MOONLIGHTERS - Lesley Frost, the Poet's Daughter

Part of discovering so-called forgotten writers and their books is that the discovery is actually more of a recovery. These books already exist and the people who wrote them may have been forgotten by the mystery reading public but often they are actually renowned. Witness Lesley Frost, whose only foray into adult mystery writing is Murder at Large. At the time of the book's publication she was known as a former employee of the Publisher's Association, an airplane factory worker during the summer and fall of 1918, and spent six months in the Hampshire Bookshop in Northampton, Massachusetts. All this according to an author bio sketch on the rear flap of the DJ for her first novel.  She also mentions that she opened her own bookstore in Pittsfield (also in Massachusetts) in 1924.  Her only book prior to the murder mystery was Come Christmas (1929), "a delightful anthology of Christmas songs, carols, poetry, prose and drama." But I don't think she was ever forgotten to many.  She was, after all, the eldest surviving child of America's renowned Poet Laureate, four time Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry, the one and only Robert Frost.

But let's get to this rather remarkable and utterly forgotten detective novel. Murder at Large (1932) is first and foremost noteworthy for it's eerie similarities to a novel that would not appear for another seven years, one that would dominate mysterydom as a rule breaking, seminal work. Often imitated but never surpassed that book is And Then There Were None (1939).  I was astounded by the similarities in Frost's archly satiric and sophisticated murder mystery.  She seemed to have prophesied Christie's novel in a completely different fashion as the skeletal framework of Bristow & Manning's The Invisible Host (1930) seemed to prophesy Christie's story of ten murderers who escaped justice and are doomed to be executed while they struggle to survive on a remote island.

Though Frost's host is hardly an anonymous voice imparting doom from a record player there is nevertheless a Judge present in the story. He is, in fact, the host of a similar dinner party. Bertrand Whittaker plans to expose a group of murderers by publishing his private diary in which he details the identities of seven different criminals and the murders they got away with. Shortly after reading out a passage in which he embarrasses one guest by pointing out his connections to gangsters the lights go out and the diary is stolen. Only hours later, someone is found stabbed to death. But surprisingly it is not Judge Whittaker. It is one of the guests. That one murder sets in motion a decimation plot as one by one guests begin to vanish or turn up dead, all done in by an efficient and clever murderer who uses a variety of brutal methods.

Though these guests are not housebound they are on an island -- Long Island, NY to be specific. As the bodies are discovered all over the house and grounds the level of fear and paranoia is handled almost as deftly and frighteningly as the Grand Dame did herself in her own version of a now overused plot motif. Two of the women characters have intriguingly presented solo chapters in which we get to see their nervous breakdowns and the aftermath of dealing with the exposure of their crimes. One of the women spends much of the book regretting her crime (she shot her fiance because he wouldn't marry her even though she was pregnant) similar to the way Vera Claythorne is plagued with guilt over the boy she let drown. 

 
One difference in Frost's book is that the police are summoned and descend upon the house. As they sort out who killed three guests in one hour and try to prevent further deaths (they don't -- three more die and one escapes death through sheer luck by the book's finale) the amateur sleuth Ordway Belknap does his best to guide the seemingly inept policemen headed by Lt. Det. Silas Berry and Sgt. Stebbins to the truth. Belknap is another Philo Vance clone, one of many who pop up in mystery fiction throughout the 1930s when Vance was the dominating amateur sleuth in popular culture. Erudite, condescending and inappropriately flippant in the face of violent death we are told in the very first sentence that Belknap is himself a former judge. Well, actually an ex-magistrate. He and Whitakker have not only a history in and out of the courtrooms they have a couple of secrets that several of the accused murderers are trying to uncover.

Though it may come across as a nightmarish thriller Murder at Large really does turn out to be a detective novel. Some fair play clueing turns up in some cleverly done passages and the book ends with a requisite twist in the finale, one perhaps that may not be too difficult to figure out by diehard detective novel fans.  Still, Frost manages to pull off the finale with panache and sardonic wit. The ultimate similarity to And Then There Were None will be found in the final pages which just like Christie's book comes from the writing of the judge character.  It is uncanny how much this book has in common with Agatha Christie's masterpiece. While not exactly on the same par for there are a couple of histrionic scenes, some stilted dialogue, and hand-wringing melodrama from the more hysterical characters, Murder at Large ought to be read by anyone who considers oneself a devotee of the Golden Age. I think it ought to be recognized for being more of a forerunner to Christie's seminal mystery than all the attention lavished on The Invisible Host which only has the anonymous host's voice on the record and several bizarre murders in common.  It's possible that Agatha read both books and took bits and pieces from both to come up with her unmatched inimitable version.

Lesley Frost Francis Ballantine (1899-1983) was the oldest daughter of Robert Frost. Of his five children Lesley lived the longest. After the publication of her Christmas anthology and this murder mystery she turned to writing children's books and often lectured on English literature. Among her children's books are Digging Down to China, Not Really, and Going on Two. In she published a memoir entitled New Hampshire's Child: The Derry Journals of Lesley Frost.  During WW2 she was named head of the U.S. Information Library in Madrid and 20 years later founded a Spanish language and culture school in La Granja where she had a home.  Most interestingly, in 1952 she co-founded a third national political party, the American Women's Party, meant to get women elected into policy-making positions in federal government. That same year she married her second husband Joseph Ballantine who was involved in foreign affairs in Asia. They had two daughters: Elinor Wilber, a Connecticut state representative, and Dr. Lesley Francis. Lesley Frost died in Fairfield, CT at the age of 82.