crime novels? Would it too be a daring shake-up of crime fiction conventions? Well, yes and no.

Like most of Doris Miles Disney’s crime fiction The Magic Grandfather (1966) is one of her many books in Doubleday’s Crime Club. In the late 1950s and 1960s the editors devised a special marketing tactic with clever logos to indicate if a book has a Favorite Sleuth, is a Damsel in Distress story, a Chase and Adventure thriller, Classic Puzzler or fits into some other subgenre (see the chart with all the logos below). The “Something Special” tag and logo indicates a book not easy to stuff into any recognizable subgenre yet were always standouts for plotting and characters. The Something Special books almost always prove to be intriguingly constructed novels that play with detective fiction conventions, add modern touches to the plot, and still manage to surprise and bring a smile to my face. I have made a concerted effort to seek out as many of these books with the exclamation mark logo as I can find and read. More often than not these books are the cream of the crop of the Crime Club imprint. Only rarely do they disappoint with a final twist that was not a surprise at all.

The Magic Grandfather (1966) has a relatively simple plot: it’s revenge pure and simple. But there are secrets in the past that remain hidden until the final utterly bizarre chapter. In a nutshell – Etta Lane has been living happily as a widow for over 27 years until Dan Ferris, her ex-father-in-law, who has been hunting for her since 1925 finally finds her. Then he slowly makes her life hell blackmailing her for something criminal that happened in her past and extorting her lucrative dividends from wisely invested stocks. The secret in the past involves her dead husband Jim, Ferris’ son. Just what exactly happened we will not know until Part Two in the novel which takes place in 1925. We learn about Etta's life with Jim and his father in a vaudeville touring company that climaxes in a courtroom trial for the crime Ferris alludes to throughout Part One. The story wraps up in an 13 year flash forward to 1965 when Sarah Prince, who was a precocious and intrusive 5 year-old in 1952 back in Part One, comes of age and is in her first year of college. On her Thanksgiving holiday she visits Dan Ferris who now lives in Etta Lane’s house in order to deliver him some food for his lonely holiday. What she sees and hears is a nightmare come true and explains the various mysteries left hanging back in Parts One and Two.

So is this deceptively simple plot really Something Special? As you know I’ve seen every trick a writer can pull in detective and crime fiction since I first fell in love with the genre as a teen back in the 1970s. It’s a matter of being able to perform even the oldest trick in the book with finesse and panache that will make me stand up and cheer. I’ve also sampled more than my fair share of very weird books with bizarre endings like the one that appears in The Magic Grandfather. And sorry to report, my friends, I saw this trick coming pages before the shattering climax.

Oh yes! I figured out the entire book, all the twists, even the detailed and unusual vaudeville act that Dan Ferris alludes to repeatedly but never once describes to anyone, and of course the bizarre final scene was telegraphed all because of a simple few sentences that occur in Part One. And though I shouted aloud “I KNEW IT!” when I got to the end I was a bit let down that it was all so obvious.  At least to me. I enjoyed what Disney attempted to pull off. But she let the ace fall from her sleeve rather clumsily.  I really wanted this to be a winner for me like so many of the Crime Club's "Something Special" mystery novels. Simultaneously and ironically, I was rather astounded that I managed to get it all so accurately.

This may be a truly flipped out suspense thriller with genuine shocks for some of you. Granted it is well constructed and has genuinely suspenseful moments. The characters are well done and you are rooting for Etta from the outset and hoping Dan gets what's coming to him. But savvy readers who have seen a lot of horror movies and read a lot of Robert Bloch, John Keir Cross and seen a few specific Alfred Hitchcock episodes from his two TV series will most likely be able to figure it all out. And that's a disappointment.

As a concluding coda for any of you still interested in reading this book I offer a warning. By all means avoid buying the Zebra paperback which has as its cover illustration a massive spoiler that will fairly ruin the book before you even read the first sentence. I mean MASSIVE. Unbelievable!  I have chosen not to include that cover among the paperback reprint edition photos used here.  This title was one of Disney's most financially successful, if not artistically competent, books with at least six editions in English that I uncovered, two from the same publisher. But what editor or publisher would ever allow that kind of artwork on a mystery novel? The mind boggles. Also, one publicity blurb I found online says that Dan Ferris, the title character who survives to age 90+, is murdered. And that is utterly wrong. Caveat emptor! And Caveat lector, too.

Magicians and Mediums and Murder! Oh My!

Magic fans, impossible crime aficionados, and those interested in the parallels between mystery writers' use of misdirection and a magician's sleight of hand talents might be interested in the latest podcast from JJ's on going series "In GAD We Trust." Of course in that punny title the letters GAD stand for Golden Age of Detection.

Not too many recognizable detectives turn up in this discussion because frankly most of the magician detectives from the Golden Age are found in the pages of long forgotten pulp magazines from the the early 20th century. Too few of those thousands of stories have been reprinted in collections for 21st century readers. But we do cover The Great Merlini created by magician mystery writer Clayton Rawson as well as another of Rawson's magician detectives who appeared only in pulp short stories. The impossible crime mystery masterpiece The Rim of the Pit by Hake Talbot, also a magician turned mystery writer, is discussed with admiration too.


We travel all over the magic in mystery spectrum with a somewhat chronological exploration starting with some pulp stories from the very early days of that business and my discovery that Charles Fulton Oursler (aka Anthony Abbot) had been writing weird mysteries, many with magician detectives, between 1919 and 1929.  Ken Crossen and Bruce Elliott turn up, we segue into talk of seances, mediums and the fraudulent spiritualists of the early 20th century a topic that popped up in many novels of the era. The rarely mentioned, quite forgotten, American mystery writer Henry Kitchell Webster makes a long overdue appearance when I discuss his excellent crime novel The Ghost Girl and the talk of seances and mediums in books gives way to TV shows and movies that feature either magicians or seances.

