The Girl Who Passed for Normal - Hugh Fleetwood

At the start of The Girl Who Passed for Normal (1973) I was prepared for yet another spin on the Jane Eyre plot motif done up as a suspense thriller.  It's one in a long line of novels about a young girl hired by a matriarch or patriarch to care for a young girl.  Though in this case Barbara Michaels, the woman hired, is not really seeking to be a caretaker or even a teacher of anything.  She meets her prospective employer Mary Emerson almost by chance at a party in Rome where Barbara is living temporarily. Mrs. Emerson casually drops into their conversation that her daughter is different and needs watching more than anything but she never seems to be able to find the right person. We are never really told what is wrong with Catherine, the daughter, only that her mother calls her slow and sometimes stupid. Supposedly, Catherine cannot read and cannot do much of anything.  When Barbara meets Catherine she is oddly taken with the girlwho is about 20 years old but often acts as if she were a tween. Despite what Mrs. Emerson has told her Barbara discovers that on occasion Catherine appears to understand Italian and can read English. Who is fooling who here?

And so I was sure this was going to be another book about a sinister mother plotting to have her daughter left in the care of a naive governess of sorts and abandon both of them. But the book is filled ambiguity and shifting points of view. No one is really trustworthy. At the start of the novel Barbara's boyfriend (of sorts) has disappeared. Everyone tells her he's gone off to America. But at one point when Catherine and Barbara are alone the young woman tells her teacher that she believes her mother was having a sexual relationship with David. Barbara knows that she could never keep her hands off of him and begins to suspect this is true. Then Catherine continues with her story-- because David didn't really want Mrs. Emerson he was going to leave Rome.  Catherine says her mother would never have that and so she killed him and buried him in the fields out back of their Italian estate. Barbara dismisses all of this as imaginary story chalking it up to Catherine's child-like nature. But she would be very wrong to dismiss anything that Catherine says from this point onward.

The novel begins as an odd travelogue of ex-pats in Italy focusing on Barbara's education of Catherine and the young woman's transformation from child-like nitwit into a mature young woman with occasional episodes from the past describing Barbara's love-hate relationship with her ailing mother in London and her obsessive love for David. Inexorably the story morphs from mainstream character study into a creepy suspense novel with the main questions being what happened to David? Did someone kill him? Or did he really leave for America?  And if dead, is he really buried in the fields out back of the Emerson estate?

By the midpoint the reader can't really trust anything that anyone says. Mary Emerson at first appears to be a flaky eccentric, transplanted from her American Southern roots into her private oasis on the outskirts of Rome and looking for every opportunity to get rid of her nuisance child hoping to dump her on any young woman she can exploit as a nursemaid. Barbara is obsessed with her unrequited love for David and she allows her imagination to get the better of her on a daily basis.  She is quick to believe that anyone has run off with him or that he was having sex with anyone who paid attention to him At times she even believes him to be gay and in love with his best friend, an older philosopher professor named Marcello.  Meanwhile, Catherine continues to tell frightening stories about violence in the present and the past. She can't help herself.  The stories just come tumbling out. Like the one about her mother poisoning her father and trying to make it look as if he committed suicide. Barbara beings to worry, but soon it will be too late to worry.

The Girl Who Passed for Normal is ostensibly meant to refer to Catherine. By the end of the novel when Catherine and Barbara have become inextricably entwined in a perverse surrogate mother/daughter relationship and bound to each other through a gruesome and utterly bizarre violent act it is pretty clear that the girl in the title is no longer Catherine but Barbara.

I was very impressed with this book. Some of the paperback blurbs promise a horrible surprise in the final chapters. Another understatement! Fleetwood strikes me as a male version of Patricia Highsmith. I was very much drawn into this strange world pervaded by a sinister ambiguity in his second novel. Everyone seemed a little bit off and I was never sure who was up to no good and who was truly telling the truth. Though the gothic elements pile on a bit too thick in the last three chapters it seemed to be the inevitable outcome for this odd pair of young women.

