Reflected Glory - John Russell Fearn

The forensic psychology subgenre was not well known or often utilized until the tail end of the Golden Age of Detection. It really only became popular with the rise of the serial killer novels in the mid 1980s when protagonists who were adept at criminal profiling become more and more popular. With the advent of TV series like Criminal Minds there seemed to be no stopping the trend of creating lurid murders committed by truly disturbed killers. Nevertheless, the idea of solving a crime based solely on the construction of the murderer’s psychological history and behavior can be traced back as early as the novels of Charles J. Dutton whose series detective John Hartley, a professor in abnormal psychology, aided police in gruesome multiple murder cases detailed in novels like The Crooked Cross (1923) and Streaked with Crimson (1929). Similar landmark novels appeared in the following decades as exemplified by The Murder of Sigurd Sharon (1933) by Harriette Ashbrook, The Horizontal Man (1946) by Helen Eustis, and Ellery Queen’s seminal serial killer mystery Cat of Many Tails (1949). John Russell Fearn also entered the realm of abnormal psychology when he created psychologist and criminologist Dr. Adam Castle who appears in at least two novels: Shattering Glass (1947) and Reflected Glory (2005). The second of these was never published in Fearn’s lifetime though it was, according to Philip Harbottle Fearn’s literary executor, written many years later than Shattering Glass. Having just completed the second Castle title it is clear to me why it was left alone.  As an example of a crime plot based on rudimentary pop psychology it doesn’t hold up well at all.

The first half of Reflected Glory is perfectly fine. It’s all set up and exposition and it promises an intriguing story of impassioned characters, lovers betrayed and rejected, and rampant jealousies. There is a bizarre practical joke that takes place in an early chapter that results in a dreadful injury rendering painter Clive Hexley’s hand practically useless. As Clive is an artist he is horrified that he may never be able to paint again. And Elsa Farraday, his most recent muse, sees Clive’s injury as life altering to them both. If the story was to be focussed on psychology here was a veritable Pandora’s box of ills and troubles to write about. But instead we get the story of a troubled young woman haunted by her past with the cliché abusive parent who tortured and scarred her for life.

I thought this kind of thing wasn’t really part of pop fiction well until the late 1960s or mid 1970s. Hard to tell when exactly Reflected Glory was originally written, perhaps it did come from that time. Poor Elsa Farraday truly seems like she could only have been created after the publication of Sybil (1975) and similar stories both fictional and non-fictional. Yet here was Fearn dreaming up a little girl terrorized by a brutal father and imprisoned like a Gothic heroine. Granted monstrous mothers seemed to be more prevalent in this kind of fiction with Carrie White’s mother taking the grand prize, but a brutal abusive father was probably easier to dream up and possibly more palatable for the reader.

The detective plot involves the disappearance of Clive and Elsa’s apparent guilt surrounding his possible murder. Late in the novel (given away on the plot blurb of my edition) she confesses to his murder but the police don’t take her seriously. Without a body the confession is legally useless to them. They continue to search for the body in vain. The reason for Elsa’s open and brazen confession will not be entirely explained until the final pages. Rest assured it has a lot to do with her “abnormal” behavior. A major clue for that behavior comes in the explanation of the title which Elsa talks about with Clive prior to his disappearance: “My glory such as it is, Mr. Hexley, is reflected. I said that I am not an artist in the same sense that you are. By that I mean I cannot paint or draw I’m a writer.”

This idea of “reflected glory” is key to understanding Elsa. The reader should be allowed to slowly realize that Elsa prefers to seek attention through anonymous means. Thus she chooses a pen name to write under. The chance to model for Hexley’s most recent portrait she sees as the crown jewel in her vying for attention without truly being seen or known. But we never slowly realize any of this; we have all of it spelled out for us. Repeatedly, Elsa will explain everything in confessional dialogue as if the reader is not smart enough to glean it all from situations and behavior. Dr. Castle uses the term “reflected glory” often throughout the story as he comes to understand Elsa’s decidedly perverse form of an “inferiority complex.” And he too will lecture and explain what we may have missed in an earlier scene.

The trouble with many of these fictional mysteries that rely solely on psychology as their method of detection is that the plots tend to be fabricated with utterly phony business that never rings true. When a writer creates a psychologist character he ought to have a sophisticated knowledge of the behavioral sciences and psychology theorists and their work that can then be diffused through the character. Relying solely on pop psychological terms like “inferiority complex” and then using some of the most absurd abnormal behavior to explain that complex may make for some luridly eyebrow-raising reading but it has not a shred of authenticity. For example, we are asked to believe that Elsa finds it easier to concentrate in her writing persona if she dresses up as a ten year-old girl and retreats to a reconstructed childhood bedroom with child-sized furniture. As someone suffering from “inferiority complex” her retreat to the safety of childhood is comforting and simultaneously she is dominant as she is an adult in a room of miniature furniture. If she was an abused kid why would she find it necessary to dress up as one? We are told she is haunted by her cruel past. And yet she has an entire wardrobe of little girl’s clothes she dons in order to feel safe and enable her to concentrate on her writing? Which of course is all about violence and torture.

