Death Took a Publisher - Norman Forrest (Nigel Morland)

THE STORY:  Inspector Jack Grief and John Finnegan, a forensic chemist, join forces to solve two baffling poisoning murders that seem impossible. In the first case the detectives cannot figure out how the poison was administered in a time span of less than five minutes when no food or drink were in the room and the victim showed no signs of a hypodermic needle being used. In the second the victim is found in a locked room with a fireplace blazing and a unlatched window leading to a precarious ledge that no one would dare use as an escape.

THE CHARACTERS:  Death Took a Publisher (1936) is the first of two books Nigel Morland wrote using his Norman Forrest pseudonym.  In it we meet Grief, a typical British policeman of the Golden Age, who is grounded in reality and will have nothing to do with so-called impossible murders.  "I hate mysteries!" he exclaims in exasperation at the midpoint of the book. He prefers solid police work though he delegates much of it to his platoon of constables and sergeants. Grief is not above some unorthodox breaking and entering to follow-up on leads.  Twice he basically commits burglary in order to go through the apartments of two suspects and faces grave consequences when he realizes he will somehow have to justify his breaking the law. 

John Finnegan is the super-genius of the novel. Formerly employed in the United States by the Justice Department he is handpicked by the Home Office in England to head up the newly created Department of Forensic Chemistry in London. Here he spends much of his time poring over fingerprints both legitimate and forged (more on that later) via his high powered microscopes and conducts experiments using other other technical wizardry. He also performs some elaborate detective work in discovering the bizarre murder means that killed Willoughby Royle, an ostensibly well liked publisher at Royle & Gray, Ltd. The method of killing is the book's most ingenious and -- to borrow Grief's adjective-- diabolical aspect of the story.

The suspects, especially the women, are an eccentric group.  There is Rebecca Finck, Royle's secretary who seems to spend much of her time covering up and inventing stories about what happened in the office when Royle was killed.  Also among the publishing employees is the elderly spinster Miss Thyme who is primarily a reader and copy editor of sorts. She determines whether or not most manuscripts are worthy of the publishing house or if they contain problems that need to be addressed prior to being sent to the printer. Grief discovers she is a secret devourer of erotica and risque literature and belittles her in his mind.  He treats her less than kindly and as a consequence seriously underestimates her. Miss Thyme will prove to be the only person to solve the crime because of her job as the firm's reader.

Sybelline Higgins is a caricature of a romance novelist who reminded me of Salome Otterbourne, the vociferous and opinionated novelist in Death on the Nile.  Miss Higgins first draws Grief's attention when she is astonished not that Royle was murdered but that he was poisoned with hydrocyanic acid. Each time the poison is mentioned Miss Higgins has an overly theatrical reaction. Grief mulls this over and comes up with a surprising theory that ultimately leads him to rummaging around in the novelist's home while she is conveniently not at home.

There are a handful of other employees at the firm but apart from the second victim and Mr. Brew, a satirical character who exists only for Morland to ridicule "anarchists" and "budding Communists", they all seem to be cut from the same drab cloth. I was proven right when they all, for the most part, turned out to be bogey characters.

INNOVATIONS:  The real interest of the novel is in the police work and the technical aspects of Finnegan's crime solving. Morland was a proponent of realism in crime fiction. When he tackles the science of criminology (a great interest of his) the book rises above its pulpy origins. Much of the crime solving is focused on fingerprints allowing Finnegan to lecture frequently about his mentors and textbooks he has read on the topic.

Death Took a Publisher is often poking fun at professional writers and the entire business of publishing.  It's as much a story of those two worlds as it is a near send-up of detective fiction. Ultimately, all the allusions to detective fiction and specific writers (there are many) lead to the novel being a rather involved meta-fictional mystery novel. A minor character, Sheraton Andrews, is a reclusive mystery writer and he seems to have gone missing. Also missing is the manuscript of his latest book A Half Bucket of Blood. This all seems almost thrown in as an afterthought until Grief, during one of his burglaries, locates the manuscript and hands it over to Gavin Gray, co-owner of the publishing house. Gray then gives the manuscript to Miss Thyme to review for any issues prior to sending it to the printer. Suddenly, Andrews and his book become the focus of the novel. The denouement is as meta-fictional as any similar mystery novel I've ever read.  It may not be the first time this gimmick was employed, but Morland certainly gets his money's worth in the final chapter. 

THINGS I LEARNED: When Grief enters the home of the second victim he is impressed with the tasteful furnishings and the decor focused on racehorse art. He notices a print of "The Worst View in Europe" and a portrait of a horse called Plenipotentiary. Of course I had to have my curiosity satisfied so off I went a-Googling.  The painting is by Charles Johnson Payne (aka "Snaffles") and depicts a rider falling disastrously in a steeplechase or in a failed attempt to jump a stonewall while fox hunting. Payne also did a painting called "The Finest View in Europe" as a companion piece which is a POV painting of a rider on horseback.

The horse is also real and during its time was better know as "Plenipo". The Thoroughbred won six out of seven races during its year-long career from April 1834-April 1835.

"Fingerprints Can Be Forged" (1924) is a monograph by Albert Wehde and John Nicholas Beffel.  Their work is cited by John Finnegan when he encounters an elaborate frame-up involving obviously faked prints that are meant to implicate an author in the murders. I found more on Beffel, a leftist journalist who specialized in writing about radical political ideas, especially promoting labor organizations and criticism of lynchings, than I did on Wehde. This 134 page treatise was reviewed in 1927 by Edmond Locard, Director of the Laboratory of Police Technique in Lyons. Locard, like Finnegan, also mentions in passing the work of Minovici of Bucharest who wrote about the possibility of forging fingerprints in his Manual of Forensic Medicine (1904). 

QUOTES:  Miss Higgins; "Mr. Royle was not a gentleman -- he was publisher. Therefore we cannot attribute to him the qualities reserved for ordinary mortals."

Finnegan: "...I'm not a Sherlock Holmes, and I can't tell if the man wore a pink hat and had an epileptic sister in Tooting!"

He picked up the latest Sayers, then put it down with a sour look on his face when he felt the weight of it. Van Dine came in for a minute's consideration, and Gardner was equally treated. Finally he picked up the new Freeman and paid...his seven-and-sixpence.

Finnegan: "I like a detective story to be a detective story. When they try to write novels at the same time I've no patience for 'em."

Dan Lewis, Grief's superior: "I don't think I've ever come across a case like this. It's a detective novel, down to the ground--all the trimmings: red herrings, the senseless and complicated method of killing you would expect to find in a seven-and sixpence thriller..."

EASY TO FIND?  Rather scarce as usual, my friends. Both US and UK editions come in at least two types -- hardcover and paperback. However, both the US and UK paperback editions may be abridged. If you speak and read French, the cheapest copies out there are int hat language. All copies I turned up seem fairly priced.  Happy hunting!

Put Out that Star - Harry Carmichael

THE STORY: Movie actress Madeleine Grey leaves the set of her film in progress up in Scotland to travel to London where she plans to meet with her insurance agent John Piper. Shortly before the meeting she appears to have vanished from the hotel. No one saw her leave: not Quinn, Piper's reporter friend waiting in the lobby; not the receptionist; not even the elevator operator. Where did she go? And how did she get out unseen? This apparent impossible mystery is soon complicated by two deaths, one a questionable accident and the other a definite murder.

