Sentence Deferred - August Derleth

THE STORY: Sentence Deferred (1939) tells of how circumstantial evidence and coincidence can complicate a murder investigation. Two men, Beckit and Alford, claim to have shot a thoroughly disliked bank whose savings and loan institution failed taking with it most of the accounts. The victim was shot twice according to each shooter's confessions, once in the head, once in the chest. But only his bones can be examined. Why? Because the banker's home was set on fire and the blaze was so intense, accelerated by addition of gasoline, that the corpse was destroyed leaving only a skeleton.

 THE CHARACTERS:  Judge Peck once again joins forces with the District Attorney and coroner Dr. Considine of the local Wisconsin jurisdiction near Baraboo to make sense of a murder case with two confessions and a mystery of committed arson. Interestingly, though both shooters confess to having fired their revolvers at the banks neither one will admit to setting the house ablaze.  Consequently, there is much discussion of forensic evidence involving arson, accelerates and what fire does to human body. Over the course of the novel the two trials are summarized with interesting testimony rendered in dialogue.  One trial ends in an acquittal, the other in a conviction. But Judge Peck is not satisfied that either men are guilty of murder or arson.

The crux of the case is the identification of the body. Anyone familiar with GAD novels should instantly be alerted a timeworn gimmick when a skeleton is found in a burned building.  Did the fire actually completely incinerate the body in a single night? The wily judge is certain that Henry Hornly, the despised and crooked banker, is still alive and was behind the arson.

Late in the book Derleth introduces Herbert Hornly, the victim's eccentric brother who, like most people in town, was not a fan of his relation. Herbert quickly became my favorite character in a complicated book solely because his appearance adds a level of oddball humor not often found in the Judge Peck mystery novels.  He has a pet St. Bernard named Vladimir who he affectionately calls "Laddie".  A dog-catcher is constantly picking up the dog that has a habit of running off Herbert's property and roaming the village streets.  Herbert thinks the dog catcher has a scheme of milking him of the $1 fine for a stray dog and is basically at war with the town and the dog catcher in particular.  This turns into a running gag -- something extremely unusual for Derleth, at least in the mystery novels I've read. When all is wrapped up Herbert Hornly appears one more time and there is a neat end to the dog catcher saga with a clever joke that made me laugh aloud.  Loved Herbert and Laddie! 

INNOVATIONS & ODDITIES:  The IDing of the corpse relies heavily on dental records that almost certainly prove that the body is Hornly due to a highly unusual dental repair in an otherwise perfect set of teeth. How could that possibly be faked, think both Dr. Considine and Dr. Asten, the expert witness in dentistry.  But Judge Peck, ever wary of certainties being doubtful, digs further into Hornly's past and uncovers a bizarre coincidence that will upset the entire case

Derleth has a habit of adding quirky narrative touches in his mystery novels.  In Sentence Deferred he goes beyond quirky and t commits what I consider a transgression in logic. The lawyers directly address the jury during testimony! Both prosecuting and defense teams editorialize and remind the jury what the testimony means to their case. Unheard of in the actual practice of trial law. Even someone who knows law only from reading novels and watching TV shows knows those remarks are solely reserved for the attorney's closing statement at trial's conclusion.  What fiction editor would allow that in any novel?  Scribner's, Derleth's publisher at the time, was known for being stickler for sophisticated grammar. I guess they spent too much time modifying Derleth's stilted prose and overlooked a glaring error in jurisprudence.

Peck learns that Hornly made friends with a dentist, Dr. Asten, who allowed Hornly to watch him treat patients.  He even allowed Hornly to clean the dentist's teeth as a trial run.  Bizarre and outlandish!  But of course this detail mentioned in passing will play a significant role in Peck finally putting allthe pieces together in a seemingly complex criminal scheme.

QUOTES: Dr. Considine: "Positive identification of the body remains unfortunately in question. And the setting of the fire so long after the killing--over an hour--is going to be a problem. This is all most unsatisfactory."

Judge Peck: "Consider, what have you? Circumstantial evidence that looks like a certainty. But is it, in fact? I think not. Admittedly it stacks up very nicely against Beckit. The question of Beckit's guilt simply does not enter in at all, as far as the legal aspect is concerned. [...] The question here, however, is whether or not the circumstantial evidence is conclusive." 

