IN BRIEF: The Cock's Tail Murder - Hugh Austin

A wealthy bachelor who breeds and rents his prize cock-fighting rooter is found shot to death, a bullet in his head, in the doorway to the coop where several chickens are missing, including Bolivar of Reynor, the prize cock. In a surreal touch a brightly colored tail feather is draped along the outside of his ear.  ANd so The Cock's Tail Murder (1938) begins.

If the reader is expecting to learn a lot about the exotic breed of fowl (Oriental Anseel as Austin calls them in the book, but actually known as Aseel or Asil these days) or the now outlawed practice of cockfighting he will be a sadly disappointed. All facts related to fowl all info dumped very quickly in the second chapter and rarely talked about again. Instead we get another one of Hugh Austin's fair play methodical, police procedurals which does more for furthering the world of cynical policemen than it does anything else.

Lt. Peter D. Quint is in his sixth case in The Cock's Tail Murder.  Savvy readers will notice his initials spell out PDQ, a nickname he's earned from his fellow cops for his no-nonsense, efficient approach to police work.  Thankfully he's less than the annoying ass he was in his debut, It Couldn't Be Murder! (1935), the only other Austin novel I've read out of the small collection of Austin books I've acquired. Quint's most notable trait is his irascible nature and for this penultimate crime solving adventure he's been considerably toned down. When faced with lazy thinking cops or witnesses and suspects who toy with him Quint tends to lose his temper. This quote sums up Peter Quint succinctly: "When [he] stepped from the car his pointless irritability had changed to a sharp impatience with anything that delayed him from getting down to business as quickly as possible."

Numerous police sergeants and lower level cops appear throughout the story. Very quickly we get to know the crime scene photographer, a fingerprint expert who is squeamish at bloody murder scenes, and a rookie cop eager to prove he is first rate detective material by noticing key evidence before any of his more experienced colleagues.  There is also a robotic, insensitive slob of a Medical Examiner who makes a quip about the death being a suicide revealing he's also lazy and likes to write off obvious murders to close the case speedily and move on the next. Quint deals with this sarcasm impatiently as expected. The M.E. wants to know when the victim ate his last meal and wants that info soon so as to make his required autopsy go easily and quickly.  Every time we meet another law enforcement agent or cop (with the exception of the excitable rookie) they turn out to be jaded and blasé.  Interesting that a pre-WW2 era American writer had picked up on this aspect of police work so early in the genre. I thought the jaded cop in fiction grew out of the 1960s and 1970s.

But even with the unusual background of a womanizing chicken fancier and the art of rooster breeding the unfolding of the action is routine and a bit plodding. The majority of the book is devoted to Q&A style investigative work.  While Austin has fun with narrative tricks like alternating POV, and prose summaries of interviews rather than dialogue, they don't improve the flow or amp up the excitement. On occasion he creates a highly dramatic scene so artfully done it comes as a real shock. An example: a Q&A with a husband and wife who Quint finds playing croquet in their front c garden. Walter Atwood and his wife are clearly not getting on very well. Acerbic dialogue reveals this but the manner in how the two play their game is even more revealing.  Walt swings his mallet like a golf club and when his wife complains about his violent method he counters that he's on vacation and he wanted to be on the golf course. Mrs. Atwood delivers barbs and implies she was seeing Victor Reynor, the murder victim, as more than just a neighbor.  Immediately after that comment Walt sends his wife's croquet ball sailing across the yard, bouncing off the curb and rolling down the street along the gutter.  She leaves the yard and silently chases after the ball as Quint leaves completely put off by their behavior.

Austin likes to alternate the point of view by leaving Quint and his team of policemen to follow the action with other characters.  This is an attempt to create suspense and dramatic irony.  Suspects have confabs about their lying and cover-ups prior to Lt. Quint discovering those lies. It doesn't really work effectively because those scenes are inserted into sections of the story where they actually impede the action.

One more thing that makes Austin's books novelty items is his announcement that they are fair play mystery novels. In fact this claim is emblazoned on the endpapers of most of his books which were published by Doubleday Doran's "Crime Club".  The most interesting aspect of this book is not really the murder and whodunit, but the mystery of who stole the chickens and what became of them. That part of the novel is legitimately clued rather cleverly and the fate of the chickens is perhaps the most surprising feature in the entire book.

The Man Who Looked Back - Joan Fleming

THE STORY:  Anti-social Roy Unithorne has personal issues with the entire world. He dislikes his pleasant amiable, utterly harmless wife, Amy and is resentful of her friendships, especially with their boarder Islay Brown, a nurse at a local hospital. Roy begins to fantasize about Islay, imagining her a possible romantic partner. But she is repelled by him. Roy decides to "improve" himself by beginning an exercise regimen running along the beach every day.  Islay finds this amusing and she and Amy talk about Roy and his fitness kick.  Then Amy disappears.  Is she dead or did she leave Roy?  He tells two different stories to two different groups of people. To his new landlady and her daughter he says that Amy died suddenly. To the people he rents his home where he and Amy lived he says his wife became ill and went to live with a relative in Scotland. Why the two stories? Is either true? What really happened to Amy?

THE CHARACTERS: The Man Who Looked Back (1951) is Fleming's fourth novel, the second to be published in the US and it indicates a new style of crime novel for her, one that she would perfect in the 1960s. Like The Deeds of Dr. Deadcert (1955), her eighth novel, it is an inverted crime novel focusing on a criminally minded individual with a narrative emphasis on his thoughts and behavior. We mostly follow Roy's point of view though we do also get interruptions with the introduction of Islay and her fiancé Joe who become accidental amateur sleuths determined to find out the truth about what happened to Amy. Other minor characters also appear in various interludes. Fleming drops very subtle clues in these sequences about what happened to Amy Unithorne.

Roy is one of those fascinatingly odd characters that Fleming does so well in making believably eccentric and simultaneously creeping out the reader with his obsessions that ultimately will bring about his downfall. Living in his own world and fancying himself the object of desire of nearly every woman he encounters Roy goes about constructing plans for these women.  When they fail he sees the women at fault never himself, constantly perceiving his interactions only through his own skewed imagination without ever seeing those women as who they truly are.

Joan Fleming
(publicity photo circa 1966)

Lucy Shiplake, his landlady's daughter, is perhaps even more fascinating than Roy because we first learn that she finds Roy extremely odd and yet wants to find out why he seems so unhappy.  She makes him her "project" testing the waters by first teaching him to how to play chess, getting progressively closer to Roy with each new discovered pastime.

And yet Roy is still resentful and cannot appreciate Lucy's kindnesses. He has been snubbed by Islay who he foolishly proposed to in a scene that has a surprise for both Roy and the reader. He feels humiliated and explodes into one of his nasty fits and forever changes Islay's opinion of him.

Interspersed between the story of Roy and his women, we get several scenes with his boarders the Joneses who are baffled about the alternate story Roy gave them about Amy; marvelous scenes involving Roy and his landlady Mrs. Shiplake resulting in his destruction of a curtain that has terrible consequences for Roy and the Shiplakes; Joe and Islay's amateur detective work; and the late introduction of a police duo known only as Inspector A and Sergeant B who begrudgingly find themselves conducting what at first seems a routine missing person case but turns into a surprise murder investigation.

INNOVATIONS:  Apart from the unusual shifts in point of view I found Fleming's clever insertions of clues related to Amy's disappearance to be the most original part of the story.  And several amusing scenes dealing with the Unithorne's daffy neighbor Mrs. Parker and her obsession with Amy's cat Arthur who has been prowling around the local coal delivery company. Mrs. Parker is determined to capture Arthur and take him in as her pet.  She is worried about the animal which seems to be wandering around aimlessly taunting both her and the workers at the coal company.  Arthur enjoys spending an awful lot of time in two locations: in the branches of a tree overlooking Roy's flower and herb garden, and on the high roof of a building overseeing the coal cars at the factory. These scenes prove to be Fleming's most clever method of slyly indicating that the cat was a witness to some foul deed involving Amy.