The entrance to a forbidden basement in Elsa’s home has been screwed up tight. Castle manages to surreptitiously unscrew the doorway and gain entry. (Don’t get me started on the ridiculous stunt which results in his visit to Elsa’s home under an assumed identity. It involves his wife and daughter and is 100% unethical.) What he finds beyond that door is sure to startle any reader but will not shock or thrill as was probably intended. Fearn draws on Gothic novel horror motifs but then undermines the horrible with kitschy bad taste and sophomoric character traits. Elsa, who writes grisly crime novels, uses the pen name “Hardy Strong”. This Castle tells us is another signifier of her desire to be a dominant personality and yet paradoxically she prefers to be remain hidden in the guise of an assumed persona.

While reading Reflected Glory I was continually reminded of drecky horror movies of the 1960s like The Mad Room and Picture Mommy Dead, both of which make use of kitschy pop-psych motives for the criminal acts. Dr. Castle’s lectures when he attempts to explain Elsa’s troubles are less revelatory than they are predictable, and sometimes – unfortunately – laughable. Only in the final two pages when Castle adopts a paternal tone and reminds Elsa of her genuine self-worth and counsels her to abandon her strange rituals and pretenses does the story finally become what Fearn intended. But by then it’s really too late to care for Elsa or her future.

FFB: A Clue for Mr. Fortune - H. C. Bailey

Reggie Fortune reminds me so much of a British version of Philo Vance. They both have an eccentric way of speaking, they both have quaint expressions ("Oh, my aunt!" and Oh, my hat!") they resort to when exasperated, they both think they're better than the police at solving crimes, and they both have a wealth of esoteric information at their fingertips with which to astound their policemen cohorts. But even with Reggie's irritating speech habits -- sounding like a human telegram with staccato terseness often absent of verbs and articles -- I found him to be a lot more engaging and often a delightful detective compared to Vance. He clearly belongs to the good old days when murderers committed puzzling crimes and inadvertently left behind equally puzzling traces that provide clues to only one as knowledgeable and observant as Reggie Fortune. Even more remarkable is that H.C. Bailey seemed to have been way ahead of his time in presenting a physician turned detective whose skills in forensic medicine help uncover crucial evidence when death looks suspiciously like foul play.

The six novellas -- its hard to classify a forty to fifty page tale as a short story -- that make up the adventures in sleuthing in A Clue for Mr. Fortune (1936) run the gamut from theft to missing persons to fiendishly disguised murders. Four of the six are top notch examples of the best of a Golden Age detective story while the other two left me wanting. So let's get those two sticklers out of the way before we move onto the prizewinners in this book.

Though "The Hole in the Parchment" has both an exotic setting (Firenze and the surrounding Florentine countryside in Italy) and unusual background (medieval manuscript collecting) it is not really a detective story. Reggie is on vacation in Italy with his wife Joan and helps out the police in a case of suspected thievery and forgery. The story is more of an action adventure with the bulk of the tale devoted to a lengthy car chase interrupted by an intrusive motorcyclist and an unexpected automotive breakdown in the hills. There is a lot of talk about sports car design since the main character is involved in the automobile industry but that didn't interest me at all. And the final twist related to the story's title was less of a surprise eliciting more of a "So what?"reaction from me. Knowing that parchment is not really paper may tip off the reader to that twist, but it's all so inconsequential. No murder, by the way.

I didn't even finish "The Wistful Goddess" because Reggie and his wife (who speaks almost exactly like him for some bizarre reason) are talking with one of those British twits who ends nearly all of his sentences with "Eh, what?" way too often and who is bemoaning his recently lost "love-at-first-sight" girlfriend. I found nothing in the first three pages interesting at all. The dialogue was wretched and I just skipped it altogether.

There. That's done. Now for the good tales and the very good reasons you ought to track down a copy of this elusive book.

US paperback edition (Pony Books, 1946)

The collection starts off with a gimmick that will recur throughout the book -- an apparent suicide that turns out to be murder. The first paragraph in "The Torn Stocking" indicates that this is apparently one of Reggie's first cases as a police consultant and pairs him up with frequent collaborator Inspector Lomas. A 16 year old girl accused of shoplifting is thought to have killed herself by sticking her head in a gas oven. It is the title clue that tips off Reggie that the girl was killed elsewhere and her body moved to where it was found in the kitchen. Reggie takes this along with such archetypical Golden Age clues as a lumpy doll, some sawdust in the bedroom and a missing cat to uncover a murder involving stolen jewels and a blackmail scheme.