THE CHARACTERS: Put Out That Star (1957) first attracted my attention because it was listed in Adey's Locked Room Murders as being an impossible mystery.  But the ostensible mystery surrounding Madeleine's disappearance is easily figured out.  Not just because there were multiple ways to leave the hotel (an emergency exit door leading to a fire escape, and a stairwell that leads to the ground floor right near the brasserie and cocktail bar) but because of the rather obvious way anyone can leave unnoticed. And I figured that part out instantly. But the story is a gripping one for the way Piper approaches the problem, for the intriguing friendship between Quinn, the nosy and often intrusive reporter who is friends with Piper, and the way Carmichael handles the supporting players who all seem to be acting a little too suspiciously or too indifferently regarding the disappearance of a celebrity guest in the hotel.

The oddest of the suspects is Sydney Noble, the hotel assistant manager who first treats Madeleine's disappearance aloofly.  She'll turn up, he says repeatedly to Piper. But when days pass with no sign of the actress he gets nervous and worries about the hotel's reputation being damaged. That's on the surface. In reality he's more worried about himself and his job. He manages to convince Piper to turn private agent to try and locate the movie star before the press gets hold of the news and before he may be forced to call the police. Piper reluctantly agrees more because he wants his own curiosity satisfied.

Piper also interviews Mrs. Airey. the hotel housekeeper for the third floor where Madeleine was staying, and learns about the flawed fire escape door that cannot be properly closed from the inside of the hotel. He also deals with Benny Seagar, talent agent, who has a couple of secrets he'd rather be left buried. But Piper digs them up all the same. Then there's Roy Mitchell, Madeleine's husband and the scriptwriter on her film. When his wife does not call him at 9 pm as they agreed he calls the hotel and learns that his wife is not there. He insists on driving down to the hotel and plans to do so in a single night.

INNOVATIONS: It's a shame the impossibility of sorts is so unimaginative. With the introduction of a single character at the story's midpoint it's fairly simple to solve the problem of how Madeleine left the hotel. Much of the mystery involves the recurring discussion of Madeleine and her fur coat which made her distinctively noticeable for anyone who a wasn't a film buff and could recognize her by her face. The fur coat is missing from her hotel room, though all of her luggage and clothing was left behind. Some bloodstains on one of her suitcases and the used washcloth in the bathroom are two major clues that bother Piper for the entirety of the story. They are also clues to figuring out what happened to Madeleine.

Carmichael has a neat way in rendering cinematic action sequences. The story opens on February 27 and play outs over the following three days. The winter season plays a major part in the story and a severe winter gale acts as a menacing minor character endangering Piper's life as he pursues a lead involving a missing movie magazine. The outdoor sequences are handled sinisterly with the threatening weather conditions becoming almost a persona of villainy itself. These lent a noirish feel to the novel.

THE AUTHOR: "Harry Carmichael" was a pseudonym used by Leopold Ognall (1908-1979) who was born in Montreal then emigrated with his family to Scotland. In his early adulthood Ognall moved to Leeds where he married in 1932 and remained there for the rest of his life. He worked as a goods manager, a warehouse employee and was an ARP warden during the war years. He began his writing career as a journalist for a Scottish newspaper and apparently later gave up it to become a full time novelist. He wrote at least 84 novels using two different pseudonyms. As "Harry Carmichael" his mystery novels feature either John Piper or Quinn or both and follow the dictates of traditional whodunit style mysteries while as "Hartley Howard" he created Glenn Bowman, a private eye, and Philip Scott, a British Intelligence agent.

EASY TO FIND? There are a handful of the paperback reprint (Fontana Books #286, 1959) editions offered for sale from online booksellers. The UK 1st edition is rather scarce and I turned up only one copy with the equally scarce DJ from a well known vintage crime fiction seller on eBay. Five copies of the US edition retitled Into thin Air (Doubleday/Crime Club, 1958) are available for purchase, all with the DJ.

Exit to Music - Neal Shepherd (aka Nigel Morland)

THE STORY: Chief Inspector Michael "Napper" Tandy attends a party at the home of musician John Farnham for what he thinks will be a private performance of a new composition for piano, violin, cello and clarinet. After being dared to attempt a complicated clarinet passage in the new piece Farnham drops dead. He's been poisoned with strychnine. Everyone is sure that the whisky he drank was poisoned but Tandy proves that Farnham never drank from the glass. How was the poison administered?  Was it that specially ordered bowl of sweet almonds that Farnham was so fond of? Or some other way?

THE CHARACTERS: There certainly are a lot of suspects to choose from and a many of them seem to have strong motives.

Myra Farnham - The victim's young and (of course) beautiful wife who seems to be the object of many of the musicians' attention. She's the only woman in the story which should come as no surprise to those familiar with the "Neal Shepherd" books which tend to deal with realms of übermacho businessmen and maverick scientists and engineers. In this case the world we are visiting is the milieu of contemporary composers of new chamber music. Not one female musician among them. Ugh. But Myra is presented as sensitive, intelligent and a bit complicated.  She is discussed at length rhapsodically by the men but when Tandy
finally interviews her he finds a woman of intelligence, indomitable spirit and a repressed independence.

Felix Hinton - the founder of a modern music quartet (piano, cello, violin, clarinet). He teaches violin to college students and gives private lessons to budding musicians. Not well thought of by the other members of his quartet. He is obsessed with Myra having once been engaged to her but losing her to Farnham, the clarinet player. Felix also has some depression issues and when his violin case reveals a hidden bottle of strychnine he descends into his morass never to return.

Dr. David Wylie - one of Myra's closest friends who has managed to move in with the Farnhams. Tandy soon learns that Wylie was receiving large payments from Farnham related to stock manipulations. Wylie is a gambler both in casinos and in the stock market. His medical case was broken into and the poison used to kill Farnham was certainly taken from a bottle stolen from him. Arrogant, suspicious and his greed knows no bounds. Tandy discovers nearly everyone in the house
was approached by Wylie who asked for loans of large sums of money.

Leslie Farnham - the victim's son.  Currently a 4th year medical student.  He asked for strychnine from Dr. Wylie to experiment with because his toxicology classes were fascinating to him.  That's what he claims. But was he planning to kill? Has a very eccentric religious belief system he calls "New Morality".  Has written a manifesto that Tandy finds among the young man's possessions. Comes across as a religious maniac to Sgt. Holland.  Tandy, however, sees Leslie's extreme beliefs as thoroughly sincere if utterly dispassionate and lacking in humanity. Views his father's death as a just end the result of Divine Intervention for his adultery and betrayal of his first wife, Leslie's mother Lily, who is long dead at the start of the novel.

Brian Tweed - composer who has finagled his way into the Farnham household as a lodger. Pretentious wanna-be, known to mimic the behavior, speech and dress of well known artists, writers and musicians. Still Myra finds him charming and he exploits his rare moments of charm in manipulating others.