Dr. Metzger, expert witness in forensic pathology: "It is [a case of positive identity]. In a case like this it is most unwise to take anything for granted. You will have observed the entirely circumstantial nature of not only the cases against the accused, but also of all evidence. In casting about for some loophole, we must naturally attack those facets which, if disproved, will afford the loophole. The identity of the remains is one --the chief one, I think."

Judge Peck: "The nature of circumstantial evidence is such that is it fundamentally always extremely untrustworthy. I have no doubt that the cases of the State versus Beckit and the State versus Alford may well become Wisconsin's classic examples of the insufficiency of even the strongest circumstantial evidence."

EASY TO FIND? Prior to selling my copy online last month I had checked for other copies for sale.  There were several copies out there in this vast online shopping mall. Now there are only two!  No idea who bought all of them but it seems Judge Peck is suddenly of interest to many mystery readers. Could it be these reviews?  I'm not a betting man, but I'd say it's highly likely.  ;^)  Act now before those two are also gone.

The Seven Who Waited - August Derleth

THE STORY:  In this seventh Judge Peck detective novel August Derleth once again revisits his favorite plot motif - the family decimation murder scheme.  Former pharmacy magnate Josiah Sloan, in the last stages of a terminal illness, has summoned his relatives all of whom will inherit even shares from his vast estate located outside of Baraboo, Wisconsin. The heirs are all eager for the man to drop dead and as they wait for him to draw his last breath someone has decided to eliminate the competition, so to speak. Soon all the heirs are the target of a ruthless killer who clearly wants the $250,000 estate in its entirety. Judge Ephraim Peck is summoned to the Sloan estate along with D.A. Meyer and local coroner Dr. Enderby to help prevent a complete slaughter of the heirs.

CHARACTERS: The Seven Who Waited (1943) is populated with a coarse group of very unlikable suspects.  Not one of them is described in any way that would elicit sympathy from the reader. The first victim, Phineas Canler, is described as a piggish glutton who eats voraciously at the dinner table, belches loudly, slurps and guzzles his alcohol, and of course is immensely overweight.  Thankfully he dies within the first two chapters so we are spared further belching and slurping.  But no one among the six remaining heirs really has any redeemable qualities. There is a seemingly prissy spinster who secretly reads salacious sex stories in trashy pulp magazines and hypercritically criticizes her relatives for being hedonists, her ineffectual lazy son who barely appears in the novel, a haughty young woman who sneers at all the men, her portly 50ish brother whose only interest is making money in the stock market; a vain middle-aged man with a glass eye and a toupee who dresses like a dandy and flirts with all the women as if he were still a handsome stud in his 20s, and Carson Kerby, a professional gambler who may have the most to hide among all these six people.  Kerby was my pick for the killer due to all his furtive wanderings around the Wisconsin estate and his evasive manner of answering Peck's questions. Lorin Fenner, Peck's companion and secretary who acts as narrator, finds Kerby to be the most likeable of the relatives despite his shady "profession." That I assume is supposed to get us to also like Kerby and though he does come off as  charming at times, honestly I didn't care about any of them. When they died or were attacked it all seemed like just deserts.

For me the most interesting characters were Hester Clohr, a domineering housekeeper/cook who suffers no fools and Alexander Carswell, the often drunken gardener who can quote Lewis Carroll doggerel from memory. The notes in poetry form seem to indicate that Carswell may have something to do with the crimes. He also has a habit of lurking around the grounds late at night. Hester is also considered a suspect as she is highly protective of and devoted to Josiah Sloan and disdains all of the guests she is forced to feed and house while also caring for her dying employer.

UK edition showing a victim struck by
an arrow. Never happens. The arrow hits
no one & has a poetic note attached.

INNOVATIONS: About the only innovative aspect of the book is that the murderer is something of a failure. Of the several crimes committed only two murders succeed and three others are botched attempts that are thwarted by our detective heroes.  Prior to each crime the murderer leaves a weird p note on the bedroom door of the intended victim.  Each note parodies poetry and seems informed of the rhyme that inspired the vengeful killer in Christie's And Then There Were None (1939). One of the notes begins like this: "Seven little men sat waiting in the parlor/One was doctored and that left six..." Each notes ends with a final line warning how many days are left until the next death: "Three days are allowed."

