Murder without Clues - Joseph L Bonney

A dead body in a locked room, a house surrounded by undisturbed snow, all suspects have an alibi but one and yet it seems that one person could not have committed the crime.  Another ingenious John Dickson Carr rip-off?  Well, not quite.  Murder without Clues (1940) is a the ultimate Golden Age homage that does a very good job of honoring the work of not only Carr but Queen and Van Dine.  Joseph L. Bonney, in his debut work as a mystery writer, has also thrown in a couple of wink-wink allusions to Conan Doyle to make this a quadruple homage. Does this mystery succeed as yet another in the impossible crime/locked room subgenre. Hmm...You decide.

Henry Watson, a wannabe novelist, is in search of a new apartment and a roommate and his friend suggests he visit Simon Rolfe who is also in search of new digs. The two meet and Watson can't help but be disturbed by Rolfe's emulation of a certain fictional detective. Rolfe has a mysterious origin that is never fully explained, seems to be independently wealthy, plays the violin, smokes a pipe, lounges around in a smoking jacket, and sees clients with puzzling problems which he solves for a modest fee and does so in a single afternoon.  Bonney has a bit too cutely paid homage to Conan Doyle while at the same time allowing his Sherlock dopplegänger to disparage the entire canon in a four page diatribe in which he deconstructs several of the stories as pathetically obvious. Once this tirade is out of the way the story can take place front and center and we have a classic Golden Age locked room populated by ex-vaudeville performers who are stranded in a snowbound house somewhere in upstate New York.

Wicked philandering dancer Lucille Divine is found stabbed in the back in her locked bedroom at the home of Champ Lister. All of Lister's guests and servants were downstairs at the time she screamed, they rush upstairs, find Lister in the hallway at the wrong door, then break down Lucille's door and find her in her last gasps. One man goes to her tries to help her and hears her say "It was the Champ..."  Then she expires. Has she verbally fingered her killer?  Lister denies he had anything to do with her death.  He didn't even know she was in this other bedroom.  He went to the bedroom across the hallway where she usually stayed.

Young Joseph L Bonney
looking suitably nerdy
on the DJ rear cover

As the title implies - there are no clues, at least as far as physical evidence goes. Plus -- no weapon can be found anywhere, even after all the rooms are thoroughly searched. The only window in the murder room is open a crack (Lucille liked fresh air to sleep at night despite the wintry temps) and can't be opened any further.  How did anyone get in, kill Lucille, and escape entirely unnoticed.  The timing of the guests rushing upstairs seems to eliminate Lister who was seen at the other doorway as they came up the stairs. Also, Lister a former vaudeville performer who stunned people with feats of memory and instant recall, listened to a radio program at the time of the murder. To prove it he writes down all the dialogue from memory.  When the police compare it to the actual broadcast it's nearly verbatim. It's all utterly baffling -- until Rolfe starts questioning the suspects of course.

Rolfe fancies himself a detective of psychology who finds this case with no physical evidence right up his alley. He approaches detective work from a different angle paying attention subtleties in language and behavior.  Though he claims to use deduction most of his conclusions are the result of induction. Still Bonney is clever in how he allows Rolfe to expose lies and get the suspects to reveal things they'd rather keep hidden. I was impressed with the dying clue bit which is very reminiscent of several Queen books.  However, in the end Bonney's explanation is a bit of a stretch.  No matter how many people I polled I couldn't get one person to duplicate what he says happened.

Rolfe is also irritatingly an obsessive student of the French philosopher Montaigne who he quotes repeatedly through the book. Only one quote seems to have anything to do with his work as a detective:  "I do not understand; I pause, I examine."  This might serve as Rolfe's (or any worthwhile detective's) mantra.

