The Croaking Raven - Gladys Mitchell

THE STORY: Despite its gruesome deaths by falling and crushing in a Norman castle The Croaking Raven (1966) is very much like a 21st century mystery. You know the kind:  tea parties and bakeries and gossipy characters, one of whom has an unusual profession. Like a tour guide of a castle who turns into an amateur sleuth when someone falls down a flight of stairs and dies.

It's Hamish Gavin's tenth birthday and for his present he has demanded that his family rent a castle in the advertisement he found in a local newspaper.  They do so and off they all go along with Dame Beatrice Bradley in tow.  Part of the lease requires the renters to open the grounds to visitors twice a week for four or five hours. Hamish can't wait to turn their rental property into a tourist trap. He mans the card table and collects the admission fee of a half crown, charges another shilling for parking cars in the courtyard and persuades his policeman father Robert Gavin, also a talented sketch artist, to whip up some souvenir drawings for yet another money making opportunity. All goes well until they start getting requests to see the bloodstains and are pestered with jokey queries about the ghost.

Bloodstains? Ghost? Did someone die in the castle? And how long ago was that?

Yes, indeed there was a death. Tom Dysey fell down the stairs the evening following a dreary party two years ago. And the rumors of a ghost are not just stories when the renters hear singing at night coming from within the walls and Hamish sees a white clothed figure appear in the dining room then slowly shrink and disappear into the floor. Is the castle truly haunted?  Hamish, his mother Laura, and Dame Beatrice turn sleuthing ghostbusters to find out what exactly is going on in the Dysey estate. Not much later after they settle in another person falls to his death.

CHARACTERS:  There's quite a large cast here and nearly everyone is a Dysey forcing Dame Beatrice and the others to refer to nearly everyone by their first name. There's Tom, the first victim of death by falling, and his brothers Eustace and Cyril.  Cyril's wife whose first name I don't even recall because she's always referred to as "Cyril's wife" nearly every time in order to avoid confusion with the other Mrs. Dysey (widow of Tom) whose first name is Henrietta. She goes by Etta but she's rarely called Mrs. Dysey because another Henrietta turns up and she also claims to be a Mrs. Dysey.  Who exactly is she supposed to be married to?  Tom?  Eustace?  We never find out the truth about this other Henrietta until the final third of the book. This other Henrietta appears only once in the story as a comic figure. She is a tourist who claims to be psychic and refuses to pay admission to the castle as she is a member of the historical society and she should be exempt.  This second Henrietta may appear only once but her persona hovers over all the proceedings.

Then there are the Carters who we also learn late in the book are related to the Dyseys because the grandmother was born Charlotte Dysey and is the great aunt of all the other Dyseys. And did I forget Bonnamy Dysey?  Henrietta Dysey (Tom's widow, that is) had a memorial plaque in his name placed on the outer walls of the castle and everyone assumes he's dead. But is he really?

Chillingham Castle courtyard,
supposedly the most haunted
castle in the UK

The tangled web of Dyseys and Carters, two mysterious deaths and an absent relative make up only a small sample of the many unanswered riddles. Dame Beatrice wants to make sense of it all but it will take a lot of intense questioning and probing to unravel the skeins of ambiguity. Not many people are willing to cooperate until the second, in some cases third, confrontation with the formidable Beatrice Lestrange Bradley.

We get a cameo from Jonathan Bradley (the Dame's younger son) and his cipher of a wife Deborah, too.  Jonathan helps explain the mystery of the ghost and in so doing uncovers a secret passage. Not a real spoiler as this happens very early in the book. The secret passage plays a very large part in the story.

The best characters in any Gladys Mitchell mystery are the supporting players.  I will mention Percy Bellairs, the gardener at the castle and Mrs. Dysey (Cyril's wife) as two of the most interesting and intriguing of this rather large cast.  And Hamish is an utter delight. Precocious to be sure, as most of Mitchell's child characters usually are, but delightful nonetheless.  Mitchell was a former schoolteacher and you can tell her love of children whenever they appear in her books.  They are almost all infectiously affable.  Sadly, he disappears with his father for the bulk of the book. Robert and Hamish both return at the end and luckily mother Laura (secretarial assistant/business associate to Mrs. Beadley for many of the novels) has a surprise for him when she reveals the secret of the ghost in the final paragraphs. It's a tidy and heartwarming way to end the novel.