The detective work is a combination of dogged interrogation and Derleth's usual rigid logic that often discounts tacit aspects of murder investigations like deceit and lying or coincidence. For instance, Judge Peck insists that the killer must have knowledge of medicine because one of the murder means involves taking a lethal poison in powder form and switching it out with a sleeping aid in powder form that is prescribed in capsules. The judge thinks that there isn't anyone on the planet with who might also simply have patience and manual dexterity to open a capsule, remove the safe drug and replace it with the poison. I was rolling my eyes. That's precisely how the Tylenol Killer of the 1980s performed his random slaughtering. He was neither a doctor nor a pharmacist.

THINGS I LEARNED:  In Chapter 8 Lorin hear the strains of "After Sundown" and I was curious what it sounded like.  I found multiple versions online because it was a Bing Crosby record! He first sang it in the movie Going Hollywood (1933), his screen debut thanks to his co-star Marion Davies who demanded he play the role of the radio singer she falls in love with. Both the film and the record helped launch Crosby's movie & recording career taking him away from his original profession as a radio crooner.

"Another defi" remarks Josiah Sloan when another weird poem is found slipped under the door of one of the heirs.  Because the word was not italicized I had a heck of a time finding out the context and meaning as it applies to this story.  I kept getting irrelevant results about "defi" being slang for definite and other 21st century lexicon nonsense.  If the word had been set in italic font like this défi then I would have learned the correct meaning instantly.  Because of course it's a French word!  Sloan meant that the note in poem form was another dare or another challenge.

At a key moment Meyer, the local D.A., threatens Sloan with a John Doe hearing because Sloan will not reveal the identity of an eighth heir who has been referred to as X for the majority of the novel.  This threat refers to a peculiar Wisconsin law. As stated on a Wisconsin lawyer's website the John Doe Hearing "will allow a judge to determine whether it appears probable from testimony given that a crime has been committed and whether to file a complaint."  In this case, Meyer and Judge Peck are using the statue to compel testimony from Sloan, a reluctant witness.  I think Derleth made similar use of several other Wisconsin laws throughout the series. This was the first one that was not made clear in the story's context and I needed to fully understand it by doing internet research. 

August Derleth (1909-1971)

EASY TO FIND?  Not too scarce for a change.  This title which comes late in the Judge Peck series of detective novels is currently easy to get a hold of.  Though there are no paperback reprints from the era nor any modern reissues The Seven Who Waited is offered online in both US and UK editions, thought there is only one copy of the latter which is indeed extremely uncommon. Prices are less than $100 for most of them and all come with the intriguingly illustrated DJ. Happy hunting! 

The Bornless Keeper - P. B. Yuill



1st UK edition, artwork by Chris Yates

This was one of those books I came across because of a comment on one of the many blogs I read. I noted the title, went looking for a copy and when they all proved to be in horrid condition set aside my search. Then a very cheap 1st UK edition came up for sale on eBay so I bought it and eagerly read the book hoping that it would prove to be as advertised by the commenter who called it the best by author P.B. Yuill, "a horror/whodunit on the lines of [T]he Wicker Man." The paperback edition plastered on its cover a blurb from a review that appeared in The Observer: "The most haunting novel of terror since The Hound of the Baskervilles." Typical P.R. hyperbole as far as I'm concerned.

Peacock Island is home to the eccentric recluse Lady Bennett. She allows no one to set foot on her land. The only boat allowed to dock brings her monthly groceries that are left beneath a bench. One day a crew member on the delivery boat notices that the bag usually left empty in full view on top of the bench has not been touched. He suspects something is wrong and daringly sets out to the Lady Bennett's home, an old country house with a Gothic facade and other tasteless Victorian crenelations that make it appear to be a castle. When he doesn't return his brother goes in search of him and finds some gruesome surprises inside the castle. The police are called and a murder investigation begins. There is a parallel story of a TV documentary crew who get word of the murder and set off to illegally make a movie about the crimes. Any reader can guess that these characters exist as only the characters in a slasher movie exist - as future victims.

While the book does a good job of creating an atmosphere of creepy Gothic chills with a killer dressed in a weird outfit of feathers and man-made claws who roams the island in search of victims I found the book overall to be extremely familiar. Granted it was published in 1974 prior to the onslaught of slasher movies and similar "they're all doomed" thrillers about people trapped on an island at the mercy of a mad killer, but it just didn't do it for me. From the very start I got too many echoes of August Derleth's love of Gothic family secrets, Hammer Horror films, and the entire 1980s slasher movie craze that have used plot ideas and situations found in The Bornless Keeper. I'm usually quick to place books like this in the evolution of crime and modern horror fiction, and I ought to give the writer some credit for perhaps being something of a groundbreaker. This novel could easily be seen as a forerunner to much more terrifying and suspenseful books in the same vein as The Silence of the Lambs and The Running of Beasts, but because it does it less skillfully I am reluctant to give it that place of honor.