In the end it's a intricately detailed investigation, perhaps overly so in the manner of Queen and Van Dine,  with Rolfe sharing the stage with Inspector Charles King and a slew of policemen put on guard throughout the household. In a neat touch Henry Watson (Rolfe actually addresses him as "My dear Watson" too many times) provides quite by accident one of the key observations.  The manner in which the crime is committed is perhaps one of the wickedest I've encountered in a American mystery novel of this era.  there is, of course, another bizarre murder means, not quite as original as Bonney may think it is.  This method belongs to a subset of murder means that I can group into Death by... OH!  Better not mention that.  But it has been used in the work of Carr as Carter Dickson, Burton Stevenson, the Coles, and two obscure books by William Morton, and George R. Fox, all of those books and stories pre-dating Bonney's novel. Was the murder means yet another, albeit obscure, homage?

Some good news:  copies of Murder without Clues are out there for sale! About eight or nine copies by my count. One 1st edition with DJ is absurdly priced at $495. Be aware that the paperback digest edition (pictured at right) is abridged. But in this case that 's a good thing. I can imagine that all the nonsense about Montaigne and Socrates was eliminated to shorten the book. Also I'm sure that the editors cut to pieces the Sherlock Holmes diatribe that tends to spoil some of the content of the stories.

This is an interesting and engaging read in the locked room subgenre.  I thought for sure that I had pegged the killer and figured out how Lucille was done in. I also thought I had figured out the dying clue. But I was wrong on all counts.  It all turned out to be quite a surprise, though I think a bit flawed.

Having many of the suspects come from the world of vaudeville allows for a slew of red herrings, two of which I fell for and one which did not turn up at all. I was disappointed Bonney didn't include the missing aspect. It would have fit in perfectly with the dying clue.  Missed opportunity!  You can expect at least one knife thrower to show up in the cast. After all, knife throwing and vaudeville go hand in hand in the mystery novel. If you aren't acquainted with this hoary cliche of detective novels read my post on the ultimate knife throwing murder mystery here.

COVERING THEIR TRACKS - "Whodunit?"- Tavares

Whodunit?
Who stole my baby?
Everyone in the room looks shady
...It's a bedside mystery!

Ah, the disco era! Platforms shoes, bell bottom pants, pooka shell necklaces, the "Dry Look", feathered hair, sequins and mirror balls. And all that wild and crazy music. Remember Tavares? Well, frankly neither do I. But this is another fun tune. I can't imagine this filled up the dance floor if it ever was played in the discos of days gone by, but I'd be among those laughing and smiling had I heard it. 

This may be the prizewinner for a pop tune mentioning fictional detectives and not only from books. Toward the end there is a long list of TV show detectives: Baretta, McCloud, Kojak, and Ironside. And just before the fade out you'll hear: "Tell Dirty Harry we're supposed to get married."



Hey, where's the phone to call Sherlock Holmes
[Somebody took my baby]
I've been framed by what's-his-name
And he's gettin' away
Charlie Chan, see if you can
Help me find those two, won't you?
Where were you on the night of the 12th?
[I was by myself]
She went dancin' in the dark,
Somebody stole her heart
Ellery Queen, if you're so keen
Won't you help me find my sweet thing? (Yeah, yeah)

Written by Frederick J. Perren, Keni St. Lewis
© Universal Music Publishing Group

IN BRIEF: Murder Fantastical – Patricia Moyes

This was a delight! Whip smart, devilishly plotted, and funny as can be with a range of jolly moods from outlandish farce to wry wit. Reduced to its bare essence it's a country house murder mystery, but Moyes manages to avoid all the stodginess and claustrophobia that typifies this subgenre. With echoes of Ellery Queen’s There Was an Old Woman in the assortment of wackos and eccentrics in the Manciple family who dominate the large cast of characters and a nod, whether conscious or not, to John Rhode’s bizarre death traps in an ingeniously thought out method of killing someone Murder Fantastical is enlivened by unexpected character touches and a vigorous sense of humor. I’m sure I’ve read books by Moyes in the past but I can’t recall any of them. I certainly don’t remember having previously read Murder Fantastical (1967), an involved and quite imaginatively constructed novel.