It's quite a hodgepodge of a discussion. We have a lot of fun, there's much more laughter than in the other talks. (It's the American with no real filter talking, after all.)  And you will finally hear what I sound like, why I'm so odd, and why I have been drawn to macabre genre fiction since I was a child.

Why not have a listen! Click on this link Episode 4: Magic, Mummery, and Misdirection.

FFB: No Coffin for the Corpse - Clayton Rawson

THE STORY: Dudley Wolff accidentally kills a mysterious man who was attempting to blackmail him. His wife suggest they cover up the crime and bury the body in an abandoned cemetery not far from their Wolff estate. With the help of Dr. Haggard and Albert Dunning, a mousy aide, Wolff gets rid of the body. But soon he is being haunted by visions of the same man in black. Kay Wolff, Dudley's daughter, gets involved and calls on Merlini to prove if the ghost is real or a fake. Ghostly visions and poltergeist activity lead to murder, a locked room mystery, and several other mysterious events all wrapped up in a grand secret about the true identity of the sinister blackmailing man in black and the reason he visited Wolff in the first place.

THE CHARACTERS: No Coffin for a Corpse (1942) is the fourth and final Merlini detective novel. Despite its reputation among diehard locked room fans for being the worst of the four books I found it to be exciting, engaging and intriguing in its abundance of action filled scenes, puzzling events, including a couple of Rawson's signature impossible crimes and miracle problems. Harte, our narrator reporter/playwright, is at the heart of the story with several adventure sequences involving him alone. The illustration on the Dell Mapback version depicts a deathtrap that Harte must escape from underwater during the novel's climax.

A subplot involves Ross trying and failing to get Wollf's consent to marry Kay, Wolff's daughter. Wolff owns the newspaper where Ross works and he threatens Ross with termination he if doesn't leave Lay alone.  There is also the threat of Kay being disinherited.  All of these elements pile up and make Ross and Kay to have motives for murder.

The most interesting characters are found in the supporting cast. Handyman on the Wolff estate, Scotty Douglas, strangely disappears after the burial of the dead blackmailer then just as oddly re-appears. He proves some interesting eyewitness accounts of what actually happened the day of the eerie moonlit graveyard shenanigans. Phillips, is the Wolff butler, who is obsessed with detective novels and has the spooky habit of turning up at the most inopportune moments always when Merlini least expects him. Francis Galt, a psychic whose paranormal research is being funded by wealthy Dudley Wolff, seems to have a hand in the ghostly manifestation. Like Phillips Galt has all too coincidental timing, conveniently popping up just after the manifestations and visions occur.

In a nifty surprise scene that I feel compelled to reveal Don Diavolo, Rawson's other magician detective character, makes a cameo appearance! He is seen rehearsing a stage illusion for a show that Merlini is producing and trying to get last minute funding for. The trick he performs foreshadows the climactic underwater escape that Ross Harte pulls off much later in the book.

INNOVATIONS: Most intriguing about No Coffin for the Corpse is that it starts off as an inverted mystery.  A death occurs, apparently an accident, and we know there is a conspiracy to cover up the crime. When the ghost appears most readers will jump to the conclusion that the blackmailer is really alive, but Rawson does a fine job at making you believe that the death was real and that someone else is trying to make it appear that the corpse came to life. The actual murder problem, the novel's genuine whodunit element, does not occur until well past the first half of the book.  I had no idea who the murder victim would be; a handful of candidates were possible. When the murder does occur I found I had pegged the wrong person as victim.

The reveal of the true identity of the blackmailer is one of the most original parts of the story.  Rawson pulls off a triple twist and a false reveal all at once. I didn't find this a fault. In fact it made me laugh out loud. It was just another example of fooling the reader, but one that may anger others or have them rolling their eyes. Really, most of what will infuriate some rigid traditionalists while reading this complex, trick-laden, and twisty plot are exactly the kinds of inverting of conventions that I enjoy and long for.

The solution to the locked room impossibility is probably a plot trick that will trigger most readers to cry "Foul!" I thought it was the only natural and realistic solution to the problem as the author presented it. While not ingenious or clever it certainly was simple. Rather obvious even! But Rawson has the characters become distracted by what happened to Ross in the same room prior to the discovery of the victim and the other body (he was knocked unconscious, quickly bound, and tossed out the window into the waters of Long Island Sound far below) was handled very well.  I found myself more focussed on why Ross was attacked and thrown into the ocean rather than trying to figure out why there were two people found in the locked room. Even veteran readers can get caught up in the nimble hands of a master manipulator like Clayton Rawson.

I found myself drawing parallels to similar plot devices and motifs in much better known novels. My notes have things like "It's the Deathtrap gambit!" and "I'm getting a Death on the Nile vibe here but who's the other involved?"  Lots of my guesswork and figuring out proved faulty. So Rawson won me over again. When I read mystery novels like this sometimes I more pleased to be wrong, to have been rightly and fairly fooled than to be satisfied by being ever-so-clever in having the correct solution and pointing my finger at the real culprit.

