The Singing Clock - Virginia Perdue

THE STORY:  In the middle of the night Jacklin Bogart discovers the dead body of her cousin Antoinette and proceeds to cover up the crime. She is certain she knows who is guilty. We watch her remove the weapon from the scene and bury it far away, then she washes blood off her clothes. Lt. Brady arrives on the scene and is too clever to be fooled by Jacklin's charade. He knows she is shielding someone and perhaps trying to incriminate one of her relatives she so hates. Soon we learn that Jacklin is highly suspicious of nearly all her relatives and suspects someone guilty of not only killing her mother but trying to do in her beloved grandfather. When another murder occurs in the home it is clear to Brady that Jacklin's meddling is endangering the lives of the entire Crandall household.

THE CHARACTERS: Jacklin is one of the earliest renditions of the now tired cliche of "the unreliable narrator".  We never really know whether to believe her outrageous claims that someone not only arranged the accidental death of her father, but manged to drive her mother to commit suicide. Or perhaps killed her and made it look like suicide. Despite her beliefs her parents' deaths are not viewed as crimes by anyone,  but only by Jacklin herself. Her hatred of her relatives infects her every interaction. Her desire to avenge her parents' death affects her close relationship with her grandfather who she also believes is being targeted by the same homicidal manic who killed her parents. Everard Crandall, is an irascible old man who seems to be as misanthropic as his granddaughter. But someone still manages to poison him, a botched attempt to kill him that does not go unnoticed by the police or the relentless killer who will try again later in the story.

David, Antoinett'es former fiance, who had an argument with the murder victim the very night she was killed.  It seems that David whose reputation is tainted by his volatile temper had a prime motive and all eyes turn to him as suspect number one.  Was Jacklin protecting him with her monkey business at the scene of the crime?  Further complicating the case is that fact that Jacklin has an obsessive love for her cousin, Ward, who was training to become a doctor in Germany but was forced to return to the US in 1939 when the war broke out. She dreams of marrying him, and longs to be a Crandall so she get get rid of the odious name Bogart and all the hateful things it reminds her of.

The Crandall household is typical of these GAD fictional homes populated with troubled wealthy people all waiting for an ailing relative to die. The eccentric standout is Aunt Mel, Antoinette's mother. She is a religious zealot obsessed with New Age style movements like the one that celebrates The Great Life Force she is currently proselytizing about. In one of the book's highlights she lets loose with a tirade of invective at Everard accusing him of bringing about her daughter's death and cursing him to die.

Everard's housekeeper Mrs. Wollaston, was at one time his lover and they intended to marry, but the family prevented their union in holy matrimony. Mrs. Wollaston, nevertheless moved into the house to stay by the man she loved and care for him.  But is it possible her love is all a sham and she is actually in love with Everard's money?

ATMOSPHERE: The title of the book comes from a musical antique grandfather clock that has a prominent place in the home. Throughout the novel Jacklin hears the clock chiming an hour and a portion of the lyrics of "My Grandfather's Clock" run through her head. The song itself lodges in her mind like an earworm, and each time the clock chimes a new hour she hears another line of lyrics singing to her. Often the phrases ironically comment on the action that just occurred or will foreshadow future incidents in the narrative. Perdue uses this motif to add an eerie menace as the murder investigation unfolds. The rhyme includes the line "But it stopped short, never to run again, when the old man died" and Jacklin is fearful that if the clock stops it's tune or stops its incessant ticking Everard Crandall will in fact drop dead. She is determined to save him and is on constant watch as people continually enter and exit his bedroom where he spends much of his time.

INNOVATIONS: I thought this was going to be a suspenseful inverted crime novel and that Jacklin was guilty from the start on page one when we follow her destroying evidence and covering up the murder. But The Singing Clock (1941) is in fact a legitimate whodunnit, an ingenious blend of psychological suspense and detection. Filled with shifts in tone, surprise revelations, astonishing secrets and some transgressive touches like marijuana addiction and borderline incestuous love, The Singing Clock is one of the most remarkable crime novels to be published by Doubleday's Crime Club and a minor masterpiece from Virginia Perdue, a sorely underappreciated American crime fiction writer. The last chapter of this book is bonechilling and genuinely thrilling with Perdue's final unexpected shocking revelation. All that preceded suddenly shifts, characters are seen in a new blindingly altered light, and the story all makes perfect sense. The last few paragraphs are literally bloodcurdling with a scene reminiscent of the violent movies of Quentin Tarantino and the nightmarish tales of Cornell Woolrich and Robert Bloch. For me the final chapter of The Singing Clock is utterly ingenious and makes this book a breathtaking pioneering novel of misdirection in crime fiction. I was both impressed and astonished, a rare reaction these days.