Inspector Henry Tibbet has his hands full with the seemingly accidental shooting death of Raymond Mason who has been harassing the Manciples both in his attempts to acquire their land and his vociferous complaints about the shooting range on their property that he claims is a danger to the public. Tibbet’s investigation of the fatal accident uncovers a family history shrouded in secrets and tainted by violent deaths. When old Aunt Dora becomes a second victim Tibbet thinks he may have a homicidal maniac on his hands. He must dig into the Manciple family past tracing back unresolved troubles that have their origin in the jungles of a mythical African country where the family once lived. Impersonations, avarice and narcissism all play a part in this highly recommended mystery.

I enjoyed this so much I’ll be reading as many Patricia Moyes books as I can get my hands on. I can only hope the others are as lively and puzzling as this intricately plotted detective novel.

* * *

Reading Challenge update: Silver Age card, space V3 – “Book read by another challenger”
Bev read this back in March of this year and I suggest you read her fine review at My Reader’s Block for further details. Also, check out Jeff Pierce’s unlikely rave review of Murder Fantastical posted back in 2010 at The Rap Sheet.

One Drop of Blood - Anne Austin

There's trouble at Mayfield Sanitarium now that Dr. Carl Koenig, their kindly director is dead. Someone has bludgeoned him with a miniature replica of the famous Discus thrower statue. His office is in a shambles: medical records shredded and torn, books thrown about the place, a crystal lamp overturned. It appears that one of the patients lost complete control and turned into a homicidal maniac. But of course it only appears that way. James Dundee makes this crucial observation. The crystal lamp in intact as if it were delicately placed on its side and not knocked over. The books are artfully arranged and not lying open if they were thrown to the floor. And a single drop of blood is found on the upper corner of the doctor's desk. Why did the murder clean up all traces of blood but miss that one drop?

One Drop of Blood (1932) is the penultimate detective novel by little known American writer Anne Austin. Based on this one book I'd say she was influenced by the works of Van Dine and Queen. The detective work involving the reason for the oversight of a single drop of blood is an example of the kind of outside the box thinking that made Philo Vance and Ellery Queen so distinctive in the realm of amateur sleuths. Dundee is perceptive and insightful whereas Captain Strawn (who has annoyingly nicknamed Dundee "Bonnie" due to  his Scottish heritage) is the typical gruff, impolite cop who jumps to conclusions. Each time a new suspect shows the possibility of being in the vicinity of the murder scene Strawn spends the next two paragraphs coming up with faulty reasoning and absurd motives for that suspect being the killer.

Unlike Queen and Vance Dundee is no amateur. He makes his living as a Special Investigator for District Attorney Sanderson in the mythical Midwestern town of Hamilton, the actual state is never named but is probably somewhere in eastern Michigan based on Hamilton being in the Eastern time zone and a five hour train ride from Chicago. Dundee is so good at his job his sleuthing skills are known to law officers all the way in Los Angeles. Dundee soon discovers that in 1919 three of the patients at Mayfield were all under the care of Dr. Sandlin at the Good Hope facility in California. This is one of those crazy coincidences you just have to accept in order to keep going with the story.

In addition to the mystery of who killed Dr. Koenig Austin manages to concoct multiple past lives of five patients far more interesting and puzzling than the mysteries at the murder scene. Like many a detective novel from this era the solution to the murder lies in the secret filled past. Dr. Koenig we are told early in the novel made a supplemental income as an expert witness in trials where insanity is the defense. Several of the patients' case histories are discussed in detail and the reader is treated to a litany of mental illnesses -- some still legitimate diagnoses, some outdated -- ranging from dementia praecox to nymphomania. As long as you can accept the 1932 setting and forgive some of the passe, often risible, psychobabble and focus on Austin's much more impressive handling of the mystery plot you'll enjoy this forgotten writer's book. I'm already on the search for more to see if the rest live up to this impressive job.

* * *

This is my second book for the 2014 Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge for which we are to fill in Bingo style cards. My goal is to fill in both cards -- Golden and Silver Age with 36 books on each card. This one fulfills the requirement for space O2 ("A Book with a Number in the Title") on the Golden Age Card.