UK paperback edition

Prior to the halfway mark when the entire book devolves into something akin to a sequel in the Friday the 13th franchise there were some interesting allusions to the ecological decay of the island, commentary of industrial pollution, and jabs at the thoughtlessness of tourists who use lakes and rivers as their dumping ground. I was hoping that the writer would expand upon this and that the mad killer would turn out to be some kind of monstrous thing along the lines of the creature in the very weird, unintentionally campy, 1979 horror movie Prophecy. No such luck. All of the eerie, supernatural qualities quickly dissipate along with the sideline ecological commentary and we are left with nothing more than another psycho killer tale. We get ersatz Gothic secrets, a dash of Blochian necrophilia, hidden tombs, and a very disturbing rape scene.

The strength of the book is really not in the very familiar horror elements but rather in the depiction of the policeman characters. Inspector Victor Daniels is at war with his superior Supt. Groves. What keeps the book alive is the caustic relationship between these two very different policemen. Groves is an insulting boss with little tolerance for creativity in crime solving and Daniels endures his bullying with restrained anger. While Daniels takes phone calls from the local historian who links a local legend with past crimes and does research on Lady Bennett's family tree, Groves scoffs at him and does yeoman police work delegating his men to look for stolen boats and local thugs who might have been interrupted on a trespassing adventure. I liked the police business here and thought the contrast between the ex-city dwelling Daniels and the gruff, bullheaded Groves was handled well. Daniels is a sympathetic character and you root for him to show up his narrow-minded boss. He does some decent detective work even if most of it happens through telephone calls.

The characters making up the TV crew on the other hand are the stuff of B movies. Tiresome, flat portrayals of a driven bitchy woman producer, her handsome Lothario assistant producer, the sad sack married cameraman who desires her, and a cipher character who you know will be the killer's first victim. None of the drivelly soap opera subplots between this quartet was interesting. I skimmed over these pages just waiting for someone to get knocked off or "disappear" only to "reappear" in the violent finale that is telegraphed amateurishly in previous chapters.

Sign of Fear - August Derleth

With only a few quibbles I think Sign of Fear (1935) may be the best of the Judge Peck books. Derleth's series about the Wisconsin judge seemed extremely formulaic to me with his love of Gothic households, families ruled by stern matriarchs doing their best to keep in line the back biting relatives, and closets filled with a battalion of skeletons rattling all too loudly. Murder Stalks the Wakely Family, The Man on All Fours, and The Narracong Riddle all seem to be variations on a theme so overplayed that the last book in that list is a very close rewrite of the second. I was planning on reading the entire series but quickly tired of the repetition. Then I found the Sign of Fear – one of the rarest of the Judge Peck books – in a bookstore in Jackson, Mississippi and had to buy it. As I pored over the pages it became clear that here was a book that breaks away from Derleth's comfort zone and manages to put some truly original spins on his version of the fair play detective novel.

First, the matriarch is absent from the family. Instead we have two unmarried brothers and a female cousin making up Derleth's usual haunted family. Second, there is a mysterious murder method that is not made known until the halfway mark. Third, there is the anthropology background and some fascinating lore on ancient Peruvian superstition and religious symbols in South American culture. Finally, there is a bravura courtroom performance in which Judge Peck acts as defense attorney for one of the brothers who is accused of murder. It all makes for a highly enjoyable mystery.


Incan artifact (© F. D. Rasmussen) 

Christopher Jannichon, archaeologist, has been called back from Peru to his Wisconsin home by a series of strange postcards containing weird markings and ominous warnings. When he arrives at his home he finds similar markings drawn in the snow on the grounds of the Prairie estate and learns his brother Cornelius has also received similar anonymous postcards with odd symbols. The dominate symbol is described as "a cross topped with a cedilla" (though the illustration on the DJ shows a cross topped with a circumflex), known to both brothers through their extensive reading of Incan culture as the "God-help-us!" mark. It is clear to the Jannichons that someone is threatening them and they speculate it may have to do with Christopher's research in ancient Incan life. They consult with Judge Peck who is invited to stay the weekend when several relatives and friends are planning to visit the two Jannichon brothers. That night their cousin Edna suffers a mysterious fatal attack. She is found dead on the floor of her bedroom an expression of terror on her face. Beneath her body is a slip of paper with one of the "God-help-us!" symbols drawn in red ink. The threats have come true, but was Edna the intended victim?