Tom Dysey falls down a newel stairway
or spiral staircase to modern readers

INNOVATIONS:  Detection occurs in The Croaking Raven but much of it take place offstage, peripherally mentioned and then discussed after the fact at length in wordy dialogue laden passages. For example: Why don't we follow Dame Beatrice into the priest's hole and watch her train her flashlight as she explores the space and then lands her light on the second corpse that dies by falling? Instead we get these two sentences: "So saying, she ducked under the low doorway and made for the steps. It was a long time before she reappeared." Considering Mitchell's predilection for outré plot elements, legends, ghosts, and hauntings this was a huge missed opportunity for added creepiness. Nearly all of the book is devoted to lengthy Q&A sessions that are often interrupted forcing Dame Beatrice to seek out individuals two or three times to pester them again for the questions still unanswered.

I must mention one thing that I marvel at when I read a Gladys Mitchell mystery novel. She is a master at rendering regional dialects. Never does she ridicule speech patterns or odd vocabulary, it is always done with authenticity and respect. No other writer of crime fiction is as skilled at this as Gladys Mitchell. Truly! I've read hundred of books with phonetic dialects and 90% are just wretchedly mimicked (revealing more about the author's sense of hearing than accurate vocal inflections) or an utter mockery of the dialect. Mitchell loves the rhythm, the elisions, and the rich and unusual vocabulary and slang. Reading the dialogue of Bellairs, the gossipy gardener and Cyril's wife, an angry woman whose speech always reveals her tone and hidden frustrations, were for me the best parts of this novel. I could definitely hear their voices as I read those passages.

Only the final third of the novel really delivers the goods. Much of the detective work is surmising about primogeniture, birthright, birth order in the Dysey family and trying to secure a motive for the two deaths of the Dysey brothers.  Is it a greedy fortune hunter?  Is it revenge for the "bastard" child Henry whose parentage is never really known until the final pages? All the familial rehash, genealogy and talk of who will inherit got to be dreary. Only when the Raven's Hoard is mentioned do things finally pick up. This is a legend about a hidden treasure stowed away by Jesuits during the late 18th century. Then a bible is stolen, and returned mysteriously, rudely dumped in a pig sty. Soon Dame Beatrice is off on another puzzle solving adventure that will involve a strange code found in underlined passages in a text book on household care.  All these odd plot maneuvers are typical of Gladys Mitchell, reminding me again of the strange gimmicks in contemporary cozy mystery novels.

Overall,  The Croaking Raven is kind of a mixed bag. As usual, Mitchellesque epigraphs head each chapter. This time she selects passages from a variety of obscure Scottish folk songs to hint at the content of each chapter. Even with these atmospheric touches, attempting to inject eerie frissons with their allusions to ghosts and violent death, The Croaking Raven meanders along with intermittent thrills and a few surprises until its somewhat predictable end. The villains are not a surprise, some of the mysteries fizzle out, others never fully explained, and the finale seems too pat. I'd recommend this only to those who are Mitchell completists.

EASY TO FIND? Not really. I bought my copy decades ago and I've not seen one since. There is no US edition and I know of no paperback reprint since it was first published in 1966. But! I'm offering mine for sale online and just lowered the price. It's the only copy currently for sale.

Awesome August Auction Antics

I love a little alliterative whimsy. All those A's up there. Hope they'll alleviate anxious aching and assist in asset accumulation.

As this month comes to a close I thought I'd experiment again with eBay auctions. So I pulled ten rather unique books, many of them highly uncommon in dust jacket or outright rare (that is, the only copy currently available for sale online) and listed them all as auction items.  The starting bids range from $25 - $35. Basically, I'm giving these books away for a song. Here's a chance to own some unique, very hard to find books at bargain basement prices. Most of the books have been reviewed here like The Moon Murders, Puzzle for Puppets, The Mystery at Stowe, Maker of Shadows and Miss Hargreaves.  Other titles are Ice Before Killing with rare DJ and signed and inscribed by author Marion Strobel (primarily known as a poet) and Corpse on the Flying Trapeze by Nigel Morland in xcleent condition with the hard to find DJ. Finally, I'm also offering my copies of the uncommon first US editions of Obelists Fly High and Obelists at Sea both by C. Daly King.  Yes, those two were both reprinted recently, but the original hardcovers are so much cooler.  Here's a link to take you to my eBay listings.

