The Opera Murders - Kirby Williams

 

THE STORY:  The Illinois Grand Opera Federation is being plagued by gruesome deaths. The opera company's small group of divas are turning up dead. All of the methods employed mimic the deaths of heroines in their repertoire. Dr. Thackery Place teams up with John Tracy, a reporter who serves as narrator, the police and members of the Cook County DA's office to put an end to the slaughter and bring the murderer to justice.

THE CHARACTERS:  Thackery Place, a criminologist by profession, previously appeared in The C.V.C. Murders (1929) in which he also investigated a mad killer eliminating members of a criminal watchdog agency called the Citizens Vigilance Committee. Had he been popular he might have gone on to more adventures and been noteworthy as an early practitioner of criminal profiling in multiple murder cases.  As he only appeared in these two books he is more of an anomaly. Modeled on the many intuitive detective who draw on psychology and behavior more than physical evidence, Place is alternately omniscient and cryptic throughout The Opera Murders (1933). Both books draw on the popularity of the bestselling Philo Vance series of this era. So much inspired that the book is narrated by an observer who acts less of a Watson than a recorder of the case just as S.S. Van Dine does in the Vance novels. The D.A. office is very much involved similar to both the Van Dine and early Ellery Queen books.

In many theater based mystery novels it is usually the cast of performers who are the most interesting and dominate the plot. In The Opera Murders the performers are supporting characters and the victims. We rarely get to know them fully.  The first victim is dispatched so early the only way we get to know anything about her is in a letter she writes to another singer, Valeria Millefiore, who later ends up a victim. Instead of the performers, designers, and technicians, the action turns attention to the Board of Directors.  Unlike any other theater mystery I've read in any era, let alone the Golden Age, The Opera Murders lets the reader in on the business aspect of how a theater -- or in this case an opera company. In fact, it's not even the artistic business end but the financial end. We read of the people who fund the performing arts, make it possible for the company to exist in the first place, and how their influence can make or break the opera company.

INNOVATIONS:  Serial killer novels in this era tended to have bizarre plots. Thanks to The Bishop Murder Case (1929), America's first true bestseller among detective novels, a weird thematic angle became part of the expected plot line. The Opera Murders is no exception. The deaths in Madama Butterfly, Rigoletto and Aida serve as inspiration for the gruesome killings in this mystery. Dr. Place spends a lot of time trying to make sense of this macabre touch and trying to get the police to believe this is the pattern. Other weird touches like a Japanese doll and an American flag placed at the scenes of the first murder add to the surreal aspect of this serial killer. When the police puzzle over the size of a canvas bag at another murder scene thinking it might be a bag for storing sails Place reminds them of the plot of Rigoletto trying to convince the police the bag is a prop form the opera company's storage.

Because this book is the work of journalists newspaper reporting plays a heavy part in the story.  The highlight of the novel-- perhaps the actual climax- is a lengthy newspaper article inserted into the text of the novel outlining a police search in churches across Chicago. The article goes into great detail about horrific desecration of numerous church basements when Dr. Place insists that the final victim has been entombed alive as Aida is in the finale of that opera.

QUOTES:  Place remarked that the machinery through which the day's news is ladled out to the public resembles the tides, the winds, the seismic disturbances of the earth and other cosmic forces in its disregard for such purely human institutions as breakfast.

"Every good crime needs some slightly mad person to lend it color."

THE AUTHORS:  "Kirby Williams" is the alter ego for three journalist who all began their careers working for Chicago newspapers:  Irving Ramsdell, William A. Norris, and William Parker.  Of the three I learned the most about Ramsdell who later left Chicago for Wisconsin where he was theater critic for the Milwaukee Sentinel. In 1940 he headed out West and became the city editor for The Los Angeles Times. Ramsdell also wrote a play in the mid 1930s but it apparently was never produced. The three men wrote only two detective novels both featuring Dr. Place before they gave up fiction for the more demanding world of newspapers.

EASY TO FIND?  There are currently six copies of this book for sale online. Most of them are fairly cheap and come without a DJ. If you want the only copy with the rare DJ, you can buy mine! It's for sale here.