THINGS I LEARNED:  I remember "My Grandfather's Clock" as a nursery rhyme from my childhood. My younger brother and I had it on a kid's record and we used to listen to it over and over as we did with the many odd songs in our large record collection. But apparently it's actually a folk tune that dates to the post Civil War era. Written and composed by Henry C. Work the song was published in 1876. Work is also the composer of a march that memorialized Sherman's invasion of Savanaah called "Marching Through Georgia."

According to a Wikipedia article Henry C. Work wrote a sequel to the song in which the narrator "laments the fate of the no-longer-functioning grandfather clock – it was sold to a junk dealer, who sold its parts for scrap and its case for kindling."

A lyric line from the song inspired "Ninety Years without Slumbering" in the classic TV series The Twilight Zone. Similar to what Jacklin believes in Perdue's novel in the TV show Ed Wynn stars as a man who fears his life will end when his antique clock stops ticking.

For those unfamiliar with the song "My Grandfather's Clock" you can hear Johnny Cash do his own rendition. It's the only one I can listen to now amid the sea of annoying kid's versions.

QUOTES:  "Don't think you can get out of it so easily! You've gone too far, Everard Crandall.  Your wickedness and cruelty have offended against the Great Life Stream!" Jacklin felt a mad desire to laugh. At the same time there was a prickling along her spine. It was only a part of Aunt Mel's latest religious fad. Nevertheless, it was rather horrible.

"Nobody can call his soul his own. Not so long as [Everard's] alive."

There was an air of vigorous health about [Aunt Sarah], a country air, as if she were made of good rich soil instead of ordinary blood and nerves.

And I can't resist adding this one in our days of mask phobia and pandemic viruses:

...the other man gave a harsh laugh which ended in a fit of coughing. He really had a bad cold, Jacklin thought with distaste. Why didn't they stay at home when they were sick. It wasn't fair to go around snuffling and coughing and infecting other people.

FFB: 30 Days to Live - Anthony Gilbert

THE STORY: A shout of "Fire!" in Everard Hope's home The Brakes. Panic ensues as the occupants rush out of their rooms armed only with candles to find their way. A ripped carpet leads to a fatal tumble down the staircase. The miserly Hope is dead. The next day Hope's lawyer Midleton (one D, please) arrives to read the newly changed will. Not one of the relatives who had been invited to Hope's house will be inheriting a shilling. Instead the entire estate of £100,000 will go to Dorothea Capper, someone not one of the disinherited has ever heard of. But lucky Dorothea will only inherit the money and the house after the passage of thirty days. The relatives turn detectives to track down Miss Capper and try to bargain with her. But someone is plotting to ensure Miss Capper doesn't live to see that thirtieth day. Several attempts on her life are made. Is it just one person? Or they all out to do her in? When Arthur Crook enters the picture he suggests that Dorothea turn the tables on her attackers and fight back. But will the two succeed in their battle against the horde of greedy and murderous relatives.

THE CHARACTERS: This is another book with a cast of oddballs. Lucy Malleson (aka "Anthony Gilbert") was one of the Golden Age's best detective novel satirists. 30 Days to Live (1943) is probably more of a classist satire than it is a detective novel, but there is plenty of crime and a couple of mysteries to solve. Really what Malleson is having fun with is the presentation of a naive 38 year old woman who leads a sheltered life, spends too much of her time comparing real life with the plots of movies and popular fiction she devours with glee. The original title, The Mouse Who Wouldn't Play Ball, is an indication of just what we're to think of Dorothea Capper. At first a figure of utter ridicule in her brown dress, brown hat, brown shoes and bag to match plus her beige way of thinking Dorothea soon grows likeable as her predicament grows ever more perilous. She's lucky that Crook intervenes on her behalf to show her the cruelty of the world she tends to overlook and the opportunists who seem to want only the best for her when in fact they have their own selfish interests in mind. Dorothea slowly learns how to navigate herself in a world where suddenly she has become what appears to be the center of everyone's attention.