In "The Swimming Pool" we get an interesting confession from Reggie when he claims to have no imagination. What he really means is that he is so focused on the facts and applying his findings of the evidence overlooked by the unobservant police that he is often unable to foretell possible complications in the police investigation. He seems to be a man of medicine first, a scientist and a rigid logician. But in the end it turns out to be self-deprecating remark and a case of selling himself short.

This case involves an incorrectly assumed death by natural causes that is actually a murder by morphine poisoning. A nurse who treated the victim has gone missing and the search is on to locate her so that she can be questioned about his treatment. But when a headless corpse of a woman turns up in a trunk Reggie and the police think that the murderer got to the nurse first. Reggie shows off his extensive knowledge of botany and local flora (not for the first time) when he remarks on some St. John's wort found on the body, a plant isolated to a specific region, indicating once again that the corpse was killed elsewhere than where it was found. We also get an indication of Reggie's superiority when he remarks in passing towards the end of the story: "Clever female. Rather underratin' the male intelligence. As they do." I love a little retro male chauvinism in my vintage detective fiction, don't you?

Reggie Fortune, looking rather androgynous,
in this illustration by Frederick Dorr Steele

"The Dead Leaves" is another instance of botany playing a big part in the solution of the crime. A case of an unidentified woman's body who once again appeared to have killed herself leads to another similar death by misadventure. Both of course will turn out to be cleverly executed murders. The discovery of some leaves and branches of bog myrtle and arctic willow prove to be the killer's undoing. Mountaineering and outdoor sports also figure prominently in this excellent story. We meet Jenks, Reggie's lab assistant who I believe shows up in numerous other stories, in a brief scene at the start that is resonant of the recent crop of forensic crime TV shows. One of Bailey's landmark contributions to detective fiction is his concentration on forensic evidence like insects, plants and organic matter found on the crime victims bodies and blood evidence overlooked at the scene of the crime.

The highlight for me, however, is "The Holy Well". Here is a perfect example of a detective novel in miniature. From the puzzling murder to the odd clues to the atmospheric setting and unconventional characters it hits all the bells and whistles of the best of detective fiction of this era. Reggie eventually takes center stage as a true detective though he starts off in his regular role as police consultant. From the opening sentence "the process of discovering the truth was started in the Sunday paper" that leads to the uncovering of "crepuscular tragedy of the mystery of the agonies of womanhood" to the final revelation the story is exciting, engaging and unusual. Jonathan Prout is strangled and dumped in the well of St. Siran in the Cornish moors. Lovelorn girls regularly visit the well tossing pins and coins into its depths wishing for happiness and romance but there are those who shun it as a cursed place. The mention of a death's head moth found in the water is at first dismissed as yet another example of the local superstitious beliefs attached to the well, but Reggie sees it as vital evidence. The moth coupled with the mention of a sticky substance found on the corpse's clothing sets Reggie off on a complex murder investigation that will uncover family secrets, impersonation and a wicked plan to defraud a family fortune. The detection in this story is superior compared to the rest with fine examples of fair play clues laid out with subtlety and inventiveness not on display in the other five stories.

Though A Clue for Mr Fortune is somewhat scarce you might be lucky to find a paperback edition, one of which I own. If unable to locate this particular volume the best of the stories, including "The Holy Well", can be found is an easily obtained omnibus of Reggie Fortune stories published under the title Meet Mr. Fortune. That book also includes the full length novel The Bishop's Crime as well as a number of other excellent stories originally published in other volumes of Mr. Fortune's detective exploits.

It's a shame that Reggie Fortune has fallen into obscurity. His eccentric speech and quaint mannerisms may have prevented him from lasting fame in the pantheon of great fictional detectives, yet he very much deserves to be there. And he very much deserves to be read by contemporary audiences.

Reading Challenge update. This is my late entry for Rich Westwood's "1936 Book" challenge for the month of April and also the short story entry for the Golden Age bingo card challenge sponsored by Bev at "My Reader's Block."

FFB: Too Many Bones - Ruth Sawtell Wallis

Long before Kathy Reichs was writing forensic anthropology mysteries there was the long forgotten academic and physical anthropologist Ruth Sawtell Wallis who perhaps unknowingly created the first mystery that would eventually become a very popular subgenre. Her book Too Many Bones (1943) uses the study of a group of closely related skeletal ancestors as the intriguing background for her debut mystery novel. The involved study of those bones are integral to the solution of a mysterious death that occurs in the story.

