An Inconvenient Truth

Harry Vaughan just got a sad piece of news – his uncle has died. But then he finds out that his uncle has left him a massive inheritance! Excitedly, he runs outside… and from there, his memory becomes fuzzy. He doesn’t really remember anything that happened. He was discovered about twenty minutes later by students en route to class. He must have slipped on the icy pavement and knocked himself very solidly on the head. Nobody saw the accident, though…

It all makes sense, of course. That’s why he has that gap in his memory. But something makes Harry very uneasy. Only time will be able to tell whether he’ll ever be able to remember what happened. But in the meantime, he decides to resign from his job and to go back to his roots in Clearwater, a quiet little village just outside of Washington. But no sooner does he arrive, strange things begin to happen. There’s a prowler on the loose, terrorizing the village, and someone seems very displeased that Harry has come back to town…

The Beasts of Holmes

One of the most fascinating aspects of the Sherlock Holmes stories are the untold stories. For as long as I can remember I have been a fan of Holmes. I was very young when I read my first three adventures—I ‘m positive that two of them were The Norwood Builder and The Speckled Band, and I think the third may have been The Red-Headed League. One of the things that’s always intrigued me, though, are the references Watson makes to some of Holmes’ other adventures.

And it turns out I’m not alone in this. Many authors have tried expanding on these references, one of the most famous collections being The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes. It’s a collaboration between Adrian Conan Doyle and John Dickson Carr, with the two men sharing the writing duties on the first six stories and Conan Doyle writing the final six on his own – the quality takes a nosedive after the first half, but some of the stories in the first half are absolute gems. But is it mere coincidence that some of the most fascinating references involve animals?

Think about it. There’s the Giant Rat of Sumatra, a mythical beast that sounds so awesome, I can’t resist capitalising its name (even though it appears in lowercase in the canon). There’s the affair involving the politician, the lighthouse, and the cormorant. There’s that mysterious worm unknown to science, and the sinister-sounding red leech. All of these sound like terrific ideas for Holmes stories… but unfortunately, Sir Arthur never got around to them. But the next-best thing is available in French: René Reouven’s Le Bestiaire de Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes’ Bestiary). In this book, Reouven tackles Sherlock Holmes as only he can, and he delivers four stories about various animals that are referred to throughout the canon.

No Smoke Without Fire

It’s a dangerous world when an author sets about to write a book with pre-existing characters. The quality of such novelizations can vary wildly. An author might do well with the characters, construct a good plot, and engage his readers. But just as easily, an author could turn out a lazy, unmemorable product. I’ve come across both types of novelizations in my (admittedly brief) time. So when I finally made the decision to approach Lee Goldberg’s Monk novelisations, it was with something like a sense of unease. Which category would this turn out to be in?

My evidence is limited to the first book in the series, Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse. But I’m glad to report that it was a fun little book to read: it’s got a decent plot and good characterization. And it’s fun to keep track of the story. It all starts out when Adrian Monk’s home is being fumigated. None of his friends want him to move in with them, and hotel managers break down in terror when he approaches them to thoroughly examine their rooms. Finally, his assistant Natalie Teeger decides to let him stay at her place.

It seemed to be a good idea at the time...

Get your raggedy little Steven Seagal-lovin' a$$es outta here!

— Ed ‘Eddie’ Pekurny, EdtV 

I was given a review copy of The Man Who Would Be F. Scott Fitzgerald by David Handler, newly (re)published in e-book form by MysteriousPress.com. I had nothing but praise for the book, and in fact, I loved it so much that I went out and bought several more entries in Handler’s Hoagy and Lulu series of mysteries—which should give you an idea of just how much I loved the book. Anyhow, once I did that, I couldn’t stay away much longer, and so I went on to read The Woman Who Fell From Grace, the next entry in the series.

Oh, Shenandoah, a 1,032 page Revolutionary War epic by Alma Glaze, is the greatest phenomenon of all-time in the publishing world. It’s one of the best-selling and most talked about novels of all-time, and was also adapted into an acclaimed Oscar-winning film. Before her tragic death in a car accident, the author wrote an outline for a sequel to Oh, Shenandoah, to be entitled Sweet Land of Liberty. But there was one catch: the book was to be written 50 years after the author’s death. That time is up now, and the author’s daughter, Mavis, is to write the sequel…

A Demon in My View

I have quickly become very fond of Margaret Millar, which is why I decided to make her books an integral part of my 2012 Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge. Only Gladys Mitchell and Ellery Queen appear more frequently on my list of books to read. I decided to get the challenge underway by starting with Millar, and soon settled on The Devil Loves Me (1942). It is the third and last of Millar’s books starring Paul Prye. This is my first book read under the theme Devil Take the Hindmost.

Paul is about to get married to Miss Nora Kathleen Shane, and the ceremony is taking place in the ever-so-exotic locale of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. However, the wedding is delayed when one of the guests, Jane Stevens, drops from atropine poisoning. Paul then discovers an anonymous letter addressed to him. Part of it goes thus: I have always been intrigued by the funereal aspect of weddings and the hymeneal aspect of funerals. It is high time someone combined the two.

Murder most foul

Is this a dagger which I see before me,

The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee;

I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.

Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible

To feeling as to sight? or art thou but

A dagger of the mind, a false creation,

Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?

I see thee yet, in form as palpable

As this which now I draw.

—Macbeth, Act II, scene i

I find myself once again puzzled over why Henry Wade should be considered one of The Humdrums. I can understand why someone like John Rhode or Freeman Wills Crofts would be considered as part of the group, but for the life of me I don’t see that in Henry Wade (pseudonym of Major Sir Henry Lancelot Aubrey-Fletcher). I’ve just finished reading his book Heir Presumptive, and it is undoubtedly the best inverted murder mystery I’ve ever read. In fact, I’d go so far as to call it (ahem) Literary Art.

Heir Presumptive was published in 1935, though the edition I found in the university’s library was a reprint from 1937. It comes complete with a family tree and a map of Captain David Hendel’s deer forest, folded in an interesting way at the front of the book and the back. These come in very useful, particularly the family tree: the family history is a complex one, and at first, I found myself looking at the family tree quite often to see who was related to whom.

Too Many Accidents

Recently, there has been much talk about a group of writers who have collectively been labelled “The Humdrums”: men like R. Austin Freeman, Freeman Wills Crofts, JJ Connington, and John Rhode. (I for one cannot wait to read Curt Evans’ book on the subject when it is published.) The derogatory label is extremely unfair, something John Rhode proves beautifully in his book Death on Sunday.

John Rhode was the penname of Cecil John Charles Street—but apparently, he went by John Street. Much like Cecil Day-Lewis (who wrote mysteries as Nicholas Blake), he hated the name Cecil. Rhode has a reputation for being a technically-minded man— for instance, thanks to his technical wizardry, Eric the Skull’s eyes glowed red at The Detection Club’s meetings. Rhode’s (undeserved) reputation is also that of a dull writer who couldn’t entertain a drunken fish.