Arthur Crook, mysterydom's finest rogue lawyer turned detective, appears only incidentally in two scenes in the early portion of the book but will figure more prominently in the final third of the novel. He's just as shifty and unscrupulous as he always is. When he unveils his extravagantly melodramatic scheme to outwit the would-be killer and the other ruthless relatives we are definitely rooting for Dorothea to survive and earn what is rightfully hers.

Among the gold-digging relatives there is Julia Carberry who assigns herself as Dorothea's protector, barging into her home ahead of the others and directing Dorothea like a stern schoolmarm. There's another shifty lawyer in the mess -- Garth Hope, who tries his best to become Dorothea's advisor but learning too late that Crook has got to her first. Cecil Hope and Hugh Lacey are cousins and prospective suitors who both dare to invite Miss Capper out on dates in order to sway her to their side and wishing for her to split the inheritance with them. In the company of all three men bizarre accidents take place, one of them leading to a fatality of a stranger and the other two nearly landing Dorothea in her grave.

ATMOSPHERE: World War two is ever present throughout the story as a reminder of the real dangers of life that Dorothea and everyone have taken for granted. The nearly mundane references pop up so regularly it's as if war has become commonplace routine. Characters are pestered by having to draw the blackout curtains each night; a sign in a church pew reminds churchgoers to gather up their belongings, including their gas mask, before they leave; a newspaper advertisement sponsored by the National Savings Campaign illustrates foolish spending on imported goods by depicting a man and woman being threatened by a shark sporting a swastika on its fin, the caption reads "Would you buy if you had to swim for it?"; and small talk includes offhand mention of German bombs that have destroyed local landmarks and statues ("I remember seeing a broken arm lying at her feet the next morning.")

INNOVATIONS Stories about greedy relatives with murder on their minds hatching plots to do in the rightful heir date back to Gothic fiction of the late 18th century. From the persecuted Maud Ruthyn in Uncle Silas to the titular serial killer in Israel Rank inventive writers have found ways to ring out new changes in what could easily become tiresome and predictable. Malleson's clever mix of paranoid imaginings, genuine danger and classist satire all blend together in an unexpectedly witty take on this familiar tale of avarice and vanity. It's an unusual choice to have your protagonist such an utter fool at the mercy of such wily and treacherous villains and yet somehow it works. While we're busy laughing at Dorothea's often embarrassingly girlish behavior -- dressing up in an inappropriately bright yellow dress and overly elaborate hat to impress Hugh Lacey, for example -- we overlook the subtle manipulation Malleson has of making us complicit in the relatives' criminal thinking. We are privy to everyone's thoughts and we know that many of the characters are desperate for the money that Miss Capper may inherit. And she's such an idiot at times we almost want her to fall out of a window and be done with her. It's a devilish trick that Malleson plays with the reader in getting us to sympathize with Dorothea yet also wishing her dead almost simultaneously.

QUOTES: ...since the English persist in confounding morality with ability, he knew he didn't stand a chance [at promotion] if his name were being bandied about in the Divorce Court.

He looked across the room and caught Dorothea's eye and smiled. It was ravishing, that smile. [...] It made him look so young and youth in the other sex appeals to women as no virtue or mental qualification can do.

"When a lawyer's on speaking terms with the police," Crook was explaining, "you can hope to see Heaven opened and the angels of God descending on the sons of men."

...had Miss Capper asked him to prove that she hadn't bumped off her relatives one after the other, he would have accepted the commission and gone to all lengths to win the case. Not that he thought she had. All his professional life, he would mourn, he had been looking for Lucrezia Borgia in modern dress and it was his grief that, even if he did meet her, some other fellow would step in front of him and mess the matters up.

THINGS I LEARNED: More new cocktails added to my ever growing list of odd potent potables. This time the Grand Guignol. Hugh Lacey orders up several of these and Dorothea pops them back like a natural lush.  It sounds sickeningly sweet: 1.5 oz of dark rum, mixed with .75 oz of yellow chartreuse, cherry Heering (a liqueur I also had never heard of), and fresh lime juice. Shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Grand Guignol is usually used to describe lurid murder stories as it comes from the name of a puppet company that used to perform such plays. Then it became the name of the theater and its company of live actors who basically invented the idea of what slasher movies are all about. They performed plays that existed solely for gorey stage effects that shock and revolt the audience. Very odd name for such a cloying cocktail. I'd expect it to look bright red and not a muddy unappealing orange.

by-blow is a colloquial term or maybe a euphemism?) used when talking about illegitimate children. Merriam Webster tells me it's been around since the 16th century, but I don't think I've ever encountered it in Shakespeare, Webster, Johnson or in any of the many Jacobean revenge plays that I studied back in college days.

