FFB: Flying Clues - Charles J. Dutton

UK 1st edition (Bodley Head, 1927)
Provocative illustration of a character
who appears nowhere in the book

There are a handful of Charles J. Dutton's books that I have recommended repeatedly and I’ll do that again right now before I launch into this review. Dutton had a fascination with criminal psychopathology but is never mentioned in the development of the American mystery novel for being perhaps the first writer of detective fiction to delve into criminal profiling before that methodology actually had a name. The three books I always recommend for this facet alone are Streaked with Crimson (1929), The Crooked Cross (1922) and Out of the Darkness (1922). Unfortunately, Flying Clues (1927) has nothing to do with criminal pathology, serial killer behavior, mental illness as related to homicide, or any genuinely clever plotting.

In the New York Times Book Review of Feb 13, 1927 the anonymous reporter said this about Flying Clues: "With a sextet of mystery stories to his credit it is scarcely surprising that Charles J. Dutton's latest work should show the signs of a practiced hand. Indeed, the presence of those signs stands out in the book as almost a defect." The review goes on to call his book "too accustomed, too usual and much in its matter that is too routine."  Someone one once accused me of writing a review of a book I thoroughly enjoyed as "damning with [it] faint praise."  The accuser was wrong and I defended my stance. However, the NY Times reviewer gives us the epitome of that phrase. I will not be so kind nor ambiguous at all in my feelings here.

Flying Clues, though intermittently entertaining and eyebrow raising in its 1920s social commentary, has its share of storytelling flaws and the most egregious is its title. The very last lines in the book consist of the detective telling his Watson (the ultra dull Pelt who has no first name) that the best title for his write up of this case should be Flying Clues. But I tell you it’s not. Why? Because it is a giveaway to one of the “mysteries” that befuddle Professor Hartley and the police. Well, the title tells you everything, doesn’t it? And it doesn’t take much imagination to figure out exactly what kind of flying clues are responsible, especially when Dutton spends two paragraphs describing a flock of what looks like falcons in the sky and another time when some ignoramus sees some birds in a cage on board a ship, birds that look like chickens. They turn out to be pigeons.

Chickens Pigeons roosting in a rooftop coop

Now I know you are asking yourself exactly the same thing I did: “When have pigeons ever looked like chickens?” Is this some odd evolutionary quirk of the 1920s? Doubtful. I’ll tell you when pigeons look like chickens. When a mystery writer is trying his hardest to plant a red herring in his mystery novel by creating some dumb yokel who has never seen a damn pigeon in his life but has seen more than his share of chickens. You’re welcome to blow a raspberry at Dutton as I did. The louder the better. He’s dead, he’ll never hear you, but it’ll feel really good.

So onto the rest of Flying Clues. We have an impossible crime! A murder that takes place in a physician’s private exam room located in his own home. A woman has been stabbed in a chair in his “waiting room” and then moved to the “operating table.” I’m not going to address the operating table in the private exam room. You can do all that research on your own. And good luck.

The murder was committed in a room where the door was open and yet no one managed to see anyone go in or out of the room. A window leads to the outside but after a heavy rain that very night there are no footprints anywhere near the window and no signs of mud or anyone having entered or exited via the window. How was the woman killed without being seen? Trust me. It’s extremely obvious. There is hardly anything that will puzzle even the most neophyte of mystery readers.

A much better detective novel is
Streaked with Crimson (1929)

Still Dutton insists on trying to make it all seem baffling. The police are convinced that the butler did it! He, after all, was the one who was supposedly watching the room and the only person to leave the dining hall adjacent to the exam/waiting/operating room. During the only span of time that the woman could have been killed a dinner party is going. There are twelve possible suspects besides the butler and the physician who hosted the party and yet all of them were in the dining room at the time of the murder. The bulk of the book is spent discovering who the woman is and her connections to the people at the dinner party. None of it really matters. The killer is as obvious as the title.

What is interesting are two other aspects of the book. One is a subplot dealing with a cult religion called the Home of Universal Truth run by scarlet silk robe clad, turban wearing prophet named Savitr. The other is the apparent motive for the killing which involves cocaine smuggling, illegal drug use and widespread drug dealing. Dutton who was a Unitarian minister gives us a theology lesson in comparative religions, focusing on Hindu spirituality, and exposes the false gods that Savitr claims to represent. As bonus lecture we get the fundamentals of Vedic mythology which helps to explain the self-proclaimed guru's odd name.

Prof. Bartley, Dutton's criminologist sleuth, is just as informed on drug dealing as he is on ancient Indian mythology. In a page long lecture he offers up current cocaine pricing:  $14/ounce purchase price for dealers; $300 to $400/ounce for the users. I have to tell you I gasped when I read this. The handy internet US inflation calculator tells me that $400 in 1927 is equal to $4,437 in 2019. In an eerily prescient passage all too resonant for our troubled times Dutton accuses pharmacists all over the USA of being collaborators, whether unintentional or not, in the cocaine problems that plague 1920s America. One can only draw parallel to the opioid crisis we're dealing with now, more than 80 years later.

So if social history is your thing by all means pick up a copy of Flying Clues (if you can find one!).  Otherwise, here is a yet another early American murder mystery that is deserving of its forgotten fate.

HORROR SHOW: Crucified - Michael Slade

Let’s start with the only reason I kept reading this book -- a kind of "wink-wink, nudge-nudge" reference to one of the great mystery writers of the Golden Age:

"How was Ack-Ack stabbed three times in the back when he was the only airman in the rear turret?" [asked] Liz.
"What we have here," Wyatt declared, "is a locked room puzzle. If we solve the howdunit, we'll solve the whodunit."
"But how do we solve it?"
"We seek help."
"Help from whom?"
"From John Dickson Carr."

An invocation to the god! Crucified (2008) is part thriller, part challenging puzzle mystery, part collection of arcane lore and history, and (unfortunately) part splatterpunk horror. The promise of not one, but two, impossible crimes was good enough for me to stick with this hodgepodge of retro pulp fiction and tangential history lessons...and over-the-top gruesome deaths described in surgical detail. It turned out to be yet another example of a subgenre of crime fiction I try to avoid -- extreme sadism as entertainment. Sure there’s an audience for it, but I don’t want to know who they are. And I don’t want to hear them laugh uproariously and high five each other when the characters “get it but good.” All reasons that I also never watch horror movies in a theater anymore.

I did read the first two sadistic torture killing sequences. That was more than enough for me. Anytime some poor character was about to be dispatched with yet another ancient torture implement I skipped all paragraphs with killing descriptions. In some cases they went on for pages. The book is actually easily and more quickly read if you skip every single chapter told from the killer’s point of view. After the first killing the drawn out sequences are pointless. Because they say exactly the same thing every single time he kills someone.

You learn what weapon he uses – one of several torture devices stolen from a museum that houses artifacts from the Inquisition.  (BTW, we are never shown this scene. But we are expected to believe that the killer/thief made away, single-handedly, with seven different and very cumbersome torture weapons, one of which is a chair with a spike embedded on top. So easy to stuff into a bag and stroll out to an awaiting escape vehicle, right?) You learn that he thinks he is possessed by the Devil. You learn that he is driven to protect the Church from non-believers and all those who impede his path. All reiterated seven different times with seven stomach churning methods of murder. And if that isn’t enough for the gorehounds there are three near murders in the finale all performed simultaneously in the same setting.