Also, the book has a "howdunnit" element in that it takes the entire length of the book to discover exactly how Amy was killed and the body disposed of. In fact, there are multiple deaths and a couple of attempted murders. Although the clues related to Roy's highly unusual method are not really inserted into the story until well past the halfway mark Fleming has some unconventional scenes between Joe, a university medical student specializing in forensic medicine, and his mentor Dr. Giles Bangor, in which they discuss the possibility of poison. Suspecting Roy to be a murderer they indulge in some armchair psychology to figure out exactly what kind of poison he would select. Usually, I find this kind of pop psych to be risible in works of fiction, but here Fleming makes it seem not only logical but thoroughly believable.

For those who enjoy the works of Minette Walters, Ruth Rendell and even Patricia Highsmith I would highly recommend The Man Who Looked Back as an fine example of psychological suspense that those three other writers were masters of.  Joan Fleming in her early career was just as innovative as those three better known writers. Her work is unjustly ignored these days. At the height of her popularity when the books were first published she received accolades from fellow mystery writers turned reviewers like Anthony Boucher and Dorothy B. Hughes as well as numerous newspaper reviewers both in the US and in her native England. She ought to have remained in print as long as Highsmith, IMO. Luckily, her books were reprinted by the thousands in mass market paperbacks and you can still find most of her books, including this one, for cheap both in brick and mortar stores and online. Do yourself a favor and check her out!

The Curiosity of Mr. Treadgold - Valentine Williams

Horace Bowl Treadgold, third generation tailor in a family owned Savile Row clothing business, has two hobbies: philately and criminology. People with problems that should be police matters seek out Treadgold because they don't wish for police intrusion which is usually all about preserving their reputation and avoiding bad publicity. The Curiosity of Mr. Treadgold (1937) is a collection of nine short stories and one novella with the plots involving theft, disappearances, blackmail and murder. Previously in William's output Treadgold made his debut in the novel Dead Man Manor (1936) set in Quebec. He also appears in a later book, The Skeleton in the Cupboard.

Treadgold is yet another private inquiry agent in a long lone of characters modeled after Sherlcok Holmes.  Nearly all of the stories involve the kind of inductive reasoning Conan Doyle made famous with his iconic detective.  Not many of Williams' stories, however, are at all innovative or unique. The most original aspects are Treadgold's unusual profession and clientele which take him out of England to North America on occasion and his equally unusual habit of frequently quoting his favorite work of fiction -- Tristam Shandy, the 18th century picaresque novel by Laurence Sterne, a work that no one to my knowledge reads anymore or is even familiar with. Tristam Shandy is the Bible of H.B. (as he prefers to be called). George Duckett, H.B.'s lawyer and the narrator of all the stories, is rightly irritated each time another Sterne quote pops out of the Tailor's mouth.  And they happen in every story, often more than once. By the time a reader has finished the collection he may feel that he has read Tristam Shandy in its entirety.

A brief rundown of the stories follows.

"The Red Bearded Killer" - The title character is attacking women with a knife. Most are just frightened, one is murdered. A survivor of the attacks tells H. B. that in addition to his vibrant red beard the assailant wore a strangely colored overcoat in a pattern of green and brown plaid on a mustard background. H.B. uses his knowledge of clothing construction to explain the odd disguise and easily finds the knife-wielding maniac. The crime's motive is blasé.

"The Singing Kettle" - A strange sound is heard prior to death of a woman's wealthy uncle. he appears to have died of natural causes but the niece suspects the sinister servants in his household did him in. Daily delivery of ice cream to household is the major clue to how the death was in fact a cruelly executed murder.  Reminiscent of a similar clue in a John Dickson Carr novel published in 1941 and an American mystery writer's debut published in 1940.  Cannot reveal the title of either book without spoiling the surprise murder method. Unsure if Williams actually beat these two writers at using this method as I have yet to encounter any earlier instances prior to 1937. This may genuinely be an original idea for 1937.

"The Blue Ushabti" - the requisite Egyptology story of the collection. I think every crime short story collection had to have a tale that involved mummies of artifacts form ancient Egypt. Blame Christie and Van Dine. This was a dull story about the title object. A theft and switcheroo occurs during a blackout and  I couldn't help but think of a similar incident that occurs in the classic French Legion adventure novel, Beau Geste (1924). Despite the Egyptology background this is a prosaic unimaginative story.

"The Dot-and-Carry Case" - title refers to a nightclub. First truly interesting story in the collection. H.B. questions a police case listed as a murder/suicide and almost closed as such. Married found shot in his car and a vulgar showgirl is shot in her temple. Police say she killed her lover then herself. But the man's wife doesn't buy any of it. She loved her devoted husband and cannot believe that he would betray her by having an affair with a lowly showgirl, especially this particular showgirl known for her loose and flirtatious manner with a string of lovers. Leila Trent is described as a guttersnipe (!). She also ran with a drug using crowd and was a dealer herself. Story involves stolen identity and masquerade. The whole story is rather well done if a bit rushed in the finale.  I liked the scenes with Leila's roommate, Edna, a well drawn example of a uneducated entertainer who nevertheless has a good understanding of human nature.

"The Case of the Black F" - Mangled body of man found at foot of a train bridge cannot be identified because if s face is crushed. Excellent detection in this one once again using H.B.'s profession of tailoring.  He does a through examination of the man's clothes, especially in the trouser turn-ups, or cuffs as he tells the police they are called in America. Despite all markings having been removed H.B. determines where the suit was made and comes up with an idea of the kind of man who would purchase such clothing.  He immediately notices that the clothes do not fit the corpse? Is this man really Axel Roth as his personal effects seem to indicate? Some knowledge of Portuguese and German will aid the reader as they do H.B. when he realizes cryptic notations in the man's diary are not in English. First story in the book about spies and espionage which were the primary interest of Valentine Williams.

"The Strange Disappearance of Miss Edith Marless" - Blackmail of a woman addicted to gambling. H.B. consulted by the husband to spare them embarrassment and ruinous publicity. Involves rather obvious masquerade which I spotted instantly. Somewhat innovative but another extremely rushed finale. The story is all incident with all the clues delivered in the hastily delivered two page ending. Most of the stories in the book fit into this formula. Williams cannot maintain suspense in the short story form.

"Donna Laura's Diamond" - Missing princess, cursed diamond ring, decapitations. H.B. searches for Gemma Malatesta who was most likely kidnapped by professional crooks who want the diamond as ransom. Very action oriented, like an American pulp magazine story. Another slapdash ending with multiple car wrecks and slaughter of the villains.

"The Murder of Blanche Medloe" - Flighty Mrs. Medloe checks into Hardmore MAnsions wiiht Frank Barkley.  She doesn't check out. Maid finds Mrs. M strangled on a couch in her hotel room. Barkely is gone, but his luggage is left behind. Third story in which H.B.'s profession comes into play. Lots of Holmesian induction based solely on where the clothes came from and their wear and tear. Another Holmes touch is H. B.'s knowledge of exotic tobacco and he notes that the tobacco "silt" he finds in the luggage and clothes indicate a Boer brand from South America. This story is well plotted with an outlandish coincidence incorprated into the story as an example of how true detection can often go astray when the improbable and unpredictable occurs. A luggage thief steals the case of the murder victim's ex-husband! Very enjoyable and unusual story.  Perhaps my favorite of the book.

"The Man with Two Left Feet". This is the story which inspired the illustration on the cover of the US first edition (shown at top of this post). A Russian scholar is bludgeoned in his study and money is robbed from a safe. Young translator Christopher "Kit" Kendrick who was working with the professor is arrested. His girlfriend, another Russian translator and secretary to the professor, believes Kendrick is innocent.  Much circumstantial evidence does not work in Ki'ts favor. H.B. investigates with permission of police. He finds two left footprints, at scene of crime outdoor near a brick wall.  Also finss the murder weapon - a French bayonet belonging to Kendrick who has a collection of war memorabilia.  Uh-oh! Things do not look good for Kit Kendrick. Clearly someone wants him to take the blame. Nicely done story with some extremely unusual business involving war veterans and amputees. My second favorite tale in the book for the relationship between Kit and his girlfrined and the innovative portion involving the search for the title character.

