Poison, running through my veins...

The case of Freeman Wills Crofts on this blog is a strange one. A few years ago, I read the short story collection Murderers Make Mistakes. The stories in that collection began as a series of radio plays, and Crofts turned them into short stories. I enjoyed the book, especially the first half, which effectively showcased Inspector French’s strengths as a detective. And yet, for whatever reason, I never returned to Crofts since reviewing that book. His name popped up prominently when I reviewed Curt Evans’ Masters of the Humdrum Mystery, but apart from that, it was all quiet on the Crofts front.

So in August of last year, I decided to remedy the situation by picking up Crofts’ Antidote to Venom, a book which landed on my radar when John over at Pretty Sinister Books reviewed it (and directed me to a website where I found a cheap copy of the book – thanks once again, John!). But tragedy struck, and as I packed my bags to move to the seminary, I managed to lose my copy of Antidote to Venom, having read about halfway through. Then, a few weeks ago, when I was visiting home, a stroke of luck occurred – I found the book, with the bookmark still in place! And so I eagerly picked up the book and after briefly refreshing my memory on what had occurred, I read on.

A, B, C, D, E, F, G...

Ten years have elapsed since the events chronicled in The Tragedy of X and The Tragedy of Y. Drury Lane has gotten much older, and is frail and sickly these days. As for Inspector Thumm, he has retired and opened a detective agency, which is doing rather well. More surprisingly than that, we discover that Inspector Thumm has a daughter, Patience, who is the narrator of our story.

It all begins innocuously enough. Elihu Clay, an honest businessman (keep your smart-aleck comments to yourself), comes to ex-Inspector Thumm’s door for help. It seems his business is doing very well… indeed, almost too well. He has a silent partner, Dr. Ira Fawcett, brother of Senator Joe Fawcett, and he suspects the doctor is using his business to pull some financial hanky-panky on behalf of the Fawcett clan. Inspector Thumm accepts the case, but with little hope of success – although it’s widely known that Senator Fawcett is crooked, no one has been able to prove so in a court of law.

Thumm’s daughter Patience comes along for the ride, because even though she has no role in the investigation she’s a Liberated Woman. She hits it off with Drury Lane, making a couple of clever deductions about how the detective is spending his spare time. So when murder comes a-knocking and Senator Fawcett is bumped off, with the police eagerly seizing on the most obvious suspect, Patience consults the Great Detective and brings him onboard to solve The Tragedy of Z.

Talking About the Detection Club

It is often said that the “Golden Age of Detective Fiction” took place in between the two World Wars. For my money, such a characterisation is far too simplified and gives rise to a popular narrative Julian Symons’ Bloody Murder sets out, which treats Golden Age fiction like some freak of nature which popped up between the two world wars because [insert pet sociological theory here]. I cringe whenever this view of the genre’s history is brought up, all too often by authors eagerly assuring you that their stuff transcends all that silly puzzle nonsense and Asks Really Deep Questions [translation: There Is No Plot].

The truth is, the Golden Age was a time of great variety and experimentation within the genre, and The Detection Club was formed in the late 20s in England. The exclusive club gave authors a chance to socialize, and since membership was attained only by secret ballot, it was also a way to ensure the quality of the genre remained high. Martin Edwards’ The Golden Age of Murder looks at the men and women who were members of The Detection Club during the Golden Age. It’s an enormous project, one which might overwhelm a lesser man.

Der Fuehrer's Face

Seeing how my last review was about a book set in 1945 Nuremburg, it seems appropriate to go just a bit further back in time today. The year is 1934, and today’s book, The Talking Sparrow Murders by Darwin Teilhet, was just published. Across the Atlantic ocean, a man named Hitler has just seized power in Germany, and at this point the worst being thought of him was that he was just another crackpot dictator. But Teilhet disagreed – he saw what Nazism was doing to a country that he loved, and he didn’t like it. And his book is a vicious denouncement of all that Nazism stood for.

