A Short List of Great Stories

What better way to end this unofficial week of Crippen than with a return to Peter Lovesey? Better still— a return to Peter Lovesey via a short story collection published by Crippen & Landru! Since there are a few of these collections, it took me a while to decide which one to read—and finally, I decided on Murder on the Short List.

However, as my readers can testify, I’m infernally lazy. There’s quite a few short stories to be found in this collection, but they can be rather short, and it’s difficult to describe them in detail without giving something major away. So instead, I’ll vaguely describe some of the situations that this short story collection will throw at you. Are you ready? Here goes:

A harp heist gone wrong. A parade of elephants that leads to murder. A hearing aid heist planned and executed by a group of geriatrics. An attempt to seduce Adolf Hitler. A woman about to commit suicide discovers a memorial dedicated to her. Bertie, Prince of Wales, solves a Christmastime murder. Sergeant Cribb catches a Jack-the-Ripper-like murderer. Cold War tensions explode in a high-intensity tennis match at Wimbledon.

I am Chief Superintendent Lookout; Lookout of the Yard...

H. H. Crippen was one of the 20^th century’s most infamous murderers—or, at the very least, accused murderers. Over time, much doubt has been cast upon the “guilty” verdict, and some controversial new DNA evidence suggests that the remains found in Crippen’s basement may not have been his wife’s after all. (This evidence cannot be completely trusted, however.) Whatever the truth of the matter, Crippen and his lover, Ethel le Neve, fled to Canada, but thanks to the miracle of wireless communication, were arrested upon arrival by Inspector Walter Dew, who simply took a faster ship to get there first.

It is this infamous real-life murder case that inspires The False Inspector Dew by Peter Lovesey. In it, a dentist named Walter Baranov decides to murder his shrew of a wife Lydia on board the ocean liner Mauretania. The plan is a perfect one— he will be free to live with his lover Alma, a girl absolutely devoted to him. And in a touch of irony, to get away with the scheme he registers under a false name as Walter Dew, after the famous inspector who caught Crippen. There’s no way the scheme could possibly fail. But, irony of ironies, when a body is found bobbing in the ocean, the captain of the ship quite innocently asks the eminent Inspector Dew to investigate!

Anatomy of a Murder

Peter Lovesey’s newest book, Cop to Corpse, follows a classic plot device: a serial killer is out there targeting policemen. Cop to Corpse opens on the third such murder by “the Somerset Sniper”. Three police officers walking their beat are now dead, a clean shot straight to the head by an expert marksman who chose ideal locations from which to fire.

This sounds like a job for Peter Diamond, Lovesey’s series sleuth. He’s not your conventional police detective. He isn’t in great shape, he’s middle-aged and decidedly old-fashioned (taking particular delight in the triumphs man can still claim over the computer).  But the case seems like one even he will have trouble cracking. The police are inches away from catching the mad sniper multiple times, but each time the culprit slinks silently into the shadows, leaving his pursuers empty-handed. And on one such occasion, he even runs down Diamond himself on his (or her) motorbike!

You Reap What You Sow...

WARNING: This review contains a potential spoiler in that I give away something that does not happen when I hoped it would. However, it was impossible to describe my disappointment without this revelation. The reader is warned, but it's something that should have been obvious.

The Reverend Otis Joy is a very, very wicked man. Indeed, his bishop, one Marcus Glastonbury, discovers that Joy has been embezzling funds from the Church of England systematically, and there is a deficit of about £15,000. But Marcus Glastonbury wants to ensure there is no public scandal involving the church, and so he makes a fatal mistake. The bishop neglects to tell anyone of his plan visit to Otis Joy, coming more-or-less-inconspicuously on his day off. And so, Otis Joy seizes his opportunity and murders the bishop, making the whole thing look like a suicide. To add credibility to this theory, he makes the bishop look like a sex pervert who jumped into a quarry because of shame.

It’s a jolly start to the story in Peter Lovesey’s The Reaper, and as we soon find out, Otis Joy is not only an embezzler but also a serial killer. People who inconvenience him have a nasty habit of dropping dead and things are no different at his current parish in Foxford. But the police scoff at these stories, shared in the pub: after all, how could a man go and tell his congregation to live their life one way, and then turn around and do something completely different himself? Otis Joy is a man of the cloth: how could he be a serial killer?

Make way for the prince!