The final story, Murder Stalked at Sea Nest, although at novella length sadly is the most formulaic of the lot. There are two deaths but the plot is overloaded with cliché bits like footprints, a tennis shoe lace, a hastily burned note with partially legible writing and some business with a phonograph record. One of the victims is a blackmailer.  The only interesting thing really is that George Duckett, the narrator/lawyer, takes part in the action much more as a sidekick detective rather than simply observing and reporting what took place.

Interestingly, this is not as hard to find as I thought it would be. My copy is currently for sale in my eBay listings and it's the one of five available with a DJ, also the cheapest copy offered for sale online with a DJ. If you are interested in reading this book, there are a handful of affordable unjacketed copies out there in both the US and UK editions. The UK edition, by the way, is titled Mr. Treadgold Cuts In.

FIRST BOOKS: Wheels in the Forest - John Newton Chance

"Cars, Siddons, cars! The place bristles with 'em. A Morris Oxford, an M.G., and two Rolls-Royces. The solution to this problem is in those cars."

 Emblazoned across the DJ front panel of the first edition of Wheels in the Forest (1935) is a laudatory quote from the pseudonymous crime fiction reviewer of The Observer, Torquemada, praising the debut of its author John Newton Chance. Torquemada (aka Edward Powys Mathers) was notoriously scathing in his reviews, nothing else would be expected from someone who chose as his pen name the identity of the cruel torturer of the Spanish Inquisition. To find a positive review from him, let alone a rave, was a rarity and I was tantalized. I came across a copy of Wheels in the Fortune in my book hunting and saw several positive quotes attributed to Torquemada related to Chance's first few mystery novels and I succumbed to the spell of Gollancz's marketing scheme. Could these books really be so good that the toughest detective novel critic of the Golden Age thought them exceptional?  For once the hype proved correct.  Wheels in the Forest is a corker. It delivers the goods on so many levels. And I'm already eager to try more of Chance's books from the 1930s and 1940s.

I'm especially surprised that this first novel turned out so well because the first Chance mystery novel I read (decades ago) was Death Stalks the Cobbled Square (1944), aka The Screaming Fog, which has the distinction of being one of Chance's few known locked room mysteries.  I remember nothing about the book other than that it was one of the few in which the author himself appears as narrator and acts as a character in the story. Nothing really new there -- Willard Huntington Wright was doing that back in the late 1920s as "S. S. Van Dine" in all of the Philo Vance novels. Then sometime in February of this year I read one of Chance's much later books called The Traditional Murders (1983) which based on the title I thought would be a fun retro-homage to the Golden Age. Frankly, it was one of the worst mystery novels I've read in a long time. Utterly forgettable, often stupid, filled with stock characters of the worst stereotypes, and peppered with inane gratuitous sex scenes.  I had to find out what happened to this writer who was so lauded when he first appeared to the world of mystery readers. 

He must've just gotten lazy and money-grubbing easily succumbing to all that publishers felt necessary to sell books because his first novel is nothing like that drecky book from 1983 when Chance was 72 years old. Wheels in the Forest is not only better written, it often feels more like a mainstream novel satirizing village life along the lines of Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm.  As I got deeper into Chance's first mystery the Golden Age writer I kept thinking of was George Bellairs who at one time I liked, but quickly grew tired of when his books all seemed to be utterly formulaic and repetitive.  Like Bellairs Chance employs an author omniscient point of view and allows the reader to know every single character's thoughts.  Chance does a much better job at this than Bellairs and it is one of the book's best strengths and innovative touches.  Every character introduced gets at least one noteworthy scene that not only fully fleshes out that character but advances the story adding layers of suspicion and motivation to the puzzling murder. A pregnant girl's body is found alongside a road in the village of Isle nestled in the New Forest and surrounded by a circuit of roads that attract motor car enthusiasts eager to test out their driving skills and the speed of their cars.

As the epigraph to this review suggests cars play an important part in the solution of the crime. Similar to Freeman Wills Crofts' fascination with train schedules and timetables Chance is a bit obsessed with speeding cars, their mechanics, and the timing of the many cars that were known to be driving on the roads leading to and from the crime scene. In fact, one character - Dennis Lambert - crashes his car into a streetlamp the very night of the murder. That car wreck adds an intriguing mystery to the puzzling nature of where the murdered girl's body was discovered.

 Our detective team consists of belligerent impatient Superintendent "Smutty" Black, his fathead of a sergeant named Siddons, a crew of lower level coppers, and the delightfully eccentric Evelyn DeHavilland who prefers to go by the simple moniker of D. Black enlists D as his unofficial spy in the village and orders him to get the locals talking and to listen carefully, but to never directly ask any questions about the murder. Black tells D: "You're a stranger, starting at an advantage, because you're not used to them. You might notice something that I wouldn't through being used to it."  But later we learn through Black's personal thoughts that he knows D very well from their years spent in the war together and he thinks D to be a fool:

Fools find out things. You can be off your guard with intel-lectual people because they're so wrapped up in themselves that they don't notice anything outside; but with a fool you risk being off your guard and the fool notices the small faults; proving that a fool is not such a fool as he looks.

That talk of fools is also an indicator that Chance was clearly a fan of slapstick comedy. He shows off his love of farce with several scenes of people falling down or otherwise embarrassing themselves in comic bits and gags. In the person of Evelyn DeHavilland alone, a Wodehouse-like fop who embraces eccentricity for its own sake, the comedy is witty and lighthearted. But when the dramatic moments come they are often as shocking as the intrinsic surprises and twists in any mystery plot.

Because we are privy to everyone's thoughts not just those of Black and D, the primary detectives, there are exceptionally well done dramatic vignettes.  In particular, a scene involving a dim-witted motor car garage worker (who through much of the book seems like a stock in trade village idiot) is heartbreaking.  Bill Jupe, the teen aged brother of the murder victim, breaks down in grief late in the story. In his emotional pleas stated in simple language he asks someone why was his sister killed so brutally, that it was so unfair and that he misses her terribly. It's simply written, direct and powerfully affecting. What makes the scene even more affecting is also the most innovative moment of the novel. That open display of grief in turn drastically affects another character in the novel and the book transforms from a whodunnit to an inverted detective novel. Shortly after that scene with Bill, Chance turns his attention on the murderer's thoughts and allows the culprit to basically confess to the reader!

Wheels in the Forest has turned out to be one of the richest, most surprising, and unexpectedly moving detective novels I've read this year. Copies are hard to come by unfortunately. There were three affordable copies for sale (a mix of first editions and later reprints) a few days ago, but after this post was published they all sold within a few days! There’s one left but it’s priced at an exorbitant amount. Good luck finding any other copies!

Death at the Helm - John Rhode

THE STORY: A fisherman and his son come across a small pleasure cruiser run aground a sandbar. Their shouts to whoever was piloting the boat were of no use and they sail out to see if they can rescue whoever is on board. No one is at the helm. But there are two passengers on board, a man and a woman, and both are dead. The boat is beginning to list and the fishermen leave to find someone to tow the boat off the sandbar and then call the police. Preliminary investigation finds that both were poisoned but identifying that poison and how it was administered will take quite a while. Suicide is considered until Jimmy Waghorn consults with Dr. Priestley who suggests that there are several possibilities other than suicide and murder should not be ruled out.

THE CHARACTERS:  Ted Farningham - brother to the dead man. A painter who has lots of information about his brother George and the mystery woman on board the boat.

Polly Farningham - Ted's wife who has a lot of opinions about who killed the two people. Knowing what she knows of George she absolutely refuses to believe in a suicide pact.

Hugh Quarrenden, K.C. - high profile trial lawyer who Waghorn soon learns has a wide knowledge about toxicology.  Husband to the dead woman. Stern, stoic, nearly emotionless he nevertheless loved his wife dearly. He knew of her affair and tolerated it seemingly. Is his stoicism a mask for a hatred that drove him to end the shame of infidelity by killing both people?

Collard - butler at Worsely House, the Quarrenden home.  Like all good servants he sees more than he will ever tell. Only when murder is introduced does Collard begin to talk about secrets Mrs. Quarrenden was none too good at hiding.