Jessie Matthews (left) as Dorothea and Beatrix Lehmann as
 Julia Carberry (now a sinister housekeeper!) in Candles at Nine (1944)

THE MOVIE: This is the second of three Anthony Gilbert novels that were adapted for the movies during the 1940s. Retitled Candles at Nine (in reference to Everard Hope's nightly ritual of shutting off the electricity in his house and resorting to candles for illumination) it stars Jessie Matthews as Miss Capper, Beatrix Lehmann as Julia Carberry, and John Stuart as an Arthur Crook stand-in of little import and mysterious origins named William Gordon. The movie preserves the basic story of Miss Capper needing to remain alive for one month in order to inherit but adds that she must live in The Brakes for those thirty days. The only other element that remains the same are the characters' names. The wit and satire is replaced by farce and music hall style comedy. The story is a messy mix of this low comedy and dire overacted melodrama. Only two of the five attempts on Miss Capper's life are included in the movie. Gordon gets attacked and trussed up in a closet at one point, something that absolutely does not happen to Crook. And need I mention the gratuitous musical numbers? At one point there is a two minute dance sequence that is supposed to show off Matthews' terpsichorean talents but it's a dreadful hodgepodge of ballet, jazz and tap dancing. She spends more time twirling about the stage and assisted into posing in arabesque positions by her tuxedo wearing partner than she does any real dancing. The movie is further ruined by the intrusion of the actors playing Hugh and Cecil Lacey (renamed Charles) who serve as the music hall duo delivering risqué one-liners (two of them pretty dirty for a 1944 film) and pointless banter. Very little of the exciting story is retained. The ultimate indignity of this movie adaptation is that Julia Carberry, one of the best realized and complex characters, is transformed into a cheap Mrs. Danvers wannabe who bears not a trace of Malleson's original Julia. The movie is not recommended at all.

EASY TO FIND? This one is very scarce. At least based on what I could find in online bookselling catalogs. Less than ten copies seem to be out there for sale. I looked under both titles too. Copies using the original title The Mouse Who Wouldn't Play Ball are more common. I was surprised to see it was reprinted at least three times under that title, once as a large print edition done in the 1980s. The White Circle paperback edition using the title under which the book is reviewed here is from Collins' Toronto paperback reprint publishing arm and it's a true rarity; only four copies available. Those of you living in the UK may be lucky with local libraries and used bookstores.

This is now my second favorite of the Anthony Gilbert books I've read. It's highly recommended should you be lucky enough to find a copy. Next up is The Clock in the Hatbox which I managed to locate through a miracle of sorts. Eager to read and review that one since it comes highly recommended from Neer and a few other bloggers.

IMPRESSIVE IMPRINTS: Main Line Mysteries

Sometime in the mid 1940s Lippincott introduced their most successful and long-running mystery imprint after abandoning the "Masked Man" idea. Main Line Mysteries made use of a clever logo showing a train engine with smoke trailing out of the smokestack in the form of a question mark with the logo name in a railroad crossing sign. The design also doubles as a stylized skull and cross bones. The series began about 1943, flourished throughout the 1950s and ended sometime around 1967. Authors included such stalwart mystery icons as William Irish, Edmund Crispin, Frances & Richard Lockridge and Patricia Wentworth. They also signed on lesser known writers with fairly long careers such as Paul Whelton and his private eye series featuring Garry Dean and Stewart Sterling who created one of the first arson investigator detectives, Fire Marshall Ben Pedley.

As a publisher that began with nursing textbooks it should come as no surprise that the editors were drawn to medical mysteries and detective novels with hospital settings. I found a slew of them in my research and added a few of the DJs from those books to the assortment below. Can't be a coincidence, IMO.