To spare my sanity I chose to read only the contemporary chapters dealing with lead character Wyatt Rook and the other protagonists and the historical chapters that take place in World War Two era Germany which detail the missions of a British anti-aircraft fighter squad and the crew of a submarine, both of which feature impossible crimes. In the remains of the airplane which crashed in Germany back in 1944 and is unearthed by a modern day German highway construction company a skeleton is found still in the rear gunner’s seat. The gunner’s chair shows stabs marks and a blade embedded in the bones indicating that the gunner was murdered in his seat before the plane crashed and the knife broken off at the handle. But one witness said all men had bailed out using their parachutes. It was believed that the gunner was killed when the tail section where he was situated was strafed by a German fighter plane. So who could possibly have stabbed the gunner and still escaped?

The entire plot hinges on the search for artifacts and documents related to Jesus’ crucifixion. Those damning artifacts which if they were to be examined for DNA would prove or disprove the entire basis of Christianity. An entire religion could be eradicated with a single scientific test. Shades of The Da Vinci Code? Definitely, but Slade's novel is smarter, more suspenseful and more exciting.

Which brings us to the puzzle of the submarine. The artifacts are wrapped in a scroll and taken on board the submarine. The mission was to be sabotaged in such a way that the person with the artifacts could get them off the sub. But the plan backfires, the sub is wrecked. When the wreck is finally located the sub was still completely sealed and the entire crew had perished with the artifacts nowhere in sight. Amazingly, they had been removed from a sealed and completely submerged submarine. How was that accomplished?

I managed to figure out the solution to the submarine puzzle based on one single clue. The gunner murder solution is a bit more complicated and involves the design of the plane’s interior and who could see what depending on where they were situated during the final moments prior to evacuation via parachute. Both are rather clever puzzles even if the airplane puzzle seems a bit disappointing in its solution.

Rommel, "The Desert Fox"
plays a significant part in
the historical sections

As for the historical and cultural lore lessons you get more than you ever bargained for. This is apparently a staple of Slade's thrillers. Similar to TV shows like The X Files and Christopher Fowler's Peculiar Crimes Unit mystery novels laden with London lore Michael Slade finds neat ways to insert into his books all sorts of arcana and historical tidbits. In Crucified you learn of the horrifying self-flagellation ritual that Catholic zealots in the Philippines subject themselves during Holy Week as well as the reenactments of very realistic crucifixions there; the existence of a secret police in the Vatican; the nightmarishly cruel methods of the Inquisition and the diabolical machines and devices they used to extricate confessions; the operation of an RAF Bomber Command and the intricacies of fighter plane attacks in their airborne battlefields; the highly unglamorous and unsanitary living conditions on board a WW2 era submarine; Rommel's role in flaunting Hitler's direct orders and his possible part in the failed attempt to assassinate the Führer; and loads more.

Then there is, of course, all the gruesome violence. The body count is excessive and the descriptions are over-the-top. The puzzle aspects of this thriller hold attention, but for me, the murders and torture come as gross out interruptions to all the interesting character work and the inventive manner in which Slade ties together all his disparate plot machinations. Despite a finale in which our hero and heroine are saved by a deus ex machina, delivered so nonchalantly and indifferently in a single sentence as to be utterly laughable, the book provides no catharsis for all the violence and blood-soaked action.

Not knowing that Slade was a torture porn maven I bought three of these books. But I’m afraid I'm not eager to read the others, not even for the other homages to the work of John Dickson Carr and Agatha Christie, both of whom Slade apparently holds in high esteem based on things he has written about each in this book and on his website. A pity because I did enjoy all the history lessons, the impossible crime detection which applies Carr's rules from the famed "Locked Room Lecture", and the several X Files–like pontifications from Wyatt Rook throughout the story. Slade does have storytelling skill, of that there is no doubt. I wish he could do it without the torrent of guts, gore, and body fluids.

For a review of Ripper by Michael Slade (one of the books I purchased) see TomCat's blog post.  He somehow managed to endure the "slaughter" that occurs in a house bobby-trapped with a variety of hidden murder means.

FFB: Murder on the Day of Judgment - Virginia Rath

THE STORY: The end of the world is nigh! Or so says self-professed fortune teller, astrologer and psychic Madame Sapphira. She has set up camp in Coon Hollow in northern California followed by a small group of acolytes to wait out the apocalypse. No one really believes the world is ending. They just want to see what will happen. And while cosmic disaster never occurs human disaster does. No one was anticipating three violent deaths nor that someone among them is a vicious murderer. Sheriff Rocky Allan and his wife happen to be among the guests in the campground and together with their friend Theophilus Pope they uncover many secrets, forgotten crimes, sinful behavior and the identity of the killer.

THE CHARACTERS: Murder on the Day of Judgment (1936) is the second appearance of Virginia Rath's series detective Deputy Sheriff Rocky Allan. He first enters the detective fiction world in Death at Dayton's Folly (1935) a case alluded to several times over the course of this story. He is aided by his devoted wife Eleanor. Rath has created a folksy duo who have settled into a comfortable life as husband and wife and her love of these characters is obvious when the story gives way to lots of chatty and humorous conversations. They joke about the perils of cooking at a campground, for example, with instant coffee jibes turning up often. There is a running gag about a Pope's tendency to catch colds easily and he suffers from a bad one with drippy nose and clogged sinuses for much of the book. Rath has a tendency also -- to overburden her novels with this lighthearted domestic touch, here, however, it serves these two well. Their conversations help the reader to understand how much they care not only for each other but their innate empathy for everyone the come in contact with. While Rocky may be the more cantankerous and intolerant of duplicity and cruelty he is balanced out by Eleanor's deep concern and loving care. No surprise when we learn that Eleanor is nurse.

That is not to say that this is an overly cutesy, Pollyanna-ish novel. Rath is writing about con artists, fraud, blackmail and petty jealousies. In the first two victims we see she has the ability to delve into base human motives and the corruption of the human soul.  Sapphira Barlow and Reverend Saul Cheney are two of the most despicable charlatans you may ever come across in this type of crime fiction. Neither of them is as religious as they claim to be and their love of money takes precedence over and displaces any love of God they might have. But it is their hatred for each other that is the root of all evil when violence explodes on the eve of destruction, the day before the supposed apocalypse.

Rath has some interesting tangential commentary on race too. The origins of young handsome Henry Powell, a wannabe movie star who had a singing career in Mexico, and his ancestral roots become a point of inquiry for Allan and Pope.  Why is Henry so desperate to hide his true identity and his parentage? And why is Maggie Corwin, usually so frank and brusquely opinionated, so unwilling to talk about Henry's past?

Two very young characters who feature seemingly as minor characters -- teenage Lisa, Sapphira's adopted ward and David her 11 year-old grandson -- have plenty to do with Sapphira's complicated past which will slowly be revealed as evidence is collected.  Lisa and David slowly take prominence in the novel as the plot reaches its surprising (dare I say shocking?) climax. Hidden letters, secreted newspaper articles, a locket with a photo, a secret inscription encoded with a Biblical reference all eventually tie into a sordid past littered with murder victims, drug dealing, alternate identities, missing relatives and greedy schemes.

INNOVATIONS: On the surface Murder on the Day of Judgment seems to be yet another book typical of the early Doubleday Crime Club mysteries with a husband/wife sleuthing team, the innocuous chit-chat and joking, but the novel takes unexpected turns into darker territory. Set in rural northern California with a cast of fairly sophisticated city dwellers among the campground guests this is a crime novel that rightly belongs in what I call "country noir". Sapphira is a criminal through and through and in her seventieth decade she shows no sign of turning away from a life consisting of getting whatever she wants at whatever cost. Corruption is omnipresent at Coon Hollow, a force of insidious power. One begins to understand why Rocky is so stern and unforgiving with everyone by the novel's finale. We see in the end that Sapphira's influence has tainted everyone or utterly ruined them. Three characters are revealed as pathetic drug addicts, Lisa was being groomed to become a prostitute, David is inculcated into her fortune telling racket and is seen wearing a ridiculous star covered robe and purple turban throughout most of the novel. The finale and the reveal of the murderer is Rath's final touch of subversiveness in what amounts to a Great Depression era version of transgressive fiction. When the chilling denouement comes it's as if she delivered a final slap in the reader's face.