Sir Clarence Farningham - Father to George and Ted. Notably involved in the Purity Society, "pledged to unrelenting warfare against adultery in every aspect." He had no tolerance for his son's love affair. Possible motive for eliminating son and lover, ignominious sinners undeserving of living?

Sgt. Playfoot - the local policeman who makes the first investigation of the crime scene. Excellent detective skills. Collaborates with Jimmy Waghorn for the first half of the book.  A nicely done intelligent police sergeant for a change!

Jack Benover - Mrs. Quarrenden's devoted brother and George's co-worker at an international brokerage company. He and George were being considered for a promotion that would lead to a relocation to South America.

A variety of well drawn minor characters consisting of fishermen, shopkeepers, and two police forensic analysts. I particularly liked Isaac and his son, the fishermen who find the bodies; Mr. Wallis, one of the chemical analysts; and two shopkeepers in Little Huntley.

INNOVATIONS:  As Jacques Barzun comments in his Catalog of Crime entry for Death at the Helm (1941) this is one of the better Dr. Priestley mystery novels for clueing and detection.  Like many of the John Rhode novels the book is mostly a "howdunnit" with a large part of the story devoted to discovering the poison employed and exactly how it was ingested. There are two autopsies and multiple analyses of food and water taken from the grounded boat, the Lonicera. 

Interestingly in a side remark from one of the policemen, we learn that the boat is named after the Latin name for coral honeysuckle, one of the many bits of botanical trivia that flood the story. Botany features prominently, especially when Waghorn gets a tip that the poison most likely is a vegetable alkaloid. Mrs. Quarrenden picked several flowers while ashore in a short visit in a village called Little Huntley. These flowers were found in a broken vase that fell from the table where George and his paramour had tea prior to their deaths. Waghorn begins to suspect that somehow one of those plants might be poisonous and found its way into their food or drink.

Then there is the bottle of Hampden's Gin Blimp, a commercially prepared cocktail recently being marketed. Where did it come from? Quarrenden did not allow any alcohol in his home other than wine and sherry.  Cocktails and any alcoholic ingredients needed to prepare them were forbidden because he hated the idea of frivolous alcoholic concoctions and the new rage for drinking as entertainment. As the investigation continues the bottle seems to be the most likely method for introducing the poison. And yet the cork and cap were not tampered with. It's a quasi-impossible crime of sorts.

This was an engrossing story mostly for the intensive police work related to the poison. There is a bit too much of repeat visits to suspects who are encouraged to be more forthcoming. Several characters tend to hold back or deceive the police team.  Dr. Priestley appears in only three scenes in the latter portion of the novel in which he suggests how the murder was committed, including one in which he has Waghorn and Hanslet sample some whiskey that ends with quite a surprise for the policemen. In the end, as with many of the Rhode mystery novels I've read, the identity of the murderer is hardly surprising, but the manner in which the story wraps up does have a bit of a shocking finale.

EASY TO FIND? This one seems to be one of the most difficult titles to find among the Dr. Priestley detective novels. Only one copy is offered for sale online. I lucked out at a library sale this year back in the spring where I found a rebound copy of the 1941 US edition in pretty good condition. This title was not reprinted in paperback edition in the US and I don't know if there is one in the UK or Canada. A truly rare book, I'd say.  Perhaps try brick & mortar libraries or those online digital libraries I never bother looking at.

FIRST BOOKS: Two Lovers Too Many - Joan Fleming

Don't be fooled by the title or the odd illustrations on the DJs of Two Lovers Too Many (1949). It may seem like a melodramatic hospital romance novel based on the title and illustrations, but this debut crime novel from Joan Fleming is an innovative work incorporating aspects of the detective, suspense and horror novels. In fact, Fleming is prophetic in predicting how scientific discoveries and advances can be perverted in the hands of a criminally minded individuals bent of exacting revenge. Her insight into the possible exploitation of science is nightmarishly resonant for our violently troubled 21st century.

As the title implies, the story is about a lover's triangle -- or rather quadrangle as we will learn by the midpoint. Despite what the title says there are actually three men vying for a woman’s attention.  Daisy Walkern, a vapid femme fatale concerned with only herself and sexual conquests, is rescued from her life as single mother by Alan Walkern, the gallant but very homely and disabled (he has a club foot) physician. He marries Daisy and becomes stepfather to her unruly child Barney. While married to Alan, Daisy becomes pregnant and they eventually have a second son, Peter. But while married to Walkern Daisy continues her life of teasing and taunting any man who will pay attention to her.

When the book opens Alan Walkern is dead. And one of Daisy's "lovers" is dead, apparently a suicide by gun.  Paul Lathbury is found in the hayloft of a barn shot dead.  But the gun is nowhere to be found. How then can the death be a suicide?  Did someone remove the gun to prevent anyone thinking the handsome, well-liked, highly successful man killed himself? Another young doctor, Alastair Southery, is assigned as a locum tenens to fill in for Dr. Walkern until a new physician can be hired. Alastair begins an innocuous investigation with only a few questions concerning Paul's death. But the most senior physician in town, Dr.  Forty, an associate of Dr. Lathbury and Dr. Walkern is not satisfied with the police work. He is also concerned about an odd coincidence.  Dr. Walkern supposedly died from aplastic anemia and Dr. Lathbury whom Alastair is working for, is currently being treated for the same condition.  How is it that both of the town's doctor's contracted anemia within months of each other when prior to that both men had no signs of any chronic illness? Dr. Forty is relentless in pursuing this medical coincidence.  He even suggests that Walkern's death and Paul Lathbury's death are related because they were linked to Daisy Walkern.

Though he at first dismisses Dr Forty's wild speculation that someone is killing men who cross Daisy -- could it be Daisy herself? -- Alastair finds himself cast into the role of a medical detective.  He begins subtly questioning everyone in the village, eventually spying on them and doing a little snooping into their homes and personal belongings. When a medicine bottle turns up missing he begins to think that Dr. Forty's theories may have some truth in them. Alastair discovers that what can cure illness can also induce illness and he is determined to expose the murderer and prevent more deaths.

Some of the supporting characters provide welcome relief in a story fraught with tension and danger.  Alastair befriends a seven year boy, the son of a talented portrait painter Calliope Eldernell who earns her primary income as a servant in the Lathbury home. Both Calliope and her son Tim serve as the common sense characters who seem to be Alastair's only friends and provide the groundwork for what ultimately is a happy ending for this trio. Tim is a delight and Calliope, a troubled woman who doubts her own artistic talent, provides hope in a book that is largely doom-laden and focused on the darkness within everyone else in the village.

Fleming's first crime novel is utterly fascinating. She has created both a medical detective novel and a horror novel simultaneously. The murder method turns out to be diabolical.  It's a modus operandi first introduced as a fictional murder method back in the late 19th century by a handful of astute short story writers like L. T. Meade, but not truly explored by 20th century crime writers until the WW2 era. A master of innovation in the crime novel Fleming has never been noted to follow genre formula. She often employs imaginative twists and trenchant satiric touches both of which are on display in this first novel that promised so much. Many of her later novels are superior and this first effort definitely predicted great things for her. It’s a shame so few people know of her work and that 95% of her crime novels are out of print. 

The Holm Oaks - P. M. Hubbard

Jake Haddon and wife Elizabeth move into his uncle's home, a surprise inheritance. The house is located on a wooded estate but the forest of Holm Oaks was sold to neighbor Dennis Wainwright. Haddon has access to a right of way through the forest, but Wainwright seems unneighborly about the way Jake and Elizabeth, an avid birdwatcher who has spotted a night heron roosting in the trees, are spending time there.  Contentious relations follow. The problem is exacerbated when Jake begins an odd romance with Carol Wainwright, Dennis' wife. The two have secret trysts in the forest, talk of love, but never do much other than hold hands and embrace. Sex does not occur. Not even kissing! But Dennis senses that something is up between the two.

