tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8787364257168822822.post5419415658937898630..comments2024-03-18T11:01:42.459-05:00Comments on Pretty Sinister Books: The Carolyn Wells Technique, or: How I Learned to Stop Thinking and Love the MessJ F Norrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06473487417479127354noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8787364257168822822.post-79532254859133827302011-12-15T10:13:14.285-06:002011-12-15T10:13:14.285-06:00You're wrong, Peggy. I just went to Project Gu...You're wrong, Peggy. I just went to Project Gutenberg and I found these mystery novels by Wells: <i>In the Onyx Lobby, The Come Back, The Diamond Pin, The Gold Bag, Raspberry Jam</i> and <i>Vicky Van.</i> The first two are Pennington Wise detective novels and the others are Fleming Stone mysteries. Not surprisingly all of those books are also available in great numbers as dreadful POD (print on demand) editions for ridiculous amounts of money.<br /><br />For anyone who still enjoys real books a huge variety of her mystery novels is ALWAYS available from on-line sellers and most of them are very affordable AND in excellent condition. Why don't people buy used books anymore? Please buy from reputable used bookstores and keep them in business! This country needs all the help it can get and I think small businesses deserve your patronage now more than ever. I don't want to keep writing posts about the demise of bookstores like Bookman's Alley. This is primarily why I do not promote free on-line books.J F Norrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06473487417479127354noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8787364257168822822.post-49313892022376640632011-12-14T14:43:55.795-06:002011-12-14T14:43:55.795-06:00They sound so interesting. Project Gutenberg has 3...They sound so interesting. Project Gutenberg has 32 of her books but not one of the mysteries :(Peggy@Peggy Ann's Posthttp://peggyannspost.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8787364257168822822.post-63169407456837762952011-12-13T13:48:29.097-06:002011-12-13T13:48:29.097-06:00I tried reading THE BAKER STREET IRREGULARS (I thi...I tried reading THE BAKER STREET IRREGULARS (I think that's the title) by Anthony Berkeley and boy was I a victim of disappointment.<br /><br />Simply unreadable as far as I'm concerned.Yvettehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08919246184376538331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8787364257168822822.post-71808531863473917752011-12-13T09:31:44.186-06:002011-12-13T09:31:44.186-06:00Bob-
Glad you saw the humor in this post. I had t...Bob-<br /><br />Glad you saw the humor in this post. I had to be a spoiler villain in this one. You can't truly appreciate the wackiness of her books without knowing at least a few bits of the finale of any given book. "Puny the younger" is one of the funnier optical scanning errors I've heard of.<br /><br />Xavier -<br /><br />I guess you're right about other writers who choose not to follow the rules. Anthony Berkely rarely folowed the tenets of The Detection Club that he helped establish.J F Norrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06473487417479127354noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8787364257168822822.post-19712056703569213362011-12-13T04:51:42.329-06:002011-12-13T04:51:42.329-06:00That Wells failed to follow her own advice is actu...That Wells failed to follow her own advice is actually not that surprising: mystery theoricians from S.S. Van Dine to Raymond Chandler to Julian Symons always adopt the same motto, "Do as I say, not as I do". She seems to have taken it to the extreme, though.Xavierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05702919450638993709noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8787364257168822822.post-49404335234006590752011-12-12T19:15:34.795-06:002011-12-12T19:15:34.795-06:00Great review -- I laughed throughout. And I think ...Great review -- I laughed throughout. And I think I'll take a pass on reading Ms. Wells.<br /><br />Off-topic -- I followed your link to Mystery Tales of All Nations (which I might read if I get the chance), and it illustrates one of the problems with scanning books: It has a chaper dedicated to 'Puny the Younger'.Bob Houkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16982822149146722008noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8787364257168822822.post-47408935015024112892011-12-12T14:25:17.669-06:002011-12-12T14:25:17.669-06:00True, Wells is a delightfully loopy author. I love...True, Wells is a delightfully loopy author. I loved the scene in The Diamond Pin where the heroine, abjured to stay under close guard for peril of her life, is lured away in a moment by her missing dog. She is then (who would have suspected it?) kidnapped!<br /><br />That said, the wordplay clues in The Diamond Pin are ingenious. The lady is readable enough, if one suppresses one's giggles...Dr John Yeomanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03457052363231077457noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8787364257168822822.post-73943808902374133712011-12-12T01:42:16.683-06:002011-12-12T01:42:16.683-06:00Thanks for linking the review, John. that's o...Thanks for linking the review, John. that's one of the few times I revealed the solution (it's marked with a spoiler warning), because you have to read it to believe it, it's so loopy.<br /><br />If nothing else, her books are fun to review, if one has a sense of humor!The Passing Tramphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8787364257168822822.post-89596866051659012062011-12-11T16:17:48.054-06:002011-12-11T16:17:48.054-06:00Oops, sorry, John. Just take the top couple of sen...Oops, sorry, John. Just take the top couple of sentences away and burn them. :)<br /><br />At any rate, the book I mentioned does have a story by Carolyn Wells. THE MOSS MYSTERY.Yvettehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08919246184376538331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8787364257168822822.post-43905956384444043422011-12-11T11:47:07.545-06:002011-12-11T11:47:07.545-06:00Yvette-
