The Case of the Missing Sandals - Nancy Barr Mavity

THE STORY:  James "Peter" Piper, bespectacled, lanky reporter "with an ugly face" working for the Herald somewhere in northern California, is allowed access to the murder scene at a religious cult's colony. The victim, the domineering cult leader who calls herself Luna, claimed to be a witch in league with Satan. She is found both stabbed and shot, her hands bound in a strange fashion with the cord taken from a green and red bathrobe. Even more peculiar is she is found barefoot.  Earlier the same day she was killed Piper had a brief interview with Luna related to an accusation of the theft of $10,000 from one of her followers, He had seen her striking black satin sandals and knows she would never be caught dead without them. And yet she was. What happened to the shoes?  And why was she both shot and stabbed?

THE CHARACTERS:  The first half of The Case of the Missing Sandals (1930) deals too heavily with Earl Vincent who wrote some love letters found on Luna's body. He is the prime suspect for the police and the fact that he fled California on a freighter further underscores his probable guilt.  Several chapters are devoted to finding Vincent. Piper and police pursue the freighter and try to intercept it with a tug boat but Captain Marquand refuses to stop for the tug radioing the police that they will have to wait for the freighter to pull into port in Los Angeles.  When the ship arrives and the crew depart they discover that Vincent has vanished from the ship.  After another protracted pursuit Piper tracks down the young man and forces him to tell an elaborate story that convinces Piper that the lovelorn boy, supposedly in love with the murdered cult leader, is innocent of the crime. The police, however, refuse to look further than Vincent.

Once Piper turns his attention on the Luna Colony, the book becomes interesting, less laden down with monologues and overwriting, and focuses on detective work. Piper uncovers multiple suspects each with their own peculiar motives. Among the more fascinating characters are:

Ruth Morgan - Earl Vincent's girlfriend who serves as a foil for Piper.  She is determined to clear her beau's name announcing she is willing to do anything to find the real murderer.  In a chapter well past the midpoint she and Piper engage in the requisite tabulation scene in which Piper reviews all suspects, their motives and opportunities while Ruth listens patiently sorting out the probable from the preposterous and often ending each summation with her verdict of "not proven."

Frances "Frank" Hodgson - of all the suspects Frank is the most unique.  She dresses in men's clothes, professes an obsessive love for Luna and is caught by Piper at the murder scene long after police have left searching for what she claims is a special perfume Luna used to make for her. Based on her frantic behavior and twitchy nerves Piper sees through her lies, immediately coaxes a confession from her. She is a drug addict looking for her fix. Turns out Luna was not only a cult leader but a drug dealer. The more we learn about Frank the more we discover that she is a lesbian. Mavity is never daring enough to come right out and use that term however, but couches it all in euphemism and baroque phrases: "But this woman was patently one of Nature's tragic misfits, a victim of the warping fate that had veered her life away from its normal channels." Mavity goes on to describe Piper's assessment of Frank's personality (who he insists on calling Frances though she prefers Frank) with great empathy and feeling. When he sees that Frank is using her left hand due to an injured right hand he starts to formulate a theory that she could have killed Luna. The murderer stabbed Luna in such a manner that reveals a left handed assailant. And still listening to her story and seeing how she left behind a vase of cut flowers for her crush Piper confesses he is "somewhat more sympathetic to the murderer than to the victim." It is a poignant sequence in the book -- one of many such sympathetic musings for a misfit suspect. Still as is often the case in early 20th century fiction Frank is yet another gay character painted as disturbed and doomed: "Just how far toward madness her jealous obsession might have carried her he could not guess."

Albert Jackson - the blind caretaker and gatekeeper at Luna Colony.  Jackson, a Black man, is no stereotype or comic figure, thankfully.  He has two dignified scenes of gravitas with Piper towards the end of the book during which he likens himself to Piper. Both manage to see the truth, he tells Piper, while others live in darkness. There are interesting contrasts between real faith and spirituality and the pursuit of false idols also mentioned in these scenes. Mavity manages to pull off these scenes with a sophisticated touch using simple language and metaphor, never resorting to heavy handed preaching. Albert is a finely drawn character, perhaps the wisest of all people Piper meets and interviews.

Charlie Russell - A young cult member sent to the Luna Colony by his mother to be cured of a so-called bewitchment she feels has cursed her boy. Piper knows this is all superstition for it is obvious that Charlie, in both physiognomy and behavior is mentally deficient. His facial feature are described in such a manner as to match those of children born with what was once called Down's syndrome, now known as trisomy 21. When some new details about the case are revealed Charlie becomes the new lead suspect in the eyes of the police.  Charlie's presence, yet another outlier in this myriad cast, allows for Piper once again to show his emotional side.

Carey - Apart from Mrs. Russell Carey is Charlie's only ally and protector.  Described by Piper as a colorless, bland man not much older than Charlie he is something of an enigma. He appears to be one of the "true believers" of the Luna Colony. Later he refers to himself as an occult researcher.

Oscar Miller - One of Luna's many lovers and the object of envy and jealousy among many of the male members of the Colony.  He is seen hiding something of great importance in the hole of a tree trunk.  Piper later retrieves this object and confronts Miller.  He also owns a rifle that matches the caliber of the bullet used.  In fact, many of the characters own rifles that could be the murder weapon.

Amos Perkins - a mystery man who hires Harrison, a hire-powered lawyer to represent Earl Vincent. A handwritten note is sent to Harrison asking that he prove Vincent is not guilty of the murder.  Enclosed with the note is $1000 in cash.

INNOVATIONS: When Mavity finally gets down to brass tacks after the Earl Vincent section is disposed of The Case of the Missing Sandals is truly an intriguing, complex and engrossing mystery novel.  Piper is very much in line with the many reporter sleuths of early 20th century detective fiction. Ostensibly passing himself off as a cynic he is, in fact, a humanitarian with an open mind and a skill at abstract, often wildly imaginative, thinking.  In the tabulation sequence Piper finally reveals to Ruth Morgan that he is convinced that the solution of the case lies not in factual analysis but to put oneself into the mindset of someone wholly devoted to the world of superstition. The murder is almost ritualistic what with the strangely colored cord used to bind the victim and the outrageous use of two murder methods to kill Luna. The placement of love letters on her breast after she was dead and -- most importantly -- the removal of her shoes both seem to underscore a kind of supernatural ritual, or a curse placed upon her. Ruth Morgan tries to accept  Piper's theory as a possibility but it all sounds too outlandish to her practical mind.

Of course, Piper is on the right track. For in the end it all really comes back to the title of the novel.  While perusing a non-fiction work called Witches Still Live -- an actual book by Theda Kenyon published in 1926 by Ives Washburn (see photo) -- Piper stumbles across the reason Luna's shoes were stolen. Armed with this arcane trivia and with the help of Andrews, his photographer colleague at the Herald, he sets a trap for the murderer in a well done, somewhat stunning, finale.

QUOTES: Piper: "The story isn't dead, even temporarily. [...] There are angles to it -- angles and angles. And while the other reporters are all enjoying the lull and concentrating on Vincent, I'll be out angling the angles -- a regular complete angler I'll be."

Piper: "When you try to figure [all these motives] together, its enough to make you dizzy. And as for proof-- say, if I saw one single little sold fact that didn't change its shape while I was looking at it, I'd faint from sheer amazement!" 