FFB: Policeman's Holiday - Rupert Penny

Though Rupert Penny only wrote a handful of books, all published by the esteemed Collins Crime Club, not a single one of his books was published in the United States during his lifetime. It took the ingenuity of Fender Tucker and Gavin O'Keefe, those very busy men over at Ramble House,  to resurrect these fiendishly clever, often preposterous, and genuinely baffling detective novels and allow American readers an opportunity decades overdue to read them.  Policeman's Holiday (1937) is the second of only eight novels featuirng the "talkative policeman" Inspector Beale and his Watson of sorts the financial reporter Tony Purdon. And it's one of the strangest detective novels I've read in a long while.

Rupert Penny is the adopted pseudonym of Ernest Basil Charles Thornett, a newspaper writer and cruciverbalist when he wasn't concocting incredibly complicated murder mystery plots. In Policeman's Holiday he decided to combine his two passions -- detective novels and crossword puzzles, or more accurately acrostics. The murder victim Bernard Pommery is a J.P., philanthropist, ex-publisher of novelty magazines and an acrostic enthusiast. His body is found hanging in Dillow Woods several miles from his home. In his pocket is an acrostic puzzle that has not one but two solutions (!) each of them providing the police with clues to the killer's motive and means.

I'll forgo any attempt to summarize the intricate, multi-layered plot. Some readers may complain that this book is saturated in plot, that it's nothing but plot. I wouldn't quibble with that observation, but then there are an entire subset of detective novels that exist solely for the plot and the puzzle. Curt Evans has written about some of the better writers in his book Masters of the Humdrum Mystery. I'd class Rupert Penny with those "humdrums" as well. As a crossword puzzle constructor Thornett would naturally be drawn to writing detective novels in which puzzles and an abundance of enigmatic clues are integral to the story. His former life as a cryptographer in the British secret service no doubt also aided him in his puzzle-making abilities.

Policeman's Holiday is something of a tour de force in that regard. It's hard not to resist the pull of the puzzle from the moment the body is discovered hanging from the beech tree when all appearances say it must a suicide and all reason says it cannot possibly be so. And Thornett's storytelling pulls the reader just as an expert angler knows how to pick the perfect lure. The manner in which Inspector Beale approaches solving the crime is both entertaining and gripping. True to the style of most Golden Age detective novels Policeman's Holiday is also gussied up with maps and diagrams, including one that shows how nearly impossible it was for the victim to have committed suicide.

The pièce de résistance of Rupert Penny's detective novels is his gimmick of the "Interlude." Occurring a few chapters from the end these breaks in the narrative are similar to Ellery Queen's "Challenge to the Reader" in which the reader is asked to pause, mull over the story, sift through the clues and toss out the red herrings, and come up with his solution before turning the page and reading the actual revelation of the murderer. Just as with Queen a Penny "Interlude" is akin to a medieval knight tossing down his gauntlet. You're in for a real battle, albeit a battle of wits if you dare to take up the gauntlet and attempt to figure out the solution of a Rupert Penny mystery. I've failed three times so far. And as for that acrostic -- I managed to figure out one of the eight diabolically clued lights. I'd be willing to bet a wad of money that no one will be able to get both solutions to that particular puzzle.

Rupert Penny as he appears on the rear DJ
of a Collins Crime Club edition

Rupert Penny's Detective Novels
The Talkative Policeman (1936)
Policeman's Holiday (1937)
Policeman in Armour (1937)
The Lucky Policeman (1938)
Policeman's Evidence (1938)
She Had To Have Gas (1939)
Sweet Poison (1940)
Sealed Room Murder (1941)

As "Martin Tanner"
Cut and Run (1941)

FFB: The Detective Novels of Harriette Ashbrook

If it hadn't been for an unmentionable book by a writer known only by his initials Harriette Ashbrook might never have become a mystery writer. Just as Agatha Christie was inspired to pen her first novel by reading a poorly written detective novel Ashbrook in a newspaper interview done in 1933 confessed, "I owe it all to T.S. Fine literary style is discouraging to the beginner. It's better to read a terrible piece of tripe and get encouraged." Whatever that book and whoever T.S. might be we have to thank him for the creation of Ashbrook's ne'er-do-well amateur detective Philip "Spike" Tracy.