THINGS I LEARNED: On page 141 I came across this: "I seem to be findin' lots of things." Rocky held out a green Eversharp that had been lying on the floor near the door. "Any idea who this belongs to?" I thought maybe it was a fountain pen. I was very close. Invented in 1913 the Eversharp was one of the earliest and most innovative mechanical pencils manufactured in the United States. Called "a truly groundbreaking innovation" by vintage pen expert David Nishimura, the Eversharp was also one of the most popular. He writes: "By 1921, Wahl-Eversharp was turning out 35,000 Eversharps every day, and had sold over 12,000,000 pieces." For all the details on its invention, production and development visit vintagepens.com, Nishimura's fascinating website and catalog of vintage pens for sale.

Rocky also makes this remark: "You been readin' too many stories, sister, where the sheriffs is all dumber'n Dora." And here I though that the "Dumb Dora was so dumb" jokes were the creation of the Match Game writing crew back in the 1970s. Tells you how old the writers were!

THE AUTHOR: Born Virginia McVay in 1905, she taught high school in a mountain railroad town in California, married Carl Rath a railroad telegrapher and worked in a railroad telegraph office during World War II. Virginia Rath was active member of the Northern California chapter of the Mystery Writers of America for nearly all of her career. In addition to Rocky Allan she created Michael Dundas, a fashion designer based in San Francisco who is also an amateur sleuth. Dundas and his wife Valerie appear in eight books published between 1938 and 1947. Her last contribution to mystery writing goes almost entirely unnoticed. It's a chapter in the round robin novel The Marble Forest (1951) published under the odd pseudonym of Theo Durrant, a name Anthony Boucher borrowed from the real life 19th century killer dubbed "The Demon of the Belfry" by San Francisco newspapers of the time.

EASY TO FIND? Like so many writers of her time Virginia Rath has disappeared into the Limbo of Out-of-Printdom. You'll be hard pressed to find any of her books. Other than The Marble Forest none of her books were reprinted in paperback editions in her lifetime making the hunt for her mystery novels all that more difficult. I find nothing in modern reprints or digital books either. Currently there are four copies of Murder on the Day of Judgment offered for sale, but in order to find three of them you need to misspell the last word in the title as Judgement, with the often superfluous E after the G.  (Oh! the perils of online searching.) Try your library, too. Over the years I've managed to acquire nearly all of her books for a pittance. I don't think Rath's books are too cheap these days as paper books become more and more oddities of human civilization and priced as if they were relics of antiquity.

Rocky Allan Detective Novels 
Death at Dayton's Folly (1935)
Murder on the Day of Judgment (1936)
Ferryman, Take Him Across! (1936)
The Anger of the Bells (1937)
An Excellent Night for Murder (1937)
Murder with a Theme Song (1939) - also features Michael Dundas

FFB: Cast a Cold Eye - Alan Ryan

In honor of St. Patrick's Day tomorrow here's an eerie Irish ghost novel.

THE STORY: Jack Quinlan has travelled form the USA to small village of Doolin in western Ireland so that he can research the Irish potato famine for his new book. He plans to spend three months. But within days of settling in he begins to see visions of the past. One in particular --a thin, gaunt girl dressed in tattered clothes -- appears more and more frequently. Even manifesting when he travels to Galway for a getaway. Unsure if he has immersed himself too far in his research and allowing his imagination to run wild or if he is actually in the company of ghosts Jack reluctantly reaches out to Father Henning, the local priest. But he gets little help and some strange warnings. Meanwhile, a group of older men in Doolin are keeping their eyes on Jack for their own secret purposes that have their roots in ancient ceremonies.

THE CHARACTERS: While the story of Cast a Cold Eye (1984) is primarily focused on Jack it is the Irish villagers who give the book its life. Jack meets a young woman Grainne who works in a bookstore and a love relationship slowly develops. Mrs. Mullen is Jack's housekeeper who comes with the cottage rental as part of a package deal. She is also the link to the strange ritual the old men are preparing. The group of old men provide most of the eeriness to the book with so much mystery surrounding their brief meetings and ambiguous conversations. What exactly is going on in Doolin? What do they want of Jack? And will the seemingly kindly Father Henning prove to be less of a holy man than Jack thinks he is?

Jack is something of a frustrating character. Like many of these writer characters in books of the supernatural he is determined to go it alone. He is reluctant to confide in anyone for fear of what they will think of him. The writer and his ego come into play a lot here and often its tiresome. It should be obvious that something is not at all right in the village of Doolin. Many of the townspeople are well aware of the ghostly figures that appear around the perimeter of the village. Instead of relying on his innate inquisitiveness (he is researching a book after all) Jack keeps his thoughts to himself and only too late turns to Father Henning who, of course, is not too forthcoming with answers or explanations. Supposedly this is a tactic to add mystery and suspense, but this approach tends to work against the book.

INNOVATIONS: Ryan's novel belongs to the pagan ritual type of supernatural horror that seemed to explode onto the popular fiction scene back in the 1970s. Cast a Cold Eye (1984) with its overpowering religious motifs, secret ceremonies and blood sacrifices comes a decade after better known books with similar themes like Harvest Home and the cult movie The Wicker Man. I couldn't help but think of the whole lot of them and probably spent too much time trying to outguess Alan Ryan and what he had in store for Jack in the final pages.

The book is strong on atmosphere. Ryan does a fine job of evoking both the beauty of the barren Irish countryside as well as the an unsettling creepiness as we follow the story of a man out of his element. The people of Doolin are not typically sinister as one might find in pulpier versions of this kind of story. Rather, they are genuinely friendly and yet simultaneously distant, holding back a bit, harboring secrets in a tacit way that causes concern. The church scenes reveal a lot about the people of Doolin. These portions of the novel are depicted with great reverence and solemnity and one gets the feeling that the only time the people of Doolin ever feel safe and secure are within the walls of the Church while reciting their Catholic prayers. There is ample mystery here -- both theological and other worldly.

When the finale comes, however, the mystery remains and little is really explained. A strange ceremony does indeed take place. It's disturbing, not really as eerie or gory as Ryan probably intends it to be, and yet the reader hasn't much of a clue what it all means or why it is happening.

The biggest mystery left unexplained -- one that seems the biggest cheat of all -- is why we never get to see or read about the Irish famine. Jack comes to the country to do research on this and we never actually see him do any of that. So much lost opportunity for some rich detail and lore on this important part of Irish history. We are meant to associate the famine with the army of emaciated ghosts, I guess. But it's all as hazy of the foggy Irish bogs Jack strolls through.

THINGS I LEARNED: Irish writers don't pay taxes. I thought this was a joke in a brief dialogue exchange between Jack and Father Henning. Then I had to find out if it was true. Sure enough, it is. Well, it's slightly true. They do pay taxes, but the law is an exemption for a certain type of income. From an Irish history website: "Between 1969 and 2010, Ireland allowed writers and other artists who actually lived in Ireland to exempt all of their royalty income from taxation." The regulation was altered in 1997 in order to redefine what constituted residency and outline the rules related to advance royalty payments. From what I gather this law is still in place. As of January 2015 the maximum exemption allowed for all royalties earned is €50,000.