Jackson: "There's two kinds of darkness. There's them that walks in darkness because they can't see their way ahead, and there's them that have eyes and see not. It ain't your fault if it's still dark. You used your eyes as good as you could. That's how I know you're him that was sent. The spirit of darkness is on this place. The spirit of fear is on it. You can't see it, and you can't touch it, but you can feel it. Because you can feel the thing that can't be seen, you'll use your eyes to see when the light comes. That's why you were sent."

 Jackson: "Facts are dangerous things to throw around when you don't know the meaning of 'em."

THE AUTHOR:  Much to my surprise Nancy Barr Mavity (1890-1959) has an entire Wikipedia page devoted to her life and work as a journalist, novelist and author of non-fiction works.  I won't bother to repeat any of it here.  But I will draw your attention to her book Sister Aimee (1931) published one year after this novel was released by Doubleday Doran's Crime Club.  Sister Aimee was the first full biography on Aimee Semple McPherson and it's not too coincidental to draw comparison between that charismatic evangelist (possibly a criminal and fraud) to the power mad, exploitative and cruelly Satanic Luna who dies so horribly in this detective novel. Apparently many of Mavity's crime novels are based on true crime cases.  Further details on which cases inspired her novels can be found in an introduction written by Randal Brandt, research librarian and curator of a crime fiction library at UC/Berkeley, that appears in the Penzler American Mystery Classics reprint of The Tule Marsh Mystery, Mavity's debut novel as a detective fiction writer.

EASY TO FIND? Several copies of the US edition are  available for sale from a variety of online bookseller with prices ranging from  $14 for a reading copy to $48 for a VG copy.  There is one copy with a VG+ dust jacket priced at $425.  I found no UK editions for sale.  I did not look for copies in internet archives but there may be one out there. I have a copy of this book myself, but will not sell it as it is signed by the author and inscribed to her fellow California journalist Alma Whitaker. Took me a while to decipher the addressee’s last name, but that’s definitely the name. In the brief inscription Mavity calls Alma "Best of the Good Scouts", a term Piper also uses to describe his co-worker Andrews, the photographer. A photo of the smeared inscription is included in this post.

The Opera Murders - Kirby Williams

THE STORY:  The Illinois Grand Opera Federation is being plagued by gruesome deaths. The opera company's small group of divas are turning up dead. All of the methods employed mimic the deaths of heroines in their repertoire. Dr. Thackery Place teams up with John Tracy, a reporter who serves as narrator, the police and members of the Cook County DA's office to put an end to the slaughter and bring the murderer to justice.

THE CHARACTERS:  Thackery Place, a criminologist by profession, previously appeared in The C.V.C. Murders (1929) in which he also investigated a mad killer eliminating members of a criminal watchdog agency called the Citizens Vigilance Committee. Had he been popular he might have gone on to more adventures and been noteworthy as an early practitioner of criminal profiling in multiple murder cases.  As he only appeared in these two books he is more of an anomaly. Modeled on the many intuitive detective who draw on psychology and behavior more than physical evidence, Place is alternately omniscient and cryptic throughout The Opera Murders (1933). Both books draw on the popularity of the bestselling Philo Vance series of this era. So much inspired that the book is narrated by an observer who acts less of a Watson than a recorder of the case just as S.S. Van Dine does in the Vance novels. The D.A. office is very much involved similar to both the Van Dine and early Ellery Queen books.

In many theater based mystery novels it is usually the cast of performers who are the most interesting and dominate the plot. In The Opera Murders the performers are supporting characters and the victims. We rarely get to know them fully.  The first victim is dispatched so early the only way we get to know anything about her is in a letter she writes to another singer, Valeria Millefiore, who later ends up a victim. Instead of the performers, designers, and technicians, the action turns attention to the Board of Directors.  Unlike any other theater mystery I've read in any era, let alone the Golden Age, The Opera Murders lets the reader in on the business aspect of how a theater -- or in this case an opera company. In fact, it's not even the artistic business end but the financial end. We read of the people who fund the performing arts, make it possible for the company to exist in the first place, and how their influence can make or break the opera company.

INNOVATIONS:  Serial killer novels in this era tended to have bizarre plots. Thanks to The Bishop Murder Case (1929), America's first true bestseller among detective novels, a weird thematic angle became part of the expected plot line. The Opera Murders is no exception. The deaths in Madama Butterfly, Rigoletto and Aida serve as inspiration for the gruesome killings in this mystery. Dr. Place spends a lot of time trying to make sense of this macabre touch and trying to get the police to believe this is the pattern. Other weird touches like a Japanese doll and an American flag placed at the scenes of the first murder add to the surreal aspect of this serial killer. When the police puzzle over the size of a canvas bag at another murder scene thinking it might be a bag for storing sails Place reminds them of the plot of Rigoletto trying to convince the police the bag is a prop from the opera company's storage.

Because this book is the work of journalists newspaper reporting plays a heavy part in the story.  The highlight of the novel -- perhaps the actual climax -- is a lengthy newspaper article inserted into the text of the novel outlining a police search in churches across Chicago. The article goes into great detail about horrific desecration of numerous church basements when Dr. Place insists that the final victim has been entombed alive as in the finale of Aida.

QUOTES:  Place remarked that the machinery through which the day's news is ladled out to the public resembles the tides, the winds, the seismic disturbances of the earth and other cosmic forces in its disregard for such purely human institutions as breakfast.

"Every good crime needs some slightly mad person to lend it color."

THE AUTHORS:  "Kirby Williams" is the alter ego for three journalist who all began their careers working for Chicago newspapers:  Irving Ramsdell, William A. Norris, and William Parker.  Of the three I learned the most about Ramsdell who later left Chicago for Wisconsin where he was theater critic for the Milwaukee Sentinel. In 1940 he headed out West and became the city editor for The Los Angeles Times. Ramsdell also wrote a play in the mid 1930s but it apparently was never produced. The three men wrote only two detective novels both featuring Dr. Place before they gave up fiction for the more demanding world of newspapers.

EASY TO FIND?  There are currently six five copies of this book for sale online. Most of them are fairly cheap but all come without a DJ. The only copy available with the rare DJ (the one shown in this post) was recently sold in my online listings.

FFB: The Devil Must - Tom Wicker

US paperback edition
Popular Library G291 (Dec. 1958)

THE STORY: The murder of a farmer appears to be the work of a disgruntled hired hand who happens to be Black. Reporter Sandy Martin and his editor Al Harris are given the privilege to review the crime scene by Sheriff Tyree Long. They are asked to handle the news story with discretion as this is an election year and Long wants to avoid unnecessary racial disputes. When the suspect is arrested and thrown in jail he begins to exhibit unusual trance-like behaviors, becomes withdrawn and nearly catatonic. Another Black man in a nearby cell tells Sandy that old Jumbo is hexed. And the murder starts to take on a sinister aspect when Sandy hears stories of witchcraft, spell casting and the power exerted over the superstitious denizens in the Black community.