Medlicone - Farnham family lawyer who talks with Tandy about the strange will that gave Farnham his wealth and cheated Dr. Wylie out of a fortune he thought he was going to inherit. The lawyer also provides some very interesting details about the odd financial relationship between Farnham and Wylie that seems to have bound Farnham to his lodger.  Also, early in the book and during the music party the lawyer inadvertently reveals the contents of Farnham's will and who will inherit what.

Anton Cheveral - cellist in the quartet. A despicable gossip who enjoys maligning everyone involved in the case. Builds on rumors of Myra's infidelity with two different men and disparges all the musicians, especially Farnham's lack of skill with the clarinet.

Jarvis - butler in the Farnham household.  Devoted to his former mistress Lily Farhman. Myra is treated with disdain by the butler. Slightly sinister in his omniscience of what goes on in the house. His refusal to accept the new Mrs. Farnham gives off a strong Mrs. Danvers vibe. I thought he was a baddie for most of the book.

Douglas Rome - clarinetist in the quartet. He dares Farnham to play the clarinet solo in the piece by composer Holt Linray (who does not appear in story).  When Farnham dies Rome flees the house without anyone noticing him.  Tandy sends police off to locate him.  Rome never appears again in the book.  Odd little plot element that I thought would pan out to a surprise, but nothing really comes of this.

INNOVATIONS: The murder method is diabolical and worthy of John Rhode's complicated death traps. Obviously I'm not going to discuss it. But I will mention that the portion of the book in which Tandy and Holland together review evidence about the whisky glass determining it could not have been used to administer the poison (even though the glass contains enough strychnine to kill five men) is extremely well done.  Overall, there is an emphasis on excellent detective work related to physical evidence.

Morland's fascination with abnormal psychology is on strong display here. By the mid 1940s and beyond this aspect of crime led Morland to write some non-fiction works on criminal pathology. In Leslie Farnham, the victim's son, Morland has created quite a religious zealot. He may remind modern readers of the new crop of neo-conservatives trying to revert Christian beliefs back dozens of centuries to the days of antiquity when God was truly the only Force to reckon with and the laws of men were negligible. Morland also delves into the consequences of men who become obsessed with women and the danger of falling in love and never getting over rejection. Felix Hinton suffers from an obsessive attraction to the victim's widow coupled with severe depression and it leads to his own demise.

Nigel Morland (1905-1986)
(aka Neal Shepherd, John Donavan,
Roger Garnett, et al.)

In the final pages Morland also attempted to introduce a moral dilemma for Tandy in his dual professions. he is not only a policeman but a scientist. Throughout the book some of the characters refer to him as Dr. Tandy. MD or PhD? I was never really sure. Tandy in previous books uses his knowledge of chemistry to help him in solving impossibilities in the murders he investigates.  But in this book he also acts as a physician.  In any case, during one crucial scene a character while recovering from a poisoning attempt and in a delirium re-enacts a conversation with another suspect. This rambling "conversation" reveals the murderer's motivation. Tandy doesn't know how to act on this. Has he eavesdropped? Has he heard this in a capacity as a physician? If so, then it's private and should not be revealed. But can he use this information he has overheard as a policeman to help capture the criminal?

Interesting idea, but I found the whole scene utterly contrived in that an entire conversation is re-enacted in a form of delirium and yet is done lucidly and clearly to deliver all the salient points. Other than that flaw in the story I thought this was the best of the Chief Inspector Tandy detective novels. It's rich with complicated characters, psychology and is teeming with wonderful detection set pieces throughout the story.  Even Sgt. Holland gets his due in three scenes when Tandy asks for his insights. 

And now the bad news... Ridiculously scarce! I think it's a genuinely rare book. My copy was the only one I've come across in over 20 years of looking for the book. And it's gone already. Sold to a lucky reader in Australia. Good luck finding another. Perhaps in a library in the UK, Canada or Australia? There must be a copy...somewhere!

Thin Air - Howard Browne

THE STORY: Ad exec, Ames Coryell, returns from a vacation in Maine with his wife Leona and 3 year-old daughter Phoebe.  While Ames unloads the luggage from the car Leona quickly exits the car and enters the house.  When Ames goes in with his daughter and the suitcases he can't find his wife. Her handbag is on the table in the dining room but no sign of his wife.  He panics.  Runs through the neighborhood and cannot find her.  When he calls his neighbor Sally Fremont to ask if maybe Leona made a quick visit at their home Sally is perplexed. It's 2 AM in the morning! Why would Leona stop by? "Where is Mark?" Ames asks inquiring about Sally's husband. She tells him Mark is still awake in his office working on his latest architect's project. "Will you check? Maybe Leona is there."  Sally does so and is shocked when she discovers that Mark too is gone. Did the two run off together? If not, have they vanished into Thin Air (1954)?

THE CHARACTERS:  This is primarily Ames' story and he acts as first person narrator. Once his wife disappears he reveals himself to be a willful and temperamental man. He makes an immediate enemy of Lt. John Box assigned to look into the claim that Leona Coryell has disappeared. Box makes no pretense that he suspects Ames has something to do with her disappearance which of course infuriates Ames. The two do not get off to a good start and it only worsens as the book progresses. Fed up with a detective who won't listen and has already accused him of murder Ames is determined to solve the mystery of his missing wife on his own.

Then Mark is found unconscious not far from his home and taken to a hospital where he lapses into a coma. He has been struck on the back of the head with the ubiquitous blunt object. Now Box thinks that Ames is acting out some revenge plot having picked up on hints that Ames imagined that Mark has perhaps had a secret affair with Leona and that they were running off together. Box is sure that Ames found Mark and attacked him. He warns Ames that if the coma worsens and Mark eventually dies he will be after Ames Coryell for a definite murder.

French paperback edition
(Editions Ditis, 1957)

Coryell then dismisses the police altogether and comes up with an ingenious plan. He enlists his entire advertising firm to turn his wife's disappearance into a regional campaign. Everyone from the art department head to every agent writing copy will work on the project. Ames even involves the agency's market research team who work at a completely different company to help in their elaborate campaign.  They will create a public interest in Ames' missing wife. TV ads, magazine ads, radio spots--the whole shebang.  Leona's face will be everywhere and she will be on everyone's mind just like the many products that the advertising firm sells. Create the need and the public will respond with purchase power.  Or in this case with possible eyewitness accounts and other information. The ultimate aim is to turn the public into a collective of amateur detectives. Soon the police and the ad agency are deluged with phone calls offering  tips and witness stories.

Some of the tips pay off and Ames soon finds himself paying a visit to a blond woman staying in a fleabag hotel. And that's when the story begins to get complicated and a bit fantastical. Best leave it there. Unexpected twists and unbelievable coincidences compound leading to a shocking murder and the somewhat outlandish reason for Leona's disappearance.