After-Dinner Story (1944)

Darkness of Slumber (1944)

Deadline at Dawn (1944)

Call the Lady Indiscreet (1946)

The Dancing Detective (1946)

Rx for Murder (1946)

Angels Are Painted Fair (1947)
The Main Line Mysteries logo appeared on the DJ spine panel, spine of book, and the title page

Blood Is a Beggar (1946)

Where There's Smoke (1946)

Dead and Dumb (1947)
published in the UK under its better known title: Swan Song

Dead Wrong (1947)

Dead Man Blues (1948)

Diagnosis: Homicide (1950)
An Edgar Award winner for Best Short Story

The Ivory Dagger (1951)

Ladies' Bane (1952)

Death and the Gentle Bull (1954)

Live Bait for Murder (1955)

Murder Is Insane (1956)

The Cactus Shroud (1957)

Death Paints a Portrait (1958)

Clues for Dr. Coffee (1964)

Murder Can't Wait (1964)

FFB/FIRST BOOKS: Mare's Nest - Carlyn Coffin

THE STORY: After suffering a disabling injury in Puerto Rico that leaves her left leg crushed from a terrible riding accident Salina "Sally" Nash is sent back the US to recuperate at her brother's horse farm ironically dubbed "Mare's Nest." While there she undergoes a rigorous treatment plan to regain the use of her leg under the care of two physicians, one nurse and a physical therapist. She also becomes the inadvertent witness to a blackmailer's plot and assists one of the doctors who has ambiguous ties the federal government in the solution of several bizarre murders.

CHARACTERS: Sally Nash is a sort of early female example of "Jeff" Jeffries, Jimmy Stewart's wheelchair bound photographer from Rear Window. Coffin's character in Mare's Nest (1941) pre-dates Woolrich's narrator whose original story "It Had to be Murder" appeared in Dime Detective magazine in February 1942. The similarities of the leg injured narrator are remarkable even to the inclusion of a masseur and physical therapist just as Jeff has the wisecracking Thelma Ritter as Stella, the insurance company nurse/masseuse. Also notable is Coffin's use of an eavesdropping bit that is very reminiscent of Lucille Fletcher's classic radio play (and later movie) "Sorry, Wrong Number." In the opening chapter Sally overhears a muffled conversation below her bedroom window. At this point she is bedridden (though later her cast is removed and she is able to use a wheelchair and then finally crutches) and can't move at all to see who is below. She can only rely on her ears yet is barely able to make out the second voice though the first is clearly a man's. Distinctly she hears the second voice say, "Someday someone will kill you!

Because of the plot device of a recuperating narrator invalid the story is often limited to Sally's bedroom and the adjoining library but it never feels claustrophobic. On occasion Sally is lifted into her wheelchair and makes it down to the first floor as in the first few chapters where she joins the rest of the house guests for a dinner party being held by her brother Martin Hood, a wealthy playboy and world traveler, who intends on making an announcement about his life and estate. But the majority of the story takes place upstairs in the two rooms where Sally is being watched over and treated. The library that adjoins her bedroom becomes of great interest later on when certain incriminating documents are being searched for and the contents of Martin's safe need to be explored.

The guests for the weekend include Martin's explorer buddy the foppish Richard Fenniton; Katherine Wells, Martin's fiancee, Peggy Embrie, one of Martin's old flames who thinks she is going to marry Martin; the "ugly faced" Dr. Edmunds the younger of Sally's two physicians, Miss Baer, a nurse with dreams of working on a ship hopefully one piloted by Richard. The servants include Miranda, a stern and extremely articulate African housekeeper; Hebe, a black maid who seems to be used for comic effect but soon proves to be as formidable as the housekeeper.

Rounding out the cast is the mysterious Dr. Wagner who enters the story when Martin dies from a sudden illness but whose death turns out to be an insidious form of poisoning that nearly goes undetected. The actual method is once again utterly bizarre (lots of these lately) and interestingly also incorporates the horse motifs that recur throughout the novel. Wagner is a forensic pathologist but as the story progresses he takes on a more sinister role and reveals that he must have ties to either the CIA or FBI though it is never stated which. That the story is set in Maryland makes the presence of federal government agents all the more likely. Sally never knows who among the many servants and workmen visiting "Mare's Nest" may actually be working for Dr. Wagner and this adds another layer of paranoia to this very well told story.

INNOVATIONS: The entire novel is modeled after the Had I But Known/Woman in Peril formula as created by Mary Roberts Rinehart. In fact, it was one of four "Honorable Mention" novels that was awarded a publication contract in the second annual Mary Roberts Rinehart Mystery Writing Contest sponsored by her husband's publishing company Farrar & Rinehart. Coffin's novel was obviously the best of the four runners-up because unlike the previous years Honorable Mentions hers was the only book published on its own. The other three also-rans in 1941 had their books published in an omnibus blandly titled Three Prize Murders advertised on the rear panel of the Mare's Nest dust jacket. Of those three writers only Edith Howie went on to write more mystery books.