THE CHARACTERS: The Devil Must (1957) contains a huge cast encompassing nearly every single person in the small North Carolina town of Marion. We follow the actions and thoughts of protagonist Sandy Martin, a cub reporter who hasn’t left his hometown since birth. He is disgruntled with his broken family: a devil-may-care brother has left the state to make a name for himself up North, his sister who he still loves dearly has fled the town, supposedly living with a man she chased. He’s not heard from her since she left town years ago. Sandy is carrying the torch for his high school sweetheart, now working as everyone’s favorite waitress in a whites joint aptly named Purity Café. Not too surprisingly given her name is Honey she has a reputation for being flirtatious and indiscreet with her affections. This family baggage and frustrated romance help to color the way Sandy views his boss, Al, and the rest of the people he comes in contact with. His many grudges, hidden prejudices and misperceptions of characters will be put to the test when he must willingly accept that the motivations of the murderer seem to be grounded in superstition and an insidious use of mind control in the form of actual witchcraft and hexes.

Marion is riddled with Southern prejudice against Negroes. The 1950s PC term and the ugly slur are used with equal frequency by all characters. Those who use Negro we know are supposedly the good guys, those who throw around the other N word are the baddies. Or so it seems.

The Sheriff wants the case of Carl Roger’s bludgeoning murder wrapped up quickly and is eager to fit evidence to the primary suspect poor, weak minded, and barely literate Jumbo James who protests his innocence until he can literally not speak a word and curls up into an immovable ball on his jail cell cot. Sandy openly listens to Nathaniel, Jumbo’s much older brother, relate horrific stories of how Mrs. Rogers, the real town tramp, has been caught having sex in public places and then threatened Nathaniel with her weird powers. He tells a bizarre tale of how she performed a frightening ritual involving fire and convinced Nathaniel that he was in her power. It is this unnervingly effective story that gives Sandy the idea that deeply held superstitious beliefs are as profound as deeply held religious faith. That the capacity for profound faith in either belief system can subvert common sense. That one human being literally can be in the hands of another who is savvy enough and perverse enough to exploit the talent of sympathetic understanding into tyranny of the mind.

Ironically, it is John the Baptist Jones, the incarcerated minister arrested on suspicion of raping one of his own parishioners, who explains to Sandy the importance of the belief in hexing and its dire effects on his community. There are many cultural lessons Sandy learns from people like Nathaniel and John the Baptist. Once he has in his hands a piece of surprise evidence in the form of a letter written by the murder victim and sent to a respected lawyer Sandy begins to formulate a plan that will redeem Jumbo, save the town of Marion from further harm, and deal with the true killer in a satisfyingly retributive manner.

INNOVATIONS: The Devil Must explores race relations in the dawn of the civil rights movement by examining superstition and its powerful effect on the Black community of the American South. Wicker has managed to use the exploitation of superstition in order to explore the prejudice and subjugation. He does so with an incisive, angry intelligent prose. The climax of the novel becomes nearly allegorical with the villain of the story serving as a symbol of all the iniquitous treatment of not just Black people, but everyone ignorant and foolish enough to give themselves over to hollow cant and vicious threats. After a story that at times seems to drown in Sandy’s romantic entanglements, his personal prejudices against all those he sees as threats to his pure love for Honey (all of this clearly meant to mirror the superstition of Jumbo and Nathaniel) the novel pays off big time with its true message of the treacherous nature of empty belief systems that have no foundation in genuine truth. And yet that truly terrifying finale is evidence to all the characters (and the reader) that witchcraft can be a real and useful tool for those immersed so deeply in its rituals and curses as to bring about healing change. The novel ends in an authentic conflagration in which fire purifies and allows for a phoenix-like rebirth for those lucky enough to survive.

QUOTES: Mrs. Rogers was not pretty; she was too dark and too hard and too worn out. But that night hate brought her close to beauty. Hate flashed in her eyes and stiffened her figure. She stood straight, seeming taller and slimmer than she was: and I was glad it wasn’t me that she hated.

…he clapped his hat on his head and, as if it were a crown, it made him the old Tyree Long, the powerful politician who shaped Jasper County with his shrewd plump hands.

US 1st edition, Harper & Row (1957)

I thought about Carl Rogers. I couldn’t place him out of all the milling half-glimpsed Saturday gallery of farmers’ faces. But he had been a human being; and where now was all that laughter and all that sorrow and all that hope that ought to have filled his life—anybody’s life? It seemed there ought to have been at least a trumpet blowing to mark the passage of so much humanity.

A Southerner – that is, a man who lives in what used to be the Confederate States of America – has to condone segregation of the races. He has no choice. It doesn’t matter what he believes; it doesn’t even matter if he is a learned man to whom people listen or pretend to listen, what he says on the radio or writes in the newspaper. Every day of his life in the South he gives tacit approval to segregation. He does this when he eats in a restaurant. He does it when he attends a motion picture or travels by public conveyance or stops at a hotel or motel or sits in a doctor’s waiting room or joins a civic club or sends his children to school.

Al Harris, the editor of the town newspaper, to Sandy: "You and Street [a lawyer] are doing just what you claim Tyree did, building up something that could have happened into something that did happen. I have always thought that it was just as bad to be blind in one eye as in the other."

Flanking the French doors was a pair of oil paintings of some earlier Kirby men, statesmen or educators or wielders of vast private influence, such as Kirbys had always been. … That room stood for order, for permanence, for security. It spoke for men of property and pride and it sheltered their affairs. It would brook no new light under its gloomy ceiling. … And, in its own way, its spell was as profound as that of any witch. It’s grip on the minds of those who lingered here would be as unshakable.

Nathaniel blinked, secretively, wisely, suddenly he seemed old and profound and powerful. Sitting there …amid his poverty, and in his ignorance, he still knew more than either of us; a party to dark deeds we feared to credit he dwarfed our rational assurance with his secrets.

courtesy of New York Times, 1976

THE AUTHOR: Tom Wicker (1926-2011) was one of the nation’s leading sociologically observant reporters for much of the later 20th century. He first made name for himself writing up his eyewitness account of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. He wrote an Edgar award-winning nonfiction book about the Attica prison riot. He was involved in a lifelong quest to speak up for the maligned and ostracized portions of American society, and was hugely involved in the civil rights and equal rights movements of the late 60s and early 70s. In addition to several non-fiction works Wicker penned a handful of pulp thrillers as equally affecting as The Devil Must. These were all published under the pseudonym Paul Connolly. I’ll be reviewing one of those books, reissued by Stark House this month, in a few days. Wicker’s fascinating and important life as journalist, novelist, analyst and activist is captured in his laudatory obituary available for all to read (without subscription!) on the New York Times website.

FFB: Possession - L. P. Davies

US 1st edition
(Doubleday Crime Club, 1976)

THE STORY: After his half brother Eddie dies in a motorcycle crash Morgan Astey travels to the quiet Wiltshire village of St. Martin to visit Eddie's grave and gather his belongings. To his shock he discovers the gravesite desecrated. Rumors surface of the cemetery vandalism being related to Macumba, a Brazilian syncretic religion that blends worship of Catholic saints with rites and rituals of African religions. Among other things Macumba followers believe that spirits of the dead can temporarily inhabit the living. As Morgan tries to find out why someone would dig up Eddie's grave Albert Cranshaw, a local gardener and odd job man, begins to behave strangely. He shows up in Eddie's old room, sits down to tea with Eddie's old landlady, and calls people by nicknames only Eddie knew. Is it possible that Eddie has returned from the grave and has Albert in his Possession (1976)?