There follows a sort of symbolic rage expressed through legal battles about the forest and property rights. Wainwright wants to chop down the forest. The Haddons enlist the aid of a forestry council to prevent destruction. Then Wainwright puts up a fence and -- most bizarrely -- introduces some unruly and apparently violent pigs in the woods.  Elizabeth is fatally injured in a brutal encounter with a boar. Jake is certain that Wainwright means to kill his wife or him or both.

The setting, as is usual with Hubbard, is extremely well done.  The forest is imbued with menace. Throughout the entire book all of the Wainwright's actions and some of the Haddon's reactions are tainted with sinister ambiguity. This is Hubbard's hallmark as a suspense writer.  No one is ever really thoroughly good in a Hubbard novel.

Jake is depicted as a furtive man, spying on Dennis and Carol in early chapters, fantasizing about Carol, eventually falling in love with her. But his habit of lurking, eavesdropping and spying is as creepy and unsettling as the way Dennis comes across as a threatening, unfriendly neighbor.  Jake is the narrator and everything is filtered through his eyes so Dennis Wainwright is a villain from the get-go with little room for sympathy.

Late in the novel Elizabeth's sister Stella, a painter, shows up. She senses the house and forest are "not right". All her warnings to leave fall on deaf ears. Her antipathy for the entire area despite its wild beauty and tempting as a subject for her painting lead to an ugly argument.  Elizabeth kicks out her sister.  But Stella returns when all the warring with the Wainwrights leads to a violent death.

Overall, the book is very odd and sadly not one of my favorite Hubbard novels. It all turned out to be unsatisfying for me. The menace and weird spell-like hold the forest has over all the characters dissipates as the story focuses on Jake's infidelity. The whole thing devolves into a soap opera of hatred, jealousy and temporary madness.  There are better Hubbard books out there.

IN BRIEF: Who Killed Oliver Cromwell? - Leonard R. Gribble

 I've not read any of the Detective Inspector Anthony Slade mystery novels I've owned over the years until a few days ago.  If Who Killed Oliver Cromwell? (1938) is any indication of Gribble's style he seems to have been inspired by Edgar Wallace. While the title and premise succeeded in luring me into purchasing this copy, the story ended up very familiar.

Slade works for Department X2, some specialized section of Scotland Yard that is never really explained.  Maybe it's not even part of Scotland Yard.  I never understood the designation or what exactly they specialize in or why they get called upon.  In any case, he shows up at the scene of a murder at a masquerade party (or fancy dress ball as they call them in British GAD novels).  A well known financier named Stephen Ironsides comes dressed as his historical hero, Oliver Cromwell and someone stabbed him then made off with the weapon. The knife was stolen from another attendee, Peter Storand, who was dressed as a Roundhead. In fact, several people came dressed as historical figures associated with Cromwell and the Commonwealth of England era.  Sir Henry Dillocks at the suggestion of his daughter Frances comes as Charles I and she came as Henrietta Marie, his consort. This costumed trivia is an ironic overlay to the relationships of the primary characters: the murder victim was planning to marry Frances; Peter is in love with Frances and trying to dissuade her from agreeing to the marriage her father wants with Ironsides.

The story begins as a detective novel with the above eccentric plot details then, when it is discovered that the murder victim is an impostor, the book slowly morphs into an Edgar Wallace style thriller. As more suspects are found a subplot with gun runners, petty criminals and Ironsides' failing businesses complicate the plot.  It all starts to fall apart when Frances is kidnapped followed swiftly by the introduction of doppelgängers, plastic surgery, bribed servants, and ending with a forced marriage at sea performed by the ship's captain with the police in hot pursuit to stop it. Immediately, I thought of The Avenging Saint by Leslie Charteris, written several years before Gribble's book, which has exactly the same action-filled climax in the finale. While there are some unexpected incidents, much of Who Killed Oliver Cromwell? is laden with heavy melodrama and tiresome heightened dialogue sections that date the book.

I liked the relationship between Slade and his sergeant Clinton, but this too seems formulaic for an early GAD police procedural.  The comic Detective Sergeant is fairly standard in these types of mystery novels.  I wonder who was the first to have a murder mystery with the serious Detective Inspector in charge assisted by the somewhat whiny and comic sergeant.  Was it Wallace?  I haven't read enough of his books to know.

The villain is obvious from the start and his intricately thought out crimes and schemes are variously described as "fantastic" and "stupendous".  I'd use the adjective outlandish.  But of course it's fiction from a bygone era when these books were meant to thrill and excite. I guess in some ways it still succeeds.  I know my eyebrows were raised at a several points even if some of those surprises literally came in the last two pages in a written confession that explained two quasi-impossibilities related to the stabbing murder.

Gribble may be worth investigating in later Slade books or even in his many other mystery writing guises.  He also wrote as Leo Grex, Bruce Sanders, and several other pseudonyms.  The very first Gribble book, The Case of the Marsden Rubies (1929), is alluded to in the penultimate chapter. Though Gribble mentions one surprise plot element the villain of ...Marsden Rubies was -- thankfully -- not named.  It's a fairly easy to find book and I may sample one more tasting of Gribble and Slade in the future.  I know I have The Frightened Chameleon, a Slade mystery from 1950, somewhere in a box in this book museum. Stay tuned.

The Bowstring Murders - Carr Dickson (John Dickson Carr)

I've had my copy of The Bowstring Murders (1933) for decades. Why have I never read it until a few days ago? Well, for one thing it's a treasure. I own the hardcover first edition with the silly attempt at creating a new pseudonym for John Dickson Carr. Instead of "Christopher Street", the name Carr wanted as his pseudonym, an executive at William Morrow slapped the utterly giveaway name of "Carr Dickson" on the book. Copies of the original hardcover with this pseudonym are extremely hard to find these days. It's the only book with that dumb pen name.

Maybe Carr's angry reaction to that decision of which he was not notified as Douglas Greene records in The Man Who Explained Miracles (1995) was the reason that this book is also the only one with John Gaunt, a detective consultant to Scotland Yard who shuns modern scientific advances. I was sorting through a box of vintage paperbacks and I found another copy of The Bowstring Murders, this one a 1970s era reprint from Belmont Books. I figured: Well, no time like the present. So I dashed off my long overdue read of this early John Dickson Carr book in a couple of days last week.  Interestingly, it seems more of a retread of both Carr's own books as well as the work of some of his influences.

The story takes place in a familiar Carr setting: the Gothic castle known as Bowstring, home of Henry Steyne, AKA Lord Rayle. Bowstring comes complete with a moat and a man made waterfall on the vast estate that feeds the water in the moat and keeps it flowing to avoid the stench and health hazards of stagnant water.  The reader is constantly reminded of the presence of the waterfall and its never-ending roar which prevents many of the characters from hearing certain crucial sounds related to the several murders that take place. Also notable is that the story takes place over only three days.

UK 1st edition. Used Carter Dickson as author.
Body is illustrated as face up unlike in the book.

Lord Rayle is an eccentric medievalist who prefers living in the past and lecturing anyone who will indulge him on his vast collection of medieval weaponry and suits of armor. The night before he is killed a pair of gauntlets go missing. Then Lord Rayle decides to nail shut a door hidden behind a tapestry in the armor room that leads to a secret alcove. It's almost a case of shutting barn door after the horse has fled.  Later, we learn that passageway was used a trysting spot for his daughter Patricia. She would use that hidden area to meet a handsome guest, Larry Kestevan, for midnight snogging sessions. As she is thwarted from meeting her lover Patricia eventually discovers her father's body, practically tripping over it in the candlelit armor room. Her father was apparently strangled by a bowstring and his body is crumpled in a strange position face down on the floor of the armor room.