This is fascinating to see in a 1934 novel. Nowadays, it’s easy to use the wisdom of hindsight and say “Well, people really should’ve known better.” But here we have someone denouncing Hitler and all he stood for long before WWII and the revelation of the widespread Nazi atrocities. Not only that, this is being done in a detective novel, a form often ridiculed by critics as mere “crossword puzzles in prose”. And while there is a puzzle to solve in The Talking Sparrow Murders, the Nazis are constantly hovering in the background, threatening to turn this into a tragedy.

The Grandest Game in the World

Okay, here’s the situation: some crazed maniac is out there killing people left and right. With victims dropping like dead flies, the murderer leaves taunting messages for the police in the form of a crazed “dialogue”, chock-full of riddles, puns, and clues to the next victim. The press has gone insane over the story and have dubbed this lunatic “the Wordman”, and the chase is on. Sounds just like a mystery from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, doesn’t it?

But surprisingly enough, this is the plot summary for Dialogues of the Dead by Reginald Hill, a book that was published in 2002. In this book, Hill’s regular detectives (Andy Dalziel and Peter Pascoe) find themselves duelling against the Wordman, a killer who writes stories about his murders after the fact and submits them to a short story competition.

My Ghost in Disguise

“There are, fortunately, very few people who can say that they have actually attended a murder.”

—Margery Allingham, Death of a Ghost [opening sentence]

Everyone agrees that John Lafcadio was a brilliant artist far ahead of his time. In fact, he himself was certain that his reputation would improve after his death, and so he came up with a unique scheme to exploit his popularity from the after-life. He left a dozen paintings with his agent, and instructed his widow Belle to wait for ten years. After that, she was to hold an annual celebration where one portrait would be unveiled. Lafcadio calculated that, if his archrival Tanqueray was still as popular 22 years after his death, then good luck to him. But as it turned out, he needn’t have worried: Tanqueray did not survive Lafcadio long, and his critical reputation has since undergone a steep decline while Lafcadio is celebrated as an artistic genius.

But Belle honours Lafcadio’s wish and this year marks the eighth year of the annual show. A colourful cast of characters is present: for instance, there’s Max Fustian, an art critic and dealer whose entire fame was built on his appreciations of Lafcadio’s work. There’s the great Lafcadio’s former mistress Donna Beatrice, who shared the artist with his wife in a ménage à trois. There’s his granddaughter, and his former top model (now reduced to the position of the household cook). Oh, and also Mr. Albert Campion among the guests, which is fortunate: for he is about to investigate the Death of a Ghost when one of the guests at the gathering, Tommy Dacre, is murdered with a pair of scissors…

Death Goes for a Swim

It was really a most exciting day for Miss Hildegarde Withers, schoolteacher extraordinaire. Taking her class to the New York Aquarium, she first helps to apprehend a pickpocket. Then she discovers that her hatpin has gone missing and a full-scale search is launched. And once the hatpin is found, something else is discovered… a man’s corpse floating in the penguin pool!

This looks like foul play, and unless you can come up with a theory involving homicidal penguins, then the group of human suspects conveniently assembled nearby will have to do. Turns out they were all playing a complicated game of ring-around-the-rosy and it’s difficult to prove just what happened. Luckily for Miss Withers, Inspector Piper is on the case and he allows Miss Withers to make her own most unorthodox investigation.

A Closed Book

“I am going to kill a man. I don’t know his name, I don’t know where he lives, I have no idea what he looks like. But I am going to find him and kill him …”

Thus begins the diary of Frank Cairnes, an author of detective stories under the pseudonym Felix Lane. But this isn’t a notebook in which he will set down the details of a fictional murder plot: he truly intends to find a man and murder him. But what could prompt a sane man to turn to murder?