We first meet Spike Tracy in The Murder of Cecily Thane (1930) and he's a near twin of Philo Vance, who at the time had only appeared in five books. Tracy has got a playboy's philosophy of life, appears to be utterly hedonistic, has no job, and thinks becoming an amateur sleuth might be rather fun. The main difference between Ashbrook's detective and her obvious inspiration is while Vance loves to lecture ostentatiously on esoteric topics like Chinese pottery and ancient Egyptian burial rites Tracy is more down to earth, keenly observant but also a smart aleck. Tracy notices things the police overlook and enjoys pointing out their faults without ever appearing snobbish or patronizing as Vance often is.

Tracy has a brother who is the Manhattan District Attorney. R. Montgomery Tracy is his professional name as it is painted on his New York office door. The R stands for Richard and thankfully he doesn't go by Dick. As Vance has Markham and Sgt. Healy and Ellery Queen deals with a D.A. and his policeman father Tracy is paired with his brother and Inspector Henschmann.  For good measure Ashbrook supplies a medical examiner bored with his job who displays the requisite black humor when examining the many corpses that turn up in the series.

...Cecily Thane is fairly traditional compared to Ashbrooks' later novels featuring Spike Tracy. The victim is the unliked young wife of an older man who allowed her to go out regularly with a "dancer" named Tommy Spencer. Mrs. Thane is found shot in her bedroom with a safe open and robbed of jewels. Turns out another woman was robbed and killed earlier and she too was seen in the company of a dancing gigolo named William Preston. Is there a criminal gang of male escorts turned thieves and murderers?

There are some unusual aspects to the criminal investigation like the search for the murder weapon which was disposed of in an odd manner and turns up in a most unlikely place. Also, a blotting paper clue is reproduced in the book and allows the reader to hold it up to a mirror in order to read the message thus getting a feeling of joining Tracy in his sleuthing. But the cleverest part is that the entire crime hinges on an altered timepiece. Ashbrook's insightful observations about the difference between actual time and perceived time make for one of the more modern features of the story.

The Murder of Steven Kester, UK edition (1933)

She followed her debut with The Murder of Steven Kester (1931) which fans of obscure B movies may know in its cinematic adaptation known as Green Eyes. The movie turns up all over the internet these days as it was released by one of the bargain basement video outfits that churned out hundreds of DVD cheapies of movies now in the public domain. A murder takes place during a masquerade party held at the Long Island mansion of the title character. Kester is dressed as Bottom (from A Midsummer Night’s Dream) complete with donkey's head. Tracy comes as a gladiator in an abbreviated costume consisting only of a tiger skin loincloth. When he goes in search of a safety pin in order to prevent an accidental charge of public indecency he stumbles upon the corpse. Ashbrook's offbeat sense of humor and her tendency to be a bit risqué is on flamboyant display in this book. Like many scenes added for comic effect in her books seemingly insignificant minutiae will take on greater importance when the crime is fully explained.

Her plotting is original but her execution is sometimes faulty. There are some great clues like the evidence of something having been destroyed in the furnace of the Kester home, a suspect's past life as an actress, and a pair of dice that turn up during a scene involving an ostensibly extraneous crap game -- yet another "big clue" disguised in a scene of minutiae that helps Tracy solve the murder. But while the reader is presented with all of this Tracy still withholds some important data. Too much offstage action in this story for my tastes, too many scenes when Tracy goes away and we have no idea what he does until pages later in the denouement.

Ashbrook starts to experiment with unusual themes in her next two books. In one book she touches on abnormal psychology and uses some groundbreaking research in a rather daring surprise reveal while the other gives her a chance to discuss the lonely life of World War 1 veterans, their often tortured lives, and the private demons they must learn to deal with back home far from the brutality of the front.