Gaunt is called in to help Inspector Tape. Prior to the arrival of Gaunt the book is fairly colorless with lots of chit chat from Francis Steyne, son to Lord Rayle, and what amounts to a lot of malarkey about the collection of armor. For me, Gaunt was the only really interesting person in the entire cast.  Another in a long line of omniscient detectives with antisocial tendencies, a high opinion of himself, and critical opinions of everyone else, he's also a rampant alcoholic. Carr tries to hint at a tragedy in his past as a reason for his heavy drinking. (He caused the death of one of his partners, I think. I forgot to note it exactly.) Eventually he lost his job with the police due to his drinking, but still manages to be called in regularly to help with unusual crimes. And so we find him at Bowstring trying to make sense of not only the strangling death of Lord Rayle but also the strangling of the maid Doris, who claimed to have seen a suit of armor standing in a stairway a few nights prior to both violent murders. About midway through the book another character is killed. But this person is shot to death which immediately dismisses the idea of anything supernatural related to a ghostly figure in armor.

1973 Belmont paperback
This time the body is face down (sort of), but
his arms are wrong! They should be underneath.
And the clothes are all wrong, too.

The most impressive feature is not the bizarre murder method of strangling by gauntlets (already used by Carolyn Wells in 1931's Horror House) or the impossible circumstances surrounding the brutal murders. Instead what stands out as more ingenious is how Carr manages to take all the minute details -- details most readers will dismiss as ornament and filler -- and apply them to the overarching plot. Offhand comments and one particular insult, for example, all serve to support Gaunt's solution. All details reveal the strange weak character flaw of the murderer, a person with a lack of imagination whose lies are obvious. At least to Gaunt.

Lying and the art of lying seem to be central to the book.  Gaunt has a mini lecture on the dubious science behind the lie detector machine, a fairly new invention and used regularly in police investigations since the mid 1920s. He describes in detail the lack of understanding of psychology of liars' behavior and how that will almost certainly backfire the moment a lie detector machine is introduced.  He believes that the machine's recording of the body's reactions (pulse, heart rate and respiratory signals) are not the telltale signs of lying. In fact, the liar he believes will immediately be put on guard and the usual giveaway of a liar -- elaborate storytelling -- will be substituted for short colorless answers lacking in the details that will always reveal a liar.

Due to a rather small set of suspects the ultimate reveal of the killer is no real gasp-inducing surprise. It's clear that of the small pool of suspects -- Francis, Patricia, Larry, the footman Saunders, and Bruce Massey, Lord Rayle's secretary and financial advisor -- it can only be one of three people. Greene mentions in The Men Who Explained Miracles that the solution seems to very similar to another book Carr wrote prior to 1933 which featured Henri Bencolin.  He says that it may be one of Carr's many cases of self-plagiarism in his early career. Carr was known to recycle ideas form short stories and put them into his novels. This happened several times in the stories that appear in Department of Queer Complaints, for example. Ultimately, it was fun to see just how Gaunt caught the killer who he says acted mostly on impulse even though his crimes had been well thought out in advance. In one way this novel is more satisfying as a howdunit and whydunit than it is the old-fashioned whodunit.

It's Her Own Funeral - Carol Carnac

THE STORY:  Anne Tempest is recuperating from a broken leg. Her primary caretaker and niece, Isobelle Verringer, decides she has  had enough of her aunt and the gloomy house. She summons two young cousins to come live with their great aunt, to take over as caretakers of both the bedridden woman and the grounds so Isobelle can finally leave.  The cousins -- brother and sister Roland and Jane -- move in and make substantial improvements to the antiquated home. The major renovation project is getting a gas cylinder operated stove to replace the immense, impractical and ancient range in the kitchen. Within weeks there is a horrible gas leak and the Palings, husband and wife servants working for Aunt Anne, succumb to gas inhalation and pass out in the kitchen. Jane rescues both servants then rushes upstairs to Aunt Anne whose bedroom is directly above the kitchen. The rafters have cracks in the ceiling and anyone can see through those cracks into Aunt Anne's bedroom floor. Jane fears the gas made its way into the bedroom and rushes upstairs. But she is too late. Her great aunt is dead and has been for hours, her body rigid and a disconcerting smile on her face.

THE CHARACTERS: It's Her Own Funeral (1952) is a claustrophobic story confined to a small cast of only five major characters along with policeman Julian Rivers who shows up to investigate the suspicious gas leak. The ruinous Tempest estate is a character unto itself. It consists of the old main house, filled with empty rooms and decrepit furnishings dating back centuries, and a cottage which was the home of the Palings. They've been displaced by Isobelle so that Roland and Jane can move in and make their home there. The Palings are ordered to move into the main house where they can be closer to Anne. Maggie Paling and her husband do not leave too willingly as they love the cottage, but eventually relent and give up their treasured cozy home for the young people.

The book is as much a murder mystery as it is a study of differing generations. Aunt Anne representing the eldest generation clinging to a past, honoring the antiquity of the only home she's known since her childhood.  Isobelle, one generation removed from Anne Tempest, is the haughty indifferent and impatient agent of a generation so desirous of moving forward with little room in her heart (what little heart she has) for a past best forgotten and buried. She cannot abide Dene Manor with its dust filled rooms, museum like atmosphere filled with useless relics and dour faced portraits of her ancestors hanging on the dingy walls. In fact she outright states she loathes the place on every occasion she can. Of course Jane and Roland, the youngest members of the cast, are the symbols of a bright and carefree future.

Roland is a would-be poet who looks forward to steeping himself in his family's rich past. Snuggled in the coziness of the warm and inviting cottage he plans to draw on that past to inspire him. Before Great-Aunt Anne dies she remarks that Roland is a remarkable dopplegänger for her brother, Roland's namesake and the black sheep of the Tempest family. The long dead and elder Roland, grandfather of Jane and her brother, had fallen in love with a servant and was disowned by his father. Roland the younger shares with his grandfather the Tempest temper; both Rolands have an angry violent streak. Inspector Rivers learns that Roland displayed that anger when the intrusive Guy Deraine, another cousin in the Tempest dynasty, barged into the cottage uninvited to lecture Jane on her "thievery." Guy suspects that the siblings took not only furniture from the main house but valuable objects and he wants them returned.  Roland interrupted the argument and ended it by punching Guy in the nose.  rivers suspects that Roland' temper may be a sign of a murderous streak.  Could the brother and sister be truly guilty of stealing from their aunt and killed her to get their hands on everything they wanted?

Complications arise with the introduction of two neighboring families who are tenant farmers on the Tempest estate. Of these two families the most intriguing of them are the Boltons and their strange daughter Kathie. Kathie is described by nearly everyone -- especially disdainful Isobelle -- as a deviant or a half-wit. She behaves oddly, chants in a sing-song manner, is often found hiding in bushes and shrubbery spying on the members of the Tempest household.  Rumor has it she also enters the Tempest kitchen uninvited regularly helping herself to food she may find on the table. Maggie Paling insists that Kathie has never set foot in the kitchen. And so Rivers tests the rumor with a fascinating experiment and learns that Kathie is easily tempted with treats.  In fact, it's quite possible that the girl entered the kitchen without anyone knowing. Was she responsible for monkeying with the gas taps? And did she cause the accidental death of Anne Tempest and the gas poisoning of the servants?

There is more to Kathie than any reader may suspect. She becomes instrumental in the story and her mother, a drunken woman of mercurial disposition with an ethnic background as a "gypsy", is the most surprising character of the entire novel. Mrs. Bolton has an adversarial relationship with nearly everyone due to her "gypsy" nature. She thinks very little of Mrs. Paling, and Rivers soon learns the feeling is mutual. But the relationship between Kathie and her mother and the somewhat startling secret that Mrs. Bolton keeps from everyone except the penetrating interrogation of Julian Rivers adds quite an unexpected twist to the already very convoluted and twisty plot.

INNOVATIONS:  Witchcraft comes up frequently throughout the story.  Mrs. Bolton is a gypsy with strange powers. Many people Rivers interviews mention the day Kathie wandered into the woods and "came back changed."  This coupled with the heavy Gothic descriptions of Dene Manor add a level of superstition and "the unknown" to a novel already teeming with unease and creepiness. Additionally, Rivers finds witnesses who talk of Anne Tempest as a witch for she eschewed modern medicine and concocted her own remedies using herbs from her rich and varied garden.