1st US edition (Putnam, 1942)  DJ illustration shows the first ghost
manifestation as witnessed by Merlini and Harte inside the Wolff mansion

THINGS I LEARNED:  Ross Harte tries to trick someone into talking to him and pretends to be calling from Orson Welles office then stops short of impersonating a woman saying, "But I was no Julian Eltinge."  Eltinge was a well known actor who began in theater and then made several silent movies. In the early 20th century he gained fame playing female roles, often starring in plays especially created for him in which he played a male character who must dress as a woman within the construct of the story. At one time he was one of the highest paid male actors in the world.  Eltinge was one of the first megastars who marketed himself tirelessly -- he owned his own magazine, very popular with its mostly women subscribers, promoted a line of cosmetics, designed women's clothes, even had a cigar branded with his name. His ultimate achievement was having a theater built in his honor. The Eltinge 42nd St. Theater lasted from 1914 until 1942 when it was shut down for morality violations and turned into a movie theater. Although Eltinge never performed in the theater named for him it is notable for being the home of The Ninth Guest (Aug - Oct 1930), the Broadway play version of Gwen Bristow & Bruce Manning's detective thriller The Invisible Host.  For more info on this fascinating individual visit Them.com, this Newsweek article or the Julian Eltinge tribute page.
 
Wolff has a photoelectric cell security system installed in the windows of his home. I thought this was a type of invention that came decades after the WW2 era. Clearly I was very wrong. Merlini shows off his knowledge of how photoelectric cells work by preventing the loud alarms going off with a simple trick that requires nothing more than a flashlight.

ATMOSPHERE: Misdirection, theatrical techniques, acting and impersonation all play a role in the story.  In fact, this is one of the few Merlini detective novels that could with some minor adaptation (and elimination of extraneous outdoor action sequences) easily be transferred to the stage. So much of the mystery and illusions require isolated settings, proper lighting and a claustrophobic atmosphere that can be heightened by the confines of a stage and an eager and willing audience.

FFB: The Footprints on the Ceiling - Clayton Rawson

In preparation for my upcoming "In GAD We Trust" podcast with JJ (of The Invisible Event) on stage magic, theatrical devices and misdirection in GAD fiction I thought I'd finish up the series of Great Merlini mysteries which shamefully have been on my shelves for over twenty years and still remain unread. I did not get along with Death from a Top Hat (1938) when I read it decades ago, but I did very much enjoy all of the Don Diavolo stories Rawson wrote as "Stuart Towne" which I gobbled up within days and wished there were more. Since I was approaching this read from an older and wiser perspective and also because I was specifically looking at tricks and misdirection I did enjoy The Footprints on the Ceiling (1939) almost as much as the Don Diavolo novellas. There are still elements of the Great Merlini novels that irritate the hell out of me and I'll talk about those in the podcast, but here's my basic impression of the book along with "Things I Learned" (as you will with any of Rawson's mystery stories and novels) that seem to make up about 75% of the book.

This is one of the many mysteries between 1900 and 1940 dealing with spiritualism debunking and the trickery and gadgetry that was (and probably still is) employed by fake mediums and phony psychics.  Two characters from Death from a Top Hat re-appear in Footprints on the Ceiling in an altogether different light and play much larger roles in the novel.

Merlini is going to host a new radio show on NBC called "The Ghost Hour" and his pal Colonel Watrous asks him to come to Skelton Island where their former associate from Death from a Top Hat Madame Eva Rappourt is hosting a seance for agoraphobic Linda Skelton obsessed with psychic phenomena and the drug induced trances she thinks will help cure her of her mental illness. Watrous is beginning to think that Madame Rappourt, whose powers he previously extolled in a book called Modern Mediums, is in fact one of the most clever frauds he ever encountered. Merlini and his playwright friend Ross Harte (our narrator) travel to Skelton Island armed with skepticism and infrared cameras hoping to catch the medium in the act of an elaborate charade and expose her with the photographs they plan to take while the seance is conducted in the dark.

Of course something goes wrong the minute they arrive on the island.  On route to the seance Merlini tells Harte about the legend of a pirate who supposedly haunts the island.  The two men see lights in an abandoned house on the north end of the island and rush to investigate. There they find the rigid dead body of Linda Skelton who has apparently been poisoned with cyanide. How and why did an agoraphobic who never left the main house end up so far away? And who killed her?

The story is one of the most complicated plots I've read of any era, let alone the Golden Age.  It's filled to the brim with baffling incidents that all seem to be impossible. A fire that no one could have started, the transporting of Linda's body to the haunted house, a bullet that seems to have traveled around a corner at 45 degree angle, a seemingly encoded message found on a typewriter ribbon, a nude body found in a locked hotel room, and of course the titular marks found on the ceiling at the scene of Linda Skelton's death. Magic, misdirection, acrobatics and clever gadgets all play a part in the solution of the various mysteries and murders.

There are many mini-lectures in this murder mystery reminding me of one of the issues I had with Death from a Top Hat. Rawson is one of the writers who likes to fill his books with arcane information and minutiae and go on at length. It was like reading a 1930s version of an X-Files script. But at least in the TV show those lectures were brief. We get overly detailed lectures on caisson disease ("the bends") and the precautions needed in decompression to prevent that condition; the diagnosis, causes and treatment of agoraphobia; three pages listing shipwrecks and lost treasures and the 1939 dollar values placed on those treasures ranging between 8 to 100 million; and three other things I'll discuss in the Things I Learned section. Had these lengthy lectures been condensed or removed the book could easily be 25 - 75 pages shorter. OH! and there are Van Dine-like footnotes, too!

