No Medals for the Major - Margaret Yorke

Lonely war veteran Major Johnson while doing his best to be neighborly and social finds himself through utter chance implicated in the death of an 11 year-old girl he picked up as a hitchhiker. Two shoplifting delinquent teens apparently hit her with the Major's car that they stole and took for a joy ride. One of the teens dumps the girl's body in the trunk of his car and they leave it outside his home as if it had never been stolen. No Medals for the Major (1974) tells of the suspicions that follow in the aftermath of the accident as the police try to make sense of why and how the girl's body ended up in the trunk of the Major's car.

There are no real mysteries in this crime novel as we learn everything as it happens. We know where Mary went, who she saw prior to the accident. We know the two boys hit her with a car and covered up the accident. We know that the Major was not responsible for the girl's death. Less a detective novel than it is an exploration of the effects of a crime this is a tale of gossip and hearsay, of neighbors who are hardly neighborly. The one bright spot for the Major are the handful of people who bravely stand up for him. They will provide for him the alibi and explanations he desperately needs to clear his name.

But no matter how many people try help the Major -- like Ruth Fellowes who is at first sympathetic to the crushing loneliness the Major lives with then becomes not only defensive of the man but fond of him -- it is clear that the man is doomed to a ruined reputation. He loses his job, he is shunned by nearly everyone in town, and in one disturbing scene is ridiculed by a mob of intrusive busybodies led by a hysterical woman who instigates an attack on the Major's home. It's not a pleasant story even with the presence of kindly Ruth Fellowes (seemingly the only person with common sense), or friendly Cathy Blunt, the Major's neighbor who peeks over a hedge daily to chat and accept vegetables he offers from his garden. Simple sentences like "He looked at the major and was the only person who did not turn away" describing the vicar shaking the Major's hand after church service and acknowledging the shunned man carry such weight and hope for Major Johnson. Yet deep down, as much as we hope for it, we know there will not be a happy ending in this novel. 

Yorke has a deft hand at creating suspense and the manner in which minor details have grave repercussions.  For instance, the Major in telling the police of how he picked up Mary and gave her a lift home talks of the girl in the past tense. This conversation takes place a few days before the body is discovered when the girl has been reported as missing by her parents. Of course anyone would do that talking about an event in the past but his final words -- "She was a nice girl." -- is like a bomb dropped. The cop makes a mental note of that single sentence. It's a subtle touch that might have gone unnoticed had not Yorke made the cop pick up on it. A savvy and perceptive reader will watch out for similar past tense lapses in future dialogue sequences about Mary.

Later, a nosy reporter looking for a scoop and wanting the worst possible outcome for the girl's disappearance tries to engage the Major in a conversation at the local pub. The Major refuses and walks away from the man. The reporter then overhears the barmaid call to the Major by name and he writes down Major Johnson in his notebook. Yorke ends the chapter with this line:  "He did not take kindly to snubs."

While the book is more of a study in how a criminal act affects one character Yorke does not altogether forget the conventions of a detective novel, even though this one belongs to the inverted mystery subgenre. The detective work by Inspector Coward and Sgt. Davis is sound and on occasion rather ingenious.  There is a bit about comparing mud found in the trunk of the Major's car to mud in a field that Mary walked through showing that she was killed miles away from the Major's home and nowhere near where he had driven the day before to and from his job at a tourist attraction. Even Constable Forrest does good work identifying Roger and Tom, the teen thugs who stole a pair of boots at the local market.  Forrest's sharp detective skills enable him to find om based solely on a strand of long hair found clinging to Mary's clothes. This is decades before DNA testing and yet the color and length of the hair helps Forrest track down Tom. With skilled questioning he gets the boy to admit his involvement in the accident. This clever highlight makes me want to read more of Yorke's more traditional detective novels.