It turns out Frank had a son named Martie, and a few months ago he had gone into the village to buy some sweets. That was when he got run over by a careless motorist; poor Martie never stood a chance. The police have been unable to trace the motorist responsible for the death, and he never stopped nor reported the accident. That man is the titular beast in Nicholas Blake’s novel The Beast Must Die, and when he is murdered, Cairnes’ journal is found and he immediately becomes the prime suspect. But Nigel Strangeways isn’t convinced…

Sounding Gabriel's Horn

It seems that back in the 1930s, bullfighting was a lot more socially acceptable than it is today. For in Todd Downing’s The Last Trumpet, Hugh Rennert (a retired U. S. Customs Service agent and Downing’s series detective) does not hesitate to be seen at a bullfight in Matamoras, Mexico. But the social excursion quickly turns into a serious business when bullfighter Carlos Campos dies horrifically, gored by a bull.

Only it seems that the death was not accidental. Before he succumbed to his injuries, Campos accused someone in the crowd of blinding him by shining a mirror into his eyes. The police attempt to make a search but they are thwarted in their efforts. But it’s a good thing Hugh Rennert was present – he undertakes the investigation and discovers that Campos was not the first casualty. Nor will he be the last…

Birds of Prey

The passengers on the train to Mexico City had plenty of reason to be nervous. Times are rough and there is a railway strike in Mexico at the moment. Trains everywhere are being tied up and delayed, and as if that weren’t enough, part of the journey takes the train through a region that has a rather bad reputation. And then there are the vultures flying overhead, like an omen of doom. With all that to deal with, the corpse was most certainly not needed.

But a corpse does pop up in Todd Downing’s Vultures in the Sky, and it is the corpse of a Mexican man. He has died under strange circumstances, which don’t necessarily rule out a natural death but which certainly makes the theory far less tenable than it might otherwise have been. If this is a case of murder, the killer acted swiftly and murdered the man under circumstances where the fellow passengers’ vision was impaired. But the killer didn’t count on one man on board: U.S. Customs Service agent Hugh Rennert.

Death of a Reviewer

John Riddell, book reviewer for Vanity Fair, is dead. The medical examiner has viewed the body and has confirmed everyone’s worst fears: the poor man died of boredom right in his own library, surrounded by the previous year’s bestsellers! How lucky that Philo Vance is on hand, having had some previous experience with this sort of thing. *

* “The Benson Murder Case” (Scribners); “The ‘Canary’ Murder Case” (Ibid.); “The Greene Murder Case: (Ibid.); “The Bishop Murder Case” (Ibid.); and “The Scarab Murder Case” (Ibid.)

As you can perhaps guess, today’s book is a parody: The John Riddell Murder Case, written by “John Riddell”. Actually, the author is American humourist Corey Ford. The John Riddell Murder Case is one of the most hilarious books I’ve ever read in any genre, period. This is just one of those books that is full of laugh-out-loud moments, especially if you know what is being parodied. And the targets are varied: not only is S. S. Van Dine a target, so are such various people as Robert Frost, Dashiell Hammett, and ex-President Calvin Coolidge! What could possibly bring such different people together?

Can Lightning Strike the Same Spot Twice?

Hélène Lafaille is dead. When Florence Valentine entered her room, she discovered the woman lying on the floor, lifeless. She’s apparently been murdered: there’s the wound of a blunt instrument on her head, and the police are summoned. But when they arrive, they make an even grislier discovery. Hélène’s twelve-year old boy Roger is outside, dead. He’s been viciously murdered, his face all bloodied.

It turns out that Roger was a beast whose hobbies included tormenting cats and murdering birds. Not only that, it turns out he was in the way of a sizeable inheritance from Monsieur Honoré-Hyacinthe-Henry Van Aa. But the strangest thing turns up at the autopsy: the blood on Roger isn’t real blood. In fact, the little monster died of poison. But why would anyone murder someone and then pretend to murder him all over again??? Things get even more complicated when it turns out that Van Aa died later on the same day as Roger—really some very convenient timing for the other inheritors, wouldn’t you say?

