1944 BOOK: Death Looks Down - Amelia Reynolds Long

For some reason I keep stumbling across academic mysteries ever since that Tuesday Night Blogger salute back in June. Death Looks Down (1944) is another mystery set on a college campus and one of the more gruesome mystery novels I've read this year. With a high body count and some very nasty ways for some unfortunate characters to shuffle off this mortal coil it makes for some flesh creeping reading. A familiarity with the work of Edgar Allan Poe will prepare the reader for the onslaught of a variety of weird murders and hiding of dead bodies found in its pages.

I wasn't expecting this to be as good as it turned out. After all, Amelia Reynolds Long has a reputation for being one of the many authors consigned to that dubious hall of fame known as "Alternative Mystery Writers." I've written about one of her loonier books (The Leprechaun Murders) and have read five others. All of them show a talent for bizarre plotting told in an unfortunate writing style dominated by improper word choices, poor grammar, surreal metaphors and lapses in logic. Much to my surprise Death Looks Down is not only almost completely free of those writing faults the plot, although very weird, all works out rather well. That this book was published by Ziff-Davis, a publisher with a smart editorial staff, might have something to do with the final product. Her previous publishing house, Phoenix Press, was not known for editing at all let alone publishing writers who had a command of English or the use of logic in creating plots. Death Looks Down also succeeds because Long focuses on her two areas of expertise: literature and academia.

Katherine "Peter" Piper, Long's mystery writer/sleuth, has decided to pursue a master's degree and has enrolled in University of Philadelphia's English literature graduate program. Along with six others she is currently taking a seminar on the works of Poe. Discovery of a manuscript of Poe's morbid elegy "Ulalume" in his own handwriting and its subsequent theft and later disappearance sets off a wild tale of greed, collecting mania, and murder.

The characters are completely involved in the multiple crimes and trying to prevent anyone else from dying at the hands of a mad murderer who finds inspiration for his killing spree in the pages of Poe's grotesque tales. Though published in 1944 we get no inkling of the time period other than it is definitely not modern. Reynolds has an ultra-conservative worldview and finds it necessary to express this through her characters. The only aspect of the book that resembles anything remotely 40ish is that everyone is obsessed with social niceties and etiquette. From coarse Sgt. Boone, an average guy cop whose speech is riddled with slang, to the prim and proper Miss Kutz who dresses and talks like a little girl, every character is always making some aside about proper behavior. It's as if each character is channeling Miss Manners.

Sgt. Boone to a suspect: "Do you generally walk into people's rooms when they ain't home, Mr. Phillips?"

Ginnie Pat in the college dining hall to her two table mates: "May I be excused?" [Seriously? Graduate students?  In a dining hall? Help me.]

He paused to reach for his pipe; then, remembering that he was in the library where smoking was forbidden, he regretfully put it back again.

The last sentence shows you how Long has tendency to overstate the obvious. But she just needed to remind us that everyone was sitting in the library where, for Long, etiquette is paramount. I'll spare you all the stuff in the beginning of the novel when the first victim is discovered in the stacks and how incongruous a murder investigation can be in a library "where there are rules." Maybe it was meant to be amusing, but it comes off as schoolmarmish.

Arthur Rackham's illustration for "Metzengerstein"
from the rare George Harrap & Co 1935 limited edition

The book is pure puzzle with 99% of the story devoted to solving the crimes. There is no attempt to develop character relationships or give us deep insights into their lives, make any type of social commentary (other than the etiquette nonsense), or remind the reader that the story takes place during wartime. That's fine with me because the story is engrossing enough with multiple puzzles to keep you turning the pages. At two key moments Long actually manages to create a chilling atmosphere worthy of her inspirational source. The section inspired by the obscure Poe tale "Metzengerstein" includes one of her best written horror sequences. It both repels and fascinates in its depiction of college kids gone wild with hedonism in their pursuit of grotesque amusements. The illustration on the first edition dust jacket will give you a hint as to what is involved. There is also an unconscious nod to Christianna Brand's style of detective novel in that several of the characters takes turns in proposing solutions to the mystery. By the end of the book four separate and plausible solutions have been worked out, in part or in total. Some feat for Amelia Reynolds Long who usually has difficulty in turning out one coherent solution to her murder mysteries!