THE CHARACTERS: Morgan Astey does not plan to spend as much time in St. Martin ,but the disturbance to his half brother's grave raises a variety of question and the news of a possible Macumba cult involved is as fascinating to him as it is aggravating. Another thing that he finds curious is that everyone tells him that Eddie's face was unharmed in the accident, one that should have shattered his body as he supposedly lost control of his motorcycle near a craggy hairpin turn by a rocky cliffside. And yet Eddie's body suffered only a few broken bones and a broken neck. Morgan is further suspicious of foul play after talking to a knowledgeable mechanic working on repairs to Eddie's motorcycle. He tells Morgan of some strange things found on the bike that would be inconsistent with a wreck on that cliffside.

UK 1st edition
(Robert Hale, 1976)

Morgan teams up with Pat, daughter of the owner of St. Martin's newspaper, to ferret out the truth about Eddie's death and the strange behavior of Albert who seems to be "the new Eddie." In their adventures they meet Prof. Boyle, an eccentric academic who studies the slow worm and conducts weird scientific experiments; Boyle's sinister butler/companion George who may have a criminal past; a clique of corrupt millionaire businessmen; and Albert Cranshaw, the man with an inexplicable behavior change that may be rooted in the occult.

One of the memorable supporting players is Detective Sergeant Wright whose skill in manipulating and exploiting people is enviable. Wright has made it his business to know everyone's business and he uses his knowledge of the private lives of St Martin's citizenry to his advantage. So talented is Wright is getting others to do his bidding that Morgan realizes almost too late the policeman has employed him as an unofficial investigator. In suggesting to Morgan mysterious aspects about Eddie's death and inveigling him to seek answers to those questions Wright manages to get Morgan to do his job for him. Toward the end of the book Wright congratulates Morgan for successfully acting out in this unofficial capacity in one of their many tea room conversations. The policeman has an almost unquenchable craving for the various bakery treats offered at the many tea shops and cafes in town. He is always meeting Morgan in one of these shops where he can get yet another sampling of a tasty biscuit or tea cake, always proffering them to Morgan who almost always refuses.

INNOVATIONS: In Possession we have yet another unusual treatment of loss of identity from the pen of L. P. Davies. In previous novels Davies used amnesia in his crime novels or blended loss of identity with science fiction in telling stories of extraterrestrial aliens passing themselves off as humans and vice versa, yet always managing to turn any novel into one of mystery and detection, even if it's more of a metaphysical detection than a police investigation. In his later career Davies turned away from science fiction themes and picked up on the 1970s trend in popular fiction of using occult and supernatural themes in his plots. The background of Macumba in Possession is minimal at best yet makes it all the more intriguing when trying to figure out if the mystery of Albert Cranshaw's personality transformation is a con job and a sinister use of extremely good acting to cover up for ulterior motives or a genuinely mystifying supernatural phenomena. I was reminded of the use of Santeria in Ramona Stewart's The Possession of Joel Delaney (1970) and the eerie other worldly events in The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1973) by Max Ehrlich, two popular contemporary occult novels that would also become movies in the late 1970s.

THINGS I LEARNED: 1. Pat, editor/reporter/Jill of all trades, has a habit of exclaiming “What the Betty Martin?” I thought maybe this was some sort of Cockney slang, but I was wrong. It’s a lot more involved than that. Ready?

On a Linguistics internet forum I discovered that the origin of this phrase first appeared in Brewer’s seminal Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Brewer claims it comes from an anecdote about a sailor who overheard someone in a foreign church utter the Latin phrase “Ah mihi, bea’te Martine” (Ah grant me, Blessed Martine). And that the sailor “could not make much out of it but it seemed to him very much like ‘All my eye and Betty Martin.’ ” Brewer defines the phrase as a regionalism that means something seen or heard is all nonsense.

St. Martin of Tours and the beggar

But wait! The Latin is probably wrong another person says. It is probably “mihi beate Mater” (Grant me, Blessed Mother). And then the debate gets very scholarly and someone goes to the trouble of quoting at length references to the phrase in a 1780 book on slang by John Badcock tracing the origin to prayers and invocations made to St. Martin of Tours, the patron saint of innkeepers and reformed drunkards. [A patron for reformed drunkards! Is there one for just plain ol’ sots who haven’t seen the blazing light of sobriety?]

Then there is someone else who believes that the Latin phrase was alluded to in a poem by Coleridge that includes the lines: “ All my I! All my I!/He’s a heretic dog who but adds Betty Martin.” And that this led to the phrase becoming misheard and interpreted as “All my eye!” which gives us the commonly heard “All my eye and Betty Martin!” another slang phrase that means basically “What a load of malarkey!” a favorite Irish exclamation in the Norris household. In the US you often hear someone say (usually a mature and older person) “My eye!” when they disbelieve someone or think something is baloney.

All of it sounds like pretty good etymological research to me. You can decide on your own if the Latin for Blessed Martin or Blessed Mater later transmogrified into Betty Martin.

2. The crux of Professor Murton Boyle’s research is studying the behavior of Anguis fragilis, described throughout the novel as a type of worm. Many jokes are made about the poor man’s dreary personality and boring life making a career out of the study of worms. Davies always leads the reader to believe he is talking about the kind of worms the early bird goes after, earthworms that is. But Davies seems not to have understood what the animal truly is. Because it’s not a worm, it’s a reptile! The confusion comes no doubt in misinterpreting literally the layman’s name of “slow worm.” Regardless of its nickname "slow worm" Anguis fragilis is nevertheless a reptile, one of two species of legless lizard and it resembles not a worm but a snake.

The differences between a snake and a legless lizard are numerous: snakes have no eyelids, legless lizards do; snakes have forked tongues, legless lizards do not, etc. In no way could it be confused with a worm. Part of Boyle’s research and one of the unusual mysteries solved involving what Pat and Morgan think is a strange hieroglyphic code reveals that the slow worms Boyle studies were taught to run through mazes. I can imagine a legless lizard, a snake like creature, learning to do this, but I absolutely cannot believe that a worm (as Davies thought the thing was) could be taught to navigate a maze no matter how simple or complex. In any case, he was terribly wrong about the creature that Boyle studies and it sort of ruins the book a bit when you get to that portion of the story.

L. P. Davies (circa 1976)

THE AUTHOR: Leslie Purnell Davies (1914-1988) was born in Crewe, England and graduated from Manchester University. In addition to writing numerous short stories under a variety of pseudonyms as well as twenty crime fiction and science fiction novels he was a pharmacist, optician, a tobacconist, and a painter in Rome. From about 1968 to the late 1970s he lived in Wales, then moved to the Canary Islands where he lived in happy retirement from writing.

FFB: The Sealed Room Murder - Michael Crombie

THE STORY: Murderous uncle Godfrey Winter does in his snooping nephew Eric and makes it look like natural causes. The victim’s sister suspects foul play and writes a letter to her brother’s friend en route to England from Shanghai. But the uncle learns of his niece’s prying and tries to kill her as well. Friend Alan Napier and reporter Larry Milner arrive in the nick of time to rescue her from the clutches of nasty Uncle Godfrey. Milner is determined to prove that Eric Winter’s death is murder and get the story of a lifetime. He turns amateur sleuth but his hijinks only lead to Uncle Godfrey increasing the stakes. Larry’s detective work may prove deadly for all involved.