Hoorah for the Humdrums!

Curt Evans, mystery scholar extraordinaire, has been on the blogosphere for a while now, managing an interesting little blog entitled The Passing Tramp. As the name may indicate, the blog is devoted to wandering around the mystery genre, encountering all sorts of interesting specimens, and then reporting back to readers. It’s an excellent blog, and I tend to agree with Curt on many points, especially his continued and unrepentant defense of a group of authors collectively known as “The Humdrums”. You could say he’s written the book on the subject. Literally—I am of course talking about Masters of the “Humdrum” Mystery: Cecil John Charles Street, Freeman Wills Crofts, Alfred Walter Stewart and the British Detective Novel, 1920-61.

To put it quite simply, Curt’s book is a bravura performance. He takes a look at three major mystery authors from the Golden Age: John Rhode/Miles Burton, Freeman Wills Crofts, and J. J. Connginton. All three men have been condemned to out-of-print hell, and when brought up by academics at all, their opinions tend to be largely dismissive of these “mere puzzles”. But Curt remains unconvinced, and through his analyses he tries to prove that these books have far more merit to them than such a label might imply.

A Predicament

... You've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?

– Harry Callahan, Dirty Harry (1971)

After the success of The Floating Admiral, The Detection Club soon decided to do another round-robin novel entitled Ask a Policeman. The cast list was once again comprised of all-stars, but this time they were not quite as numerous. Six novelists combined their efforts into Ask a Policeman, namely Helen Simpson, Milward Kennedy, John Rhode, Anthony Berkeley, Gladys Mitchell, and Dorothy L. Sayers.

The plot is only a semi-serious one, although the parody elements never outweigh the detection elements. A rich, despised-by-all newspaper tycoon is shot dead at his house, with a plethora of suspects playing a complex game of ring-around-the-rosy around the scene of the crime. But, as luck would have it, these suspects happen to include an Archbishop, the Chief Whip of a political party, and an Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard. But for good measure, you can throw in the dead man’s secretary and a Mysterious Lady, as well as a suspicious butler and other members of the domestic staff.

The Noble Duke of York

Oh, The grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men;
He marched them up to the top of the hill,
And he marched them down again.

And when they were up, they were up,
And when they were down, they were down,
And when they were only half-way up,
They were neither up nor down.

— English children’s nursery rhyme

After my disastrous experience reading Louise Penny’s Still Life, I decided to return to the Golden Age of detective fiction: back when good plots were more important than overwriting a story with an obvious conclusion. And what better way to contrast the two experiences than to go to one of the “Humdrums”: authors with such a bad reputation that you’d think they were unable to entertain so much as a drunken fish. But I’ve challenged this point of view many times on my blog, and I will do it again. So I decided to go back to a reliable favourite: Henry Wade.

Henry Wade was the pseudonym of Major Sir Henry Lancelot Aubrey-Fletcher. I’ve said it before, but because his real name is so damn awesome I decided to say it again anyways. He’s perhaps best known for his series character of Inspector Poole, but he also wrote the fantastic inverted mystery novel Heir Presumptive, one of the best books I’ve ever read, regardless of genre. But today I decided to return to Inspector Poole, in Wade’s third book, The Duke of York’s Steps.

Mr. Queen on the Essence of Boredom

The Spanish Cape is located somewhere on the Atlantic coast, and it is the scene of a violent death when notorious philanderer John Marco is found bludgeoned to death. This comes right on the heels of a botched kidnapping effort also directed at Marco. Apparently, someone wasn’t fond of the man… but why on earth would anyone have removed the dead man’s clothes???

Yes, Marco is naked as the day he was born, but luckily Ellery Queen is on hand to investigate the business. There’s a lot of nasty secrets hidden, and blackmail is tied into Marco’s death as well. Which of the people on the Spanish Cape have stained their hands with blood? You can find out in Ellery Queen’s The Spanish Cape Mystery…

Mr. Smith = ?