INNOVATIONS:  The idea of using an ad agency to solve a crime is wholly original. Many of the sequences where the men from Palmer & Verrick, Market Researchers offer their expertise to Ames show a truly clever way to introduce detection into the story. Market researchers, as head agent Uhlman, tells Ames are little more than compilers of statistics. They have at their hands multiple references and databases (mostly in book form in this decade) to help locate anyone and any company. As an example: when Ames shows Uhlman and his men a photograph of Marty Dry wearing tee shirt, jeans and house slippers standing in front of  car parked near an apartment building and another building with the letters ERY visible at the edge of the photo Ames is sure than the photo was taken in front of his home. Who would be dressed like that anywhere else? Remember it's 1954 and slippers were only worn in the home not in public like they are now in this age of "slovenly chic" fashion choices. They also notice the numbers 773 on the building with the letters ERY.  Uhlman offers up a variety of businesses those letters might be: grocery, stationery, bakery, millinery, etc.  After looking up addresses in Manhattan where those numbers occur in the street address he then brilliantly eliminates all neighborhoods where those businesses could not be next to an apartment building using his vast knowledge of sociodemographics.  Then Uhlman and a crew of eight other men use phone directories, split up the alphabet, and within only a few minutes they have pegged a few possible addresses where Marty Dry lives and when Ames drives to the first and most likely address he is astonished that the photo matches the location exactly. Very impressive detective work, I'd say. Completely believable, too, given how market research firms work.  

Some more innovative detective work is performed by Ame's daughter who is only 3 years old. When she asked her mother "Do you like me, Mommy?" while they were driving home from a brief stop in Connecticut Phoebe tells her father that her mother said the wrong thing. It's a game that she plays with her parents. She asks the question and they always says No. And then Phoebe asks "Why not?" and they reply "Because I love you." When the woman said yes to the question "Do you like me?" Phoebe knew it wasn’t her mother sitting next to her. This surprising news leads Ames to the most startling discovery in the book and the beginning of his action-filled search for the whereabouts of his wife.

THE AUTHOR:  Howard Browne (1907-1999) worked at several advertising agencies as well as being the editor of two notable genre fiction magazines according to the DJ blurb on the back of my copy of Thin Air.  Further research revealed to me that those magazines were Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures. Not only was he editor of those magazines Browne contributed his own fantasy, adventure and science fiction stories under both his own name and a variety of pseudonyms.  He is probably best known for the crime novels he wrote under his pseudonym John Evans. As Evans he created the private eye Paul Pine who appeared in a series of four novels set in Oak Park, Illinois and Chicago.  In 1001 Midnights Bill Pronzini called Paul Pine "one of the best of the plethora of tough guy heroes" from the post-WW2 era. He goes on:  "Although the Pine novels are solidly in the tradition of Raymond Chandler, they have a complexity and character all their own and are too well crafted to be mere imitations."  Browne also wrote for television and the movies. Thin Air was adapted several times for television. The first of several TV versions was the sixth episode in the second season of Climax! with Robert Sterling as Ames and Pat O'Brien as the policeman. Later adaptations of the missing person motif would appear in numerous crime dramas including episodes of The Rockford Files and Simon & Simon.  In addition to numerous TV scripts from series in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly westerns and crime dramas, Browne wrote the screenplays for three gangster movies: Portrait of a Mobster (1961), The St. Valentine's Massacre (1966) and Capone (1975) with Ben Gazzara in the title role.

QUOTES:  If I don't get [my wife] you're going to be up to your tie clasp in police. 

He looked slightly less dangerous than the Bobbsey Twins. 

When a girl's that close to a guy it would only seem reasonable that she'd have his phone number or his address... Maybe in a little black book. Girls who live alone in cheap hotels along shoddy back streets have books like that. ...At best this was a lonely world. 

I was making enough racket to alert half the county. This was what came from preferring football and girls to a membership in the Boy Scouts.

Looking into his eye was like looking at the falling blade of a guillotine

I was up to my hatband in doubt.

There was no warning, no advance whisper of sound. Only the world blowing up in a sudden sea of white flare laced with agony, and I was falling through it in slow motion toward the edge of blackness.

It was time for the organ music and please omit flowers.

EASY TO FIND? Multiple editions are offered for sale on line, a mix of paperback reprints and the original Simon & Schuster hardcover. The first paperback (Dell 894, 1955) is the most common edition for sale. A later 1984 reprint from Carrol & Graf also turns up often from online dealers.  The first edition will of course cost you more with prices ranging from $75 (dampstained book with a VG- DJ) to $450 for a fine copy in DJ that is also signed by Howard Browne. Happy hunting!

The Bowstring Murders - Carr Dickson (John Dickson Carr)

I've had my copy of The Bowstring Murders (1933) for decades. Why have I never read it until a few days ago? Well, for one thing it's a treasure. I own the hardcover first edition with the silly attempt at creating a new pseudonym for John Dickson Carr. Instead of "Christopher Street", the name Carr wanted as his pseudonym, an executive at William Morrow slapped the utterly giveaway name of "Carr Dickson" on the book. Copies of the original hardcover with this pseudonym are extremely hard to find these days. It's the only book with that dumb pen name.

Maybe Carr's angry reaction to that decision of which he was not notified as Douglas Greene records in The Man Who Explained Miracles (1995) was the reason that this book is also the only one with John Gaunt, a detective consultant to Scotland Yard who shuns modern scientific advances. I was sorting through a box of vintage paperbacks and I found another copy of The Bowstring Murders, this one a 1970s era reprint from Belmont Books. I figured: Well, no time like the present. So I dashed off my long overdue read of this early John Dickson Carr book in a couple of days last week.  Interestingly, it seems more of a retread of both Carr's own books as well as the work of some of his influences.

The story takes place in a familiar Carr setting: the Gothic castle known as Bowstring, home of Henry Steyne, AKA Lord Rayle. Bowstring comes complete with a moat and a man made waterfall on the vast estate that feeds the water in the moat and keeps it flowing to avoid the stench and health hazards of stagnant water.  The reader is constantly reminded of the presence of the waterfall and its never-ending roar which prevents many of the characters from hearing certain crucial sounds related to the several murders that take place. Also notable is that the story takes place over only three days.

UK 1st edition. Used Carter Dickson as author.
Body is illustrated as face up unlike in the book.

Lord Rayle is an eccentric medievalist who prefers living in the past and lecturing anyone who will indulge him on his vast collection of medieval weaponry and suits of armor. The night before he is killed a pair of gauntlets go missing. Then Lord Rayle decides to nail shut a door hidden behind a tapestry in the armor room that leads to a secret alcove. It's almost a case of shutting barn door after the horse has fled.  Later, we learn that passageway was used a trysting spot for his daughter Patricia. She would use that hidden area to meet a handsome guest, Larry Kestevan, for midnight snogging sessions. As she is thwarted from meeting her lover Patricia eventually discovers her father's body, practically tripping over it in the candlelit armor room. Her father was apparently strangled by a bowstring and his body is crumpled in a strange position face down on the floor of the armor room.