THE AUTHOR: Alan Ryan was born and raised in New York. He spent his early years as an English teacher at Cardinal Spellman High School in Bronx. Ryan's writing career began with literary criticism, then book reviewing, and later as an editor. He wrote several short stories and a handful of novels during the 1980s. Valancourt Books says at that time "Ryan was hailed as one of the bright new lights in the horror field." His other horror novels include The Kill (1982) and Dead White (1983). His short fiction was collected in Quadriphobia and The Bones Wizard. As an anthologist Ryan served as editor and contributor to Night Visions I (1984), Halloween Horrors (1986), Vampires (1987) and Haunting Women (1988). Alan Ryan eventually moved to Brazil where he resided for the latter portion of his life. He died in Rio de Janeiro in 2011.

EASY TO FIND? There are multiple copies of various paperback editions available, both US and UK, in the used book market. The majority of those copies are extremely affordable. Readers who want a new edition can choose from hardcover, paperback or digital all from the masterful Valancourt Books. Cast a Cold Eye was reprinted by this fine publisher in 2016.

FFB: Wild Justice - George A Birmingham

THE STORY: The apparent suicide of an Irishman with ties to the IRA is investigated by Chief Constable Devenish, Lord Benton, and a country parson. The detective novel plot is used to explore ongoing conflict between Irish loyalists living in England and the hatred they endure from British citizens.

THE CHARACTERS: Wild Justice (1930) is narrated by an Anglican minister who is given no name throughout the course of the book. Early on in the book he says "I am no lover of the Irish, who have always struck me as a troublesome race, but I like to be just to them." This is the overarching tenor of the book. The author, an Irishman himself, starts by poking fun at the anti-Irish sentiment that was prevalent in England at the time. The humor is mildly satiric in pointing out the narrow-minded prejudices of the narrator and others, but by the end of the book the author is clearly espousing his critical opinion of the radical Irish, the revolutionaries and terrorists who have sullied the reputation and history of the homeland he is proud of.

Chief Constable Devenish, a retired army colonel and the primary detective of the piece, is the embodiment of all that is good about Ireland. He's a war hero, affable, fair-minded, and has an admirable skill in making people feel at ease the moment he meets them. The victim and the man put on trial for murder, who happened to be the victim's dearest friend as well as an IRA member, are depicted as everything that is wrong with the country. In fact, the KC prosecuting the case uses the courtroom as his chance to malign all of Ireland as a land of rebels that celebrates "secret societies" and the men who run them. Despite what may seem to be slathering on condemnation for Ireland and its people, Birmingham does not really resort to simplistic black and white portraits of good and evil. Rather he shows the fraternal love Irishmen have for one another and presents legitimate reasons for understanding why the radical factions have such deep-seated antipathy for English law and English culture. The reader understands the Irish mindset, the stubborn beliefs they cling to, their innate sense of humor that helps them cope with trauma and hardship. And you see bigotry uncovered for what it really is.

Servant characters usually allocated to minor supporting roles figure prominently in the first half of the story, especially Bastable the bigoted butler on the Benton estate and George, the beleaguered footman. "Murder or no murder," comes Bastable's reprimand to George, "the rector and Colonel Devenish will be wanting their boots and they're to be cleaned properly before they're brought up." The business of what happened to boots overnight may seem like a minor incident to every other character in the book except George who insists that one pair was not with the rest. He eventually loses his job over the boot incident since no one will believe his story. Knowing how missing boots and the cleaning of them pop up as clues in classic mystery fiction (The Hound of the Baskervilles and Trent's Last Case come to mind) I knew these scenes were not meant to be trivial at all. True enough the boot incident will have repercussions by the end of the novel.

INNOVATIONS: There may be an entire subgenre of mainstream novels about the Irish/English conflict. I can think of The Informer by Liam O'Flaherty and Odd Man Out by F.L. Green as two excellent examples. Wild Justice is the only Golden Age detective novel I have encountered where anti-Irish sentiment and the effect of Irish terrorism on innocent citizens plays such a major part in the story. In fact these themes serve as the underlying motive for the crimes revealed in the most unexpected manner in the powerful finale.

As far as ingenious use of clues there is a section in which a typewriter with a German keyboard turns up twice and the accidental use of umlauts (ä, ö, ü) is a telltale clue in a letter sent to the accused. Our parson narrator, who has been working on a monograph on medieval Irish monasteries, is called upon to use his knowledge of "old Irish" to authenticate the letter which employs several phrases in Gaelic, or Erse as the British characters call it here. The linguistic bits though not entirely fair play clues are fascinating. But the typewriter clue is perhaps the most damning piece of evidence. The discussion of the German typewriter keyboard comes up three times in the novel and astute readers will be able to use those scenes to unmask the killer long before the rest of the characters figure it out.

The closing argument of the defense attorney in the climactic murder trial is a brilliant example of legal rhetoric. He manages to do some clever reasoning and does his best to sway the jury to a verdict of not guilty by playing up reasonable doubt, the crucial phrase that can acquit a man of a crime.

QUOTES: On the narrator's inexpert participation at a hunting party: "I missed rather more than usual, and I always miss more than I hit. This does not trouble me, for I have a feeling that a parson ought not to be an expert at killing things, except, of course, fish."

"I am not an expert in Irish affairs but I hold strongly that it is a mistake to assume that anything that happens or ever has happened there is reasonable."

"I wondered at and greatly admired the way [Devenish] dealt with a fanatic like O'Callaghan. I should just as soon have tried to make a joke to an American Methodist Minister about Prohibition."

"He had been foolish enough to slay his man in England, a country in which the old-fashioned prejudice against unauthorized killing still survives."

Bastable's bigotry: "...there wasn't much blood, sir. So Mrs. Mudge informed me. Not so much as might be anticipated, considering that the parties concerned were both Irish."

Bastable again: "Now, I'm Church, sir, and I've always voted Conservative. But what I say is, that if a man would rather be Chapel [Roman Catholic] and vote Liberal that's his business and no affair of mine. But the Irish is different from us, sir."

James Owen Hannay , circa 1930s
photo ©Pirie MacDonald,
courtesy National Portrait Gallery

THE AUTHOR: "George A. Birmingham" is the chosen pen name of James Owen Hannay (1865-1950). Hannay was born in Belfast, educated in Ireland and was ordained a Church of Ireland clergyman in 1889. He served at various churches throughout Ireland and was an army chaplain during WW1. In 1922 he joined an ambassadorship to Budapest. After his time in Hungary he settled in England and remained there for the rest of his life. He began writing novels in 1905 focusing on his critical view of Irish politics in his first novel The Seething Pot. Then he turned to comic novels for which he is best known continuing his critical viewpoint in a gentle satirical vein. Late in his writing career he wrote a handful of detective and crime novels the most noteworthy being The Hymn Tune Mystery (1930), also with a clergyman narrator, that deals with the murder of an organ player and a clever cryptogram that can only be solved with a knowledge of reading music.

THINGS I LEARNED: Stumbled across a very unusual word: peccant - guilty of committing sin. The sentence where this is used: "It was horrible to feel that a fellow human being, however guilty he might be, was being walled in, as they say peccant nuns sometimes were in the dark ages." That's some metaphor!

I was caught up in the section on Gaelic grammar and vocabulary. It went on for about ten pages but I never found it boring. Learned all about the placement of vowels, subtleties in Irish grammar that affect connotation and meaning, and that A chara dhilis is the way to write "My dear friend" in a Irish letter salutation. Also that the Gaelic name Diarmuid is pronounced something close to "Jeermood" in English.