The cast of characters consists of so many rascals, evidence tinkerers, vengeful would-be murderers, that at one point it almost seems like a parody of Murder on the Orient Express (1934). As a consequence of the convoluted shenanigans of this shifty devious group, in addition to unmasking the somewhat surprising murderer, everyone is arrested for some offense and hauled away by the police. The many pronouncements of this teeming mass of miscreants and their misdeeds makes for a long trawl through the final chapters consisting of three -- count 'em three -- summing-up explanations unnecessarily peppered with tangential commentary and sarcastic quips from Merlini. It goes on interminably and the many readers will no doubt find themselves agreeing with the impatient and irascible Inspector Gavigan who keeps demanding that Merlini get to the point faster.

Original map of Skelton Island used as frontispiece in US 1st edition
(Click to enlarge for to see all the detail)

THINGS I LEARNED:  Simon Lake (1866-1945) was a mechanical engineer and inventor who specialized in designing and building submarines and salvage equipment for the burgeoning underwater construction industry and salvage and recovery businesses.  He is mentioned in passing and provides a major clue to a fine detail in a portion of the solution. For more on Lake's ingenious work visit this website.

This is more of a refresher for me rather than something wholly new, but Ross Harte launches into monologue mode in the chapter titled "Thirty Deadly Poisons" with a litany of toxic chemicals. He reminds us that photography is one of the most poisonous professions of the pre-World War 2 era and could prove hazardous to one's health if not fatal.

I learned of an unusual dermatological side effect of the use of silver nitrate in medicine called argyria. It's an irreversible condition in which the silver turns one's skin blue-gray. Merlini talks of the Blue Men (and sometimes women) who suffered from this horror and tells Harte and Dr. Gail many of these people joined circus sideshows in order to make a living and escape shame and embarrassment in "normal" civilization.

Even with the long lectures, the complicated plot and several subplots, and Merlini's insufferable ego and sarcasm it cannot be denied that Rawson has made the book exciting and action filled. The opening chapters read more like an adventure novel than a murder mystery. Footprints on the Ceiling mixes haunted house legends, pirate lore, the search for lost treasure, deep sea diving techniques and new inventions, con artists and fraudulent spiritualism, and circus performers in a dizzying plot of inventive murders and ingenious criminality. Rawson almost succeeds in making his second novel a brilliant addition to American mysteries of the Golden Age. His penchant for show off esoterica so reminiscent of the Philo Vance and Ellery Queen novels and the innumerable instances of shunning the fair play techniques of his colleagues, however, keep this mystery novel from being a true masterpiece. As it stands it can only be thought of as a clever and entertaining diversion.

FFB: Tragedy at Beechcroft - A. Fielding

THE STORY: Oliver Santley, portrait painter, is asked to travel to Beechcroft to make observations on Major Moncrieff who may be intent on harming his wife, Lavinia. He arrives a few days before a charity event involving tableaux vivant, the living recreations of famous paintings. Moncrieff has also been asked to perform some illusions as his hobby is stage magic. During a dress rehearsal for one of the more elaborate magic routines a fatal accident occurs and Moncrieff is later discovered in a costume and property storage room dead from a shot to the head. Accident and suicide or horrible murders? Inspector Pointer gets to the bottom of a very involved and perplexing case.

THE CHARACTERS:The first third of Tragedy at Beechcroft (1935) introduces us to Santley; Mrs. Phillimore, mother of Lavinia and the one worried about Major Moncrieff's seemingly volatile behavior; two twin girls Dolly and Dilly, who are the latest subjects of Santley's brush; Ann Bladeshaw, the girl's governess; a couple of missionaries named Dexter-Smith, known affectionately by the girls as the Mishes; and Victor Goodenough, friend to Santley and the Moncrieffs. When Santley arrives at Beechcroft there are even more characters introduced including several servants, some business partners of the Major, the mysterious Flavelle Bruton who specializes in mosaics and her paramour Don Plutarco Ramon, a matador who brings his espada with him for the weekend! (Yes, that's a huge red flag as to what kind of murder will take place.) There's even a little dachshund that will feature prominently and fall victim to all the villainy at Beechcroft. Tragedies aplenty, both human and canine! It seems to be getting as crowded as a Victorian sensation novel, but it's all handled expertly and is not too rushed as is often a complaint about Fielding's novels so often crowded with people and plot.

Inspector Pointer, Fielding's series detective, does not make his appearance until well past the 100 page mark when the two horrible deaths take place, followed swiftly by a suicide attempt. Prior to that the novel is loaded with back story, character relationships, and a not too extraneous tale of a kidnapping of one of Moncrieff's cousins which ended in the victim's death and the kidnapper's escape. Also, a series of jewelry robberies is plaguing the countryside surrounding Beechcroft. To cap off this deluge of crime Santley is sent on an odd errand to Brussels to deliver what he thinks is a birthday gift of a box of chocolates to the daughter of one of Moncrieff's business associates. When the box goes missing, Santley replaces it out of good faith, but is met with suspicion when he delivers the substitute gift. Sounds like a bit from an espionage thriller, doesn't it? Like every seemingly innocuous event in this densely packed book the missing box of chocolates will have later significance.

Fielding does a good job of delineating this large cast, but I'm bothered by Pointer's obsession with the pseudo science of facial features as signifiers of personality. You know what I mean -- the "weak chin", "prognathous jaw", "shifty eyes" kind of writing that telegraphs we are in the presence of a bad person. I was reminded of Carolyn Wells at her worst when Pointer starts to eliminate suspects because they just look far too kind in the face to ever be considered murderers. This shows either extreme naiveté about the world or a G rated mentality about composing books according to the stringent rules Wells created back in 1917 or so.