Hope that you are tempted to place bids on any of these books. I've added Buy It Now options on a few of them for those who have no patience for a real auction. Of course, those at collector's market prices. One book already sold with a Buy it Now option leaving only nine to bid on through Sunday, August 24.

Happy hunting and good luck to all those who bid!

IN BRIEF: Murder in the Procession - Leslie Cargill

Back in 2021 I read Death Goes by Bus by Leslie Cargill which was his first foray in detective fiction.  I wasn't impressed.  But I had bought a slew of Cargill's books because many of them were the only copy being sold and all of them were fairly cheap. I figured one of them had to be better than his first attempt at a mystery novel.  Lo and behold!  Murder in the Procession (1937) proves that Cargill did not have the usual sophomore slump. In fact, it is much better on multiple levels -  in writing, plotting, characters, and sheer originality.

In this second novel Cargill introduces a new series character who would replace his less than interesting, supercilious and thoroughly irritating puzzle maven Morrison Sharpe. Major Mosson in no amateur sleuth like Sharpe luckily. Instead, he is a Scotland Yard administrator who after being permitted by the C.I.D. to assist in the investigation of what appears to be a political assassination enlists all manner of experts from ballistics and armory men to a woman who works in a cinema studio. Late in the book when Mosson is being lectured to by a French policeman who has figured out how the assassin disguised his rifle we get some insight into just what kind of lawman Mosson is:

Here he represented the very spirit of the British police system, its integrity, obstinacy, blind reliance in established principles of justice and all that had meant from the time of the Bow Street Runners to the establishment of [Hugh] Trenchard's famous [Metropolitan Police] college.

Two elements make this detective novel all the more intriguing.  It is set during the coronation of George VI in May 1937. There is a parade to take place with an assortment of international VIPS in attendance. Amazingly, during the parade in front of thousands of witnesses General Vincent Parminster is shot dead.  The gunman managed to kill the general without anyone seeing a weapon of any type and escaped promptly after the shooting. Who had accomplished all that so seamlessly?

The bulk of the book is spent on painstaking detective work using news reel footage to examine the exact moment of the shooting. Several different films from news cameras shot from various angles are reviewed repeatedly at a local cinema studio. Phyllis Hulme, a Jill of all trades in the world of photography, is one of the most fascinating characters in the book. She can develop film, enhance the contrast, edit, enlarge and anything else Mosson and his crew of policemen need done. She is instrumental in providing most of the best footage to help ferret out where the gunshot came from.  

You may be thinking that this all rings a bell, right?  "But this is just like the Zapruder film!" Yes, indeed. What a prophetic book. A detective novel with a fictional plot written two and a half decades prior to that tragedy. A novel that seems to have predicted how one man's amateur movie was key in the police investigation of the JFK assassination. I was floored by this eerie coincidence.

The method in Murder in the Procession is, however, far more bizarre than a sniper shooting from a tower.  The killer was in disguise and had also managed to cleverly hide the murder weapon. It's all rather ingenious reminding me of another detective novel by the obscure American writer Morrell Massey. But I better not mention the title because it will give a huge hint to the solution.

In addition to this impossible crime of sorts there is some political satire about Eastern Europe, a diplomatic imbroglio involving a delegate from the fictional country of Baltnia.  Some minor complications in that subplot but thankfully nothing as baroque as one of Anthony Hope's Ruritarain novels.  Eventually I was a bit let down when after the riddle of the murder weapon is solved and the murderer is apprehended we learn that the killing was rooted in a motive as old as the hills.  Ah well, there had to be one flaw in this almost perfect book.

Those interested in the full story of Murder in the Procession will be hard pressed to locate a copy.  I recently sold my copy on eBay, the only copy I know of in existence. There are unfortunately no other copies for sale online. Try your luck at a library or interlibrary loan.

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.