The detection here is well done and, for the most part, follows all the tenets of fair play. Judge Peck learns that both Edna and Cornelius used a similar face powder (Cornelius has sensitive skin and used the powder as an aftershave emollient). On the night of the death Cornelius told his housekeeper the jar of powder in his room was not his and to put it back wherever it belonged. Judge Peck is sure that the powder found in Edna's room was the means of death somehow altered though no sign of poison is found during the post mortem. He is also certain that Cornelius was the intended victim since the powder was originally in his room. Then Christopher suffers a similar attack in which he has difficulty breathing and nearly asphyxiates. He is saved just in time. There seems to be a mad murderer in the Jannichon household armed with some mysterious means of causing death. The investigation will uncover a long lost relative, a convoluted inheritance, and a family history of respiratory ailments that are crucial to the solution of Edna's murder and several murder attempts of other characters.


Judge Peck does an admirable Perry Mason
imitation in Sign of Fear

As is the case in John Rhode's best books it is the painstaking detection, collaboration between medical experts, and Judge Peck's keen intuition that lead to the discovery of a truly diabolical murder method. In the gripping courtroom sequence that might have been lifted out of a Perry Mason novel Judge Peck calls forth witness after witness slowly building his case and making a startling revelation that brings a collective gasp to the entire courtroom. Though there are a few pieces of the overall puzzle that come as last minute revelations in the testimony of two witnesses I still laughed in amazement; Peck's solution makes for a stunning surprise.

If you want to read a Judge Peck book I suggest that you make this your number one pick. Most of the Judge Peck books are extremely scarce with Sign of Fear and Three Who Died being the most uncommon of the series. This book is nearly impossible to find and I count myself among the lucky to have found a copy. There is only the US hardback edition (Loring & Mussey, 1935) and not one paperback reprint in either the U.S. or the U.K. If you're lucky a copy may turn up in a library somewhere.


Judge Peck Detective Novels
Murder Stalks the Wakely Family (1934) (UK title: Death Stalks the Wakely Family)
The Man on All Fours (1934)
Three Who Died (1935)
Sign of Fear (1935)
Sentence Deferred (1939)
The Narracong Riddle (1940)
The Seven Who Waited (1943)
Mischief in the Lane (1944)
No Future for Luana (1945)
Fell Purpose (1953)
Death by Design (1953)

Friday's Forgotten Books: Mr Fairlie's Final Journey

Happy Birthday, August Derleth. I was too late with this blog by two years to get on the bandwagon with the celebration of his centennial birthday, but he looks just as good at 102 as he did at 100. Don't you think? And in lieu of lighting up a century's worth of candles I offer up this review of the only Solar Pons novel in the "Pontine Canon" as his devotees like to call it.

I have been reading a lot of Derleth mystery novels and stories lately. I have noted he seems to be fairly obsessed with the "wealthy family plagued by a menacing homicidal killer" plot best exemplified by such the classic mystery novel The Greene Murder Case and in the movies by Kind Hearts and Coronets. Nearly every one of the Judge Peck novels feature this plot -– almost always with some ancient doyenne who consults the Derleth detective in order to prove that accidental or seemingly natural deaths were in fact murders. In Mr. Fairlie's Final Journey this is once again the case making it the sixth detective novel of Derleth's where I have encountered this plot. How many variations did he dream up? It's almost like a drinking game could come out of reading one of these books. Spooky remote mansion - drink! Ancient matriarch appalled – drink! Female relative as companion to matriarch – drink! Several relatives who suffered unusually violent "accidental" deaths – drink for each one you encounter. You'll be plastered by the end of a day's reading and slightly befuddled how one writer could be so lazy in his plots.