A subplot is introduced ever so subtly when Guy Deraine pursues his suspicions of Jane and Roland as stealing "valuables" from the main house. When Rivers questions Guy about what exactly the valuables consist of the man cannot name anything specific. He has only feelings and instinct that the brother and sister came to Dene Manor with ulterior motives. But Rivers sees the odd relationship between Isobelle and Guy (she openly insults Guy and belittles his accusations of the young people as petty thieves) as an artifice covering up something far more sinister. Anyone familiar with detective novel conventions would immediately suspect haughty Isobelle of ulterior motives herself. Her personality is so cultivated in its contempt for everyone and everything it can't possibly be genuine. Carnac handles the subtleties of this subplot and strews about a plethora of red herrings with mastery.  I was sure that Isobelle was a villain of some sort, but was ultimately surprised when Rivers exposes a truly devious clash of wills between several unsuspected villains that had been cleverly embedded throughout the entire book.

QUOTES:   Those who worked with Rivers at Scotland Yard knew how deceptive were his sleepy glance and his amiable if sometimes flippant manner. Rivers had not only an observant and retentive mind, he had a lively imagination, and a very small item of evidence sometimes set his imagination working, so that he saw the relevance of a fact which, however small, seemed anomalous.

"Nonsense is mischievous sometimes," said Rivers, "especially if people let themselves get frightened by it."

An Isobelle rant:  "If I have to put up with much more melodrama, I shall be a mental case Have you got enough imagination to realise what it's like for a civilized being in this charnel house? It's as if death were gibbering at you round every corner. Look at it!"

He thought hard as he strode along, and it occurred to him that his progress through the mist was very akin to his detection in this case.  In front of him was still the impenetrable mist of uncertainty. On either side were indications of progress--small facts which could be likened to the frosty verges which his torch illuminated. And how easy it would be to fall into the ditch or to take a side turning in detection, Rivers was only too well aware. [...] the ditch ready to fall into--the bottomless ditch which awaits every detective whose awareness fails to interpret the facts which edge his path.

EASY TO FIND?  Remarkably this Carol Carnac mystery was reprinted in a variety of formats apart from the original UK and US hardcover editions, some of which are out there for sale but of course are also the most expensive options. In the UK and Canada It's Her Own Funeral was reprinted by Collins in a paperback edition under their "White Circle Crime Club" imprint.  I found two of those offered for sale online. In the US the novel was reprinted as part of the ubiquitous Detective Book Club in a 3-for-1 omnibus. There are a handful of those DBC editions out there waiting for purchase.  These are always the cheapest options and you get two other books: Dead Man's Plan by Mignon G. Eberhart and Death Begs the Question by Lois Eby & John C. Fleming.

Oh, one more thing (as Lt. Columbo liked to say)... You can buy my copy  Sorry…it sold in only three days. Happy hunting for another copy.

Exit Screaming - Christopher Hale

THE STORY:  It's 3:00 AM in Avondale, Michigan and Jill Trent has been awakened by a bloodcurdling scream followed by the sound of four gun shots. Against her better judgment she goes outside to investigate and meets up with her neighbors Gene Ramsay and Mr & Mrs Truax.  They find blood on the cement terrace of the home belonging to Mrs. Warner.  But there is no sign of any person anywhere near these bloodstains.  Two more pools of blood are found near a barn.  And inside a feed barrel covered with glass bottles they find the body of Mrs. Warner.  Soon Sheriff Perry Simmons, ill equipped to handle a murder investigation and too busy with some cattle thieves, is forced to call in help from the Michigan State Police. Lt. Bill French shows up in his Rolls Royce coupe dressed in smartly tailored clothes and gets to serious work very quickly. Before the killer is revealed there will be an attack on a dog, an escaped cottonmouth snake, a missing chauffeur, numerous rifles as possible murder weapons, several phony identities and two more murders.

THE CHARACTERS: The action of Exit Screaming (1942) is mostly confined to Avondale, a small town mixing wealthy Michiganders with cattle farmers and country folk. The primary characters consist of:

Jill Trent - our intrepid heroine with a violent secret in her past. She seems like she might have tiptoed out of a Mignon Eberhart "woman in peril" mystery novel because she is always at the mercy of insane dangers. She survives several shooting attempts and the attack from the escaped venomous snake mentioned above. Though she may have a bandaged head wound for most of the book she proves to be not only intrepid but pretty damn smart unlike the often foolhardy heroines found in neo-HIBK novels.

Gene Ramsay - the requisite dark and handsome man with a mysterious past. No one really knows what he is doing in the cottage on the grounds of Mrs. Warner's estate. Rumor has it he's writing a book. Others claim he is a doctor who gave up his profession. But Gene isn't revealing what he does for a living or what he's settled in Avondale. He does have a rifle that matches the caliber of the bullets found in Mrs. Warner's body and that makes him Suspect # 1 in the eyes of Sheriff Simmons. Jill wavers in and out of suspecting him. Gene proves to be her savior on more than one occasion. Can he possible have murdered his landlady? And if so, why?

Randolph & Ivabell Truax - Mrs. Truax is more of a bogey character as far as I'm concerned and appears in only two scenes. Let's just skip over her. It's Mr. Truax who is of interest. A lawyer, another rifle owner and innately suspicious of Mrs. Warner, her mother Mrs. Lynch and the shifty chauffeur he seems to know too much about medicine to be a real professional driver.  Lt. French thinks Mr. Truax has too much of a lawyer's mind, but spurred by TRuax's seemingly outrageous ideas begins to dig into Mrs. Warner's past and uncovers some intriguing details. Notably that her mother died more than 30 years ago. Then who is the elderly woman living in the house?  Mrs. Warner claimed that Mrs. Lynch was her mother.  And what happened to Mrs. Lynch? No one can be found inside the Warner house since the night of the gun shots, the scream and Mrs. Warner's murder.

Minnie MacDuff - What would one of these mystery novels be without the garrulous, foolish town gossip. Minnie fills this role extremely well. A dress designer and seamstress by profession she makes it a habit of visiting her customers in their homes for frequent dress fittings and alterations. A convenience for her customers but also an opportunity for Minnie to pick up free lunches and snacks at tea time while dishing the dirt about everyone in Avondale and the surrounding area.  Her thirst for info on everyone makes her a target...or is that just a clever ploy?  I was sure she was involved in something. Hale paints Minnie as such a scatterbrain I was convinced this was a cover for a shrewd and devious women with revenge in her blood.

Mark Macduff - Minnie's invalid brother who is also a ham radio enthusiast constantly broadcasting from his bedroom. Minnie is overprotective of her brother. Anyone who reads mystery novels ought to be immediately suspicious of an invalid.  When Gene and Jill find mud-stained shoes in Mark's closet and burrs on his trousers it seems to indicate that Mark is shamming his inability to walk.

There are also a variety of dimwitted gossipy servants who supply Hale with an unfortunate opportunity to make fun of "stupid farm girls" but also an intriguing way to reveal the small-minded prejudices of privileged wealthy "upper class" types who make up the majority of the characters. I felt sorry for the Lamb women, Jennie and her niece Alma, the butt of insults and jokes, but who also are rather observant and catch things that their snobby employers dismiss as irrelevant.

ATMOSPHERE: Hale does a good job of setting a scene of a sinister countryside in the town of Avondale.  Though the residents think of it as quiet farm country where the wealthy can escape their past and start life anew, from the very first page violence intrudes and never leaves. Mrs. Warner turns out to have alternate life and identity and her chauffeur, as suspected by Mr Truax, turns out not to be a chauffeur at all.  The story is replete with violent attacks. Rifle shots going off constantly. Jill and Gene are shot at many times , windows are shattered on an almost nightly basis, and even a birdhouse becomes a symbol for criminal activity.  For a book set in the WW2 era this story resonates with our 21st century world of constant gunfire and random acts of violence. 

QUOTES:  Hale has a wry sense of humor and often she can dish out some acerbic wit. Here's a single sentence summing up the bigoted, not too smart, deputy who helps Sheriff Simmons: 

Verne Hoskins' well-weathered face looked as if he had been expecting the worst for years and hadn't been disappointed.

When French accuses Gene Ramsay of not being trustworthy because he has both lied and withheld vital information, Gene retorts: 

"But, damn it all, I'm not guilty of anything but being an ass, and they aren't arresting people for that yet or the jails would be full."

