Juliet Dies Twice - Lange Lewis

I had such hopes for Juliet Dies Twice (1943), Lange Lewis' second detective novel after having so enjoyed her debut Murder Among Friends. But when I encountered three bugaboos of mystery fiction I thought "Uh oh" and the red flags went off for a trip into the land of cliche and run-of-the-mill plotting. It looked like Juliet Dies Twice was going to be a sophomore slump of a novel. And those three bugaboos? An escaped lunatic, an amateur theatrical company, and a trunkful of Freudian psychological "insight".

The amateur theater business is tolerable for its lack of verisimilitude because Lewis has circumvented the actual structure and process of a theater by making this company a combination student/faculty group on the campus of small university. The building itself is unusual even for an academic theater and it allows the writer to create some unheard of and cumbersome rules like the fact that a prop room is located in a basement far away from the stage and is accessible only by two doors (one inside and the other leading outside the building). The key to the inside door is in the hands of a secretary in a different building and must be asked for in order to access. That's right the theater department doesn't even have control over a key to their prop room. You get the idea how convoluted and contrived the plot is with that business alone. Add to that an escaped lunatic, the abundance of Freud love and completely outdated views of mental illness and it's enough to drive anyone to the analyst's couch screaming for a healthy dose of common sense.

Lewis also seems to have reinvented Lt. Richard Tuck, her very smart and capable police detective for this second outing. Gone are his capacity for compassion and his use of imagination to get inside the head of a murderer. Instead Tuck has been reshaped into one of many cookie cutter detectives in the genre, a wisecracking jaded cop. He shares the crime solving stage with a smart alecky know-it-all amateur sleuth -- the often irritating Eudora York, a psychology and theater major at the college. Together they investigate the murder of a student actress who was to play Juliet in Shakespeare's tragedy and offer up odd theories about the personality of the "fiend" who did the deed.

But the story is redeemed by Lewis' crisp writing and her cast of supporting players. Each of the student actors and actresses has some quirk or idiosyncrasy that makes them stand out from the rest of the cast. They range from five foot five Paul Ober, the best actor of the lot frustrated by his being typecast because of his height to Ames Hanna, Eudora's wealthy playboy of a boyfriend whose sick sense of humor has Eudora worried that he may be a lunatic himself.

Every now and then Lewis also surprises with a scene of poignancy or jolts the readers out of the dream world of play acting and Shakespeare's star crossed lovers into the reality of a country on the verge of war. Midway through the story one of the most superficial actresses – Meg Fife, a graduate student in the theater program – does an about face and allows us a glimpse into who she really is. She laments that the world is changing around her, that the stage once provided for her an escape but now she is afraid. "I've tried to tell myself that I'm seeing the slow crumbling of a philosophy of life which I and all my generation believed to be the only one. There’s khaki everywhere now, you hear soldiers marching past your window early in the morning[...] Everywhere the individual and his aims and plans are growing less and less important. I try to tell myself that's what frightens me." It was the most moving and real scene in the entire book, especially since it has an eerie resonance for our modern times when war and violence seem inescapable.

There are a few twists that call to mind some of the best from Agatha Christie’s cabinet of magic tricks. I was reminded of an overused detective novel trope that crops up most obviously in Peril at End House, but Lewis manages to find a new way to pull off that trick. She fooled me at least. The lunatic will end up playing a large role in the denouement and his appearance helps to explain some of the creakier elements of the contrived business surrounding the baffling murder of Ann Laird. The revelation of the murderer, however, is anticlimactic. With a motive firmly rooted in a reality of ennui and nonchalance the final chapter may have resonance for a 21st century reader. For me I was craving a more satisfying, fantastical solution that merited all the clever puzzles that had held my interest for the majority of the book.

FFB: Murder Among Friends - Lange Lewis

US 1st edition (Bobbs Merrill, 1942)

Kate Farr is about to start her new job as secretary to the Dean of Students at an unnamed medical college in southern California.  She is replacing Garnet Dillon, a woman who up and disappeared leaving behind a cryptic note to her boss and not a word to any of her many friends on campus. Just so happens Kate's one time boyfriend John Greenwood is currently an intern there and he takes her on a tour of the school's many buildings. One of their first stops is the cadaver room where they meet Griswold whose job it is to embalm the bodies donated for science. Kate reluctantly agrees to see their latest donation.  When the sheet is removed from the body the two men gasp. Kate sees a blond woman with long red fingernails.  As Lange writes: "Kate realized that Garnet Dillon had come back."

Murder Among Friends (1942) is the first detective novel by Lange Lewis, the pen name for novelist Jane Benyon. The book introduces readers to Lieutenant Richard Tuck, a policeman who relies on a blend of reason and imagination in solving his cases. When reason fails him as he pores over the evidence he resorts to putting himself in the murderer's place and imagining possible scenarios that often defy logic.  He is described as unsentimental but by the book's conclusion we discover he has a deeply hidden compassion not often seen in the usual tough cops of 1940s era crime fiction. 

Garnet Dillon we learn was more than a secretary. She was a close friend with many of the students, mostly male students who were attracted by her stunning good looks and drawn to her vivacious personality.  Dean Calder, her boss, however quickly points out to Lt. Tuck that his secretary was not too smart and a little too friendly.  He also confides that she seemed to be staunchly conservative in her personal beliefs and more than once hinted that she had an unsophisticated, almost childlike, view of life after death. Tuck will interview many of the close circle of Garnet's friends who make up the pool of suspects, but it is always the victim who is the focus of the investigation.  Lange's book in many ways anticipates the now modern trend of looking to the victim's life first to help understand the crime.

Paperback edition (Bart House, 1946)

The further Tuck delves into Garnet's life the more mysterious she becomes. She is not at all the naive flirt she was thought to be. She had multiple secrets, the most intriguing being one that she left written on some notepaper in which she refers to "the thing that follows me everywhere."  She seems to be haunted by "this thing" yet no one who called her a friend can recall her appearing anxious or fearful.

But there is something for all the woman in town to fear. A stalker has been killing women and taking their purses as trophies. Already five women have been killed in remote areas surrounding the campus.  Not so coincidentally Garnet's purse was stolen from the place where she died. Tuck thinks Garnet may have been the most recent victim of this stalker dubbed "Black Overcoat" by the newspapers and police. Tuck's police co-workers doubt it. After all, the stalker's victims were stabbed and Garnet was poisoned. While the other police track "Black Overcoat" Tuck concurrently continues his investigation of Garnet's death. Eventually the two storylines intersect in an original twist.

Beyond the crime plots, however, is the story of Garnet Dillon's life. When her secrets are uncovered her life takes on a deeply poignant aspect that elevates this novel from its genre roots resulting in an uncommonly moving story. Amid all the modern elements like high tech discussions of the medical effects of digitalis and a character who is conducting genetic research is a heart wrenching story of a woman seemingly doomed by Fate and circumstance and loved too deeply by her friends.