THE CHARACTERS: How many novels have I read about the wicked uncle doing in his innocent heirs? This motif dates back to the Gothic novels of the 18th century and probably all the way back to the folk tales and fairy tales collected by the Grimm Brothers. In the hands of Michael Crombie (aka James Ronald, one of my favorite crime fiction writers) The Sealed Room Murder (1934) as much as it revisits well-worn territory seems fresh and invigorating thanks to his breezy style, good humor and penchant for action-filled sequences. There’s never a dull moment here.

Patricia Winter plays her part as the damsel in distress without ever resorting to melodramatic hysterics. Alan Napier is your typical hero too prone to the “falling in love at first sight” syndrome, or in his case falling in love at first hearing since her knows nothing of Patricia except what his friend Eric has told him. He has never even seen a photo of her. His first meeting with her is in the letter Patricia writes him that he receives just as the ship pulls into harbor in England.

Like so many detective novels of the 1930s we have another reporter turned sleuth in Larry Milner. And like so many of his kind he is smarter and more resourceful than the police. He is clearly a clone of Ronald’s other reporter/detective Julian Mendoza. The only difference is Larry is younger and more physically fit than the permanently disabled Mendoza who must walk with the use of a cane. Larry also tends to work solo; he has no cadre of reporter colleagues upon whom he can rely to impersonate policemen and bodyguards. In fact he gets fired by his editor for intruding into a police investigation and refusing to stick to his assigned duties. Larry is determined to show up not only his former co-workers, many of whom he holds in contempt, by getting the scoop of his lifetime when he exposes Godfrey Winter as a murderer of the worst kind.

Complicating the plot is Winter’s nosey chauffeur who has retained incriminating evidence related to the car accident that nearly kills Patricia. Surreptitiously he takes photos of sabotage done to the car before the wreck. He later turns blackmailer with dreams of a farm in Kenya and £2000 of hush money to help him realize his African retreat.

Ronald makes good use of all his characters, even the most minor like the chauffeur and a teenage boy who after helping Larry and receiving a compliment for his cleverness decides to turn boy sleuth. The boy hopes to gather more information and get a “big scoop” of his own that will reward him with not just compliments but a pocketful of shillings from the reporter. All the characters have fully realized lives and we are privy to their thoughts, dreams and desires. More importantly, everyone has their time to be noticed and often take center stage for that brief shining moment.

To my mind this is the best kind of popular fiction writing. Every character introduced should serve a vital purpose in the story. Ronald knows this too and his books are all the better for that knowledge.

INNOVATIONS: The Sealed Room Murder is non-stop entertainment, a lively thriller told in the inverted detective style. Knowing that Godfrey is the villain from the start, however, does not diminish any thrills or suspense. The book is loaded with action and incident. There are plenty of unexpected events and shifts in tone and narrative. But perhaps the most unusual part of the book is that the murder that gives the book its title does not occur until the last quarter of the story. There are several deaths and a few murders, but the only locked room murder is of a character who may be the least noticed of the entire cast.

When this murder occurs it is a stabbing death in room with a door locked from the inside and a window that is locked with a “burglar catch.” The solution to the locked room is a baroque one to be sure with only few clues given and requiring some truly abstract thinking to figure it out. So puzzled is Larry that he consults with mystery writers to help yet none of them can provide him with an answer. He turns to a stage magician named Vantelli as well but also gets little help. Only when he builds a model of the room and examines it thoroughly does he get a literal breakthrough. After his frustrating study of the model and perusing he notes that result in nothing useful Larry in a rage throws the model at a window in his apartment drawing attention from the landlady who scolds him for the damage he has caused. Only then does the truth dawn on him.

THE AUTHOR: As “Michael Crombie” James Ronald wrote seven novels. A handful of copies of four titles turn up for sale at outrageous prices, while the other three are so absurdly rare that only one copy each is held in the British Library. Only The Frightened Lady features a series detective (Julian Mendoza, of course) but this really doesn’t count as it is a rewrite of his first mystery Cross Marks the Spot which already had Mendoza as the protagonist detective.

I’ve learned some additional information on James Ronald from Jamie Sturgeon, a British bookseller who I deal with frequently. He told me that he uncovered some newspaper articles that reported Ronald had been deported in 1955 because of money owing to New York State. Ronald also apparently unofficially adopted a boy.

Michael Crombie Crime Novels
The Awakening of Theodore Wrenn (1934)
The Sealed Room Murder (1934)
The Gentleman Crook (1935)
The House of Horror (1935)
Murder!!! (1935)
Life Must Go On (1936)
The Frightened Girl (1941) - US only

FFB: Death Croons the Blues - James Ronald

THE STORY: Ex-con burglar Bill Cuffy cannot resist what he thinks is an easy theft. He'll break in and steal as much as he can from night club singer Adele Valée while she is out performing. In the midst of his gathering jewelry and cash he discovers her dead body in a gruesomely bloody bathroom. Cuffy flees the murder scene and foolishly (yet unknowingly) takes with him the bizarre murder weapon, an exotic knife from Asia. He ends up in the home of Julian Mendoza who finds Cuffy's story hard to believe but is willing to take a chance on the crook. Mendoza tells Cuffy to turn himself in for the burglary and he will back him up. He promises that he will find the real culprit and get Bill out of jail before the police can formerly charge him with Adele Valée's murder.

THE CHARACTERS: Death Croons the Blues (1934) is the second novel to feature James Ronald's only series detective, crime reporter Julian Mendoza. We learn a lot about Mendoza in a few paragraphs. That he has lived a life of adventure as a journalist. Among his many souvenirs he can count a disabling injury he sustained after a run-in with a lion in Africa when he was 33 years old. The injury left him with a partially paralyzed right leg and he now walks with a limp and often must use a cane. He is one of the many reporter detectives who were popular with writers during the heyday of crime reporting. Like Robin Bishop (in the early novels of Gregory Homes) he outsmarts the police at their own game often beating them to the crime scenes, finding evidence that he withholds until it suits his purpose to hand it over. Late in this outing he also recruits a small band of journalist colleagues as watchmen and spies who fool suspects into thinking that they are being watched and guarded by plainclothes detectives. His disability does not prevent him from acting out and defending himself from dangerous criminals. More than a few times his cane comes in handy in disarming gun toting aggressors.

This is a straightforward detective novel with a lot of action sequences. We get some unusual point of view scenes too from the primary suspect Honorable Timothy Brett who was being blackmailed by Adele and who owns the twin to the Ghurka knife that Cuffy took from the murder scene. The two knives are prominently displayed in Brett's home and anyone who knows him would immediately recognize the weapon used to kill Adele. Mendoza is sure that such a blatant use of a unique weapon is sure sign of Brett's innocence and that someone is framing him for the murder. It doesn't help that Adele's nosy neighbor Miss Purdy saw a man knock three times on Adele's front door and enter her apartment the very night she was killed. She also has a eidetic memory and gives an intricately detailed description of the man matching Timothy Brett's likeness perfectly.

Mendoza would like to find Brett and get the truth from him. But Brett is terrified because he also stumbled upon Adele's dead body, got blood on his coat which he left at the scene, and fled to beg for help from one of his friends. He goes into hiding with Mendoza hot on his trail. So is his girlfriend Lady Constance, a formidable aristocrat who wields a revolver, threatens Mendoza twice, and has a violent confrontation with a nasty bigoted landlady that ends with slaps to the harridan's face and a shove into the hallway.