You're thinking of Carolyn Keene. We...Yvette-<br /><br />You're thinking of Carolyn Keene. Wells wrote a series of books about a character named Patty and another series about Marjorie. I know nothing about them.<br /><br />If you want an example of how loopy Wells can get, go read <a href="http://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=4232" rel="nofollow">Curt's review of <i>The Umbrella Murder.</i></a> I wish I had found and read that one. Sounds unintentionally hilarious.J F Norrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06473487417479127354noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8787364257168822822.post-28676445976947513342011-12-11T11:36:48.529-06:002011-12-11T11:36:48.529-06:00Well, I love the Nancy Drew stories and The Dana G...Well, I love the Nancy Drew stories and The Dana Girls stories.<br /><br />But even in the rest of her output is lacking, at least the covers of the books were gorgeous. <br /><br />I have FOUR IN ONE Mystery book that a friend gave me a while back.<br />The four stories are:<br /><br />THE DEATH BELL by Edison Marshall<br />FLAT 2 by Edgar Wallace<br />THE REMITTANCE WOMAN by Achmed Abdullah<br />THE MOSS MYSTERY by Carolyn Wells.<br /><br />Read them long ago and damn if I can remember much. Maybe I'll take another look at the Wells one.Yvettehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08919246184376538331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8787364257168822822.post-21652241409810797492011-12-11T10:43:22.960-06:002011-12-11T10:43:22.960-06:00I like most of the Pennington Wise books because o...I like most of the Pennington Wise books because of Wise and Zizi. They are genuinely funny, often witty, and in <i>The Room with The Tassels</i> their dialogue shows Well's love of nonsense rhymes and puns. And they truly are fraudulent detectives which is why I call them con artists. In their scenes together they reveal that they love messing around with the people who hired them. Zizi is a kick and a half. Trouble is you have to wade through all those confab scenes before the two of them ever show up in one of their books.<br /><br />I recently bought a copy of IN THE TIGER'S CAGE because it was cheap, in excellent condition, and the plot blurb was too weird to resist. If it turns out to be one of her better books (as the seller told me) I may review it legitimately instead of writing a spoiler ridden one as I did here. I'll have to read your Wells overview at Steve's blog.J F Norrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06473487417479127354noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8787364257168822822.post-34557797426024645402011-12-11T10:26:28.381-06:002011-12-11T10:26:28.381-06:00One thing I know about Carolyn Wells, she was grea...One thing I know about Carolyn Wells, she was greatly attracted to the nonsense humor of such people as Edward Lear, She also was fixated on the idea that her readers loved lovely, simpering, idiot coquettes. Maybe they did!<br /><br />Carr liked her a lot when he read her as an adolescent and she also wrote some still-beloved girl's books, so I wonder whether perhaps her mysteries appealed most strongly to the juvenile (and tired adult) reader?<br /><br />I agree with John, I'm sure she wrote her genre study herself (by the way, it relies very heavily on quotations) and it's an interesting study, but her serious contribution to the genre as a fiction writer is pretty piffling, I would say. What I found most interesting about her is that she reveals that some American mystery novels could be as snobbish and wealth worshiping as the English ones are purported to be.<br /><br />I reviewed a bunch of her books over at mysteryfile. I think Steve declined my last one (The Master Murderer)--only time this has ever ahppened--because he felt she wasn't worth all the attention. But she's fun to review because she's so trippy, I think (and of course she's one of Bill Pronzini's famous alternative classics).<br /><br />Incredibly, though, I did actually find one I liked, that was fairly serious and relatively fair play. It's the only one so far. The Furthest Fury. I would actually recommend it. Maybe that means she wrote some other decent ones, but I'm not sure I want to take the time and effort to look anymore.The Passing Tramphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09830680639601570152noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8787364257168822822.post-57000154769615186862011-12-11T09:09:39.378-06:002011-12-11T09:09:39.378-06:00Hmmm... interesting theory. But I think doubtful....Hmmm... interesting theory. But I think doubtful. Her prose style in <i>Technique...</i> is very similiar to her fiction. She was probably one of those people who makes up her own rules as she goes along. I meet lots of them where I work. Own own ex-governor is a great example of such a person taken to the extreme.J F Norrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06473487417479127354noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8787364257168822822.post-688536672911024792011-12-11T04:59:41.698-06:002011-12-11T04:59:41.698-06:00This might come across as a crazy, somewhat inane ...This might come across as a crazy, somewhat inane thought, but is it possible that <i>The Technique of the Mystery Story</i> was ghostwritten by a professional writer in the employ of the publisher and they paid Wells to slap her name on the cover in order to lend the book a sense of authority? <br /><br />Wells was still an up-and-coming mystery writer who had published four books, but wasn't established enough to turn down such an offer. It would explain the lack of consistency in the stated opinions in the book and what can be found in her work as well as the reason for the long print-run the book enjoyed. <br /><br />There's a reason why everyone always refers to me as Mycroft... well... actually nobody ever calls me Mycroft, but you get my drift.TomCathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03415176301265218101noreply@blogger.com