As an example of the HIBK suspense thriller Mare's Nest is original in concept, literate in style without ever being self-consciously "prosey", and incorporates some brilliant scenes of detection and misdirection. If the culprit is not altogether surprising towards the end that is no real criticism against Coffin. She delivers a first novel that is so accomplished, well plotted and filled with interestingly complex and often unexpectedly fresh characters that the book might well be the work of a veteran.

The murder method is alluded to in an epigraph where Coffin tells us she learned of its existence in a book by African American writer Zora Neale Hurston. I immediately thought, "A voodoo murder!" since the Hurston book Coffin read was Tell My Horse, about life in Haiti and Jamaica. Was I ever surprised when Dr. Wagner describes exactly how Martin was killed. Made my skin crawl. This extremely unusual means of murder and its geographic origins prove to be one of the most important clues in identifying the killer who must have a knowledge of the country and its customs.

THE AUTHOR: I thought I was so clever when I tried to prove that Carlyn Coffin was a pseudonym for the wife of noted English Professor and head of the English Department at Columbia University for over 20 years Harrison Steeves, who also coincidentally wrote a mystery novel (Goodnight, Sheriff) in 1941. The book is dedicated to "Harrison of whom I am very fond in all moods, including the subjunctive" and Coffin's bio on the rear DJ flap mentions that she the wife of a college professor. Aha! Must be a joke hinting that her husband is a English professor. But no, turns out that is her real name and her husband was Harrison Coffin, head of the humanities division of Union College in Schenectady, NY during the 40s and 50s. This was proved in a quick Google search to discover the closest college to Schenectady after I learned that both Coffins were living there according to the 1940 census. (Thanks Steve Lewis and Allen Hubin!) This led me to finding a 1986 newspaper interview with Coffin where she talked about her husband and her writing. Seems so obvious, right? Why not just look for Harrison Coffin to start with? Let's just say I like to make things difficult for myself.

Coffin went on to write a handful of detective stories, one of which I know was published in the short-lived Rex Stout's Mystery Monthly (May 1947) and one more novel Dogwatch (1944) which I will be reviewing in the future. Towards the end of her career she also wrote children's books including Noel and His Friends (1986) about a "clever rabbit".

EASY TO FIND?  Uh... What's the usual answer to that question, gang? That's right. Very few copies floating out there. Published only in a US hardcover Mare's Nest can join the pantheon housing the hundreds of rather scarce mystery novels I write about. I found only six copies for sale online. Libraries might turn up more copies. Mare's Nest was reprinted once but not as a paperback book. It appeared in the pulp digest Two Complete Detective Books (Spring 1942). The book really is good enough for a reissue. Why it wasn't reprinted in the 1940s or 1950s by a leading paperback publisher remains a mystery greater than those in its pages.

FFB: The Case Against Myself - Gregory Tree

If you guessed based on the title alone that The Case Against Myself is a courtroom drama told in the first person from the defendant's point of view you would only be partially correct. The Case Against Myself (1950) is indeed a courtroom drama, a murder trial to be specific. In part. It is told in the first person by the defendant Catherine Benedict. In part.

Why then isn't it called The Case Against Catherine Benedict? You may wonder this as I did. Because there are fifteen narrators in this novel each telling a portion of the story from their viewpoint. Among those narrators are several jurors, the defendant's husband, the husband's secretary, his second mistress, her husband, the judge, both trial lawyers, and even a private eye hired by the defense lawyer. All of them telling the story and each time adding another layer to a labyrinthine at times confusing plot. All of them, to some extent, tell the story of the case against themselves. In one way or another nearly all the narrators is complicit in the crime and has complicated the events surrounding the murder of Margo Chalmers, mistress to notorious gossip columnist Bernard Benedict. Yes, even a few of the jurors are guilty of some sort of lying or fraud. The choice of the title provides some hearty food for thought by the end of the book.

You would think with all these narrators author John Franklin Bardin (it's him all right writing under the pseudonym "Gregory Tree") would be experimenting with voice and style. But oddly because of his choice of title Bardin has also given his narrating characters a sound alike voice. When expressing their thoughts in narrative form there is a strange stilted nature in the deliberate avoidance of contractions and much of the vocabulary tends to be similar. It's as if he has created one collective unconscious. Only when the characters speak their dialogue do we get distinctive voices. It makes for an overall sinister tone to the book. The levels of paranoia and neurotic behavior that go hand in hand in any Bardin story become all the more unnerving when written in this often cold and distant narrative style.