The Murder of Sigurd Sharon (1933) shows considerable improvement from her first two detective novels. Tracy is on his own in this outing which takes him to the backcountry of Vermont. Ashbrook does an excellent job with misdirection and even manages to include an impossible disappearance. For the 1930s this was probably an astonishing mystery with a gasp inducing, surprise ending. It deals with twin sisters -- Mary, a bedridden invalid, and Jill, an extroverted, highly sexual young woman. Jill believes there is a plot to kill her. She enlists Tracy's aid to prevent her impending murder at the hands of her oppressive and odious guardian and his nurse, but the old man turns up dead first. And Jill is discovered standing over his body with the bloody weapon in her hand.

Though it may all become rather obvious to the 21st century reader Ashbrook must be commended for handling a topic rarely used in detective fiction of the 1930s. A rural Vermont sheriff mentions a well known Victorian novel in the final pages, perhaps the only familiar reference on the topic to a reader of Ashbrook's time. She handles the topic fairly well for a device that is now an overused trick in thriller and mystery fiction. I like ...Sigurd Sharon for its daring invention and its subversive depiction of a sexually free female character.

The theft of a valuable stamp collection, several murders and a handful of attempted murders are at the core of the elaborately constructed A Most Immoral Murder (1935). Tracy is back in Manhattan with the usual supporting characters from the police and D.A.'s office. He also makes frequent trips to New Jersey, notably the fictitious town of West Albion where a secret in the past is revealed to have a connection to the murders and the stamp collection theft. Ashbrook uses a murder investigation to draw comparison between wartime killing and murder in civilian life and has some very strong opinions about each and the effect killing has on soldiers. I found it to be her most mature work even if the plot gets a bit creaky with some old fashioned tropes involving adopted children that seem borrowed from Victorian sensation novels. The unfolding of events, however, is impressively done. The large cast of well drawn characters holds the reader's interest with the stamp expert being the most memorable of the lot.

Harriette Ashbrook wrote only seven novels using her real name then handful more under the pseudonym "Susannah Shane." The Shane novels are a blend of Mignon Eberhart style "women in peril" thrillers and all-out farcical comic crime novels like the work of Phoebe Atwood Taylor and Craig Rice. I prefer her work under her own name.

These days Spike Tracy is utterly forgotten. Sadly, so too is Harriette Ashbrook. I'd recommend tracking down any of her books -- they're entertaining, sometimes devious, and often very original for the time they were written. Spike Tracy was one of the better Vance impersonators but a lot more likable. As Ashbrook says of her own creation, "He's the kind of man I wish I could meet in real life."

Philip "Spike" Tracy Detective Novels
The Murder of Cecily Thane (1930)
The Murder of Stephen Kester (1931)
The Murder of Sigurd Sharon (1933)
A Most Immoral Murder (1935)
Murder Makes Murder (1937)
Murder Comes Back (1940)
The Purple Onion Mystery (1941) (AKA Murder on Friday)

Ellery Queen Revival

As part of a promotion for a series of Ellery Queen eBooks newly released the publicity people at Open Road Media and Mysterious Press have announced the following:

We have created an original mini-documentary about the crime-writing duo [of Ellery Queen], featuring Dannay and Lee’s sons and Otto Penzler. The video can be viewed on our site here and on YouTube here. We hope you enjoy it!

The "mini-documentary" should be more rightly called a micro-documentary as it is nothing more than a book promo that lasts less than two minutes. If you're interested in seeing it, click on one of the links above. The Open Road Media site is more pleasing to the eye and you won't have the irksome YouTube caption ads at the bottom of the video.

The Queen books now available in digital format are:

• The Adventures of Ellery Queen
• The Roman Hat Mystery
• The Chinese Orange Mystery
• The American Gun Mystery
• The Dutch Shoe Mystery
• The Egyptian Cross Mystery
• The Siamese Twin Mystery
• The French Powder Mystery
• The Greek Coffin Mystery
• The Spanish Cape Mystery
• Cat of Many Tails
• Calamity Town
• Ten Days’ Wonder
• And on the Eighth Day

I have read  most of the books listed above and can highly recommend The Chinese Orange Mystery (the famous backwards murder), The Egyptian Cross Mystery (bizarre and gruesome beheadings), The Greek Coffin Mystery (brilliant display of multiple solutions and logical wizardry), Cat of Many Tails (the landmark serial killer novel that inspired hundreds of rip off books) and the extremely unusual And on the Eighth Day.

