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.

When Two Great Minds Meet

Whenever we walk into the brownstone of Nero Wolfe, we’re used to seeing everything in its place. Fritz is in the kitchen, doubtless making another fine dish for his employer. Theodore Horstmann is upstairs in the plant rooms, tending to ten thousand orchids. And when Wolfe isn’t up there himself, he’s in his office reading a book and attempting to ignore Archie Goodwin’s sarcastic digs, with the occasional cry of “Pfui!” But how did it all get there?

After all, Wolfe and Archie had to meet—what was that first encounter like? Were they working on a case together? What case was it? What did Archie do to impress Wolfe so much that something possessed him to hire the young man as his personal assistant, when their personalities are such polar opposites? To answer all these questions, Robert Goldsborough ended up writing Archie Meets Nero Wolfe, a prequel to Rex Stout’s famous series.

A-Blogging We Will Go...

Hello everybody, and happy Friday! Although I’m aware of Patti Abbott’s Friday’s Forgotten Books meme, I’ve never posted an intentional FFB review myself. But this Friday is a special one—it’s Agatha Christie day! And readers of my blog know very well that at the mention of her name, I’m liable to go off babbling about how wonderful she was for hours. I’ve read most of her output multiple times and that’s why her name hasn’t shown up so often in reviews… but I did manage to persuade John Curran to do an interview/discussion with me on the subject of Christie.

For this Friday, I was asked to contribute an Agatha Christie review to Kevin Tipple’s excellent blog, which is where Barry Ergang posts many of his reviews. (Barry’s a dangerous reviewer, and I can’t even guess the number of books I’ve bought based on his recommendations.) Of course, I was both honoured and very pleased – for once, the ghost of Harry Stephen Keeler was on my side, because I was just preparing to write a review of Agatha Christie’s The Murder at the Vicarage!

So for today, I’ve temporarily set up shop at Kevin’s Corner, and I hope you will all join me there! Please click here to read my review of The Murder at the Vicarage.

The Doc it Was That Died

"[W]hy in the name of literature must I be fobbed off with long discussions of the detective's personal problems? Am I a couch?"

—Jacques Barzun

Dr. Mawsley, the Harley Street gland specialist, was not universally liked, but everyone agreed that he knew his stuff. He was, in effect, the top man in the country for all things gland-related, which makes his sudden death all the more mysterious. You see, Mawsley was alone in a room while his butler stood outside the door. Suddenly, there comes the sound of a crash, and when the butler enters the room, he sees his master lying on the floor, dead, having given himself a fatal dose of strychnine. It happens in John Rhode’s Death in Harley Street.

Was it suicide? Of course not—Mawsley simply wasn’t that kind of man. Utterly self-centered, his practice was thriving and he had much to look forward to. (In fact, he had just spent that evening discussing an unexpected £5,000 legacy that he had inherited.) Besides, suicide was far out of character. So was it murder? Equally unlikely, for several reasons that John Rhode details thoroughly (but which I can’t afford to go into). So it must have been an accident. But how could such an eminent doctor make such a stupid mistake and willingly give himself a lethal injection?

One Hell of a Mess

I don’t know what it is about me reading books involving the devil’s footprints of late. But that’s precisely what we get in Arthur Upfield’s The Devil’s Steps—at one point, it seems that Satan himself walked across a patch of grass, killing the grass there and leaving the imprint of enormous feet. And indeed, this is the cleverest situation of the book, and rather quickly explained. The rest of the book is a rather unsuccessful attempt to combine a mystery and a spy thriller of sorts.

Please be warned: I read an audiobook edition, and the narrator was good… but I have no idea how most of these names are spelled. So I won’t risk it. I’ll be avoiding names throughout this review. Anyhow, The Devil’s Steps opens with the murder of a German man down in an Australian guest home. Luckily, Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte is there to conduct the investigation? Although it’s not really a stroke of luck—it turns out the murder victim was a very highly placed official during the Third Reich and left the country with important state secrets that ‘Bony’ must recover before they fall into the wrong hands!

'Tis the eye of childhood / That fears a painted devil

Maciej Słomczyński

Joe Alex was the pen name of Polish author Maciej Słomczyński (1922-1998). His most famous accomplishment is that he was the only person in the world to translate the complete works of William Shakespeare – an accomplishment I mention because it is relevant to today’s review. Unfortunately, his translations have been criticized as unclear, unfaithful to the source material, and lacking “literary value”—whatever that is. Still, the accomplishment itself is an impressive one, and it is a work of Shakespeare’s – sort of – that lends his novel Jesteś tylko diabłem (You’re Only a Demon) its title.

I say “sort of” because the text in question is The Birth of Merlin, which although originally credited as a co-production between Shakespeare and William Rowley, most scholars nowadays agree that Shakespeare didn’t write any of it. Another reason I say “sort of” is because the book kicks off with the following quote of The Birth of Merlin, translated into Polish… and the lines I have highlighted are all condensed into the phrase “Jesteś tylko diabłem”.

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.

An Unsuitable Job for a Poorly-Defined-Character-Who-is-Nonetheless-an-Interesting-Concept

In Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep, the legendary private eye Philip Marlowe is introduced (at least, in novel form), and like it not, Marlowe is one of the most important figures in the genre’s history. For that reason alone, every serious mystery fan should read The Big Sleep at least once. Whether they will enjoy the book is another matter altogether.

The plot: uhm… Marlowe goes from place to place to witness people getting gunned down, and comes across every racist homophobic sexist in the city of Los Angeles. It seems that everyone’s primary purpose in life is to make Marlowe’s existence a living hell. There’s some stuff about pornography, blackmail, and other cheerful subject matter, and an attempt is made to create a plot out of it. The attempt fails. In fact, at times the book makes you wonder whether Raymond Chandler somehow managed to defy space and time and read John Dickson Carr's The Grandest Game in the World back in the 1930s, never realizing that its summary of a hardboiled mystery was a satire, not a guide on how to write them!

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 Acquisitive Chuckle III: It's Really the Fourth Entry in the "Showing off Acquisitions" Series, but Only the Third to Use "The Acquisitive Chuckle" in the Title

Well, folks, it’s been a while since my last update on acquisitions. And believe me, there have been plenty of acquisitions in the interim. My biggest haul was pulled off lately when a local used bookstore, which just closed down, held a huge final sale in which prices were ridiculously low. How could I not take advantage of these deals? There are plenty of books to cover and I know I’ll manage to forget some, so let’s get right to it!