Bardin, best known for a trio of psychological suspense thrillers dealing with mental illness, both real and feigned, is once again obsessed with psychiatry and abnormal psychology in this novel. One of the two characters who helps uncover the truth behind the confusing events surrounding the death of Margo Chalmers is psychoanalyst Dr. Noel Mayberry who, surprisingly, was treating both Catherine and her husband Bernard for their neuroses and morbid obsessions. Mayberry appears twice in the story. First, in a section narrated by Bernard, the doctor appears as a typical psychiatrist goading his patient to relax and tell his story calmly. Secondly, in the final pages in which he reveals both Catherine and Benedict were his patients and that he has been privy to more than his fair share of secrets. Only after the trial has ended can Mayberry finally discuss his patients' lives in detail and help the police explain the muddle of Margo's inevitably cruel murder.

To go into the complex plot any further would spoil this near brilliant example of a crime novel that is an amalgam of so many subgenres. It's a psychological suspense novel, it's a courtroom thriller, it's a private eye novel. In the final pages it's even a traditional detective novel ending with all suspects gathered in one room awaiting the moving finger to point out the identity of the murderer among them.

The book's only flaw is a tendency towards high melodrama in the final chapter aptly told from the murderer's point of view. But the killer is one of Bardin's typical psychos and has a narrative style so over-the-top that to a reader who has devoured thousands of crime novels will be all too familiar. It's not hard to pick out the culprit once the killer starts elaborating on so many kooky thoughts.

Prior to the murderer's unveiling, satisfying if overwrought, the story is very well done. There are many genuine surprises that while at times overburden the plot with twists and irony yet make sense when considering Bardin's intent as hinted at in his unusual title. There are a veritable French farce hotel's worth of nighttime visitors who infiltrate the crime scene, convenient witnesses who see all those visitors enter and exit the home, and crazy coincidences that multiple as the real truth is slowly uncovered. What begins as a tawdry domestic crime inexorably transforms into a nightmare worthy of the fervent imagination of Cornell Woolrich. Everyone is guilty of something -- a cover-up, a crime, a lie of omission, even the creation of fake evidence. No one escapes culpability in the final scene. That was Bardin's brilliance shining through and the most satisfying part of the book.

Dr. Mayberry and defense lawyer William Bradley appear in a sequel called The Case Against Butterfly, another courtroom drama told in multiple narratives involving a murder in the fashion business and featuring two sisters who are fashion models. This first book under the Tree pseudonym was inventive and imaginative enough to get me to track down the other. Hopefully, I'll have a review of the sequel sometime later this year.

*  *  *

Reading Challenge update:  Golden Age Bingo Card space D2: "A book with a lawyer, courtroom, judge, etc."

FOUND BOUND: The Gory Gazette

Periodically I find myself stuck in the pages of magazines (there's a punny sentence for you!). Usually I'm perusing old reviews of forgotten and obscure murder mysteries and adventure novels. Every now and then along the sidebar margins I find an advertisement or two that catches my eye. This is how I learned of the existence of Aunt Beardie, a fantastic example of the historical mystery done well with a whopper of an ending.

Now that my collection of ephemera has been completely exhausted, and the usual Sunday feature "Left Inside" is a very rare occurrence (the last one was in the summer of 2013), I am substituting it with a new feature called "Found Bound". Every other Sunday I'll be posting ads, cartoons and other interesting tidbits I find in magazines of the past.

Today we look at an advertising gimmick created by the clever gang at Simon & Schuster, one of the oldest existing publishing houses in the United States. S&S was very innovative when marketing their mysteries. They invented Pocket Books in the late 1920s, the very first mass market paperback imprint in the United States. Additionally, they were one of the first publishers to create a hardcover imprint solely for detective fiction ("Inner Sanctum Mysteries") and were rather clever in getting their message out to their audience. Below are two ads found in two early 1940s issues of The Saturday Review done along the lines of a newsletter they called "The Gory Gazette."

I've read the Woolrich novel The Black Curtain (1941) advertised in the second set of illustrations and highly recommend it. I've not yet found a copy of Gypsy Rose Lee's second mystery novel Mother Finds a Body (1942), but I'm still looking. BTW -- Lee did in fact write her own books. They were not ghost written by Craig Rice no matter what numerous websites and reference books are trying to convince you otherwise.

Click to enlarge all scans in order to read the ads.