One thing I wish she hadn't done was to divide the book in sections with each named after a Poe tale. This spoils what could have been several gory surprises when the victims were discovered. Instead, as the reader approaches each new section he already knows what to expect, especially since three of the five sections are inspired by very well known Poe stories.

THINGS I LEARNED: There was a lot about the publication history of Poe's writing, his work as a editor at two magazines, and a passing reference to Griswold. And that last bit I had to look up.

Rufus Wilmot Griswold (1815-1857)

Rufus Griswold started out as one of Poe's supporters when he published his poetry in the groundbreaking anthology Poets & Poetry of America (1842). But their tacit business friendship turned ugly when Poe reviewed the final book. In his thoroughly critical essay of the anthology Poe targeted the unbalanced editorial focus. Griswold obviously favored some poets over others. One poet, for example, had over forty poems included while in Poe's opinion other poets received little to no attention. The absence of some of the best writers of the day was also pointed out. Griswold never forgot that critical essay and he became Poe's rival for the rest of his life. When Poe died Griswold wrote an unflattering obituary hardly eulogizing the man instead leaning heavily on character assassination. To this day what Griswold wrote, much of it lies according to Poe's friends and relatives, is the portrait most people have of Poe when they think of him: morose, alcoholic, drug addicted, temperamental, anti-social, and friendless.

The real detective of Death Looks Down, the character who presents the final and true solution, is Edward Trelawney, an investigator for the Philadelphia DA's office who is of Irish descent. He speaks Gaelic and tends to launch into his native tongue when he's angry. There is one instance when an Irish word appears in the story. I'd never heard or read it: spalpeen - Irish slang for a rascal.

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This is my first review for a book published in 1944 for Rich Westwood's Crime of the Century meme for July. I'll have two more to entice you before this month is over.

FFB: The Leprechaun Murders - Adrian Reynolds

Second only to Carolyn Wells is Amelia Reynolds Long in the race for the title Queen of the Wacky Detective Novel. Long lived her entire life in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania where she began her writing career with science fiction. Several of her early stories are considered classics (though whether they also classify as "alternative classics" I cannot tell you as I have read none of them). She tired of science fiction and weird fiction in the late 1930s and moved onto detective fiction in 1939 when she penned The Shakespeare Murders which feature themed murders related to the works of the Bard. Literary murderers were to be a favorite topic of Long's and she would revisit them in Murder by Scripture (1942) in which the Bible is used as an inspiration for killing and Death Looks Down (1944) with its killer using Poe as a murderous muse. She wrote under her own name and two other pseudonyms: Patrick Laing and Adrian Reynolds. As Reynolds she wrote three books featuring Professor Dennis Barrie, an American literature college professor, who quite by accident becomes an amateur detective. The Leprechaun Murders (1950) is his second appearance. It is a blend of the puzzle whodunits Agatha Christie wrote which Long loved and her own unique brand of the fantastic and the bizarre.

In the opening pages Professor Dennis Barrie has a chance encounter in a bar with Owen Maloney who latches onto him and drunkenly introduces his new friend Mr. Hannigan, an Irish gent with a suspicious resemblance to the cigar chomping fairy godfather character in the Barnaby comic strip. He also has a habit of being invisible just like Harvey, the pooka. Barrie wants to escape from Maloney's company when Maloney explains that Mr. Hannigan is a leprechaun and he has made a bargain with the leprechaun. He will pay him $5000 in order for a wish to come true. And that wish is to make his niece Eileen happy by making her husband disappear. Maloney having exhausted himself (and the reader) with an overload of exposition soon passes out (or is that just the alcohol?). The bartender is ready to throw him out but Barrie volunteers to be a Good Samaritan and drive Maloney home after learning he lives relatively nearby. When he arrives at Maloney's home he discovers an impromptu party with several neighbors and town locals in attendance. We meet almost the entire cast of characters at this party scene. They include:

Eileen Maloney - Owen's niece and her husband the unliked, unloved Bert Henderson
Michael Maloney - Eileen's twin brother, a budding poet Owen calls "the new Thomas More"
Eric Kingsley - a musician in love with Eileen
Sheriff Warner - an ex-private eye from San Francisco now in charge of the law in this Pennsylvania town
Phillip Benson ("The Great Bensoni") - an itinerant ventriloquist on a theatrical circuit currently living in the boarding house next door who provides a bit of entertainment for the party-goers
Mabel Marple - the busybody landlady of the boarding house where Kingsley and Benson live (Yes, they call her Miss Marple throughout the book. Some nerve that Amelia has, eh?)

The rainy weather continues to worsen and Barrie is invited to stay and spend the night (such hospitable strangers). He accepts the offer. During the night he is disturbed by some activity in the yard. He wakes and from his window watches a strange hunched over figure running across the lawn and into a shed in the backyard of the Maloney property. He continues to watch as the figure climbs through an open window in the shed, turns back to close the window and reveals its face -- it looks exactly like the ventriloquist's dummy. The following morning Miss Marple stumbles across a dead body just outside the shed and goes next door to get help from the Maloney. Barrie and several others come out but the body is gone though there are definite traces of a corpse having been there. When it is also learned that Bert Henderson is missing the police are contacted and a search is instituted for Bert or perhaps his dead body. Prof. Barrie is reluctant to reveal what he saw the previous night. For who would ever believe him if he offered his idea that 1. a leprechaun has made a drunk's wish come true and 2. that a ventriloquist's dummy came to life.

The author in 1931

As is usual with Long we get an entire trunkful of detective novel tropes. The story is a mish mash of gimmicks and plot devices she must have picked up in her extensive reading of old mystery fiction. She borrows heavily from the Carolyn Wells bag of tricks with a secret passage (part of the Underground Railway of the Civil War era no less) that no one seems to be aware of that amazingly connects all the cellars of the homes in the neighborhood. Henderson turns out to have a dirty secret in his past that led to his murder - a nod I'm sure to Long's hero Agatha Christie. And -- conscious borrowing or not -- one of the most outrageous parts of the book is a direct descendant of an eerie short story by John Keir Cross now virtually a cliche in mystery and horror fiction. Yet though this book may seem a compendium of other writers' trademarks Long still manages to make this one a real page turner. I had to keep going to see how much she could tip the scales in terms of the preposterous. She does an impressive job, my friends.

Like a true alternative classic mystery writer Amelia Reynolds Long has a unique way with metaphoric language. Chapter 18, the most Gothic section of this particular book, offers the best of Amelia's descriptive talent.

The dark hall in which they stood was like the inside of a pocket.

He fumbled about on the wall just inside the door for a moment, then located the light switch. As he pressed it, a small orangish bulb set close against the ceiling flashed on. Before its mellow glow, the darkness fled down the hall and scuttled up the staircase. [...] he felt the roots of his hair suddenly prickle, while the skin at the back of his neck seemed to be trying to climb up to join his scalp. From somewhere behind him, a huge snake hissed!

There is no monstrous serpent in the house, of course. It turns out that Sheriff Warner was only whispering "Professor!" to get Barrie's attention and the college man's fearful imagination took over.

While some of Long's books turn up in cheap paperback editions and relatively affordable used copies of UK editions, The Leprechaun Murders received only a single printing in hardcover in the US. Sorry to say that it is one of the most difficult of her titles to find. I located only two copies being sold on-line, both of them with the DJ shown above. One is $26, the other is $50. Don't all rush at once! If you live in Chicago you can always check out the copy I found at the library. Believe it or not it's been returned to the shelves of the main branch eagerly awaiting new readers. Luckily it happens to be in excellent condition or else it would've suffered the same fate as Long's other four books that used to be on the shelves.

A complete bibliography of Long's mystery novels is available at her tribute website.  While there you can also read one of her rare interviews conducted by fantasy and horror writer and fellow book collector Chet Williamson shortly before Long's death in 1978.