The Enigma of the New McClure's Mystery Contest

Yesterday, I wrote a review about Murder Yet To Come.  I mentioned in passing that the novel won a whopping $7500 prize in a mystery writing contest. If you have a copy of the CAPT 1995 reprint you will find this as part of their introduction to the book:

This will lead you to believe that Ellery Queen was beaten by Myers. Not true. Both writers won the contest - but only Myers won the $7500. Here's the lowdown.

New McClure's Magazine, the original sponsor, of the contest was a reformed, restructured version of the venerable McClure's magazine. Exactly why New McClure's thought they could sponsor an astonishing $7500 writing contest prize baffles me. The magazine was in dire financial straits after its reorganization from the old McClure's. The tail end of the disaster is described in this paragraph taken from a fascinating article I found about the demise of McClure's.

McClure's was never the same after the insurgent staff departed to continue their journalistic crusade elsewhere. To satisfy the terms of the purchase agreement negotiated by Phillips, McClure was forced to place his stock under the control of a board of trustees to whom he was held accountable. The cost of the new Long Island publishing facility, originally estimated at $105,000, increased three-fold, while McClure's Book Company, a subsidiary of the magazine, went heavily into debt. With the arrival of a depression in 1907, McClure's advertising revenues plummeted as manufacturers tightened their belts. From 1906 onward, the magazine never again declared stock dividends. $800,000 in debt, McClure was continuously at the mercy of a string of creditors, to whom the periodical was finally surrendered in the autumn of 1911. Under the management of financiers unsympathetic to muckraking, the magazine's journalistic crusades were squelched. In reality, however, McClure's was the victim of idealistic "explosions" begun more than five years earlier, when the high moral standards of a staff bent upon reforming society were shattered by the man who had created the medium for their expression.

Despite the fact the New McClure's was on shaky financial ground the contest continued with a co-sponsorship from book publisher Frederick A. Stokes. When the winner was declared it wasn't Isabel Briggs Myers. It was a novice writing duo calling themselves Ellery Queen and the novel was The Roman Hat Mystery. Before the prize was fully awarded New McClure's Magazine went bankrupt and folded in March 1929. The magazine was absorbed by Smart Set and they also took over the contest. The new magazine editors decided to re-judge the contest because the original rules stated that the winning manuscript would appear first in serial format in the magazine. Taking into account their mostly female readership they decided to choose a woman writer and awarded the full prize to Myers -- serial magazine rights for $5000, and $2500 for book publication.

Here is more background on the contest taken from Columbia Pictures Movie Series, 1926-1955: The Harry Cohn Years (McFarland, 2011) by Gene Blottner:

But the Queen writing duo had their revenge of sorts when Frederick A. Stokes stepped in and saved the day, so to speak, by publishing the winning book. And thanks to some clever work on the author's part The Roman Hat Mystery was released a full year before Murder Yet to Come.

My big clue that led me to digging up the real truth of the writing contest was the copyright info in my copy of Myer's book seen below. I knew something was up.


The clincher is that "Second printing before publication" statement.  This tells us that the publisher's marketing department did a superior job of selling the book. Due to the book's anticipated popularity there were a larger than anticipated number of pre-orders from bookstores and the publisher printed more copies of the book before the actual planned publication date and after the initial run of their first edition.  I am inferring here that it was Stokes' marketing of Murder Yet to Come as a prize-winning novel that led to the larger number of books being printed.

The people at CAPT have no business stating that Myers bested Queen. The contest was judged twice by two different magazine staffs. Essentially, the two authors both won. And while Myers got the money, Dannay and Lee as Ellery Queen got the fame.

