THE CHARACTERS: Murder R.F.D. (1942) is the second novel to feature Doc Miller, Wayne and Burns. The setting as with the other books by Petersen is upstate rural New York. Ben Wayne is our narrator and the first case he and Miller were involved with -- Murder in the Making (1940) -- is alluded to a couple of times. Ben does some interesting detective work on his own, but it is mostly Miller who sorts through the evidence, discarding one theory after another, then pretty much uncovering the killer.
Doc Miller is a cantankerous man, wise but impatient. He seems friendly with Wayne and Burns but he definitely has an ego. Though Burns at first seems to be in charge, Miller takes over given the opportunity or not. State troopers are present but are mere background characters. The police seem unimportant here and there may not be a police force at all in this upstate New York farm village. The Petersen novels seem inspired by Queen and Van Dine with the presence of a District Attorney and an amateur sleuth.
The murder investigation primarily targets Orville and Agatha Deuel, the wealthy farmer gentleman and his wife, who have a rocky marriage. Agatha was allowed a friendship with Tom Wykeham, a man considerably younger than her, and it seems to have developed into something deeper and romantic though she denies anything physical between the two. Their intimate meetings suggest otherwise. Agatha visited Wykeham frequently at his ramshackle cottage. Her bathing suit is found hanging out to dry in his shack. And she was seen cradling his dead body moments after he was shot. Clues like a woman's white slipper, a burned dress, and blood stained clothing all suggest that one or both of the Deuels are involved in Wykeham's murder. Later some evidence about the use of a boathouse near the murder scene will add another layer of deceit and lies.Other suspects include Jim Kinney and Pat Gordon, two farmhands who work on Deuel's land. Kinney seems to have been responsible for letting the bull loose as revenge on another farmhand he disliked. Kinney comes off as a passive aggressive whiner, a weak man with a juvenile temper, who couldn't possibly be a killer. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Gordon, a hulking savage, with an intimidating physique and a sadistic personality. He will feature in one of the strangest action sequences in the final third of the book.
Louis Telford is the man who saved the day by single-handedly capturing the rampaging bull. A former cattle rancher from out west, Telford is described as "a wealthy bachelor who liked the bottle and was a connoisseur of women." Ben is mistrustful of Telford. Despite the playboy personality Telford seems eager to help the trio of detectives track down the killer.
Christine Nelson, is Agatha's niece, and she turns up about midway in the book arriving by bus from the big city. She has a few moments of sleuthing on her own and serves as the requisite damsel in distress late in the novel.
INNOVATIONS: It's mostly the rural setting that makes this book and all the other in the brief series so intriguing. It's wartime yet there is little talk of anything outside of the farming community. The characters have plenty to worry about among themselves without thinking of fighting overseas. In essence this is almost like James M. Cain on a farm with a plot heavily focused on a strange affair between an older woman and a younger man that apparently does not involve sex, and jealousies and highly charged emotions.
The detection mostly consists of the usual American countryside mystery fare. Farming routine, property rights, care of animals are always at the forefront. The clues are heavy on tracking footprints and discovering items left behind in tall grasses. A half-wit farmhand named Willie obsessed with American Indians often imagines himself in pursuit of wild men. Of all the characters Willie is the most skilled at following footprints and pathways through the grasslands. All Doc Miller and Ben need do to goad him into helping them is tell him is that they are after an Indian and Willie is set into motion.Apart from the extensive tracking sequences there are other subtle clues like the discovery of a party line phone in Wykeham's riverside shack and the previously mentioned boathouse and the borrowed boat. But whether or not this can be considered entirely fair play is a matter of debate. A clever reader might be able to piece together all the clues, but the motive barely suggested in some brief theorizing and dialogue on Wayne and Miller's part is not fully brought out into the open until the killer explains his motivations himself in the final pages.
THE AUTHOR: Herman Petersen (1893-1973) spent his entire life in upstate New York. Born in Utica he worked for several newspapers there and eventually settled in the small town of Poolville. For many years he was the postmaster in that village. From 1922 through 1939 he wrote dozens of short stories sand novellas for pulp detective magazines. His affintiy for that action oriented story telling is evident in his novels of the 1940s. Most of his stories appeared in The Black Mask during its heyday when the work of Hammett, Gardner and Chandler appeared in its pages. On occasion Petersen made the cover of a magazine issue so he must have been popular with readers. Other stories were published in Detective Fiction Weekly, Dime Detective, Bulls-Eye Detective and Soldier Stories. His final novel published first in the the pulp magazine Two Complete Detective Books (June 1948) was promised to be appear as a full length book from Lippincott but that never actually happened. I managed to score a copy of that issue and will be reviewing his final Gothic sounding novel Night on Castle Hill later this year.Herman Petersen's Detective Novels (all with Miller, Wayne & Burns except those noted)
Murder in the Making (1940)
Murder R.F.D. (1942)
Old Bones (1943)
The D.A.'s Daughter (1943) - no series characters
Night on Castle Hill (948) - magazine publication only
I really like the Herman Petersen books. I enjoyed the creepiness that was present for much of Old Bones, but I think I find this one as the better written of the two, even if it doesn't have the snappiest title. So many nice little touches like the picnic scene near the end, or Marion giving Ben the cold shoulder until he fixes the fence. I'd be interested to know your thoughts regarding which book you prefer. If like myself you would like to visit Petersen's world one more time, I can recommend the quaint sounding, autobiography 'Country Chronicle', in which Petersen himself is the unnamed main character, a city boy who adjusts to life in a small upstate NY village, after marrying a local girl and buying a rustic old house. It very much reads as a template/prequel for the Mr. Mrs. Wayne and Dark House.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Night on Castle Hill was followed by The House in the Wilderness (1957), which only saw publication as a newspaper supplement.