This is a shame because if anything Fielding is masterful at labyrinthine, perplexing plots. This was a real doozey, frankly. Juggling multiple criminal subplots and presenting so many permutations of possible murderers and motives ascribed to those past and present crimes shows genuine talent as a detective story writer. The last two-thirds of the novel are rife with surprises, twists, and mostly good detection.

INNOVATIONS: The detective novel aspects are not exactly of the fair play mode. The reader will discover the evidence and clues as Pointer finds them, but he almost immediately applies this evidence to his intuitive theories previously discussed. Unlike the majority of detective novels where the clues are laid out (sometimes cleverly hidden) and then recalled in the finale, Fielding prefers a sort of police procedural method in telling the story. It's highly methodical but it does rob the reader of the enjoyment of trying to outsmart the detective at his own game. Only in the final third of the book is the detection presented as fair play because so many theories have been discussed and evidence found when the final pieces to the confounding mysteries are uncovered the reader does have a chance to put them all together and finger the true villain of the novel.

THINGS I LEARNED: Major Moncrieff had been suffering from a feverish high temperature. Pointer finds some concentrated quinine in his room. He tells his police team: "There's the explanation of the high temperature. Soak enough cigarettes in quinine, let them dry, smoke them and you'll get a temperature promptly. It's a Foreign Legion dodge."

Don Ramon is repeatedly referred to as an espada and not a matador. I knew of the term mozo de espada, but this is basically a matador's valet who dresses him prior to the fight and hands equipment from outside of the ring to the matador in the ring. This servant never enters the ring. I thought for a time that Fielding had completely misunderstood the role of this servant and conflated the two. But then some assiduous searching turned up this fact: Espada is also sometimes used as a synonym for matador. I don't know why he didn't use matador and simplify it all. Odd. But as always it was fun to learn another bit of trivia.

THE AUTHOR: "A. Fielding" was thought to be a pseudonym for Lady Dorothy Moore (nee Feilding), but it has been disproven by a living relative, her grandson. Note the odd transposition of the vowels in her name and the pen name. There have been multiple online articles written about the true identity of A. Fielding but apparently because of lack of data and provable facts it cannot be said just who is or was the real person behind the pseudonym. According to Fielding's American publisher H.C. Kinsey they claimed in some publicity dated circa 1942 that the author was Dorothy Feilding and lived in England. If this is true is must be a completely different Dorothy than originally thought. For those interested, I suggest reading the many articles and queries by John Herrington, the tireless research librarian, whose work has been posted on Mystery*File. The most detailed is here and includes the comments from Richard Hyde, Lady Moore's grandson, who denies she was ever a mystery novelist.

EASY TO FIND? Glory Hallulejah! you're all in luck. No need to look for the scarce original US or UK hardcovers this time. Tragedy at Beechcroft has been reissued as a digital book from Resurrected Press. In fact, most if not all of the Inspector Pointer books are available from this outfit. Though I warn you that this "publisher" is actually a one man outfit armed with an OCR scanner who has confessed that he goes to libraries scanning the pages of out of print mystery novels. According to several online reviews the Resurrected Press books are littered with typos and are badly designed. Caveat emptor! Alternatively and another good sign is that Project Gutenberg Australia has the book online for free. So knock yourselves out, gang.

I enjoyed this one flaws and all. This was my first reading of A. Fielding's many mystery novels and I'll probably be tracking down a few of Fielding's other better mysteries. Next time, however, I'll be prepared for the long exposition in anticipation of the truly knockout plotting and storytelling.

FFB: Conjurer's Coffin - Guy Cullingford

THE STORY: Jess Milk is the newly hired front desk clerk at Hotel Bellevue which caters to second rate entertainers touring the music halls of England. Queen Elizabeth II's coronation is fast approaching and the hotel owner Madame Lefevre is eagerly looking forward to the tourist trade and their money. Then Lulu, Madame's spoiled Pomeranian, escapes. Miss Milk feels largely responsible and she is determined to locate the missing dog. Disappearances are not just confined to pets. A magician's lovely assistant also vanishes from the hotel and suddenly the talk of the impending coronation turns to whispered conversations about jealous wives, philandering husbands and murder.

THE CHARACTERS: Miss Milk first comes off as too prim and proper, a bit too honest and I wasn't sure I would warm up to her.  This characterization, however, is all part of Cullingford's design. As the story slowly progresses and the plot begins to take shape Jess does indeed become a likeable woman, albeit a victim of her own goodness and integrity. She is sharply contrasted with the Lefevre family who run the hotel and the assortment of eccentrics and shifty entertainers who make up the hotel residents all of whom seem to be exploiting Miss Milk's honesty and innate kindness.

This is also a very funny book, but it's that quiet wry British style of humor.  An acquired taste for some. Miss Milk is befriended by elderly Miss Watkins and they make a date to visit the Chinese restaurant down the street from the Hotel Bellevue, a treat for both of them who have never eaten Chinese food.  The sequence really has nothing to do with the plot but it's hysterical all the same,  perhaps somewhat spoiled by the usual patronizing humor aimed at ingratiating Chinese waiters who speak pidgin English. Cullingford also uses the book to satirize the British obsession with the Royals in the depiction of Coronation mania.  Self-absorbed writer Mr. Crabbe who is having difficulty finding a marketable subject matter for his next book finally settles on a sea adventure and his amusing dilemma over creating a title leads to his musing about the Shakespeare quote "There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood leads on to fortune." He thinks There Is a Tide ought to be good then considers shortening it to simply Tide until Miss Milk reminds him "That's a soapless powder for washing things."  Crabbe counters with "What about Taken at the Flood?" but Miss Milk spoils that one, too. She says, "You can't have that one either. It's an Agatha Christie." "Drat you girl," Mr Crabbe fires back. "You're an artist's nightmare!"