Ultimately, this is a novel about character and behavior and how crime infects the imaginations of an entire town's population.  Major Johnson may have people who care about him but they number far fewer than those against him. No Medals for the Major is a sad story filled with loneliness, tortured thoughts and unfulfilled longing. When the tragic finale comes no reader can be too surprised by the dire events Yorke describes.

NEGLECTED DETECTIVES: Prof. Peter Ponsonby - Academic, Mystery Novelist, Amateur Sleuth

When last I wrote of Jean Leslie's professor detective, Peter Ponsonby, several years ago (One Cried Murder) he was faced with the apparent suicide of a psychology professor that turned out to be nasty murder.  He also met his soon-to-be wife Mara Mallory who became his Watson of sorts in two other novels, both of which I have now read.  The second outing, Two Faced Murder (1946), with Peter & Mara is a silly story that seems completely influenced by the madcap murder movies that the "Thin Man" series made such easy targets for imitation.  It began sort of okay with the disappearance of an academic's wife who was straying from her husband into the arms and bed of a dashing British literature professor, a  colleague of Peter's. When the two go on a nighttime search for missing wife Jane, tracing her last known locations, Mara literally stumbles over Jane's dead body in a heavily wooded area near a beach. Then, sadly, the nonsense kicks in. Mara insists they bury the body, Peter complies. Then she insists they mark the burial site. Then she says No! They have to uncover the body. Then they go to the police. I threw in the towel when I got to this exchange of dialogue between Sheriff Amos Schroeder and Peter.

"...how was Jane killed?"

"She's been strangled. Her neck is broken."

"So?" Schroeder gave the information his professional attention. "Not the technique I would have expected, but then," he added modestly, "I'm no great shakes at this crime business."

Not exactly a policemen exuding confidence in his own profession. And then he tells Peter and Mara that they are allowed to conduct their own investigation. Encourages them even! He confesses: "I wouldn't get to first base with the college people. I guess my methods are too crude for them." Too bad, Amos!  That's why you're a cop. How ridiculous for a senior police officer to ask a literature teacher and an academic secretary to conduct a murder investigation simply because they know the college milieu better than he does.  I couldn't read anymore. I shut it and moved onto the third volume hoping for something that approached the noirish mood and plot of her last book (The Intimate Journal of Warren Winslow) which does not feature Peter and Mara.

 

Turns out that the third and final adventure with Professor Ponsonby is the best.  And it mixes all of Jean Leslie's strengths in a story that is for once mature and hard-edged.  Most surprisingly, Three Cornered Murder (194) is thoroughly relevant and resonant for 21st century readers with its exploration of corrupt government, corporate greed and self-interest as the guiding principle of regional government officials more interested in lining their own pockets than listening to the concerns of their citizenry.  I was very glad to read a crime novel that smacked of realism instead of screwball illogic.

 

Peter steps into the central role of detective three days prior to his wedding. Mara -- more worried about the impending rehearsal, the guest list, the catering and other wedding plans -- helps only peripherally. And it is largely due to Pete's solo action as amateur sleuth and expert in fistfights that Three Cornered Murder succeeds so well. Leslie still has fun with witty banter, a seemingly innate talent as it highlights all of her crime fiction, but the focus on a group of thoroughly corrupt council members in a unnamed California town that resembles Santa Monica gives the book a necessary gravitas given the level of crime dominating the somewhat complicated plot.

 

Peter is witness to the shooting murder of city council member "Doc" Lawson, a G.P. whose patient list consists solely of his fellow council members. Lawson was shot while crossing a street and there are multiple witnesses besides Peter. When police arrive someone claims that Peter had a gun and he ought to be searched. Police do so and find a recently fired revolved in his coat pocket. Someone is trying to frame Peter for the murder.  