Speaking of formidable let me not overlook Mrs. MacDougall, Mendoza's landlady who becomes his right hand man in couple scenes. You don't want to mess with her either. And she doesn't need a pistol to make her frightening. She manages to subdue Cuffy in the opening chapter in an unexpected way that made me laugh. Later we see her wise and compassionate side when she and Mendoza help rescue the ailing Mrs. Cuffy from that nasty cow of a landlady. They stow her safely in a nursing home retreat to prevent her from becoming the next victim of a murderer who will do anything to cover his tracks.

INNOVATIONS:  Death Croons the Blues is the closest to a traditional detective novel of the books I've read by James Ronald. The story still has its "thrillerish" elements, but the detection is sound, clever and often adheres to fair play techniques.  Mendoza reminds me of Perry Mason in his earliest adventures, when he would infiltrate crime scenes, monkey with evidence, switch guns and do anything to protect his client.  Mendoza resorts to exactly the same shenanigans but does it all for himself in his thirst to scoop a news story that will sell lots of papers. He finds Brett's overcoat at Adele's place, goes through the pockets and finds papers that he keeps for himself. He only turns over evidence to the police when he's good and ready. Thanks to these leads Mendoza also manages to question suspects long before the police even know a person is linked to the murder case. His actions infuriate Inspector Howells who would prefer that Mendoza either cooperate or just go away. Of course there are also consequences to Mendoza's brazen flaunting of the rules and he endangers the lives of several people in his desire to uncover the truth.

QUOTES:  Rooms. No beds. No board. Just "rooms." Four walls and a door. It was one of those houses in which every corner lodges an individual, or a whole family; in which every tenant has his own sticks of furniture and rags of bedding, his own greasy sink and grease spotted stove, his own domestic troubles. In which one bathes standing up with a sponge and a basin of water. In which before gassing oneself to extinction one must insert a pocketful of coppers in the voracious mouth of a slot-meter. In which no one cares if the occupant of the neat room lives in sin or dies in misery. In which one can hide...

"Sorry if I hurt you... But a woman with a gun always makes me nervous."

"He denies it, of course. But, then, he wouldn't be the figure of finance he is if he weren't a facile liar."

THINGS I LEARNED: The murder weapon is described as a Ghurka knife. This is a misspelling of Gurkha, the name given to a group of Nepali speaking soldiers who served in India. A drawing of the knife appears on the dust jacket illustration of the US first edition above, but is inaccurate.  That sword looks more like a saber to me rather than the knife used in the murder. The Gurkha knife or kukri, as it is known in its native Nepal, has a blade that looks bent rather than subtly curved (see photo above).  It was developed and used by the Nepalese army centuries ago and has been adopted for use by contemporary Indian and Pakistani military.

On page 58 a policeman quotes a witness who lives in Adele's apartment building: "She told me she'd seen a man running down the fire-escape. A big, beefy man with matted hair and ferocious expression -- Carnera or King Kong by her description." He is referring to Italian boxer Primo Carnera (1906-1967) who was 6' 6" tall and 275 lbs. at his heaviest, one of the most massive and imposing boxers of the pre-World War 2 era. From June 1933 to June 1934 he was the World Heavyweight Champion. In addition to his boxing career he appeared in a handful of movies in the USA, England and Italy between 1931 and 1959.

In the 1930s in England members of the Automobile Association were given their own personal keys to open the A.A. call boxes which had emergency phones inside. Apparently you could call anyone, not just emergency services or the police. Mendoza uses an A.A. box to call his newspaper offices and dictates his solution of the crimes to his editors and copy staff so that he can scoop everyone in the next edition of Morning World.

THE AUTHOR: There is little information about James Ronald on the internet. In the back of one of my US editions of his novels there is a lengthy biographical blurb. I'm not sure how truthful it is but it makes him seem to be a colorful and humorous man, and it made me smile. Ronald writes that he voluntarily left the UK, but another source I found says that he was deported. For what reason I have no idea. He lived in Fairfield, Connecticut for most of his adult life.  Here's the blurb that Ronald no doubt wrote himself:

“At the age of fourteen James Ronald, a native of Glasgow, came home from school and announced that he would never return. His mother was distressed, insisting that she would not have an idler in the family, so from then until he was seventeen he was in and out of a series of jobs, about thirty in all. He even ventured as far as Chicago where his experience included everything from a job paying four hundred a month to a job as dishwasher when he slept on cold park benches. At twenty-one he inherited $10,000 but it took him only nine months to spend it. Back in England again floating from job to job he was seriously injured in an automobile collision and for three months was in the hospital with a broken hip. Crippled for a year he spent his time writing short stories and his success at the job of writing has kept him at it ever since. He is the author of eight highly successful mystery novels. During the fall of 1939 he was an air raid warden in England. He is in the United States now for an indefinite period being ineligible for military service because of the motor accident injury.”

Julian Mendoza Detective Novels
Cross Marks the Spot (1933)
Death Croons the Blues (1934)
The Frightened Girl (1941)
  by "Michael Crombie", a rewrite of
Cross Marks the Spot with Mendoza now a private eye rather than a reporter

Julian Mendoza in The Thriller Library
Baby-Face (Jan 2, 1937)
Hard-Boiled (May 8, 1937)
The Sucker (Dec 18, 1937)
The War-Makers (Oct 7, 1939)

FFB: Murder on the Marsh - John Ferguson

THE STORY: Francis McNab, crime reporter and amateur criminologist, receives a letter from Ann Cardew asking him to investigate her father's erratic and alarming behavior. Ann is disturbed by such odd incidents like her father repeatedly checking his shoes carefully and shaking them out before putting them on. He is also often seen staring out the windows of their home nervously scanning the horizon for something -- or someone. Before McNab has chance to even interview Cardew the man drops dead on his front lawn under mysterious circumstances. But there is no sign of foul play at all. The coroner's verdict was leaning heavily towards death by natural causes but the inquest is surprisingly adjourned for one week at the insistence of the police who need to gather more evidence. McNab and reporter Godfrey Chance join in the investigation and prove that Cardew's death was "one of the most diabolically ingenious murders in criminal record."

THE CHARACTERS: Murder on the Marsh (1930) is narrated by Godfrey Chance, friend and colleague of Francis McNab. Friend is a bit inaccurate, they are more rivals. Chance confesses he has been trying to scoop McNab on a juicy crime case for his newspaper. McNab, under the pen name "The Lamplighter," has a reputation for not only reporting on murder cases that end up becoming causes célèbre he does so with an invigorating style. But Chance is petulant, humorless, impatient and intolerant. Qualities that do not serve him well in his journalism career. McNab on the other hand is engaging, eccentric and fascinating. He also has taste for imaginative writing like Lewis Carroll which Chance disdains. Of course only a man who is an imaginative thinker himself could admire such ingenious nonsense like Alice in Wonderland and therefore is able to penetrate the unusual motive and highly baroque murder method used to dispatch James Cardew. If only Godfrey Chance could grasp that concept, indulge in creative thinking, and tap into his burgeoning inner sleuth, he might become a better reporter and writer.

The suspects are the usual myriad of shifty relatives, arrogant rivals and gossipy servants. Sergeant Strood with his inherent curiosity and avid policing skills is a minor standout in the large cast of characters. But for the most part this is a typical traditional detective novel with stock characters; an eccentric, overly intellectual detective who dominates the story; and his one-step-behind-everyone Watson griping and complaining throughout the story.