It’s been two and a half months since the first death, and the murderer has literally left his calling card at every crime scene. He calls himself “Mr. Smith”—admittedly not a particularly colourful alias, but apparently an effective one, because the police cannot track the killer down. And the Smiths of London are understandably going through a very difficult time…

Until one day, Toby Marsh climbs up onto a lamppost and verbally abuses police constable Henry Beecham, who takes it upon himself to haul the lad into the clink. Once there, Marsh tells an astonishing tale: he followed Mr. Smith home from his last murder, and can give the police the address: the murderer lives at no. 21 Russell Square! But here’s the catch… no. 21 Russell Square is a guest house!

"Sentence first—verdict afterwards."

The Hatter looked at the March Hare, who had followed him into the court, arm-in-arm with the Dormouse. `Fourteenth of March, I think it was,' he said.
`Fifteenth,' said the March Hare.
`Sixteenth,' added the Dormouse.
`Write that down,' the King said to the jury, and the jury eagerly wrote down all three dates on their slates, and then added them up, and reduced the answer to shillings and pence.

 —Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Years ago, one of the directors of the Barnabas publishing firm disappeared. He never again showed up, and it set something of a precedent for the firm itself. Perhaps that’s why nobody paid any real attention at first when Mr. Paul Brande went missing. Except this time, the missing director shows up—and he’s very dead to boot.

Suspicion quickly turns to the dead man’s cousin, Mike Wedgewood, who was in love with the dead man’s lovely wife Gina. The police arrest him and are quite satisfied with the outcome… but Albert Campion is not. He knows the family personally and he simply cannot believe that Mike killed his cousin. And so he commences his own investigation into the firm of Barnabas and Company, and discovers that several people would have liked the victim out of the way after all…

Case for Sir Clinton

One of the all-time great mystery writers was Alfred Walter Stewart, a chemist who hid under the moniker of J. J. Connington. His series detective, Sir Clinton Driffield, was a sarcastic Chief Constable often accompanied by Squire Wendover. They shared plenty of banter along the way, often dripped in irony, as Sir Clinton investigated complicated cases that relied on plenty of ingenuity. Red herrings, twists and double twists are just some of the old friends you will meet in Connington’s ingenious detective stories: and without a doubt, The Castleford Conundrum is one of the very best.

In some ways, it’s an archetypal case: an odious woman is shot dead at her estate in the country. There was talk of her will being changed, in which she would have cut off her husband and step-daughter. The new will would have significantly benefited the two brothers of her first husband, and there was also a substantial increase in profit for her half-sister/companion. She had already rescinded the first will, but had not yet managed to pen and sign the second when she was killed.

The ghastly priest doth reign

One of the greatest masters of the Golden Age mystery was Alfred Walter Stewart, alias J. J. Connington. I fell in love with his work last year when I read the brilliant The Case with Nine Solutions. And I am delighted that Connington is back in print! This is due to the folks at Coachwhip Publications, a print-on-demand publishing house that has recently reprinted Murder in the Maze, The Tau Cross Mystery, and The Castleford Conundrum. I’m very grateful to Chad Arment for sending me review copies of the last two books—and I decided to start with The Tau Cross Mystery, which coincidentally fits in with one of my themes for the 2012 Vintage Mystery Challenge!

The Tau Cross Mystery is the tenth novel featuring Sir Clinton Driffield, Chief Constable. And this book takes place not in the country house, but in modern-day suburbia, a setting that is quite effectively portrayed. There’s been a murder: an unknown man has been shot in a supposedly-empty flat. Sir Clinton is given too much evidence, and yet none of it seems to lead anywhere: there’s an overturned paint pot, a bloody handkerchief, an altogether mysterious business involving an unnecessary pair of shoes… and the titular “tau cross”, a gold ornament shaped like a cross modelled on the Greek letter Tau.