EASY TO FIND? I found this book through serendipitous browsing at BookMan BookWoman, a used bookstore in Nashville, during a weekend getaway earlier this month. The store was having a sale -- $9.95 for every hardcover mystery book no matter what the price marked inside. How fortuitous! (as some Victorian character might exclaim.) I took every vintage mystery I could find that I didn't already own. Wild Justice was the most unusual and the oldest in the small pile of books I purchased. I already knew of Birmingham from my reading The Hymn Tune Mystery several years ago. To my surprise an internet search turned up 14 more copies of Wild Justice mostly of the various Methuen editions, but none with a complete DJ like mine. My copy is a 1935 reprint. It apparently was selling well -- the 1935 edition is the fifth printing since it's original publication in 1930. There are also US reprints from Jacobsen out there to buy. All but one are reasonably priced ranging from $5 to $15. Such deals for a rather excellent yet utterly forgotten detective novel by an undeservedly forgotten writer. I doubt there are any digital copies, but I didn't bother to look for them.

Deliver Us from Wolves - Leonard Holton

US 1st edition (Dodd Mead, 1963)

Part of the mystique of foreign travel is the total immersion in a different culture. A true traveler does not want to be cocooned in the familiarity of fast food restaurants or signs pointing out everything in English or anything that reminds one of home. Rather he wants to experience the wealth of difference in food, language, and habits of the new country he's visiting. In Deliver Us from Wolves (1963) Father Bredder, the series detective in Leonard Holton's mystery novels, is lucky to have at least the language skills in hand when he is accepts a free round trip ticket to Portugal won by his housekeeper who cannot go. He plans on visiting the holy shrine of the Virgin at Fatima and also is told by his own bishop in California to pay a call on the Bishop of Leiria. When he arrives he discovers the timing of his visit could not have been more fortuitous. His education in a very different part of Portuguese culture will take him into the realm of superstition and the paranormal.

The title Deliver Us from Wolves is the English translation of the Latin phrase "Libera nos a lupis" which keeps cropping up in the oddest places during Father Bredder's brief but very strange stay in Portugal. He first encounters it on a strange claw shaped stone sold to him in a tourist shop filled with tacky souvenirs depicting the image of the Virgin of Fatima on everything from handkerchiefs to kaleidoscopes. The stone turns out to be a talisman and the shopkeeper tells him of the legend of the werewolf that hangs over their town. When Father Bredder visits the Bishop of Leiria he learns even more about the legend of Pedro da Malveira who seems to have once again risen from his grave.

US paperback (Dell 1887, 1966)

Several dead lambs were found on the surrounding farms and at each site a series of bloody wolf footprints that suddenly turn into human footprints have been discovered. A local man has also disappeared and the fear is that he has also been attacked by the ghost of Pedro da Malveira, a 17th century thief executed for witchcraft. The townspeople have succumbed to the legend again and the talk of wolves and lobishomen, the Portuguese word for werewolf, will not stop. Fear and suspicion are controlling the daily habits population. The Bishop would like Father Bredder to discover who is up to mischief and put an end to the werewolf superstitions so the town can return to normal life.

Our priest detective undergoes a crash course in the Portuguese culture and the reader learns with him a lot about Portuguese history and the odd variations of how the werewolf legend is incorporated into their culture. Father Bredder meets Father Painter, a British priest sent to the local parish, who has not been living up to his calling. Church attendance is down and the English priest is apparently is not well liked by the townspeople. In a series of didactic scenes he lectures Father Bredder on the architecture of Portuguese castles, the history of the trial of Pedro Da Malveira, and the local werewolf superstitions. The most interesting aspect of Portuguese lobishomen is the melding of vampire and zombie lore into the werewolf myth. Some of more bizarre features include: the lobishomen has an enlarged big toe, he must return to his grave by daybreak, and he must seek out a new human form by killing a living human in order to make his transformation complete.

Father Bredder is convinced that someone is taking advantage of the lobishomen legend and the story of Pedro da Malveira to cover up some other type of criminal activity. His personal knowledge of his life as a former Marine and the training of attack dogs in his service come into play and help him as a detective in this "busman's holiday" type of book. The detection, however, is limited as the book takes on more of a supernatural/adventure thriller with lots of action sequences replacing the usual scenes of detection.

Iberian Wolf (photo: Terry Whittaker)

Like many of the other books in the Father Bredder series Holton uses a crime plot to discuss aspects of Catholic religion. Here the story of superstitious minded people makes it all the more easy to bring up discussions about the secular minded person contrasted to the man of faith. In addition to the fearful townspeople the priest encounters an atheistic schoolteacher who will not allow even a simple cross in her schoolroom. She shuns all talk of God and will not teach religion to her students. Her brother is the man who has disappeared and Father Bredder suspects he has been killed and the body disposed of or hidden someone in order that the werewolf legend can flourish. He also suspects that her brother was involved in some sort of criminal scheme that leads him to the castle high above the village of Sao Joaquin da Serra where he meets the imperious Countess of Castelbranco.

Deliver Us from Wolves is the fourth book in a series of eleven adventures with Father Bredder. Most of the books are set in Los Angeles where the priest is the parish leader at a convent school. In some of them he travels outside of California, but I believe it is only in this book where he leaves the United States. I learned an awful lot about werewolves, Portuguese culture and religion, Portuguese fortress building (to build on what I already knew from reading Shelley Smith's This Is the House) and the existence of the Iberian wolf, a species of wolf smaller than the North American gray wolf and geographically confined to Portugal and southern Spain. Reading this very unusual and highly entertaining mystery -- oh yes, there's a murder and several other crimes to solve within its pages -- has been the most immersive learning experience in a foreign culture that I've had this year without ever stepping out of my comfortable couch at home.

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This essay is my contribution for "The Tuesday Night Bloggers," a group of vintage mystery book bloggers who write on a specific theme each Tuesday. Throughout the month of May the members of this neo-Tuesday Club will write on various aspects of travel as featured in vintage detective and mystery fiction. Other posts can be found at Curt Evan's highly informative blog The Passing Tramp.  Why not check 'em out?

FIRST BOOKS: Method in His Murder - Thurman Warriner

US edition (Macmillan, 1950)

It’s rare to encounter a discussion of evil in crime fiction these days. Why is that? Why is there such a stigma placed on the word? The use of the word has not only been weakened by post-modern analyses of “the banality of evil” it has been overused in pulpy horror fiction and movies where the word is used to conjure up cliché ideas of evil residing within demons who then possess humans and “make them evil.” Evil in genre fiction, if not being discussed in medieval or supernatural connotations often goes hand in hand with religious discussions and theological concepts. Every now and then writers of the Golden Age dabbled in talk of evil but more often than not it was coupled in a plot that mixed crime with witchcraft, demonology, and malevolent ghosts. When a book like Method in His Murder (1950) dares to talk about the existence of evil among everyday humans without once bringing up the supernatural the tendency is for a modern reader to balk at the writer’s ideas or laugh at the characters or both. Thurman Warriner is one of the few crime fiction writers who can discuss evil in a grounded, humane way without resorting to heavy handed talk of the Devil or grow tiresome with the usual historical references that exemplify the evil of mankind.

Charles Ambo meets Rhoda Wainfleet, a thoroughly evil woman in his estimation, who in the first sentence arouses this visceral reaction: “…he told himself that if she were his wife, instead of John’s, his thoughts would long ago have turned to murder.” Try as he might to warm up to Rhoda Mr. Ambo is bothered by the way she seems to control her husband, undermining his well being by preventing him from pursuing his love of writing, mocking his hobbies, and in her possession and jealousy seems to be literally destroying the man’s health and well-being.