 

Lawson was involved in a shady gambling operation that is a cover for local government graft. He is also named as the pay-off man for the operation making large cash payments to several of the city council members. Joan Toplitz, wife of a former student of Peter's, is an investigative journalist who has written a book on city corruption and knows the whole scheme. She educates Peter and Mara about what's been going on. As Peter delves into this deeply ingrained graft he learns of a series of accidental deaths of the last seven (!) pay-off men. Joan, her husband "Babe" Scott, Mara and Peter begin to formulate a theory that someone they call Mr. X is behind all these accidents. That for some reason known only to Mr. X the pay-off man must be eliminated. Perhaps, they surmise, they are killed to prevent talking about the gambling operation and the bribery payouts. The plot then focuses on the search for a professional criminal who has masterminded the corruption and payoffs as well orchestrating serial murder disguised as accidental deaths.

 

I thought this story was very well done compared to the other two Ponsonby books. Less lighthearted and truly gritty this third entry often lets loose with merciless violence. One murder elicited a gasp from me for its random cruelty -- an intentional hit-and-run accident, brutal, ruthless, sadistic. That the victim is one of the most lively and likable characters among the supporting cast, Looney Wills — a newsboy barely out of his teen years, adds an unexpected level of poignancy amid all the cruelty. This story seemed utterly modern and unsettling in how it echoes our troubled times plagued with rampant mistrust of government officials and the disease of unrestrained avarice.

 

THINGS I LEARNED:  Instead of referring to Tom, Dick and Harry to refer to anonymous people a character refers to John Doe, Joe Average, and Addison Simms.  That third name was new to me. Off I went a-Googling. Addison Sims (with one M, by the way) turned up all over the internet. Of course! The best info came from an Wikipedia article on Ruthrauff & Ryan, an obscure advertising company that flourished in America from 1912 through 1964.  Sims was a fictional character created in an ad campaign for a memory learning service.  I'll quote directly from the article: "Ruthrauff wrote a prominent ad campaign for the Roth Memory Course. The ads featured a businessman greeting another with, ‘Of course--I remember you: Mr. Addison Sims of Seattle.’ The ads convinced American business people that a memory for names was an essential business skill, and ‘Mr. Addison Sims’ entered the vernacular."

 

Mara and Peter make frequent visits to a luxuriously designed drugstore with a soda fountain.  That drugstore and its staff become crucial to the solution of the hit man killings. While cleverly getting Bert, the owner and pharmacist at the drugstore, to talk about what he knows about Lawson and the shooting Mara decides to buy some cosmetics. Bert says, "That'll be $5.75 plus the 20% luxury tax and sales tax."  A 20% luxury tax on make-up?  I had to check on that. Whaddya know! According to a 1951 U.S. Treasurer's Report on Excise Taxes citing the taxes collected as a result of the Revenue Act of 1940 "...fur,  jewelry, toilet preparations, and later luggage, were subjected to taxes at the retail level, eventually reaching a 20% rate." Toilet preparations, which include make-up and cosmetics of all types, were taxed from 10-20% between the years 1939-1943. I spent way too much time reading about how the USA gathered additional revenue (apart from higher income tax) during the pre- and post-WW2 years through numerous excise taxes that were colloquially known by shoppers as the luxury tax. I thrive on these minute details in vintage popular fiction. I learn so much about the past.

 

EASY TO FIND? It's a shame that this last and by far the best of the Prof. Ponsonby detective novels is such a rarity. There were three copies I found for sale and I bought the cheapest several months ago. And now there are zero copies of the book for sale.  A true shame. This book is the one to read if you're interested in the work of Jean Leslie. It's not only relevant and resonant for our time, it's often rather witty and unexpectedly poignant. Of all the books I've read so far (I still have yet to read a non-Ponsonby mystery:  Shoes for My Love (1949) AKA Blood on My Shoe) the last Ponsonby book is the best written, most tightly plotted, has the most fascinating story, and is the most grounded in real believable crime. Perhaps it may see the light of day in a reprint edition.  If only one book by Jean Leslie could be reprinted I would like it to be Three Cornered Murder.