FFB: Murder Yet To Come - Isabel Briggs Myers

The first thing that struck me as remarkable about Murder Yet to Come (1930) was the author's gutsy use of The Moonstone and several other Wilkie Collins novels as a framework for her plot. Can it be altogether coincidental that the crux of the story is about a jewel stolen from an ancient Indian idol and later stolen again years later in a different country? Is the shared similarity of a heroine suspected to be the victim of inherited madness (see The Woman in White) yet another coincidence? I think not. I think Isabel Briggs Myers knew her Collins and knew it well. Wisely she cribbed from the best. Murder Yet to Come was her first detective novel and it won her $7500 in a writing contest for new mystery writers. It was a well deserved award, too.

Malachi Trent, eccentric millionaire, is found dead in a locked room. It appears that he has fallen from a ladder while searching for some books on the highest shelf in his bookcase lined library/study. Playwright and amateur detective Peter Jerningham soon points out that Trent has been murdered by a blow to the back of his head and the entire scene is a hastily staged scene to give the illusion of an accident by falling. Out of date textbooks stored on the highest shelf are strewn about the body? Algebra, a foreign language ancient history. Why would Trent need all of them at once and why would he select such out of date books even if he were doing some sort of research? The wound to the head is so powerful it could not have come from an accidental fall. A statue in the room shows trace signs of the victims' hair and blood. Murder has been done. But if so, then how did the murderer escape? The room has two doorways, but the main entrance was bolted shut and was broken down to gain entry. The other door at the rear of the room was nailed shut. And what happened to "The Wrath of Kali" – the huge ruby Trent kept locked away in his safe? It carries with it a curse from the goddess Kali herself who will strike down anyone who dares to defile the idol from where it was taken. Could Malachi Trent have been killed by supernatural means?

The plot thickens when Linda Marshall, Trent's 17 year old ward, is found hiding in the room. Is she the killer? Was she an eyewitness? Or did she enter afterwards? She has absolutely no memory of how she got into the room or why she was there. As the story progresses it is learned that Linda has frequent blackouts and memory losses. She also displays erratic and melodramatic behavior. There is talk of insanity. Only recently has she returned from an asylum where she was under the care of a psychiatrist and Trent had threatened repeatedly to send her back for good.

1995 reprint from CAPT, a publisher
specializing in research on psychology type.

The household has two sinister servants – Mrs. Ketchum who makes cryptic references to black magic and witchcraft and has a habit of laughing wickedly at the most inappropriate times. There is also Ram Singh, a servant who came with Trent from India, who seems to have control over Linda. It is suggested that he is using hypnotic power to manipulate Linda as an instrument of Kali's vengeance. Or is it Mrs. Ketchum who has the mind controlling power? And if so, what is her motive?

The book has some excellent detective work all reminiscent of the Van Dine school. In addition to the quick work done to reveal the staged accident, there is the unraveling of the illusion of the locked room; some clues involving an inkwell, broken eyeglasses, and backward handwriting on a blotter; and an alphabetically coded safe's combination that is solved through deduction and inference. By the midpoint there is an increasing emphasis on psychology and subconscious suggestion. This leads Jerningham and his detective cohorts into a intense discussion of hypnosis focusing on the differences between cheap tricks seen in vaudeville theaters and hypnosis as a therapeutic tool. It is this psychological element in combination with the expert fair play detective work that make for an engrossing, lively and very smart mystery novel.

Isabel Briggs Myers' name may ring a bell. Especially if you are a student of psychology or are in the Human Resources field. Myers, along with her mother Katharine Briggs, developed one of the most widely used personality assessment tools now known as the MBTI, or the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Elsewhere on the internet in essays about Murder Yet to Come you will find people claiming that the book outlines Myers' theories of personality types inspired by the work of Carl Jung and his archetypes. I found none of that in the book. It is a straightforward detective novel with a love story subplot, very much influenced by S.S. Van Dine and Wilkie Collins. It's an admirable debut novel, but to look for signs of the future MBTI within its pages is a fool's errand. Her real work in the field of personality type didn't emerge until well after the start of World War 2.

Myers wrote one more detective novel, Give Me Death (an extremely rare book in the collector's world) before she completely abandoned the genre. I am sorry she didn't continue with a few more books. Based on this effort alone I think she would've given Ellery Queen and Philo Vance a run for their money.