IN BRIEF: Who Killed Oliver Cromwell? - Leonard R. Gribble

 I've not read any of the Detective Inspector Anthony Slade mystery novels I've owned over the years until a few days ago.  If Who Killed Oliver Cromwell? (1938) is any indication of Gribble's style he seems to have been inspired by Edgar Wallace. While the title and premise succeeded in luring me into purchasing this copy, the story ended up very familiar.

Slade works for Department X2, some specialized section of Scotland Yard that is never really explained.  Maybe it's not even part of Scotland Yard.  I never understood the designation or what exactly they specialize in or why they get called upon.  In any case, he shows up at the scene of a murder at a masquerade party (or fancy dress ball as they call them in British GAD novels).  A well known financier named Stephen Ironsides comes dressed as his historical hero, Oliver Cromwell and someone stabbed him then made off with the weapon. The knife was stolen from another attendee, Peter Storand, who was dressed as a Roundhead. In fact, several people came dressed as historical figures associated with Cromwell and the Commonwealth of England era.  Sir Henry Dillocks at the suggestion of his daughter Frances comes as Charles I and she came as Henrietta Marie, his consort. This costumed trivia is an ironic overlay to the relationships of the primary characters: the murder victim was planning to marry Frances; Peter is in love with Frances and trying to dissuade her from agreeing to the marriage her father wants with Ironsides.

The story begins as a detective novel with the above eccentric plot details then, when it is discovered that the murder victim is an impostor, the book slowly morphs into an Edgar Wallace style thriller. As more suspects are found a subplot with gun runners, petty criminals and Ironsides' failing businesses complicate the plot.  It all starts to fall apart when Frances is kidnapped followed swiftly by the introduction of doppelgängers, plastic surgery, bribed servants, and ending with a forced marriage at sea performed by the ship's captain with the police in hot pursuit to stop it. Immediately, I thought of The Avenging Saint by Leslie Charteris, written several years before Gribble's book, which has exactly the same action-filled climax in the finale. While there are some unexpected incidents, much of Who Killed Oliver Cromwell? is laden with heavy melodrama and tiresome heightened dialogue sections that date the book.

I liked the relationship between Slade and his sergeant Clinton, but this too seems formulaic for an early GAD police procedural.  The comic Detective Sergeant is fairly standard in these types of mystery novels.  I wonder who was the first to have a murder mystery with the serious Detective Inspector in charge assisted by the somewhat whiny and comic sergeant.  Was it Wallace?  I haven't read enough of his books to know.

The villain is obvious from the start and his intricately thought out crimes and schemes are variously described as "fantastic" and "stupendous".  I'd use the adjective outlandish.  But of course it's fiction from a bygone era when these books were meant to thrill and excite. I guess in some ways it still succeeds.  I know my eyebrows were raised at a several points even if some of those surprises literally came in the last two pages in a written confession that explained two quasi-impossibilities related to the stabbing murder.

Gribble may be worth investigating in later Slade books or even in his many other mystery writing guises.  He also wrote as Leo Grex, Bruce Sanders, and several other pseudonyms.  The very first Gribble book, The Case of the Marsden Rubies (1929), is alluded to in the penultimate chapter. Though Gribble mentions one surprise plot element the villain of ...Marsden Rubies was -- thankfully -- not named.  It's a fairly easy to find book and I may sample one more tasting of Gribble and Slade in the future.  I know I have The Frightened Chameleon, a Slade mystery from 1950, somewhere in a box in this book museum. Stay tuned.

FFB: Modesty Blaise - Peter O'Donnell

I don't think this really should be considered a forgotten book, but I'm going to write about it all the same. Surely the character cannot be totally forgotten. Peter O'Donnell created Modesty Blaise as a comic strip back in 1963 and the blurb on the back of my reprint edition tells me the strip ran for 38 year and was syndicated in over 40 countries. The first novel didn't appear until 1965 making this year her half century anniversary. And she still looks fabulous! Always will.

I've never read any of the books until a few days ago nor had I even seen the comic strip until I went trolling the internet looking for images to help illustrate this post. But for anyone well versed in spy fiction, adventure novels and, of course, comic strip history, Modesty Blaise will never be forgotten. Truly the first successful and extremely popular female super spy (though that is a very loose term as you will soon learn) Modesty served as the template for all other super heroines of her type. There have been plenty of Modesty Blaise knock-offs in genre fiction, but none come close to capturing the best of her qualities.

She seems to me to be the female equivalent of Simon Templar since she actually began her life as a thief, engaging in capers with her lieutenant Willie Garvin and together amassing a huge fortune that allowed them to live in luxury. Only when the British Secret Service learn of her enclave known as "the Network" does she become a spy of sorts. Sir Gerald Tennant becomes her liaison with the British government and she and Garvin are called upon to help foil a slew of sadistic and ruthless international criminals in a series of eleven novels and two collections of short stories, as well as the comic strip adventures.

At the start of this introductory novel Garvin is in prison in an undisclosed South American country. Modesty infiltrates the compound, single handedly dispatches the guards and sets him free along with the rest of the prisoners. They join forces in Tennant's plan to prevent the theft of a multi-million British pound shipment of diamonds intended as payment for a Middle Eastern sheikh, one of the UK's most respected allies.