Gaunt is called in to help Inspector Tape. Prior to the arrival of Gaunt the book is fairly colorless with lots of chit chat from Francis Steyne, son to Lord Rayle, and what amounts to a lot of malarkey about the collection of armor. For me, Gaunt was the only really interesting person in the entire cast.  Another in a long line of omniscient detectives with antisocial tendencies, a high opinion of himself, and critical opinions of everyone else, he's also a rampant alcoholic. Carr tries to hint at a tragedy in his past as a reason for his heavy drinking. (He caused the death of one of his partners, I think. I forgot to note it exactly.) Eventually he lost his job with the police due to his drinking, but still manages to be called in regularly to help with unusual crimes. And so we find him at Bowstring trying to make sense of not only the strangling death of Lord Rayle but also the strangling of the maid Doris, who claimed to have seen a suit of armor standing in a stairway a few nights prior to both violent murders. About midway through the book another character is killed. But this person is shot to death which immediately dismisses the idea of anything supernatural related to a ghostly figure in armor.

1973 Belmont paperback
This time the body is face down (sort of), but
his arms are wrong! They should be underneath.
And the clothes are all wrong, too.

The most impressive feature is not the bizarre murder method of strangling by gauntlets (already used by Carolyn Wells in 1931's Horror House) or the impossible circumstances surrounding the brutal murders. Instead what stands out as more ingenious is how Carr manages to take all the minute details -- details most readers will dismiss as ornament and filler -- and apply them to the overarching plot. Offhand comments and one particular insult, for example, all serve to support Gaunt's solution. All details reveal the strange weak character flaw of the murderer, a person with a lack of imagination whose lies are obvious. At least to Gaunt.

Lying and the art of lying seem to be central to the book.  Gaunt has a mini lecture on the dubious science behind the lie detector machine, a fairly new invention and used regularly in police investigations since the mid 1920s. He describes in detail the lack of understanding of psychology of liars' behavior and how that will almost certainly backfire the moment a lie detector machine is introduced.  He believes that the machine's recording of the body's reactions (pulse, heart rate and respiratory signals) are not the telltale signs of lying. In fact, the liar he believes will immediately be put on guard and the usual giveaway of a liar -- elaborate storytelling -- will be substituted for short colorless answers lacking in the details that will always reveal a liar.

Due to a rather small set of suspects the ultimate reveal of the killer is no real gasp-inducing surprise. It's clear that of the small pool of suspects -- Francis, Patricia, Larry, the footman Saunders, and Bruce Massey, Lord Rayle's secretary and financial advisor -- it can only be one of three people. Greene mentions in The Men Who Explained Miracles that the solution seems to very similar to another book Carr wrote prior to 1933 which featured Henri Bencolin.  He says that it may be one of Carr's many cases of self-plagiarism in his early career. Carr was known to recycle ideas form short stories and put them into his novels. This happened several times in the stories that appear in Department of Queer Complaints, for example. Ultimately, it was fun to see just how Gaunt caught the killer who he says acted mostly on impulse even though his crimes had been well thought out in advance. In one way this novel is more satisfying as a howdunit and whydunit than it is the old-fashioned whodunit.

Death Greets a Guest - Charles Ashton

THE STORY: At a meeting of an archeological society a sudden torrential downpour sends all of the members, who were outside smoking and chatting, ducking for cover. Most made it back indoors some only to the porch of the Eastwood Hall. One guest -- Chandler, a sketch artist who was outside drawing trees -- heads for the summerhouse directly opposite the main meeting area of Eastwood Hall. Four of the members watch the storm increase in strength from a large window inside the Hall and see the guest wave to them from the only window in the summerhouse which also has only one entrance. When the rain subsides some of the members see Chandler slumped in the window frame. They head to the summerhouse and discover that the man has been shot in the back giving the book its ironic title Death Greets a Guest (1936). Yet no one entered the summerhouse at all during the storm. The man was in there all alone.  Basically, he was murdered in front of witnesses by an invisible assailant. Major Jack Atherley assists Colonel Bretherton (the local Chief Constable) and Inspector Williams to find out who killed the guest, how it was accomplished, and why a relative stranger was murdered at all.

THE CHARACTERS: Because the story deals with a group of men who are members of a private club (the archeological society gathers to discuss old buildings, mostly churches) the cast list is rather large. Many of the society's members appear only in the first scene and after the murder takes place and initial Q&A is over many are never heard from again.  Even with the absence of about five to seven men the cast remains varied and large. Among the notable characters who make up the primary and supporting cast are:

Stamford Eastwood - head of the society and host of this meeting. Quite a stiff upper lip sort of gentlemen who suffers no fools quietly.  He is married to 

Sylvia Eastwood - at first a charming woman who befriends Atherley, but quickly turns sharp-tongued and sarcastic when Atherley and the police begin to focus attention and suspicions on her friend...

Jimmy Bagstaffe - an insufferable artistic aesthete who adopts a theatrical manner, wears ridiculously theatrical wardrobe, hosts hedonistic parties for his artistic friends (mostly performing arts types) and belittles everyone and anything he disagrees with. He comes across as a satiric character meant to be a parody of the Bright Young Things of the 1920s who still cling to the hedonism of a decade ago, and also I got a very strong ridiculing of gay or effeminate artistes. A very popular bigoted stereotype that turn up a lot in vintage popular fiction.

Kesgrave - a new neighbor of Stamford and Sylvia's. Jack and Sylvia are invited in for an impromptu meeting one afternoon and we learn Kesgrave is in the process of renovating his Tudor era home, that he is a writer of fiction who uses a pseudonym that he will not divulge, and that he is married to a vivacious woman ten years younger than him.

Musprat - the bore of the archeological society, another comic character. If given a chance he will lecture on endlessly about building trivia, mostly made up of "fascinating features" of the houses and churches in the area. Jack makes the mistake of indulging Musprat one too many times.  I had a feeling that much of his droning on would contain some vital clue that everyone would overlook.

Joe Dudman - the owner/barkeep of the local pub. He is instrumental in identifying...

Mysterious Bar Patron #1, a bearded man who went off to Eastwood Hall looking for someone there regardless of the fact that he was told a private lecture meeting was taking place. 

Mysterious Bar Patron #2 - Immediately after the bearded man shows up another stranger stops in the bar asking about the bearded gent. He claims they are friends and wants to know where he was headed. Dudman tells him the bearded guy was off to Eastwood Hall and #2 mystery man heads there as well.

 One of the society members has a speech impediment that is played for laughs. I thought it a cheap form of humor (even for 1936), something that seemed utterly out of place for Ashton who likes to sprinkle his books with wit and wise cracks, but tends to avoid low farcical humor. Oh well. Making fun of a speech impediment would never fly these days.

INNOVATIONS: The impossible crime surprisingly is not the focus of the investigation; the motive really is more puzzling. The search for the "why" of the murder sends the plot into some intrigues in the past, many of which are found in an odd scrapbook of newspaper clippings that Chandler created. Also, Chandler's sketchbook and the drawings he made during his tour of the outside grounds at Eastwood Hall will provide a possible motive for one of the main suspects. I enjoyed all of the investigations and digging up of the past which involved a variety of crimes, solved and unsolved. When the solution to Chandler's impossible murder (the "how" aspect) is finally made known it's downplayed and delivered almost matter-of-fact. Early on I had a suspicion that Ashton was inspired by the detective novels of Anthony Wynne who employed a similar gimmick in many of his books.