INNOVATIONS: The detection is everything here. Ferguson, at least in this one mystery novel, reminds me of Rhode, Connington and Crofts in their most persnickety, overly-analytic modes. A sequence following McNab's collection of several newspaper scraps details the analysis of each piece of paper and after consulting with printers and asking about font, paper texture and color, and of course the actual text and layout of each, he manages to determine from which newspaper each scrap came, the day of each issue, and even whether it was the daily, evening or express edition. This analysis went on for pages. Some may find this kind of thing fascinating, but I no longer have the patience for intensely detailed (translation: boring) detective work. There is also an involved discussion of how fingerprints were left on a cigarette case, the method of taking out and later inserting that case into one's vest pocket, how the placement of fingers in that insertion method will sometimes smudge away the fingerprints... etc., etc. I begin to sympathize with Julian Symons dubbing this kind of detective fiction "the humdrum school."

I liked that Chance is an easily irritated Watson and is always grousing about Francis McNab's odd talent at getting everything right rather than one who is in awe of the genius detective. I also like McNab's frequent bursts of Scottish exclamations. His favorite, by the way, is "Innisbuie!" No idea what it means and neither does Chance so we are left in the dark about that. But I'm sure it sounds startling when exclaimed in the thick brogue McNab is described as having.

As the story progresses it becomes a bit too obvious who the culprit is, but the manner in which clues are laid out from the beginning and the odd pieces of evidence like the blue ribbon with the piece of elastic attached and the cigarette case found at the murder scene are very well done. McNab's sorting out genuine clues from red herrings, his mulling over psychological motives and the thought processes of a killer, all make for entertaining reading even it if at times the ratiocination was a bit over-the-top for my tastes.

Pillion for female horseback rider (circa 1890s)

THINGS I LEARNED: One of the suspects describes someone picking up Ann Cardew on a motor scooter and "taking her home pillion." I had no idea what that meant. In fact, I thought it was a typo. Assiduous Googling led me to discover it was not a printing error at all. "Riding pillion" refers to letting someone ride on the seat cushion behind the driver on a motorcycle. Originally, the word "pillion" was the name of a cushion placed behind a saddle for a woman to ride more comfortably as a passenger on horseback. It now refers mostly to the extra seat behind the driver's seat on a motorcycle.

I learned something else, but I am going to have trouble telling you about it. It's a word with a variant spelling of ...CAN'T REVEAL... which turns out to be the real cause of James Cardew's death. I imagine that anyone trying to find out more about this thing will have difficulty locating the word Ferguson uses in any reference book on the subject matter. I certainly did. The modern and now accepted spelling is very different. I'm guessing he heard the word in another language and then made up his own Anglicized spelling for it. Luckily, the word he invented resembles the modern spelling. Oddly enough, this alternate spelling problem (or completely different naming) specifically related to these things recurs frequently in vintage detective fiction often leading to the reader's confusion. In any case, the facts unearthed about this particular thing were gruesomely fascinating. And that's enough of that skirting-around-the-issue style of writing. Whew!

QUOTES:  "It looks black," [McNab] said; "but, you know, you can build up a case against almost any one."
This seemed mere perversity, as I told him at once. To accuse McNab, the logician, of perversity, was equivalent to accusing a bishop of bigamy.

"One of your chief uses, Godfrey, is that you so often take it upon yourself to act as devil's advocate. It is most helpful. You force me to clarify and purge my thinking processes."

In La Verité et el Criminal that eminent authority, M. Bastin, remarks on the amazing way in which that type of murder which he classifies as a crime of deliberation goes frequently to pieces. That a murder, deliberately planned, should baffle and perplex at first is inevitable. The murderer selects his moment, place and method; he makes at leisure the arrangements he judges necessary to cover all traces, and not till the murder is a fait accompli do the police know anything about it. Then only the intellectual battle begins -- the battle, as McNab put it, of insight against foresight.

THE AUTHOR: Born in Callander, Perthshire in 1871 John Ferguson began his life as a railroad clerk and then was ordained an Episcopal minister which became his primary profession. According to the entry in Scottish Episcopal Clergy, 1689-2000 by David M. Bertie his ministry brought him to Dundee, Guernsey, Glasgow, Drumtotchy. He was chaplain at Eversley School, Kent, from 1915-38, then at Culross, 1939-46. In his writing career he was better known for his plays than his detective fiction. Campbell of Kilmohr in its debut production at Royalty Theatre in Scotland was hailed as 'a new and significant type of Scottish drama' (Glasgow Herald). Ferguson wrote ten crime novels, a mix of suspense thrillers, espionage and detective fiction, between 1918 and 1946. Of those novels five feature criminologist reporter Francis McNab and his rival, Godfrey Chance. Ferguson died in 1952 in Lymington.

EASY TO FIND? Take a wild guess. You're right! Almost impossible. I lucked out in finding my relatively cheap reading copy. Only four copies are currently offered for sale from online dealers, one is a translated German edition. (UPDATE Sept 17, 2018: Astonishingly all four copies were sold within three days after I posted this essay.  I really do want some finder's fees for selling these books.)  I had no luck turning up a digitized version either free online or for sale. Coachwhip Publications has reprinted three of Ferguson's mysteries, however none of them are Murder on the Marsh. The easiest John Ferguson mystery novel to find in the used book market is Death Comes to Perigord reprinted by Penguin in the UK and Dover in the US. Hundreds of copies of that book are out there.

Why Ferguson's books haven't been resurrected by an outfit like British Library Crime Classics is another mystery that will have to go unsolved. He certainly fits the bill for the kind of traditional mystery novel they like to reprint. In many instances I found this one much more engaging, livelier, and more innovative than most of what you find in the BLCC reissues. Murder on the Marsh, probably most importantly, has a satisfyingly baffling murder to figure out. Determining the method itself and how the murder was done is perhaps the only reason a mystery addict would want to read this book. Though in the end it's not at all my preferred style, I have to admit that I really liked the character of McNab despite all his fastidious working out of the murder scheme.

Francis McNab Detective Novels
The Man in the Dark (1928)
Murder on the Marsh (1930)
Death Comes To Perigord (1931)
The Grouse Moor Mystery (1934)
Death of Mr. Dodsley (1937)

FFB: The Man Who Didn't Exist - Geoffrey Homes

THE STORY: Robin Bishop, California newsman, stumbles across a sport coat left on the beach late one night. Pinned to the jacket is a note that seems to indicate the owner of the coat committed suicide. It's signed by Zenophen Zwick, a famous bestselling mystery writer whose true identity has been kept hidden from the public. Intrigued by this mystery and emboldened by a newspaper clipping, also found in the jacket, that teases about five possible men who might really be the mystery writer Bishop sets out to find the truth about Zwick, who he is, and what might have happened to him. Is it all a publicity stunt? Did he kill himself by walking into the ocean? Or did something far more sinister happen to the mystery writer?