Garvin is the gadget expert of the books and he has invented several lethal weapons like an exploding tie tack and a lipstick that releases lethal nerve gas. The scene in which he puts the infernal device hidden in his diamond tie tack is one of the most gruesome in the book. I literally gasped and groaned at what happens to the poor vain sap who is given the tie as a gift. The action scenes are more graphic than I expected. Modesty and Willie are both very adept at martial arts and hand to hand combat. Neither will use a gun unless absolutely necessary. The book is nothing more than set piece after set piece as they do battle with the numerous thugs and villains. Revenge is the motivating factor in many of these violent sequences with the villains intent on killing either Modesty or Willie or both. Our heroine and hero suffer more than their fair share of cuts, stabbings and near broken bones, but the villains get what's coming to them...and then some!

Modesty Blaise was turned into t what I think was a very dull parody of spy movie. Italian actress Monica Vitti wearing a ridiculous number of wigs played the lead impassively alongside Terence Stamp as Willie Garvin. Some excellent casting in his part at least. The book shows Modesty to be tough, smart, sexy and oddly compassionate in her battle against nefarious master criminals and their army of thugs. But you'd never know that from the movie where she comes off as nothing more than 60s pop culture fashion plate who kicks a lot. For a parody movie Vitti was thoroughly unhumorous in the role. No comedy chops whatsoever. Best stick to the books in order to get to know the real Modesty. I plan to go through the whole series in the coming months. And I'll do it in much more detail next time.

FFB: The Avenging Saint - Leslie Charteris

Here's another well known character who is most assuredly not completely forgotten, but I think the novels are at least overlooked these days. No doubt many people are familiar with Simon Templar in one of his many TV or film incarnations. I think I had only read one or two stories in my teen years and had never bothered with the novels. The Avenging Saint (1930) is the US paperback title for Knight Templar, the third novel featuring Simon Templar and the second part in a trilogy detailing his battle with criminal mastermind Dr. Rayt Marius. It's probably best to read all three in order starting with The Last Hero (or The Saint and the Last Hero) in order to get the true effect of the books.  Having begun with The Avenging Saint -- a bracing action-packed thriller -- I feel compelled to go back to the first before continuing onto Getaway (aka The Saint's Getaway).  The first book is frequently referenced here and the ghost of Norman Kent (the last hero of the first book's title) hovers over this second entry.  I want to know him as the man not the memory.

Simon Templar is sort of a forerunner to all the superspy characters that became all the rage in the 1960s. Though he is a direct descendant of the gentleman thief character (he starts off as a criminal with a gang of Robin Hood style thieves) I found The Saint to have more in common with hero pulp characters like Doc Savage and even James Bond.

Sonia and Vassilloff are married (UK reprint)

The story is very simple. Templar is out for revenge after one of his friends is killed at the hands of Marius, a weapons expert bent on starting the next world war. There is a kidnapping of a millionaire's daughter, an elaborate plan to arouse the ire of her oil tycoon fiancee by forcing a marriage to a Russian aristocrat. There are confrontations with the villains, daring escapes and rescues, more disguises and false beards than an Arsene Lupin book, fist fights galore, and several jaw dropping stunt sequences. I dare any reader to resist succumbing to the pull of this story.

It all sounds terribly old fashioned like something out of E. Phillips Oppenheim when I reduce it to its bare bones, but it's so breezily told with wit and verve you can't help but get swallowed up. When Templar strips naked, dives into a frigid ocean and single-handedly overtakes a motor boat by punching out one of Marius' thugs, lashing him to the wheel and then manipulating the controls with a makeshift rudder and ropes tied to the tiller while being dragged behind the boat in the water you can only marvel at the preposterous ingenuity of it all. Charteris seemed to have been a born screenwriter rather than a novelist who was decades ahead of Hollywood in terms of stunts and thrills. And he was only 23 when he wrote this book.

Simon Templar alternates between a flippant and condescending adventurer to a stern and humorless Nemesis throughout the book. He can exhibit a gleeful almost boyish attitude calling all the bad guys "sweetheart" and "old dear" in one moment then delivering an expert jab to a rogue's jaw rendering neatly unconscious with that one blow. I think he did this about twelve times over the course of the book. And there is a running gag about how he always looks immaculately dressed after all his fights. He even goes the the trouble of saving his clothes in the boat escapade by neatly tying them into bundle he ties to his head while he's steering the boat. Later, he takes that bundle apart, dresses himself on board the villain's yacht looking as if he's ready to join a posh dinner party. You have to smile and laugh at it all.

Charteris can get carried away with himself though. He has a terrible weakness for purple prose of the gaudiest kind. Here are a few examples:

"The jaws of the perambulating mountain oscillated rhythmically, to the obvious torment of a portion of the sweetmeat which has made the sapodilla tree God's especial favour to Mr. Wrigley."   (describing Inspector Teal, a large portly policeman who enjoys chewing gum)

"...and the quintessential part of the plot, so far as Simon Templar was concerned, was how soon -- with a very wiggly mark after it to indicate importunate interrogation."  
(I'd just use the question mark and forgo the cuteness)

This kind of silliness tapers off thankfully.  I made only five notations of egregious examples of these kind of indulgent lapses. The two above were the most flagrant. As I read on the purple prose either disappeared or I was no longer being critical of the lapses. It was Simon Templar himself who won me over.

Or more precisely Charteris' exuberance for Templar won me over. Whether steering motorboats with ropes while submerged in the sea or descending a rope from an airplane onto a moving train the Saint is the premiere action guy. A superhero whose only super powers are sheer guts and bravado.  Forced marriages, bondage ropes, fisticuffs and firearms, the delirious dreams of a warmonger are no match for this one man army. The world of Simon Templar may be old fashioned but I find it utterly addictive. I'm off to read more right now.