Ashton adds a few unusual plot twists in a clever way. Normally a tired cliche, anonymous letters turn up in the final third adding an element of hysterical paranoia. The letters inspire Atherley to set up an elaborate final scene in which he is determined to unmask the killer.  It's a highly theatrical sequence and the killer comes as an utter surprise. I laughed and thought, "But of course! How did I fall for such a detective novel trick? It's one of those unwritten rules like "Never believe a character who is a bedridden invalid can't walk." Yet I fell for one of the oldest tricks in mystery writing. Kudos to Ashton!

EASY TO FIND? Death Greets A Guest is a very rare book. After looking for over ten years I finally found a copy of the cheap "Cherry Tree" paperback edition but a copy in any edition is near impossible to find. Miraculously, Neer who blogs at "A cup of hot pleasure" found a copy at a library and did not enjoy the book as much as I did.  I like Atherley's irreverence and his egocentrism. His personality, I think, is lively and lighthearted, never as annoying as similar traits in a vain supericilious character like Philo Vance.  To each his own.

Dragon's Cave - Clyde B Clason

THE STORY:  Jonas Wright, owner of an engraving business in Chicago, is found stabbed in a locked room where he housed his collection of medieval and historical weaponry. One of those weapons in his collection -- a halberd -- is apparently what did him in.  He is found with his neck severed and the halberd in a pool of blood nearby.  A dribble on a table in the middle of the room and one single droplet on the opposite side of the room are the only other traces of blood.  Shouldn't the room have been drenched in blood if Wright's neck had been severed?  Prof. Westborough is tagged by Lt. Mack to be a stenographer during the interrogations and to ask any questions he wishes., no matter two seemingly irrelevant. He is sure that the halberd is not the weapon. Before the detective team discover the correct murder means there will be more impossible events including the disappearance of a man from a second story locked room with no footprints in the snow outside his window.

THE CHARACTERS: The primary suspects are mostly confined to the Wright household with a few others associated with the family. They are:

Julian Carr- Sales Director at Wright Engraving who had returned from an amateur production of Romeo & Juliet. (BTW, the book's title is taken from a quote in the play which uses a cavern as a metaphor for a deceitful heart.) He was acting in it and played Mercutio. We find out he is adept at fencing and happened to be returning a rapier borrowed from Wright's collection used as a prop in the production. That's right, these Chicago yokels actually used a real sword in an amateur theater production.  (Ai yi yi!  What was Clason thinking?)

Madeleine Wright - she was with Julian when they entered the house and found her murdered father.  She was also in the play in the lead role of Juliet. Madeleine is one of these icy young socialites who turn up frequently in Golden Age detective fiction. Acting skill -- take note! She has murder suspect written all over her though with her dialogue and actions Clason tries to dissuade the reader against suspecting her. She's is not to be trusted, my friends.

Martin Wright - a pretentiously intellectual college student, the older of the two Wright sons. If it weren't enough that Prof. Westborough lectures us on the minutiae of medieval weaponry and how they were used we must endure Martin's mini lectures and allusions to great philosophers of the world. That's what he’s studying at Northwestern University. Schopenhauer is his current hero.  I was sure his ego and supercilious personality were going to implicate him in some fashion. At one point Martin pontificates on the uselessness of prisons and the failure of the prison system to rehabilitate. He believes there are only two solutions to crime: societal remedies that will prevent crime in the first place and psychological treatment. For, as he tells Hilda and Ronald (see below), there are only two real causes of crime: environment and mental illness.

Wellington (Wel) Wright - the handsome hunk of a son, youngest in the family. Embittered because he is not rewarded with a high paying job in his father's firm. Impetuous, temperamental, brash and a bit naive. Drinks a lot. Was drunk the night of the murder -- or was it play acting? Had been at the home of his Gold Coast friend...

Tony Corveau - commercial artist and Lothario. Puts the make on Madeleine.  Oh wait! they were once an item. She despises him now. Tony likes to draw naked women and his lush apartment is decorated with his many pen & ink sketches of many women he's met. Recently fired from Wright Engraving over some hazy abuse of company supplies. Wellington might also be involved. The haziness of that abuse will eventually come into focus and lead to an important discovery.

Hilda - the Wrights' servant. She flees the house employing a clever ruse after it is learned that her son Ronald has recently been released from prison. Her escape is a desperate attempt to keep her son away and prevent him from being questioned by the police. She fails miserably.

Alan Boyle - Chicago newspaper reporter.  Intrusive, too wise, and very interested in Madeliene (aren't all these men?). Always seems to be at the Wright home at the right time (ha!). He is eventually enlisted as an aide by both Madeleine and later Westborough.

Hans Gross (1847-1915)

THINGS I LEARNED:  This is the earliest murder mystery I have ever encountered in which blood spatter, bloodspill and blood patterns found in a crime scene are featured prominently. Or actually in this case -- the lack of blood evidence.  Two experts' names in the field of blood evidence are invoked in Westborough's mini lecture: Jeserich and Gross.  Both were Germans.  Dr. Paul Jeserich according to his New York Times obituary published on Dec 10, 1927 was dubbed the "German Sherlock Holmes" and was known internationally for his work in "legal chemistry".  Hans Gross was a 19th century criminologist who authored a seminal book entitled Handbuch für Untersuchungsrichter als System der Kriminalistik (1893), literally Handbook for Investigating Judges as a System of Criminology, described in a professional journal article (“Literature of Bloodstain Pattern Interpretation” - MacDonell, 1992) as "an excellent reference for not only bloodstain patterns but almost everything else that may be considered within the field of criminalistics." Proving once again that Westborough (and of course Clason) really knows his stuff.

Westborough and later Boyle, the reporter, both make an allusion to Mary Blandy when the police start to seriously suspect Madeleine as the killer.  Blandy I had never heard of.  Wikipedia tells us: "In 1751, she poisoned her father, Francis Blandy, with arsenic. She claimed that she thought the arsenic was a love potion that would make her father approve of her relationship with William Henry Cranstoun, an army officer and son of a Scottish nobleman."  Was she that well known that two characters would make allusions to her case?  Madeline Smith was more well known as a notorious poisoner. But why even mention poison since the victim was stabbed? I guess Clason wanted someone accused and tried for patricide to make his point. Still seems extremely arcane even for the 1930s.

Madeleine & Julian spy blood
leaking under the doorway. Note
that Julian has the rapier in hand.
UK edition (Heinemann, 1940)

INNOVATIONS: Despite some of my snide commentary above in describing the characters I rather enjoyed this one.  The impossible problems are cleverly carried out and the detection involved to explain those impossibilities is both sound and sensible.  The characters are forced into resorting to bizarre means to accomplish desperate acts because they are trapped in a house under constant guard by the police.  It's not a murder mystery where someone intentionally dreams up the crimes and miracle problems just to baffle police.  In this regard Clason was trying to make the locked room mystery more grounded in reality rather than making it a puzzle for its own sake.  So points to him!

While there is a somewhat sappy subplot of a love triangle (Julian-Madeleine-Alan) and Professor Westborough indulges a bit too often in esoteric tangents the plot is always engaging, the banter between Lt. Mack and the professor is always fun and amusing, and the imaginative "miracle problems" keep the reader on his toes trying to outguess the detectives and come up with the solution before the final chapter. Dragon's Cave (1939) has now displaced The Man from Tibet (1938) as my favorite in a rather uneven series of detective novels. I still have four more to read before I say whether this is the quintessential Clason mystery.