Hugh Fleetwood, circa 1979
from the jacket of The Redeemer, US edition

THE AUTHOR: Hugh Fleetwood (1944 - ) is a writer and painter still alive and creating works of art. At 18 he moved to France to paint and by age 21 he was living in Italy. He lived there for 14 years and set many of his early novels in and around Rome. The Girl Who Passed for Normal was his second novel but his first foray into weird crime/suspense. It won the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize in 1972.  He followed up with about eight or so other novels that might be classified as crime or psychological suspense novels. In total he produced 24 novels, a volume of poetry and several collections of short stories.  As an artist he has had exhibits of his paintings in Spoleto and in London. Fleetwood continues to write and paint in his home in London. His most recent novels were all written (or revised versions of incomplete books) during the pandemic year of 2020 and are available as digital books produced by the author himself.

EASY TO FIND?  There are several paperback versions of this book in US, UK and foreign language translations.  Most copies in English I found were affordably priced.  Sadly, I have yet to locate a UK 1st edition.  The DJ illustration was designed and painted by the author and I was hoping one would turn up online. But not even his website where you can view his eerie, other worldly artwork offers one up for viewing. Ah well...  happy hunting anyway! More reviews of Hugh Fleetwood's crime novels are coming in the months ahead. But probably not until next year.

Poor, Poor Yorick - Frederick C. Davis

THE STORY:  Cyrus Hatch is invited to a cocktail party at the home of Marcia Clay, his former fiancee from their college days. When he arrives the apartment is filled with people none of whom Marcia invited. The party was as much a surprise to her as the invitation was to the guests. She tells Cy she had to make emergency order of food and liquor for the dozens of people who she was too overwhelmed to turn away.  She also tells Cy that she was just about to leave for Reno to divorce her husband. While Cy puzzles over the strange instant party thrown by some anonymous host and why it was arranged Marcia goes to her bedroom to finish packing. But she doesn't return Cy and his bodyguard break into her bedroom to discover she's been poisoned and a man is escaping via the balcony. Marcia is saved in the nick of time. Then Cy discovers what appears to be a suicide note that includes a confession to a murder and ends with the unfinished sentence: "The body is hidden in ..."  Is Marcia a murderer and who was murdered and where is the body?

THE CHARACTERS:  Cy Hatch is our unwilling sleuth in this story. He doesn't want to get involved but having saved Marcia and being confronted with the odd suicide note that he is sure was forced out of her by the mystery man they saw fleeing the bedroom he ever so reluctantly finds himself drawn into a complex case. As he proceeds in his sleuthing he will locate a missing person and have a gruesome discovery of where the body was hidden. But Cy is also the son of Police Commissioner Mark Hatch who is fed up with his son interfering in the city's most unusual murder cases. He was already nearly killed in the first case (Coffins for Three) and was tampering with evidence in another. Mark warns his son he will not hesitate to arrest him and throw him in jail if Cy insists on playing detective or obstructing justice in this case.

Everywhere Cy goes he's accompanied by Danny Delavan, his bodyguard who was initially hired by Cy's father. Since then they've become friends of sorts and Danny does his best to give his two cents worth on the many puzzling aspects of the case.  For a former boxer I thought he was rather inept as a bodyguard.  Cy tends to throw the punches first and Danny ends up at the mercy of some of the more talented assailants. At one point a woman with expert fencing skills holds Danny at bay at the end of her épée! Speaking of boxing Danny will be competing in a comeback match at Madison Square Garden defending his title as welterweight champion. He never ceases to talk about how he will knock out his opponent in the first round.  He also has a seemingly endless supply of comp ringside tickets and he hands these out to anyone who will accept them. By the evening of the actual fight all of the primary suspects will show up at the Garden for a boxing match that will end in a bizarre bit of spontaneous violence and a confession from the murderer.