INNOVATIONS:  I liked that Miss Milk's dear friend Captain Homes talks about the art of misdirection that is a magician's stock in trade early in the book and how that will color the entire story. The hotel itself is both literally and figuratively the Conjurer's Coffin (1954) with an unusually shaped corridor that resembles a traditional casket shape and rooms that seem to swallow up women who vanish without a trace. By the midpoint of the novel a clear criminal plot has been revealed and by the end that plot is complicated by an unexpected additional conspiracy to cover up all the crimes. It's almost as if everyone in the story is guilty of something which makes this book something of a crime fiction tour de force. Certainly, Cullingford is turning the genre on its head and breaking a few rules.

QUOTES: Crabbe about his ongoing writer's block: "I'm so whacked for ideas that I reckon I shall have to do Coronation festivities in the village.  Do you think the public will stand for that?"
Miss Milk: "I should think that people will be so fed up with the Coronation by the time it's over that they won't want to hear another word about it as long as they live."

"They don't turn mattresses in places like this," explained the sergeant sourly. "Not if it's up to one of those hussies I saw slouching round the corridors this morning. Never turned a mattress in her life."

What the [policewoman] had to tell him had struck him as an outlandish story, though no queerer than some which had come his way before.  He had long realized that truth is stranger than fiction, nature more fantastic than art, and he thought the imaginations of detective-story writers impoverished indeed.

But the last days before [the Coronation] which had been part of the fabric of English life for at least half a year, which had been thrust before the eyes of the people by Press and television, which had been dinned into their ears by the BBC, and been pushed into their hands by manufacturers in the shape of pots, trays, waste-paper baskets and whatever article would take an impress of it, until they were delirious, bored or exasperated, according to their temperaments: these days hurried by in a frenzy of last minute arrangements.

THE AUTHOR: Guy Cullingford is the male pseudonym created by Constance Lindsey Taylor when she decided to write crime fiction full time. Her first detective novel, Murder with Relish, is modeled on the traditional country house murder mystery and was published under her own name. However, the book was lost in the sea of similar stories perhaps in large part due to the nostalgic flavor of the action being set in "the concluding years of King George V" though it was published in 1948. Her first novel using her new male alter ego -- Post Mortem (reviewed on this blog here) -- was a minor sensation, gaining rave reviews from both sides of the Atlantic, and got her the recognition she was longing for. Taylor wrote a total of nine novels and several short stories many of which appeared in EQMM well into the early 1970s. She also wrote original scripts for British television.

EASY TO FIND?  The Penguin paperback seems to be fairly easy to find for all you who live on the other side of the Atlantic. I guess it's fairly affordable for US readers -- if you're willing to pay up to $26 to some greedy bookseller to ship you a lightweight paperback overseas. But the US or UK hardback editions are unfortunately next to impossible to find for sale these days.  I bought my US edition with the apparently very scare DJ for something like $7.50 about five years ago when I first became interested in Taylor's books under her Cullingford guise. Some enterprising reprint publisher ought to reissue all of her books.  I think they're something very special among crime novels of the mid twentieth century. But of course you'd have to be drawn to intelligent literate writing, imaginative characters, and subtle twists in crime fiction conventions. She was decades ahead of the game, in my opinion.

The Case of the Phantom Fingerprints - Ken Crossen

Detective Jason Jones and his tagalong partner Necessary Smith, a private eye, are confronted with the puzzling disappearance of the prime suspect who has left behind incriminating fingerprints on a murder weapon in the first few chapters of The Case of the Phantom Fingerprints (1945). Jones is known for handling unusual cases and he is prompted to deliver a mini lecture on the nature of impossible crimes and why murderers indulge in them. After offering up four different categories that might explain what appears to be an impossible vanishing Jones then goes on to draw analogies to the world of magic and prestidigitation.

“The only way to solve a case like this is to forget that it’s a human drama, in which a human life was lost, and to think of it as a trick—as sleight-of-hand. When we do that, we know that all we have to do is find the one move that is the key to the trick, and the whole thing will fall apart.”

Magicians tend to be drawn to dreaming up impossible crime mystery stories. Clayton Rawson, of course, is the most well known and even his detective The Great Merlini is a magician. Hake Talbot (aka Henning Nelms ) was also a stage magician and one time stage designer for theater. Ken Crossen who used a variety of pseudonyms in his writing and his pal Bruce Elliot were also magicians and members of an elite circle of illusionists and magicians, many of whom were also writers. Crossen has written widely in the genre and used some rather clever gimmicks, though not always done fairly, in creating impossible situations in his mystery stories. While he is not as well known or as talented in whipping up ingenious locked room problems as his colleagues Rawson, Carr and Anthony Boucher (aka H.H. Holmes) who are mentioned in passing in this short novel, Crossen deserves at least an honorable mention for his clever spins on well-used tricks and his obvious love of the genre.

I’ve written about Crossen before in his guise as “Richard Foster”. Both those books also featured impossible crimes and “miracle problems” but were not as engrossing nor as clever as this one. Perhaps Crossen was caught up in the novelty of having his detective be a Tibetan American or maybe he was expending much of his energy on creating the Green Lama pulp magazine stories. In any case both books featuring Chin Kwang Kham were not as interesting as this one featuring a Nero Wolfe clone in the person of gigantic Jason Jones.

