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.