As for the rest of the cast we have:

Richard Clay - theater producer, husband to Marcia, in love with Elspeth and primary suspect. His photography darkroom includes a variety of chemicals including cyanide that turn up to have been used in several crimes. The lover's tetrahedron of Richard-Elspeth-Marcia-Ronald (Elspeth's husband) serves as a one of the most obvious motives for Marcia's attempted poisoning murder by cyanide.

Marcia Clay - Poisoning victim and the victim of what Cy believes to be a complex frame-up to get her accused of the murder of...

Ronald Dexter - husband to Elspeth Burridge. He is a failed actor whose most notable a role was as Yorick, in a burlesque of Hamlet. The skull was not a prop in that production. Instead, Ronald played the deceased clown wearing a full skeleton outfit. It was supposed to be a silent comic role but he literally fainted onstage in his debut and gave up a stage career immediately after. Marcia has fallen in love with Ronald and was planning to leave her husband for him.  In giving up the stage Ronald turned to financial chicanery and has a reputation for con artistry and double crossing his investors.

Philip Carden - a professional adventurer obsessed with treasure hunting which requires a lot of money to pull off. Consequently he's always looking for investors. Ronald and Richard were primary investors in Carden's latest project to recover treasure from a shipwreck off the coast of Florida. Carden is also in love with Elspeth. They did the fall in love at first sight malarkey and Richard Clay was well aware of their instant attraction for each other.

Nicky & Toni DeLancey - two married Italian emigrants who have started a school for teaching a special form of contract bridge. Nicky is a professional bridge player and often competes at the Domino Club where Cy meets...

Nelson Sayre - president of the elite Domino Club which charges an initiation fee of $1000 and then $500 annual dues. Cy thinks the place is a front for card playing gamblers.  Ronald Dexter was involved in a scheme at the club for finding new members and for each new member he acquired he got a kickback.  Dexter has his fingers in everyone's bank accounts. He also was very vocal with Sayre about not receiving his fair share of those "incentives" for new members. Sayre was threatened repeatedly by Dexter who was planning to expose the club for what it really was.

Ted Pella - ridiculously handsome aide to Sayre.  Cy feels Pella has a sinister side based on the supercilious smirk that never disappears from his face. Danny thinks Pella is one of those pretty boy hitmen and he's more than just Nelson's aide.

Gail Reynolds - I was never sure of this woman. She appears at every scene as if she was employed everywhere at once. Did she work for Clay at the theater or for Sayre at the Club?  I hadn't a clue. But her primary role by midpoint is as a romantic foil. She is pursuing Philip Carden making it clear she wanted him and would possibly stop at nothing to get him.

Agatha Burridge - Elspeth's mother. Typical imperious matron found in murder mysteries of this era.  She's also a zealous stage mother who does everything in her power to advance Elspeth's acting career.  Also she tries her best to orchestrate a marriage between Richard and her daughter. She's not above exploitation, manipulation and possibly criminal behavior to make the match a reality. But could she actually have murdered Ronald Dexter and hidden his body?

Elspeth Burridge - a cipher character. Yes, she's an actress. Yes, she's excited many men's libidos. But we never really know her. She exists solely in relationship to other characters. We only know of her through other people. Elspeth appears in only two brief scenes (both alongside her mother) and she barely speaks. But she is always talked about by the rest of the cast and seems to be involved in the primary motive for Dexter's death

ATMOSPHERE: Frederick C. Davis began his career as short story writer in pulp magazines and their influence is always notable in his early full length novels. They are action oriented, chock full of fistfights and other violence between men, and include several truly bizarre, over-the-top murders. The discovery of Ronald Dexter's body is straight out of the weird menace pulps. It might even recall the macabre touches of Edgar Allan Poe to well read aficionados of the great writer. Poor, Poor, Yorick (1939) not only has Poe allusions, but a Shakespeare allusion and Gothic elements galore. Davis also throws in one of my favorite Golden Age plot motifs -- knife throwing!  Check out the illustration on the first edition dust jacket up there at the top of the post. Richard Clay has converted an old wine cellar in his home into a game room including knife throwing targets and a complete set of professional quality knives designed especially for throwing. Everyone in the cast has tried their hand at tossing around those knives; some excel at the skill, others aren't so adept. Four of those knives go missing at one point in the book and they are used inexpertly in several more murder attempts.