Wainfleet draws Ambo into his confidence and reveals that he has been living a double life. He has fallen in love with another woman who is the exact opposite of Rhoda. Carolyn encourages his writing and knows him under his alias of “Roger Kirton”, a well regarded novelist. Wainfleet wants Ambo to help him handle some documents that will provide for Carolyn financially should anything happen to him. Ambo wonders if Wainfleet is in fear of his life, but the question is evaded. Ambo fears his thoughts about Rhoda are worse than he imagined. Should she ever learn of the existence of the other woman it would not only by John Wainfleet who would be in danger.

UK edition (Hodder & Stoughton , 1950)

There is a party at the Wainfleet’s and John leaves with two business associates. That night one of the associates -- Rhoda’s brother Laurie -- dies in a car wreck only a few hours after John was dropped off elsewhere. An inquest follows. John has a complex alibi that seems to put him in the clear and despite the involved proceedings at the inquest he is cleared when the coroner’s jury returns a verdict of death by misadventure. Mr. Ambo, however, is troubled by that alibi. It seems too convenient and he is certain that John is not telling the whole truth. He is sure that Laurie Barton was murdered and also believes that Rhoda is somehow involved. No matter how he tries to disbelieve the verdict all evidence keeps pointing to John Wainfleet as a very clever murderer. With the help of private detective J. F. C. Scotter and his ravishing and sharp-witted secretary Lottie Mr. Ambo gets to the bottom of a cleverly engineered murder cover-up.

Throughout the tale we are treated to numerous discussions of evil. This is the first book to feature Warriner’s three series characters -- Ambo, Scotter and the Archdeacon Toft -- all of whom live in his fictional cathedral city of Tonchester. Last year I had reviewed The Doors of Sleep, another tightly plotted puzzling detective novel set in Tonchester, that touched on fundamental concepts of good and evil. Without having knowledge of this first book reading the Archdeacon’s beliefs in The Doors of Sleep came off as retro-medieval to me. But knowing that book is a continuation of the ideas set forth in Method in His Murder everything can now be seen in a different light. Here are examples of Warriner’s concepts of everyday evil:

"[Archdeacon Toft] seems to believe that the Devil has been released on parole, as it were, and that one of his minor activities may be to lure unsuspecting motorists to their doom by drawing their attention from the wheel at moments when all their efforts should be concentrated on driving."

"You’re not telling me that you actually believe in the Devil, Mr. Ambo?"

"Knowing human nature as I do, I see no harm in keeping an open mind, [Superintendent] Tydd."

Even Scotter gets into the act:

AMBO: "Could you believe that there is someone here in this town who knows John Wainfleet’s torment as well as I do, and take an unholy delight in it? Someone who thinks of his downfall as a personal triumph?"

SCOTTER: "Believe me, brother, if you’ve been a dick as long as I have you wouldn’t jib at anything. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Devil put his cloven foot down the chimney and knocked the teapot right off the table."

Later Scotter is less facetious when he gives this example:

"Remember that Nancy Cardwell case? Nice little kiddy—only seven years old. I was on the edge of it. They made out that Hanson killed her because she was identified with all the decent things he’d lost in his own life. Fellow’s in Broadmoor now. Oh yes, that sort of thing happens!"

The perspicacious summary of a child killer’s motive is telling and will come into play when the reason for Laurie Barton’s death is made fully clear. Rhoda Wainfleet is shown behaving in the same manner when she attempts to destroy a valuable Bible Mr. Ambo owns (he’s an avid antiquarian book collector) by throwing it in the fireplace. He can only see her act as one in which she tries to destroy anything that gives another person happiness. She strikes out impulsively, selfishly and callously. As bleak a portrait as she is painted Rhoda is not the only symbol of evil in this story. The culpability of all will be made apparent in the unexpected finale. While some of the criminal acts seem to be rationalized nearly everyone is shown to have succumbed to the “taint of original sin” Archdeacon Toft mentions earlier in the book.

Method in His Murder is available only in the used book market. The book was published both in UK and US hardcover editions but no paperback reprints exist that I could verify. No modern reprints are currently available in either print or digital format. Libraries are always a good bet, too. For more on Mr. Ambo, Archdeacon Toft and John Franklin Cornelius Scotter see my review of The Doors of Sleep. There is a bibliography for the entire series on that page.

FFB: The Body - Richard Ben Sapir

Good Friday. Today Catholics all over the world will attend special masses on this holiest of Holy Days of Obligation and remember the passion of Jesus Christ, the suffering and humiliation he endured on the day he was crucified.

In The Body (1983) Dr. Sharon Golban and her team of volunteer student archaeologists uncover a tomb in Jerusalem.  At first it appears empty, but then Sharon finds a wall of bricks unlike the stone walls of the rest of the tomb and when she removes some of those bricks finds a secret room. In that room there is a skeleton with orangish marks on the leg bones that are almost certainly an indication of oxidation from iron spikes, proof that the body was crucified. She also finds a kiln-fired piece of pottery inscribed with the Aramaic words Melek Yehudayai. Jewish King. Like the scientist she is Sharon considers these facts. Crucifixion was a Roman form of execution reserved for criminals. A king would never be crucified. This must be an sign of a game of mockery that Roman soldiers engaged in. But wouldn't the disc say something more like King of the Thieves? The only person she can think of crucified and called a Jewish King was... But, no, that can't be. Jesus Christ rose from the dead. His body shouldn't have remained on Earth in a secret room bricked up in the tomb where he was laid to rest. Sharon knows this could be a devastating discovery. She has to report it to her superiors.

Word spreads to the Vatican and they set up an international search to find a special man to head an investigation to prove or -- hopefully -- disprove that the body is that of Jesus. They select a very unusual Jesuit priest from Boston College named James Folan. Though many of the candidates for the job have backgrounds in science and archeology Father Folan does not. He is a college administrator who occasionally teaches a class in history. But he is also a former Marine who later worked in Laos for one year as part of an information gathering network for the CIA.  Because of some of his unique answers to the candidate interview process he is chosen as the man to lead the investigation in Israel. It will be a test of all he believes in leading to some drastic changes in his worldview.

Sapir is best known as one half of the writing team who created Remo Williams, aka "The Destroyer", one of the most popular and successful action heroes in the world of men's paperbacks. He also wrote a science fiction adventure novel called The Far Arena (1979) about the discovery of a Roman gladiator encased in ice who is brought back to life through some fanciful mad scientist experiments. Though much of The Body examines the political and religious implications of the possibility that all of Catholicism is based on a lie Sapir's background in pop fiction adventures unfortunately bleeds into the story. Sharon Golban is smart, feisty, and -- of course -- incredibly beautiful and highly sexualized. Father Folan does his best to fight his attraction to her, but succumbs to temptation. This is the only part of the book I found troublesome. Once Folan starts having sex with Sharon the whole books pretty much falls to pieces. His character and way of thinking drastically change. He nearly forgets the reason he is in Israel is as an emissary of the Pope for a very important task that could have earth shattering results for those who believe Jesus is God. Having Folan and Sharon become lovers cheapens a book that prior to these scenes was a thoughtful meditation on the mystery of faith and the importance of faith in the lives of devout Catholics.

I took an incredible amount of notes on this book and will try to put them into a digest form in a second post tomorrow. The Body has a lot to recommend it and provides a lot of food for thought. It would make a fantastic book club selection at any time of year not just this Easter/Passover season. Sapir includes all types of religion in the story with some provocative scenes that include radical orthodox Jews and a Palestinian living in Russia. Golban herself is half Iranian and her father an immigrant from Iran (though for some reason Sapir insists on calling it Persia). That's just scratching the surface.