EASY TO FIND?  Wonderful news! Not at all scarce. Plenty of Rue Morgue Press reprint paperback copies out there. Amazingly, most of them are very cheap, well under $10 a copy. And, of course, there are several of the US first edition for those interested in owning the original Crime Club hardcover. Many of those are actually under $50 a copy. That's refreshing, ain't it?

A Year in Review (part 1)

Sometimes a sudden change in one's life is all one needs to reevaluate what gives life purpose, meaning and most importantly joy.

I am now retired.  It was planned for this year, but came six months earlier than anticipated.  I was made an offer I couldn't refuse, so to speak. In the past two weeks I have had to fast forward all my planning that I was going to spread out over three months. Then yesterday a financial emergency had me spending close to three hours cancelling auto-payments and reorganizing that part of my life.  When it was all solved, I sat back and reflected. I realized that 2025 is a year of new beginnings in more ways than I ever anticipated. With new beginnings comes a re-evaluation of what I missed doing and what brought me not only satisfaction but actual joy. And here I am again.

When I left the blog I entered a new phase of creativity in the world of theater which I had also abandoned back in 2013 or so.  I've had modest successes (though very little monetary reward) but it was all exhilarating and joyous, aspects that were greatly missing from my life for decades. Now I'm finding a balance between theater and blogging as well as a return to bookselling. Slowly but surely you will find me selling online in at least two places in the coming weeks.  But for now let's catch you up on what I read over the past year and a half. Well, at least the most noteworthy books.

In 2024 I spent much of my time reading newly published books, discovering writers working now as opposed to being obscure, forgotten and usually very dead. Here are some highlights for those who mix their vintage reading with contemporary and new books:

• Benjamin Stevenson - Everyone on this Train is a Suspect (2023) and Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret (2024) I think this guy is one of the best traditional mystery writers out there. He worships fair play motifs, and also sort of sends up the rules and conventions of traditional detective novels. I love the meta-fiction part of each book. His novels are not only puzzling and engaging but very witty with a offbeat sense of humor.
• Tom Mead - Cabaret Macabre (2024) Loved this rule breaking impossible crime mystery. The best of his three novels so far, I think.
  

Margot Douaihy - Scorched Grace (2023) and Blessed Water (2024)  Features a chain-smoking, heavily tattooed, queer nun. How's that for modern? Pretty much a fair play mystery writer. BUT! You must read them in the order listed. The second book spoils the first book three times. Ugh. Luckily, I read them in order.

Angie Kim - Happiness Falls (2023) A domestic tragedy mystery that deals with a teenager with autism and the violent accident that lead to his father's death. Profoundly moving.

B.R. Myers - A Dreadful Splendor (2022) The best of the historical mystery novels I read that dealt with spiritualists and ghosts. A fraudulent medium is rescued from prison and given the opportunity to prove her "talent" is genuine when a rich man offers her legal representation in court if she can show evidence that his dead wife has moved on to eternal peace in the afterlife.  Set in 19th century England.  This first novel won the Mary Higgins Clark award from the MWA who also do the Edgar awards.

Stuart Turton - The Last Murder at the End of the World  (2024) Inventive, complex genre blending mystery/sci-fi commenting on the prevalence and encroaching dangers of AI. Oddly, there was a TV show (A Murder at the End of the World) that seemed to have been inspired by this book if not outright plagiarized. The plot of the TV show was more an And Then There Were None ripoff, but ultimately the use of AI in each work resulted in essentially the same story as each finale was almost identical.

I read a slew of horror novels and ghost stories in 2023 and 2024 and would love to rave about those too, but I have to move on to the vintage nuggets of gold from 2024. Following the habits of a few of my fellow vintage mystery bloggers I'll pick the best vintage mystery I read each month last year.  And here are the first six...

JANUARY:  Lady in a Wedding Dress - Susannah Shane, aka Harriette Ashbrook (1943) What a coup this was! I've been looking for this book for over a decade.  Then when copy turned up on Ebay I snagged it for only $18. Three days later another copy was offered on Ebay and this one had a DJ and was only $15.  Steals, both of them! (Don't worry. I'm not a greedy bastard. I'll be selling the one without the DJ and it's in excellent condition.)  This was an exciting, complex mystery novel but does not (As I originally thought) feature her series private eye Christopher Saxe.  It's an involved puzzler featuring a dress designer who is murdered and the bride who is discovered in a blood stained dress moments after the murder occurs. Did she do it? In my reading notes I described the climax as a "Thunderstorm of hurricane proportions: car wrecks, accidents, power failure. Blood transfusion reveals shocking secret..."  Hits a lot of excitement buttons for me.

FEBRUARY:  The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo - Michael Butterworth (1983) Comic crime novel about a shoe salesman who in order to inherit his dead unce's estate must comply with a bizarre last wish according to the eccentric's will.  The nephew must take the uncle's dead body to Monte Carlo on an all expense paid vacation and gamble away a set amount of money. How on earth is he going to pull that off? If he fails, then the money goes to a charity that cares for rescue dogs. Along the way the woman who owns the Universal Dog Home of Brooklyn becomes his partner in the vacation adventure.  Gangsters, disguises, silliness galore.  Amazingly, this book was turned into an award winning musical called Lucky Stiff by Stephen Flaherty & Lynn Ahrens, the duo best known for Ragtime and Once on This Island.  This was one of their earliest collaborations.

MARCH:  The Forest Mystery - Nigel Burnaby (1934)  Obscure and definitely forgotten writer (a journalist during the 30s and 40s) who wrote only five mystery novels.  This one is about woman who has escaped from an asylum whose nude body is found in a wooded area off a remote country road. The body is battered and almost unidentifiable. Her husband is implicated in the crime and must clear his name. Intriguing plot twists with an ending that reminded me of Anthony Berkeley's early rule-breaking mystery novels. Innovative and often witty. Was so unusual that I bought two more of his books. Still have yet to read those.

APRIL: No real winner this month. I read four new books (three of them superior and two already mentioned above in the modern section. Only read one vintage mystery: Too Much of Water by Bruce Hamilton (1958).  I didn't really like it. Not up to the level of his other earlier novels, two of which I reviewed here at Pretty Sinister Books. Very talky, little action and an unsatisfactory, slightly contrived, resolution with one of the deaths turning out to be an accident.  Only good thing about the book was the cool DJ and the plan of the cruise ship that was the novel's setting.

MAY:  Swing High Sweet Murder - S. H Courtier (1962)  One of my favorite mystery writers.  A shame his books are so damn hard to find.  Miraculously, I bought five of Courtier's books in the past two years and read almost all of them in 2024. All but one had a lot to recommend them. This is an impossible crime mystery about a tennis coach found hanged in a treehouse which serves as a fire tower for the area. Set in Australia, of course, with his series detective policeman "Digger" Haig. It cries out to filmed because the setting is so unusual and demands to be seen rather than imagined.  I had to re-read passages to figure out how the house was built in this massive tree.  Features a minor character who is developmentally delayed and has the talent of mimicking indigenous bird calls.  The tennis background is also fascinating making this doubly tempting for sports mystery fans as well as impossible crime devotees.