The detective novel motifs are also put to good use. Cy and Danny have a lot to contend with besides the strange attempted murder of Marcia and the faked suicide note. Another note turns up supposedly written by Ronald Dexter and fro a while everyone thinks he's alive until Cy proves that note also is a forgery when he points out the discrepancies in the typewriting in the body of the message compared with the greeting and date. It was a note actually written by Ronald long ago and altered to appear to be written two days ago. He later finds the typewriter used to alter that message and it implicates the Sayre's staff at the Domino Club. Which person used the typewriter?  Or was it a member who broke into Sayre's office to use it?

Other puzzling aspects of the case: why were two dozen bottles of Chablis stolen from the wine cellar in Richard Clay's home? How did human blood get on a dart gun used to pull darts out of a dart board? Why were the shoes on Ronald Dexter's body put on the wrong feet? And most surprising of all -- quite a shock for me -- was the second murder that occurs late int he novel.

Leonarde Keeler and wife with his update
of the polygraph machine, circa 1935

THINGS I LEARNED: My knowledge of polygraphs was certainly enhanced by reading this book. Davis goes out of his way to lecture (via his erudite criminologist hero) on the science of the polygraph. He makes sure that Cy calls it a deception indicator and not a lie detector, then goes into great detail about how the polygraph he is using records changes in pulse and respiration rate which are known to increase and later when a person is showing signs of deception while communicating. 

Philip Carden delivers a four page length monologue on the history of sunken treasures and shipwrecks that goes on for four full pages. He cites historical instance with dates or successes an failures in this risky and dangerous hobby of those looking to get rich quick.  The most fascinating was the case of a diver who accidentally came across a legendary shipwreck known to have been carrying gold bullion. He later went back surreptitiously to recover some of the loot but was ignorant of an approaching hurricane. He had to abort the search. After the hurricane subsided he returned only to find the entire wreck was gone. The storm had either moved it or entirely buried it once again. 

During one of Cy's criminology classes at Knickerbocker College,
where he is assistant professor in the sociology department, he lectures his students on the concept of the perfect murder and how a large per centage of murders never are prosecuted simply because they are never known to be murders. But, he posits, if you have been arrested on suspicion of murder there are a variety of instances in the inherently flawed American trial by jury system that may allow you to get away with your crime.  He then gives multiple examples ranging from jury boredom or indifference (citing several examples from actual court cases) to impartiality from the judge. I didn't make note of all the examples because the lecture goes on five or six pages and was utterly engrossing. This part of the book may have been the most insightful  castigation of American justice system I've come across in a popular work of fiction. Nothing seems to have changed in over 70 years. In fact, it's only worsened.

Danny at the mercy of Toni's
fencing skills on the UK edition

EASY TO FIND?  Good luck finding one, my friends. Of all of Davis' detective novels this one seems to be the most elusive.  I had a copy sitting on my shelves for almost ten years before I finally decided to read it. And I had to read it quickly because I had just sold it from one of my many listing online. Now it's on its way to a lucky reader/collector. It was the only copy of Poor, Poor Yorick offered since I bought it. There are no copies offered for a sale online as of today's date. And I know of no reprints either. Perhaps someone uploaded the book to an online library.  I never bother looking for those. If you come across a copy in the wild, as it were, snap it up.  This book though elusive is highly recommended as an imaginative, entertaining, unexpectedly educational, and often surprise-filled example of a traditional Golden Age detective novel.

UPDATE!! As pointed out in the comment below this book was published in the UK by Heinemann as Murder Doesn’t Always Out. I found three copies of that edition for sale online. One is priced affordably but has no DJ. The other two are well over  US$300. I’m sure all three will sell soon. Happy Hunting!