The Body was also made into a movie in 2001 starring Antonio Banderas as Father Matt Gutierrez (Folan) and Olivia Williams as Sharon Golban. From one review I read online it seems to be very much updated to include all sorts of computer technology not present in the book and rewritten as one can guess by having a Latino priest in the lead rather than an Irish Catholic from Boston. It also apparently is pretty awful. Nevertheless, I've added it to my Netflix queue and plan on watching it soon. It'll be interesting to see just how different the movie is from Sapir's dense and thought provoking novel.

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Reading Challenge update: Silver Age Bingo Card, space I4 - "Author You've Never Read Before"

FFB: Murder in a Nunnery - Eric Shepherd

Jacques Barzun is quick to point out in his brief Catalog of Crime entry for this humanistic detective novel that the setting is not a nunnery but a convent school. True the primary setting is a school, but where do nuns live but in a nunnery? More hairsplitting from our dear departed academic. Titular misnomers aside Murder in a Nunnery (1940) was quite the sleeper when it was first published. Though published by small press Sheed & Ward it managed to get picked up by the Catholic Book Club in 1940 and turned into a minor sensation. Twenty two years later it was reprinted as a paperback from Dell's Chapel Books imprint and sold thousands of more copies.

Eric Shepherd has written both an engaging detective novel and a primer in the life of 1940s British nuns. Shepherd's sister was a mother superior according to a book review in Rockford, Illinois Catholic newspaper The Observer, (see the article here) so he presumably knows of what he writes. The most interesting thing I discovered was that most of the elderly nuns refer to themselves as Mother rather than Sister. Perhaps that's peculiar to England or to this order, though we are never told to which order these nuns belong. But onto the story itself...

Baroness Sliema, a temporary guest at the convent, has been found stabbed in the chapel during daily mass. Not particularly well-liked by both the staff and the students her death becomes the topic of girlish gossip peppered with flagrant talk of a well deserved violent end. When the police are called in we begin to see what Shepherd has in mind as the secular world meets the religious world head on. The police are in for quite an education themselves as the murder investigation progresses.

First to arrive on the scene is the brash Detective Sgt. Osbert whose insensitivity and rudeness is matched only by his own discomfort at being treated as a guest, not as a cop, by so many old women in funny costumes. He can't wait to call in Scotland Yard and hand the case over to Chief Inspector Andrew Pearson. Pearson is the complete opposite of Osbert -- gentlemanly, suave, decorous to the point of embarrassment. He first mistakenly asks to see the Lady Abbess and is immediately corrected, almost reprimanded, by Mother Peck, second in command:, "Reverend Mother is not in the habit of receiving visitors on the doorstep." Pearson experiences his own level of discomfort as well, but he soon warms up to Reverend Mother Superior in whom he sees kindness, wisdom, and a love of strict discipline. It is the disciplined life of the nuns that most impresses Pearson and he surprises himself in drawing analogies between life in a convent and the life of a policeman. As the case progresses he sees that nuns and police have a lot in common.

There is an element of the rambunctious gang of St. Trinian's among the girl students. Led by Verity Goodchild, who is anything but good or truthful, they are the typical ragtag bunch of unruly girls you come across in books of this sort. Inez Escapado, a tall tale telling South American student, is saddled with thick phonetic accent Harry Stephen Keeler would've been proud of. And Philomene, Verity's best pal, has a temper issue and a speech impediment that comes and goes depending on how emotional she gets. You'd expect them to all turn Nancy Drew and try to solve the murder for themselves but they are more interested in the ghostly figure of a mysterious nun seen wandering the grounds at night. Only Verity is brave enough to wander the school grounds looking for evidence. While trying her best at girl sleuthing she encounters a group of nosy tabloid reporters and photographers and ends up the subject of exploitive glamour shots. One of the photographers rewards her with a piece of cloth he found that turns out to be a torn piece from a nun's veil. Evidence! Apparently, there was someone in a nun's habit roaming the grounds at night. Whether it was a genuine nun or someone in disguise Verity leaves to Chief Inspector Pearson to uncover.

Among Pearson's primary adult suspects are the haughty Venetia Gozo, a Maltese woman who acted as secretary to the Baroness; Mrs. Moss, the Baroness' companion; Baron Sliema, the victim's son; and Mr. Turtle, the handyman-gardener for the convent grounds. Turtle was my favorite of the lot. He seems to have wandered into the book from the pages of a George Eliot novel complete with Yorkshire accent. He's filled with the refreshing kind of common sense and common talk so welcome after pages of theology and philosophy from Reverend Mother and girlish antics from the students. Turtle is also the only man in this world of women. Having the inspector around gives Turtle a chance to kick back and let down his guard. His invitation to Pearson at the tail end of his interrogation scene is priceless: "And should you ever find the oppression of women too much for you up at the 'ouse, you come down 'ere and refresh yourself with Turtle."

One more thing about Pearson's detective skills. He is equipped with an overly sensitive sense of smell. Throughout the book his olfactory bulb is assailed with a pungent odor that seems to permeate certain rooms. It's vaguely familiar, but each time he tries to put a name to the scent he comes up wanting. The piece of veil Verity finds is reeking with the smell. It trails throughout the cloisters near the scene of the crime. The smell haunts him throughout the story. And it will prove to be the most damning clue in determining the identity of the murderer when that odor's source is discovered and it's given a name.

Margaret Wycherly and Pedro de Cordoba in
the first production of the play version

In looking for images from the various published editions of Murder in a Nunnery I discovered it was also adapted into a play. Emmet Lavery, a screenwriter, condensed the large cast of characters to one of only eight adult female roles, three adult men, and five girls. It was produced in May 1942 for Catholic Theatre Guild of Los Angeles with the playwright also serving as director. Incredibly, for what appears to be a community theater troupe, several of the leading roles were played by film actors. Lavery must have had impressive studio connections. In the role of Reverend Mother Superior was Margaret Wycherly best known as James Cagney's mom in the classic gangster movie White Heat. Inspector Pearson was played by Pedro de Cordoba, a character actor with over 125 of films to his credit including Saboteur, The Mark of Zorro, Juarez, Captain Blood and Anthony Adverse. John McGuire, a B movie leading man and supporting player whose best role is probably as the reporter accused of murder in Stranger on the Third Floor, played the shifty Baron Sliema who in the play adaptation has an added secret and a surprise scene not found in the book. I bet that was some production to watch.

Fourteen years later Eric Shepherd wrote a sequel called More Murder in a Nunnery (1954). I have yet to find a copy so I am unsure if Pearson meets up with Reverend Mother Superior at Harrington Convent School again or if she acts as an amateur sleuth with her sister colleagues without Pearson.

IN BRIEF: Death Comes to Cambers - E.R. Punshon

Death Comes to Cambers (1935) was my second venture into the work of E. R. Punshon. I was slightly disappointed. The book is epic length for story essentially about one strangling murder and theft of some jewels. Its 288 pages felt twice that long due to long interview sequences between Bobby Owen, Punshon's policeman detective, and each of the suspects. The problem is that each of the suspects is interviewed twice. In some cases Owen returns for a third time to ask even more questions. This see-sawing between suspects draws out the story, lessens tension and frustrates the reader. A detective story while it may uncover the past and deal with past events should move forward in time, ever forward towards the solution. Travelling back to re-interview someone already given ample stage time in the narrative is allowable to a point, but constant instances of repeat interrogation seems to me like a writer who is padding his story unnecessarily.

Additionally, some of the characters take the time to pontificate on their personal views and raise some topical issues that Punshon apparently was taken with at the time. This is the second detective novel in which I have encountered a debate between religious views of the origin of man in stark contrast to a scientist exploiting Darwinian evolution theory for his own ends. An amateur archeologist and a rigidly conservative minister are at odds in their battle between science and faith throughout the novel. Punshon attempts to make this a possible motive for the murders that occur in the story but it's a weak attempt.