JUNE:  It Happened in Boston? - Russell H Greenan (1968)  Utterly bizarre, often contemplative and prophetic, thoroughly entertaining. For once it’s a book that is easy to find and affordable to buy in cheap paperback copies.  Highly recommend this unclassifiable "mystery". While not exactly a detective novel it does qualify as a crime novel but that aspect is the least of its merits. Absurd, satiric, trenchant and witty.  Greenan was sui generis among the writers of the mystery world. In an ideal world everyone would know him, his books would have received several awards, and he'd still be in print. One plus -  this book was reprinted by The Modern Library in 2003 with an intro by Jonathan Lethem. But I think that edition had a small print run. I dare not summarize nor mention any of the story of It Happened in Boston? for it must be personally experienced. The most surprising aspect of this book is it's about the art world and NONE of the blurbs on ANY of the editions mention this facet of the story. Those who enjoy art mysteries or novels about the art world take note! I thoroughly enjoyed this book. A true must read for people who love imaginative fiction of any type. With a mystery or without -- it's a damn fine book. 

 I'll post the next six months' worth of highlights of 2024 vintage mystery reading later this week.

"If you build it, they will come." So goes the famous line in the movie Field of Dreams. And they did come to this blog for years and years.  Perhaps if I rebuild, then they will return.  If you are one of them now reading this, thank you for returning.  I hope to stay here for as long as I can this time. 

Murder without Clues - Joseph L Bonney

A dead body in a locked room, a house surrounded by undisturbed snow, all suspects have an alibi but one and yet it seems that one person could not have committed the crime.  Another ingenious John Dickson Carr rip-off?  Well, not quite.  Murder without Clues (1940) is a the ultimate Golden Age homage that does a very good job of honoring the work of not only Carr but Queen and Van Dine.  Joseph L. Bonney, in his debut work as a mystery writer, has also thrown in a couple of wink-wink allusions to Conan Doyle to make this a quadruple homage. Does this mystery succeed as yet another in the impossible crime/locked room subgenre. Hmm...You decide.

Henry Watson, a wannabe novelist, is in search of a new apartment and a roommate and his friend suggests he visit Simon Rolfe who is also in search of new digs. The two meet and Watson can't help but be disturbed by Rolfe's emulation of a certain fictional detective. Rolfe has a mysterious origin that is never fully explained, seems to be independently wealthy, plays the violin, smokes a pipe, lounges around in a smoking jacket, and sees clients with puzzling problems which he solves for a modest fee and does so in a single afternoon.  Bonney has a bit too cutely paid homage to Conan Doyle while at the same time allowing his Sherlock dopplegänger to disparage the entire canon in a four page diatribe in which he deconstructs several of the stories as pathetically obvious. Once this tirade is out of the way the story can take place front and center and we have a classic Golden Age locked room populated by ex-vaudeville performers who are stranded in a snowbound house somewhere in upstate New York.

Wicked philandering dancer Lucille Divine is found stabbed in the back in her locked bedroom at the home of Champ Lister. All of Lister's guests and servants were downstairs at the time she screamed, they rush upstairs, find Lister in the hallway at the wrong door, then break down Lucille's door and find her in her last gasps. One man goes to her tries to help her and hears her say "It was the Champ..."  Then she expires. Has she verbally fingered her killer?  Lister denies he had anything to do with her death.  He didn't even know she was in this other bedroom.  He went to the bedroom across the hallway where she usually stayed.

Young Joseph L Bonney
looking suitably nerdy
on the DJ rear cover

As the title implies - there are no clues, at least as far as physical evidence goes. Plus -- no weapon can be found anywhere, even after all the rooms are thoroughly searched. The only window in the murder room is open a crack (Lucille liked fresh air to sleep at night despite the wintry temps) and can't be opened any further.  How did anyone get in, kill Lucille, and escape entirely unnoticed.  The timing of the guests rushing upstairs seems to eliminate Lister who was seen at the other doorway as they came up the stairs. Also, Lister a former vaudeville performer who stunned people with feats of memory and instant recall, listened to a radio program at the time of the murder. To prove it he writes down all the dialogue from memory.  When the police compare it to the actual broadcast it's nearly verbatim. It's all utterly baffling -- until Rolfe starts questioning the suspects of course.

Rolfe fancies himself a detective of psychology who finds this case with no physical evidence right up his alley. He approaches detective work from a different angle paying attention subtleties in language and behavior.  Though he claims to use deduction most of his conclusions are the result of induction. Still Bonney is clever in how he allows Rolfe to expose lies and get the suspects to reveal things they'd rather keep hidden. I was impressed with the dying clue bit which is very reminiscent of several Queen books.  However, in the end Bonney's explanation is a bit of a stretch.  No matter how many people I polled I couldn't get one person to duplicate what he says happened.

Rolfe is also irritatingly an obsessive student of the French philosopher Montaigne who he quotes repeatedly through the book. Only one quote seems to have anything to do with his work as a detective:  "I do not understand; I pause, I examine."  This might serve as Rolfe's (or any worthwhile detective's) mantra.

In the end it's a intricately detailed investigation, perhaps overly so in the manner of Queen and Van Dine,  with Rolfe sharing the stage with Inspector Charles King and a slew of policemen put on guard throughout the household. In a neat touch Henry Watson (Rolfe actually addresses him as "My dear Watson" too many times) provides quite by accident one of the key observations.  The manner in which the crime is committed is perhaps one of the wickedest I've encountered in a American mystery novel of this era.  there is, of course, another bizarre murder means, not quite as original as Bonney may think it is.  This method belongs to a subset of murder means that I can group into Death by... OH!  Better not mention that.  But it has been used in the work of Carr as Carter Dickson, Burton Stevenson, the Coles, and two obscure books by William Morton, and George R. Fox, all of those books and stories pre-dating Bonney's novel. Was the murder means yet another, albeit obscure, homage?

Some good news:  copies of Murder without Clues are out there for sale! About eight or nine copies by my count. One 1st edition with DJ is absurdly priced at $495. Be aware that the paperback digest edition (pictured at right) is abridged. But in this case that 's a good thing. I can imagine that all the nonsense about Montaigne and Socrates was eliminated to shorten the book. Also I'm sure that the editors cut to pieces the Sherlock Holmes diatribe that tends to spoil some of the content of the stories.

This is an interesting and engaging read in the locked room subgenre.  I thought for sure that I had pegged the killer and figured out how Lucille was done in. I also thought I had figured out the dying clue. But I was wrong on all counts.  It all turned out to be quite a surprise, though I think a bit flawed.

Having many of the suspects come from the world of vaudeville allows for a slew of red herrings, two of which I fell for and one which did not turn up at all. I was disappointed Bonney didn't include the missing aspect. It would have fit in perfectly with the dying clue.  Missed opportunity!  You can expect at least one knife thrower to show up in the cast. After all, knife throwing and vaudeville go hand in hand in the mystery novel. If you aren't acquainted with this hoary cliche of detective novels read my post on the ultimate knife throwing murder mystery here.