Jonas Fairlie is the Farwell family business manager. As the vigilant and highly moral overseer of the Farwell family's printing firm Fairlie has been noticing some unusual behavior among some of the Farwell members. He and Sir Charles take a trip to Scotland and when they return Sir Charles rewrites his will. Then a series of accidents send a handful of the Farwell family members to the great beyond. Jonas Fairlie suspects foul play. He was en route via train to see Solar Pons and discuss his theories when he is callously murdered with chloroform. Pons is called in by the local police when they find his calling card in Fairlie's waistcoat pocket. There is indeed a murderer at large striking down the Farwell family, but proving the accidents to be murders is problematical for the genius sleuth.

I like the Solar Pons stories, but because I have read this story numerous times before in the Judge Peck series I was impatient with it. I have memorized the formula and it's easy to identify the tricks – most of them already overused by the time this book was published in 1968. But I made my way through to the end hoping for something extra. Other than a cliffside battle between Pons and a villain that ends in a plunge to rocky seashore below (mirroring of course the Reichenbach Falls episode) there was little thrilling or exciting in this book.

I also have a problem with Derleth's penchant for writing "period" prose. The story is supposed to take place in 1937 but you never get this at all. There are cars present, but the characters might just as well be riding around in hansom cabs. The mood and writing are imbued with an Edwardian haze and the smell of gaslit lamps and the clip-clop of horses' hooves practically drift off every page. I understand that Pons was inspired by Sherlock Holmes but why set the stories in the 20s and 30s if  the characters are going to speak and behave as if they were in living in Doyle's era? Maybe I'm being picayune here, but I think Derleth fell into a Victorian/Edwardian time tunnel each time he started writing about Pons.

There is one surprise that comes in the telling, but it is saved for the final paragraphs and the "evidence" that confirmed Pons' suspicion about this secret was pretty flimsy. Derleth's clues in his novels are not often well hidden but I admit this one slipped by me. Although I did wonder why Diana Fairlie would admit to having read The Wind in the Willows aloud if she lived entirely alone. I should've made the obvious association as Pons did.  Guess it was all that tipping of the glass in the previous 172 pages.

The Man on All Fours (1934) - August Derleth

This is the second of detective novels in a series of ten that feature Derleth's little known second series detective - Judge Ephraim Peck. Derleth is probably better known in the mystery world as the creator of Solar Pons - a Sherlock Holmes spin-off Derleth created when he wanted more Holmes tales but Doyle was not writing them. While Judge Peck shares some aspects of the Holmesian/Pontine method of detection related to physical evidence and the examination of clues he is more in the manner of the intuitive amateur sleuth popular during the late 1920s.

Here is an extremely Gothic detective novel set in a stifling mansion in northern Wisconsin. A family haunted by the deaths of two sons and several grandchildren at early ages and living under the dreaded shadow of hereditary insanity is at the mercy of a homicidal maniac who is killing members of the household. Several members of the family claim to have seen a creeping man both in the house and on the grounds. He appears to be crawling on his hands and knees each time he is seen. The unyielding matriarch seems to know more than she is willing to let on and continually withholds evidence, lies, and covers up the truth. Who is she protecting?

August Derleth, circa 1950s

Before the culprit is found four people will die and a fifth barely escapes with her life. Multiple methods of death (stabbing, gunshot, strangling) lead one to believe that the murderer is completely mad. Which member of the family has finally succumbed to the curse of their line? Or is it indeed the "creeping man" -- some weird intruder living among them? There is some nice detective work on Judge Peck's part including business with dust analysis in two locked rooms that is crucial in uncovering the truth of the creeping man's identity. The book ends melodramatically with a chase and shootout on the mansion's rooftop with some absurd action bits. For example, the 73 year-old matriarch climbing on the roof and grabbing the murderer from a stone parapet. That's some super senior!

Derleth was only 25 at the time of this book's publication. At this point in his career he was still very much a pulp writer. This book has quite a bit of Lovecraft, his writing mentor and friend, in it: the "shunned" house, the familial curse, the manner in which the insanity takes shape in those afflicted, the forbidden third floor and it's locked rooms. Derleth also tries to bury his clues, but he shows his hand clumsily in this book. The emphasis on dread and Gothicism led me to guess the identity of the murderer the instant the character was introduced.

I am in the process of reading most of the Judge Peck books and I am beginning to see themes and something of a formula to them all. A lengthier, in-depth article covering the rest of the titles in the series I own (four more of the ten) and Derleth's approach to and growth in writing detective novels will be posted here shortly.

UPDATE (Feb 15): I corrected the date of publication. I haven't a clue what possessed me to type 1929.