The archeologist is convinced his theory of the development of modern man will turn the world of anthropology upside down. He claims man's use of tools and the reason for using them is what separates man from ape. The conservative reverend calls his theories blasphemous.

Only in the final third of the novel when Owen starts to do real detective work as opposed to routine questioning does the book truly get interesting and enter the realm of originality. There are two encoded messages found in a newspaper Personals column Owen must solve. One is so involved the solution to the code rivals that of the mechanism of the Enigma machine that Alan Turing figured out. The murderer's ingenious method of creating his alibi for the time of the murder is what I consider the book's saving grace. And there's one other surprise in the finale that breaks the rules of a traditional detective novel that I also admired.

Unlike Diabolic Candelabra fascinating in its oddities from start to finish, the characters and situations in Death Comes to Cambers are overly familiar and often dreary to get through. The gossipy landlady, the garrulous tradesmen, a barkeep who knows everyone's business all turn up as they do in most of these mysteries set in small English villages. It doesn’t help that in this book Punshon is still clinging to a baroque writing style that belongs to the early Victorian era. He constructs paragraph long sentences that could be trimmed for coherence and readability. Often these long sentences are really several sentences run together with a series of useless commas and dashes. As a matter of course these long sentences then make many of the paragraphs run uninterrupted for the entire page length. Cumbersome is an understatement.

Death Comes to Cambers is a very scarce book, possibly a genuinely rare book. I found a copy in France, but had to pay an exorbitant fee to have it shipped to me. Currently online there are only two copies for sale -- one in English, the other in French. There is a second English edition listed by Le-Livre.com, but this the one I bought and the seller has obviously not removed the listing from other bookselling sites. I wouldn't lose any sleep over not finding a copy. It's a good novel but it takes some endurance and patience to get to the meat of the story.

IN BRIEF: Ebenezer Investigates - Nicholas Brady

The locals of Dowerby would like a new parish hall and they turn to the charismatic Reverend Ebenezer Buckle who in the past has been quite talented in getting multiple fundraising projects going. Among the many ideas that bring in money are raffles, whist drives, benefit concerts, and -- as their last straw attempt -- door-to-door collections.  The entire congregation decides to hold a full-out church fete and bazaar to get the final couple of thousand for a down payment for the architect.

During a treasure hunt which takes participants on a scramble throughout the village by following clues in riddle form Rev. Buckle discovers the body of Constance Bell. The young lady had just visited his booth where he was selling a variety of wildflowers grown in his garden. She cannot have been dead for long. Constance is found face down in a creek near a foot bridge and has been stabbed in the throat. Suspicion immediately falls on the young man she was seen with earlier at the fete. Investigation leads police to believe that Constance was promiscuous and had a variety of men paying attention to her. Rev. Buckle disbelieves these assumptions and sets about to clear Constance's name and uncover the truth behind her violent death.

Buckle comes across more like Father Brown in this book than in any other. This is the mystery novel as morality play with a decidedly modern twist. Theology takes center stage as Buckle is seen preaching from the pulpit several times a facet of his life absent from the other two books I read in the series. Thankfully, the preaching is never heavy handed. The murder investigation soon focuses on adultery and promiscuity in the lives of two key women characters. Forgiveness and compassion are the ultimate lessons Buckle attempts to teach by the end of the novel. 

Detection for the most part is very good with an emphasis on human nature observations rather than physical evidence. Buckle must do a lot of inductive reasoning and a bit of guesswork . Several times over the course of the book he points out that the killer seems to have made the crime a lot more difficult than it should have been. Constance's belongings, for example, are strewn throughout the fields near the scene of the murder. It takes days to locate all the items she was seen carrying away from the church bazaar. Why did the killer do this, Buckle wonders?  Why not just leave where she was? Buckle is convinced he is dealing with a murderer who is too smart for his own good. But with little real evidence at hand and conceited and overly self-assured murderer, Buckle finds himself forced to do what any law officer would find unethical. He manufactures evidence and lays a trap which he hopes will trick the murderer into revealing himself and thereby confessing to the crime.

There is a good bit of misdirection in the story as well. The sex aspect of the book seems very advanced for a detective novel of the early 1930s.  Readers of the time were probably easily fooled by Brady's clever way of making the case appear to be about one person when in fact all the clues really point to another, but a contemporary reader will probably catch on to the trick fairly quickly. It is difficult to see this book in the light of the 1930s because of the fallen woman cliche that crops up repeatedly in the story. Two of the women are portrayed as "wicked" who out of loneliness turn to the arms of attractive and virile men, ironically the real weaklings and cowards of the book. But like the murder victim in Murder Among Friends reviewed here last week it is hard not to feel some sympathy for the Constance and her mother in this book.

Chances are you will not be able to locate a copy of Ebenezer Investigates (1934) very easily.  It took me almost 15 years to find mine. It purchased it from an online UK bookseller and I paid close to $85 including shipping to get it over here. Currently, there are no copies for sale on the internet. Good luck in your search. I'm still trying to find a copy of Week-end Murder and Coupons for Death, the the last two books featuring Reverend Buckle. But I fear I may never find either book.

Previously reviewed books by Nicholas Brady are The House of Strange Guests and Fair Murder.

FFB: A Gentle Murderer - Dorothy Salisbury Davis

Scribners, 1951, 1st US edition

A murderer confesses his crime to a priest who is deeply troubled by what he hears and decides to find out who the confessor is and what exactly happened. Sounds a bit like that Montgomery Clift/Alfred Hitchcock movie, doesn't it? But it's the basic plot of Dorothy Salisbury Davis' third novel A Gentle Murderer (1951), yet another under-appreciated cornerstone in crime fiction. While it still clings to the basics of a detective novel Davis is more interested in the effect of the crime on the characters.

Father Duffy is almost as conflicted as the haunted young man who confesses his crime. He wants the unknown man to go to the police, promises he will visit him and help him make right of what is clearly sinful. Only when the priest learns of a bludgeoning death of a prostitute, coincidentally one of his parishioners, does he realize that the killer may have been the anonymous young man in his confessional. After all, there was all that obsessive talk of a hammer that disturbed the priest. Father Duffy turns sleuth and aims to learn as much as he can about the victim. In doing so he eventually learns the identity of the young man confessor and why he committed such a brutal crime.

The novel is built around the framework of a detective novel with a simultaneous police investigation playing out as Father Duffy does his more humanistic detective work. Occasionally the two stories meet and priest and lieutenant share with each other what they have learned. All the while the emphasis is always on character and behavior and not the plot or the crime.

Davis' strength is in character work, especially women like Mrs. Galli and her daughter Kate, and a masterful replication of the Irish voice. Her own background as the daughter of Irish immigrants reveals itself in the many Irish Catholic characters and their unique manner of speaking. In addition to following the thoughts and actions of Father Duffy, Lt. Holden, and Sgt. Goldberg, Davis gives us a third point of view -- that of Tim Brandon. As with nearly every modern crime novel on our shelves today we get Tim's entire back story which slowly uncovers the reasons he has become a killer. It is this unusual triple point of view narrative and the focus on character rather than plot that makes A Gentle Murderer a stand out in the evolution of the crime novel. No surprise then that it appears on the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone, a list of notable detective novels of the 20th century.

Some of the psychology is perhaps too Freudian for a modern reader's tastes, but nonetheless there is a sophistication in the presentation of a man whose dysfunctional homelife leads him to a life of crime. It is sympathetic portrait Davis paints and never with lurid colors.