Getting involved in a murder investigation is serious business, especially if one happens to be heir to the throne. Yet that is precisely what Albert Edward, Prince of Wales – Bertie to his friends – does. Moreover, he approaches the challenge of detective work as marvellous fun, though the events he investigates are far from jovial. In fact, they are rather grim, as a famous jockey named Fred Archer (aka the Tinman) suddenly takes his own life with a revolver in the presence of his sister. The man’s final, frantic words were: “Are they coming???”

This mysterious allusion to some mysterious “they” is taken by everyone as part of the dead man’s delusions brought on by typhoid. After all, the poor man had been severely ill that weekend, and it isn’t inconceivable that the malady was typhoid. Yet Bertie is unconvinced—he himself suffered from typhoid, and Archer’s symptoms—or rather, lack of symptoms— seem most unusual. Bertie suspects that the whole thing is a well-intentioned cover-up in order to spare the family further grief.

Bloody Murder

“He liked his John Dickson Carr,” said Julie, standing in front of the books. “He’s got at least forty here. The other writer he collected has a similar name in a way—Carter Dickson. I wonder if there’s a connection.”

—     Julie Hargreaves while examining the victim’s books, Bloodhounds

My introduction to Peter Lovesey’s work was far from the best— I read and was disappointed by Mad Hatter’s Holiday. The second Lovesey I read was far more encouraging— Rough Cider was written remarkably well, with a colourful setting and excellent characters that fuelled my interest in the book. Although I highly enjoyed it, it didn’t quite convert me into a fan— but when I opened Bloodhounds, I had high expectations. After 120 pages, I could safely say that I was now a fan of Peter Lovesey.

Bloodhounds is a delightful book from start to finish. It’s a marvellous tip of the hat to the Golden Age mysteries I admire so much, and in particular to my favourite author, John Dickson Carr. Lovesey creates a group of characters who are mystery enthusiasts— they call themselves the Bloodhounds and they meet once a week to discuss mysteries. They are an unusual and very mixed lot— some, like Rupert, like “crime noir”; others, like Milo, enjoy classical puzzles. Through these characters, Lovesey gets a lot of talk about mysteries going, bringing up some decent points but also getting across a sense that the author enjoys mysteries too. You’ll find none of Julian Symons’ general air of condescension here.

The Skull in the Cider

Back when I wrote about Peter Lovesey’s Mad Hatter’s Holiday, I was heavily critical of the book. I found the main character, Albert Moscorp, a very creepy character who single-handedly brought much of the book down. At the same time, I noticed encouraging signs about Lovesey that may turn me into a fan yet, such as an attempt to create a clever plot and that “when Lovesey isn’t preoccupied with developing Moscorp’s character or throwing historical stuff your way, the story is told in a fun style. I suspect Lovesey would work better writing in a modern day setting.”

Well, 1964 is not the most modern date around, but that’s the setting for Lovesey’s Rough Cider. Theo Sinclair, a university lecturer, is approached without warning one day by a beautiful blonde who sits at his table while he’s eating, visits his office, and sits on the hood of his car in the rain for a few hours waiting for him. Theo is rather annoyed at first by her attempts to make his acquaintance. After a not-too-successful date, he gets home to find that she’s broken in and is lying naked in bed, waiting for him. His reaction? Why, he realizes he has nothing to complain about and brings up champagne for two, of course!

Revenge of the Mad Hatter

Brighton, 1882. It is the height of the vacationing season, and Albert Moscorp is the protagonist of the story. While on vacation, he becomes involved with the family of Mrs. Zena Prothero, a beautiful woman married to a doctor who seems ignorant of her attractive qualities. But of course, this is a mystery, and after a bit, murder intervenes to cut someone’s holiday short… It is a grisly murder case, in which only a select few of the limbs are recovered by the police: the victim’s severed hand, as it happens, is found in the aquarium’s alligator cavern…

First off, let’s get my major problem with this book out of the way at once: I hate the character of Albert Moscorp. He is a disturbing and frankly psychotic creation: he spies on the entire beach through his various binoculars and telescopes. When he sees Zena Prothero through the lens, he takes plenty of pains to acquaint himself with the family, justifying it all in the name of science. How does he manage to introduce himself to Mrs. Prothero? Quite simple: he kidnaps their young child when they’re not paying attention only to return it. It is a frankly alarming sequence which had my jaw hanging wide open as I waited to see whether we would enter the domain of pedophilia or not. The voyeuristic delights Moscorp takes are creepy: like Drury Lane, he is an unsuccessful, unlikeable experiment, with eccentricities taken to the maximum. This is the main character, folks… The person I would estimate we waste well over half the book on… Enjoy!