Kay Ellis finds herself in the lucky position of assistant to Dr. John Gordon, a bookish and of course stunningly handsome scientist, currently very involved in studying the skeletons of the Holtzermann Collection housed in the William Proutman Museum in the Midwestern town of Hinchdale. Most of the staff is surprised that the K. Ellis they were expecting turns out to be a woman, but none so taken aback than the imperious director of the museum Zaydee Proutman, young widow of recently deceased William. Zaydee not only keeps her eye on the business of the museum but on the handsome Dr. Gordon in whom she is very interested. Mrs. Proutman is none too happy that the museum's new assistant is a 21 year-old woman with brains and looks.

A bitter rivalry starts up almost immediately between the two women and is worsened by the outbursts of alcoholic musician Randy Bill who has been spurned by Zaydee. Add into the mix the sinister Alpheus Harvey who would like to be running the museum himself while Zaydee he thinks is only fit for publicity fundraisers and newspaper photo-ops; spinsterish Alice Barton, the museum's librarian who has a waspish tongue and a taste for gossip; an opinionated Swedish immigrant engineer in charge of the museum's faulty furnace and heating system; and a friendly but secretive janitor named Esquire who would like to marry Mrs. Proutman's personal maid Isabelle but is prevented from doing so and you have all the ingredients for impending murder.

When Randy perishes in a horrific car accident and Zaydee disappears the very same night Sheriff Barton Brown suspects foul play. The museum and the town are searched thoroughly but it yields no sign of Zaydee or her belongings. Brown rushes through an inquest in order to put the blame solely on Randy calling it murder and suicide. Kay, however, sees lots of holes in Brown's hastily closed case. She turns detective to uncover the reason for Zaydee's sudden and convenient disappearance. In the course of her work she learns the grisly truth about what happened to Zaydee, digs up several deep dark secrets, and reveals an elaborate conspiracy to cover-up murder.

When Wallis finally gets around to making her book a real mystery -- more than halfway into the involved plot -- it picks up in momentum and interest. Prior to Kay's turning amateur sleuth the book reminded me of the kind of romantic suspense novel that was the specialty of Phyllis Whitney whose first mystery, Red Is for Murder, was coincidentally published the same year as Too Many Bones. Wallis' book is mostly about the rivalry between Zaydee and Kay and their attraction to the Byronic Dr. Gordon. There is a bit too much time spent in introducing her rather large cast and setting up the numerous motives for a possible murder. But her writing is always top notch, never dull, never stupid. There is some sly feminist commentary slipped into the story, too. Kay's complaints of the treatment of women in academia, especially unfair wage differences between men and women, make the book seem timely and resonant even for a 21st century reader.

The anthropological background enlivens the story when the soap operaish elements threaten to take over the book. Late in the story Kay talks about what the FBI can do with bones in determining blood type that made me think that Wallis was way ahead of her time in terms of new spins with the mystery novel. Even more remarkable is Wallis' treatment of the two black characters who have their own love story and are primary suspects in the murder investigation. Frequently in Golden Age detective novels (and nearly all popular fiction for that matter) minority servant characters serve as comic relief or are practically invisible in the story. Both Esquire and Isabelle have rather large supporting parts and are given a human dimension atypical for the era. Their roles, in fact, are larger and less cartoonish than than the gaggle of D.A.R. ladies who visit the car wreck site and gawk and gossip in one of the odder moments in the book. It's no wonder that for these innovations Wallis received the Red Badge Detective Novel Award from publisher Dodd Mead joining a list of writers that includes Clifford Knight, Hugh Pentecost, Christianna Brand and Marco Page.

Ruth Sawtell Wallis was herself an academic. Her work as a mystery writer was a happy accident and only a small portion of her professional life. Wallis' real body of work is devoted to anthropology and includes a book on the first Azilian remains found in France, children's growth studies for the Bureau of Home Economics, and with her husband an ethnography of the Micmac Indians in Eastern Canada. A brief overview of her work in the field of anthropology can be found here.

For once in a long time I have reviewed a book that is relatively easy to find. Too Many Bones was published in hardcover by Dodd Mead, reprinted in hardcover by Grosset & Dunlap, and once again in paperback by Dell. The Dell mapback can sometimes be found for $3 in used bookstores in North America. I found at least ten copies for sale online ranging from $7 to $20. Happy hunting!

READING CHALLENGE UPDATE: And finally -- Too Many Bones serves as my last book in the "Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge 2013 - Scattergories" sponsored by Bev at My Reader's Block. This fits the category Yankee Doodle Dandy for any mystery set in the USA.


Ruth Sawtell Walllis' Mystery Novels
Too Many Bones (1943)
No Bones About It (1944)
Blood from a Stone (1945)
Cold Bed in the Clay (1947)
Forget My Fate (1950)