Crossen, who has clearly borrowed from the pages of Rex Stout, even shamelessly has one character call Jason Jones “a poor man’s Nero Wolfe”. Jones is a colorful character who like Wolfe and his orchids enjoys tending to his geraniums on a rooftop hothouse. There is a strange section in the book where we learn that he often uses various geranium varieties in cooking like an exotic recipe calling for geraniums as a flavor enhancer in lemon jam.

Oddly, Necessary Smith though he is ostensibly engaged to investigate the murder by drama critic Thornton Rockwood acts as a sidekick and legman to policeman Jones. Smith does some sleuthing and even offers up a theory (which perhaps most readers will come up with pages before he does) that turns out to be utterly wrong. Jones is the real detective here. It’s an odd pairing and I’m sure that no real life police department would look favorably on Jones using a P.I. as his partner. But we’ll let it slide because it’s all done in pulpy fun. It’s a book, after all, and hardly grounded in reality.

Speaking of books Crossen uses a particular mystery novel as one of the biggest clues in this story. It also happens to show one of his weaknesses as a pulp writer –- self-referential jokes. One of the characters is a mystery novel addict and his copy of The Laughing Buddha Murders has gone missing. It turns up in a hotel room briefly and just as quickly disappears. The joke here is that The Laughing Buddha Murders is by a writer named Richard Foster and it happens to be very real. (Anyone curious about the book can briefly read about it in my post on Crossen writing as Foster by clicking here.) For the sake of the story this “version” of The Laughing Buddha Murders has not been officially published even though in real life it was published one year earlier than …Phantom Fingerprints. Both books were put out by the digest publisher Vulcan Publications; Buddha is Vulcan Mystery #3 (1944) and Fingerprints is Vulcan Mystery #5 (1945). Over the course of the novel Smith and Jones try to find out who has read the book and who might have borrowed the advance copy from choreographer and detective story nut Gregor Santos. There is also a brief mention of John Dickson Carr and his ingenious locked room mysteries which turn out to be the preferred reading of both Santos and a ditzy actress named Toni Dorne.

In …Phantom Fingerprints Crossen makes use of a very familiar plot from the annals of Golden Age mysterydom. A group of theatrical professionals are at the mercy of a scheming ruthless blackmailer who happens to be producer Max Black. Many of Block's productions are staffed with big name stars who he has wheedled into working for him lest he reveal their deep, dark secrets. Additionally, Block would demand cash payments for keeping those secrets under cover. No surprise when he’s found stabbed in his home during a big post-theater shindig where not too coincidentally many of his blackmail victims were guests. The weird thing about the crime is that the murderer left his bloody fingerprints on the knife in Block’s chest. The prints match those of Max Thale, a visiting PR man from a Hollywood movie studio. But Thale appears to have dematerialized. He is nowhere inside the house and no footprints can be found outside the snow covered ground to indicate he might have jumped from a window or snuck out some other way. All the entrances and exits were guarded by trustworthy policeman and they swear no one got past them. How did Thale manage his disappearing act? That the book is populated with theater people ought to be a big tipoff.

There are several other murders and found at each scene of the crime a bloody handprint matching the prints of Max Thale. The trick of the fingerprints and how they were created is probably the most original feature of a book filled with familiar characters and situations. We even get a “talking villain” scene that seems to have been created solely to fill up some pages with words. I think anyone who knows even a little about stage magic might spot the telltale clue that can lead to figuring out the fingerprint mystery. The explanation when it comes is glibly related and I doubt it would result in the intended effect, but Crossen gets points for trying. Supposedly, the solution is based on fact and can be found in a book on French criminology though Crossen never mentions the exact title nor the author’s name.

FFB: Ten Little Wizards - Michael Kurland

Impossible crimes and locked room murders. An Agatha Christie homage. An alternative universe where monarchies rule all of Europe and the New World. Magic supplants real science and sorcerers hold positions of power and authority. What more could you ask for? Well, a better constructed mystery, for one. And a lot less in-jokes and filler for another.

I was prepared to enjoy thoroughly Michael Kurland's continuation of the adventures of Lord Darcy, the Chief Investigator in the court of King John IV, a detective character first created by Randall Garrett in a series of novellas and one full-length novel back in the 1970s. Kurland does a nice job of elaborating on the alternative universe where Richard the Lion-Hearted ruled longer than his actual ten years preventing John I from ever being king and was succeeded by a long line of Plantagenet descendents who have been ruling the Angevin Empire for over seven centuries. But Kurland's skill in creating a viable detective novel that pays tribute to the impossible crimes and locked room mysteries Garrett concocted so imaginatively leaves a lot to be desired. Unfortunate because there are three locked room murders with so much promise yet none of them are solved with any ingenuity whatsoever.

Someone is murdering sorcerers and leaving behind slips of paper with taunting rhymed couplets. This and the title are a mere nod, barely an allusion, to Christie. I expected the rhymes to be a clue of some sort to the motives of the murderer or - as in the novel - be related to the murder methods.  But no, the rhymes have no reason. They do sound similar to the Christie poem but "Nine little wizards snickered at fate/One wizard laughed aloud and then there were eight" for example, has little do to with a throat cutting and has nothing to do with the eventual motive or identity of the killer.

One dead wizard is found stabbed in a bakery with all the doors and windows locked from the inside, another dead body is found in the middle of a freshly shellacked ballroom still tacky but showing only the victim's footprints leading into the locked room. The second crime is the most fascinating since the victim had his throat cut in such a way that it appeared someone had to be directly behind him and yet there is no evidence of any other person being present. There is a third locked room murder and two other deaths plus the threat of the assassination of His Majesty the King before the culprit is finally stopped.