THINGS I LEARNED:  During none of Minnie's  gluttonous visits while she is chowing down on more free food she spiolls grvy on her silk dress.  She says, "Dear me, best silk, too. Guess I ought to try a little Energine..." I figured this was some type of detergent.  Actually Energine was a dry cleaning fluid made with naphtha, highly flammable, that was apparently in many homes. It was still being made as late at the early 1960s much to my surprise. The popularity of commercial dry cleaning operations that became all the rage in the 1970s eventually replaced the need for private individuals taking care of their stained clothing. In looking for photographs of this defunct product I was a bit horrified to learn that vintage bottles (some still full!) are being sold on eBay. Bizarre.

At the start of chapter 17 Jill is served some coffee and ginger  flavored cookies by one of the young policeman. She refuses the coffee but samples the cookies while waiting for French to question her.  Hale writes: "Jill went on nibbling at the gingery cooky. It was rectangular, with MARY ANN stamped on it. She felt she'd never again taste ginger without thinking of this moment."  I wanted to know if these were also real, but all attempts at internet searching for "Mary Ann Ginger Snaps" yielded absolutely nothing. I know that Lorna Doone shortbread cookies are still made with the name stamped on them. That's a very old cookie, kids! Introduced in 1912, the same year as Oreos, another cookie with the name stamped on it. I figured if a Mary Ann ginger snap existed it must've been from Nabisco, the company that sells both Oreos and Lorna Doones. Sadly, I failed to find anything about a ginger snap with ANY name stamped on them. Ah well.  Anyone out there have any clue?

EASY TO FIND?  Only a few of Hale's books were reprinted in cheap editions outside of the original Doubleday Doran Crime Club hardcover.  Exit Screaming was one of them. Alas, both hardcover and paperback digest (see photo above at right) are difficult to find these days. I located three copies out there for sale at various online bookselling sites. Hurry if you want one. 

The Bloody Tower - John Rhode

THE STORY:  Jimmy Waghorn comes to Lydenbridge to inform Inspector Appleyard of a gang of professional thieves robbing tobacco vending machines but ends up helping the Inspector with the unusual shooting accident of Caleb Glapthorne.  What at first appears to be a malfunction of a hunting rifle turns out to be a diabolically orchestrated murder with a doctored rifle cartridge filled with high power explosive instead of the usual smokeless powder. Waghorn eventually consults with Dr. Priestley who offers up a few suggestions and ultimately reveals the puzzling motive and the identity of the ingenious murderer.

THE CHARACTERS:  The Glapthorne family is headed by a dying patriarch Simeon who refuses to sell his crumbling estate to a handful of inquiring potential landowners.  He firmly believes in a strange prophecy that until the Tower on the family estate falls the Glapthorne family must remain on their land so that their fortunes will prosper.  But so far their money has been dwindling with no signs of achieving newfound wealth. He withers away in his bedroom rarely leaving and being attended to by two gloomy servants and his niece...

Joyce Blackbrook - devoted to her crotchety uncle , the one member in the household who seems to understand his odd personality.  Or at least she offers a bit of sympahty. She works as a clerk in a bookstore owned by...

Mr. Woodspring -- pompous, officious, enamored of the gentry.  H atns to but the GLapthorne land wiht the "ugly towe" so ha e can build a house there.

Ben Glapthorne --Younger son and brother to the murder victim.  He's a marine engineer and has been at sea on the ship Niphetis. Of all characters he seems to have a ironclad alibi for Caleb's death

 Chudley -- farmer with land adjacent to the Glapthorne estate. Had a recent physical fight with Caleb about use land and Caleb's frequent trespassing while hunting rabbits.  He even threatened to blast off Caleb's face which is exactly how he died.

Vera Chudley -- daughter sent away supposedly because she was carrying on an affair with Caleb.  Her mother vehemently denies this rumor.  Gossip says otherwise.

Horning & Mrs. Horning - the servants in the Glapthorne home. The housekeeper wife is a hysterical drunk.  Only person mourning for Caleb and alcohol is helping to aggravate her grief.  She literally wails and keens.  Her husband dismisses it with a laughable comment: "She's Irish."

Arthur Blackbrook - Joyce's brother. Lives in London. Rarely visits the family. he's married to a tarty, simple-minded woman.

INNOVATIONS:  Priestley appears at the start of Chapter 7 at exactly the halfway mark. He is most interested in a strange code that was found in the Glapthorne family Bible. This is the first time that the police discuss the weird code with odd geometrical shapes placed beside Bible quotes.  The quotes all refer metaphorically to wealth, foolishness, reputation and possibly love. One telling quote is "the gift of God...cannot be bought with money."  Priestley is most intrigued by an odd symbol that Waghorn says looks like a balloon shape. This code is later solved by Priestely and can almost be worked out by the reader based on a few comments made off-handedly.  Those who know their Bible well or who take the time to examine the quoted passages may catch on to the solution of the puzzle without ever really breaking the code. Ultimately, Priestley's breaking of this code will lead to some startling discoveries related to the true purpose of the "ugly tower" and the secrets it contains.

Moreso than other John Rhode detective novels The Bloody Tower (1938), in the US re-titled The Tower of Evil, has an overarching theme as in a mainstream novel. Rhode is most definitely commenting on family destiny and the illusion of nobility.  Simeon Glapthorne exhibits the hubris of a tragic Greek hero in his near worship of the Glapthorne lineage and also ironically is the most foolish member of the household for his steadfast belief in the prophecy. In the end we learn that Glapthorne wasted his life aspiring to something he could never attain for the family lost their money all while Simeon was too stubborn to heed the code created by his ancestor Thaddeus Glapthone back in the late 18th century. Had he done so perhaps all the prophecies might have been fulfilled.

ATMOSPHERE:  I've not read many of the Dr. Priestley mysteries but a handful of them I've read draw on elements of Gothic fiction. This may perhaps be the most Gothic of the Priestley detective novels. Rhode does admirable work in creating a sinister atmosphere using conventions and motifs that are the staples of true Gothic fiction: the crumbling house, the patriarch to whom family is all, the curse and ominous prophecy attached to the Tower, and the splendidly creepy descriptions of the barren landscape. When Waghorn first approaches Farningcote Priory, the name Simeon gave to his home, Rhode writes:

As the car turned in at the ruined entrance gates, the dilapidated stone pillars seemed to resemble the mournful sentinels of a shattered army. Beyond, the melancholy fir trees swayed and moaned like a troop of sombre mourners.

THINGS I LEARNED: Picric acid is discussed at length early in the book.  According to the plot is has multiple uses and was apparently easily obtained at a pharmacy for its medicinal uses primarily as an antiseptic and for treatment of burns. In the context of the story, however, picric acid is exploited for ite volatile properties as a high explosive.

Electra House is mentioned when the police are trying to confirm data associated with some telegrams.  This may have cropped up in some other detective novels of this era but I don't recall coming across the name. Electra House first opened in 1902 as the home for the Eastern Telegraph Company and moved a couple times in the years preceding World War 2.

EASY TO FIND?  If you like digital books, then O Happy Day! It's available in a Kindle version (see photo at left). It's been released under the original UK title but the publisher appropriated the US 1st edition DJ illustration from the Dodd Mead book retitled The Tower of Evil. Guess it looked suitably 21st century for a digital book.

But as for a real paper book... Now it's ridiculously scarce.  I don't know why this one wasn't chosen to be reprinted back when Collins reissued several of the Dr. Priestley books. It's fast moving, engaging and has several intriguing puzzles besides the "whodunit" aspect.  But good luck finding a used copy now. Only three hardcovers are out there -- two US editions all priced in the "collector's market" and one volume in French translation.  No paperbacks reprints were found for sale when I looked though they do exist. If you're persistent and like to haunt used bookstores you might be lucky to find the Collins White Circle (shown up at top of post) paperback reprint cheaply. My copy was a pristine White Circle paperback, but it's now in the hands of someone living in Wisconsin. I sold it three days after I finished reading it last month.