There is an awful lot that is similar to Too Many Magicians, the only Lord Darcy novel Garrett wrote. In Garrett's book a convention of sorcerers brings together wizards and magicians from all over Europe. In Kurland's book dignitaries from Poland travel to the court of King John IV for the ceremony which will raise Gwiliam, Duke of Lancaster (the King's younger son), to Prince of Gaul. Polish spies and political conspiracies are also prominently featured in both. There is a lot of backstory on the richly detailed alternate history of this universe and it was better delineated for me here. But the criminal investigation and the real mysteries tended to drift into the background while Kurland introduced more and more minor characters so that he could indulge in witty banter and discuss the political relations between Germany, Normandy, England and Poland and bring up even more talk about the colonies of New England and New France on the other side of the Atlantic.

One of the more original spins in the book is Kurland's poking fun at the lack of real science in this world. One example is in the introduction of a character who has been called upon to help cure the Marquis of Sherrinford's headaches with a newly devised treatment involving talking and listening. The Marquis is astounded that simply talking about his childhood and taking a simple powder dissolved in water can cure him of his nagging stress headaches. The sorcerers at court call it a cheap form of magic (he does give the powder after all) while the Count helping the Marquis calls it Mental Science.

The strength of the book is in the fantasy elements. As in Garrett's work Lord Darcy here is assisted by Sean O Lochlainn, a forensic sorcerer who does all of the magical detective work by whipping up similarity spells that are akin to blood tests and DNA lab work, examining locks for protection tampering, manifesting traces of evil at each crime scene, and even placing a levitation spell on Darcy so that he can hover over the corpse in the shellacked ballroom without making marks on the floor. The cerebral detection and routine interrogation of suspects is left to Lord Darcy. He does yeoman but not spectacular work. When it comes time to reveal the murderer we get an action oriented trap and a messy and rushed explanation of the impossible crimes that turn out to have prosaic and lazy solutions. The murderer isn't even a character who we know among the large group of suspects. He is introduced two pages before he is identified as the culprit. For that I give Kurland a big "Boo!"

If you want to read about Lord Darcy, I suggest you start with the real thing. Read Randall Garret's much better stories. Once you are familiar with his world and characters then maybe you might want to investigate Kurland's two books as a curiosity. I liked his handling of the alternative universe twenty or so years after the original stories took place. He explained the history of this strange world and the magical hierarchy much more clearly than Garrett did, but the detective novel aspects and certainly the impossible crimes pale in comparison to Garrett's original work.

The Lord Darcy Series by Randall Garrett
Murder and Magic - novellas originally published in magazines between 1964 - 1973
Too Many Magicians (1966) - novel
Lord Darcy Investigates (1981) - short stories originally published in magazines between 1974 - 1979
Also, all three books were reissued in an omnibus put out by several different bookclubs called Lord Darcy.

By Michael Kurland (both originally published as paperback originals)
Ten Little Wizards (Ace, 1988)
A Study in Sorcery (Ace, 1989)
Both of Kurland's contributions to the Lord Darcy series have been reissued by Wildside Press.

LEFT INSIDE: George Johnstone Bookplate

I bought a book at the Printer's Book Fair earlier this year solely for the book plate firmly glued to the front endpaper.  It announces that the book comes from the library of George Johnstone, an American magician who died in 2004.

Apart from some amusing anecdotes from fellow magicians on several on-line magician forums I could only discover that Johnstone was an avid book collector, appeared on Ed Sullivan, was the opening act for the 1956 Elvis tour, and he started out as an assistant for Blackstone back in the 1930s.

Click on the image to enlarge and you will be able to read all of the book titles.  Each one is a real book considered a classic in the magic world.  I assume that the GJ on the right hand side above the bookend are George Johnstone's initials and that he himself designed the bookplate.

The book came from the huge collection of magic books, magic tricks, stage illusionist posters and ephemera belonging to Chicago magician, ventriloquist and puppeteer Jay Marshall who died in 2005.  I knew Jay for exactly one year and visited his house once when I was a puppeteer with a company called Hystopolis Productions back in the late 1990s.  He was approaching his seventies at the time, but was still a good spirited, very funny man with a devilish sense of humor.  He still did a few tricks at summer parties and enjoyed doing his very adult puppet show for friends only.  I only wish I got to know him better than the few hours I spent in his backyard for that one summer party.

It was sheer luck that I found the book pictured below at the book fair this year.  The dealer was the one who told me she thinks it came from Marshall.  The finest and rarest objects, posters and books from his staggering collection were auctioned off over a three year period between 2007 and 2009 in Illinois and Kentucky at three magic collector annual conventions and a private auction house. You can still view the "Part 3" auction catalog here. (Remember the auction ended over two years ago. Don't get too excited looking.)  It's stunningly impressive, if you are a magic geek like me, filled with rare posters, rarer autographs, vintage magic tricks, and very scarce magic books.

Apparently some of the lesser quality books were still in Jay Marshall's world renowned store Magic Inc, a few years after Jay's death in 2005.  This was one of them.  Strangely, the book has nothing to do with magic.  Ladies of the Underworld, as the title suggests, is a non-fiction account of women criminals.  The subtitle is "The Beautiful, the Damned, and Those Who Get Away With It."  There are twenty-six chapters each devoted to a specific woman or a type of female criminal.  Included are such intriguing chapters as "Vera, the High Flyer and the Shooting of Prince Fahmy," "The Cobra Woman, The Parisian Queen of Crime," "Aysah, The Malayan Hell Woman," and other chapters on female spies, forgers, mafia women and one about women living as men.  I haven't read any of the book yet, but just typing all that has made me want to read at least a few select chapters.