THE CHARACTERS: From the very first page The Man Who Didn't Exist (1937) is engaging and not just because of the double whammy mystery related to Zwick's body disappearing and his true identity, but due to the well drawn cast of oddball creative types. The newspaper clipping found in Zwick's jacket mentions five possible men who could be the mystery writer and they include a poet with hardly any sales, a painter of "headless and feetless nudes", a playwright, and a novelist presumed to have died after falling off a cliff. Bishop meets and interviews each of the still living men several of whom reside in the same apartment building (see the rear cover of the Dell Mapback below). Over the course of his Q&A he uncovers even more mysteries and more deaths occur that might never have occurred had he not decided to seek headline grabbing news. His guilt is apparent and pervades the novel at key moments lending an unexpected gravitas to the proceedings not often encountered in the genre. Most amateur sleuths of this era are more keen on arriving at the solution, naming the murderer and being praised for being clever rather than agonizing over the people who died, pondering the what ifs, and owning up to responsibility for violence that might never have been. Homes also has a flair for crisp, crackling dialogue which he later honed to a sharp edge while working as a story and screenwriter in the movie and TV industry from the mid 1940s through the 1960s.

INNOVATIONS: Unique to Homes' series about Bishop, one of the many reporter sleuths in America's Golden Age of mystery fiction, is the reporters are much more adept at detective work than the police. Bishop, his cohort Guy Barton, and even a rival reporter from the Express do 90% of the detective work in this book. Another 10% comes from Bishop's wife Mary who does some literary sleuthing and comes up with proof of which of the five men wrote the mystery novels as Zwick. The police do next to nothing except bluster and scream at the reporters for meddling in their affairs. What is most intriguing is the deal making that goes on. Bishop, as well as Brennan from the Express, get permission to grill suspects, visit crime scenes, and collect evidence for the police only in order to scoop each other with headline stories while making sure that the police get all the credit in print. It's amusing to watch the pompous and nearly incompetent Chief Hallam Taylor contradict himself each time new evidence is presented and new stories are published in the rival papers. Often he hasn't seen the paper in time to comment and must take his cues from the ever present journalists.

Despite the multiple Q&A sequences the story is never static. It's involved and heavy on action. Many of the action scenes seem like cinematic set pieces like a high speed getaway with Mary at the wheel of the car after Bishop has been forced to beat up a cop in order to escape from a storage closet in the basement of the murder scene. Neither overly complex nor convoluted this is a well told, gripping mystery novel with several clever tricks and plot gimmicks. One of those tricks seems almost like an impossible crime in that one of the murder victims was shot and yet none of the suspects in the building could have been able to pull the trigger when the gunshots were heard as they were in the presence of witnesses who saw no gun.

THE AUTHOR: Unlike his creation Zenophen Zwick there is no mystery as to the identity of mystery writer Geoffrey Homes. He was Daniel Mainwaring who like Robin Bishop began his career as a newspaper reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle then slowly transformed himself into short story writer, novelist and script writer for radio, movies and eventually TV. Mainwaring is probably best known for writing the crime novel Build My Gallows High (1946) which became the ultimate noir film, Out of the Past starring Robert Mitchum and his then wife Jane Greer. With the success of that one film Mainwaring turned solely to Hollywood for his income. His scriptwriting career outlasted his life as a crime novelist with numerous contributions as screen adapter of his own novels, well over twenty original screenplays, and a handful of episodes for popular 60s TV shows like Cimarron Strip, The Wild, Wild West and Mannix.

QUOTES: Normally I quote from the book, but I thought this was a lot more interesting as it comes straight from the author:

"First I had a detective named Robin Bishop, and I got sick of him. Bishop got married and then got awfully soft, and I got fed up with him. I changed to Humphrey Campbell, who was a tougher one. With Build My Gallows High I wanted to get away from straight mystery novels. Those detective stories are a bore to write. You've got to figure out 'whodunit'. I'd get to the end and have to say whodunit and be so mixed up I couldn't decide myself." (from an interview by Pat McGilligan)

EASY TO FIND? Looks fairly good in the online used book market, but prices are all over the place. Oddly, the Dell Mapback is extremely scarce while multiple copies of the original Morrow hardcover are offered for sale. Of course, once the hardcover has an original DJ then the price is going to be higher. If you're in the mood to own a nearly pristine copy and have a spare $750 you can own a lovely copy of the first edition with a DJ. Otherwise, based on condition, prices range from $15 to $200+ for a hardcover and $18 to $30 for the paperback. I found no UK editions of this title for sale online., but there is one Spanish translated edition from a dealer in Bilbao for a mere seven bucks. But their shipping fee from Spain is a little under $30. (?!) Best deal I found was a Dell Mapback on eBay for $24.99. Pricey for a Mapback, I think, but it looks to be in much better shape than my beat up, water stained Mapback.

Of the few Robin Bishop Books I've read I enjoyed this one the most. Coming soon a look at the Homes' milk drinking private eye Humphrey Campbell and his shady, very corrupt boss Oscar Morgan.

FFB: Obit Delayed (1952) - Helen Nielsen

 "Two forces. Interesting speculation indeed. But it had taken a small boy in search of a dog collar to identify the forces and uncover a crime."

Virginia Wales, a waitress in a hash joint in a California-Mexico border town, was a good time girl. Always looking for a laugh, an adventure, one of those "live life to the fullest" women who almost always land themselves in trouble at the expense of a good time. One night someone entered Virginia's hovel of an apartment and bludgeoned her to death with an award she won for jitterbug dancing back in 1937. An ugly crime, and an undeserving end for a woman who never really hurt anyone. But as Mitch Gorman says it was "[a] casual murder that didn't matter because it happened somewhere every night."

Helen Nielsen explores this tawdry, seemingly opportunistic, murder in Obit Delayed (1952), a story that begins as a domestic drama involving a lover's triangle gone wrong. It's a fine example of the detective novel as a character study of the victim. We get to know Virginia Wales, her troubling life masked by the veneer of an extroverted happy-go-lucky persona. She is still hung up on her ex-husband and keeps turning to him for help. But as the story progresses Mitch Gorman, a nice example of that detective novel mainstay the reporter sleuth, discovers that it's not Virginia's life that is the key to the solution of the murder.

Gorman is fascinated by the case. He uncovers a possible connection between Virginia's murder and a drug dealing gangster named Vince Costro. Dave Singer, Costro's lieutenant, had a relationship with the waitress but he is extremely upset over her death belying what he claims was only a casual friendship. Mitch thinks Singer knows who and why Virginia was killed but he's not talking to anyone. When another of Singer's girls, the garrulous gossipy lounge entertainer Rita Royale, turns up dead Mitch is certain the two women got in over their heads in some very nasty business. Business that Costro didn't want revealed. With the addition of these gangster characters the story enters new territory.

Deceptively familiar in its basic plot Obit Delayed is nevertheless a gripping, well told novel of non-discriminatory violence. Nielsen does an admirable job of describing how senseless murder, the fodder of tabloid journalism, can turn even the most cynical and skeptical reporter into a Nemesis of the hapless victim. Aided by society columnist Miss Atterbury (aka "the Duchess"), a smart-alecky colleague who would've been played by Eve Arden had this been a movie, Gorman devotes all his energy to turning a routine police case that might easily lay ignored on a sergeant's desk into a personal campaign for justice.

Multiple copies of the US first edition (Ives Washburn, 1952) and the Dell paperback published two years later will turn up in any internet book search and almost all copies are nicely affordable. The UK edition (Gollancz, 1953) is rather scarce. An eBook version is available from Prologue Books. If you are inclined to reading and collecting digital books I suggest you check out their website for a wide variety of vintage crime fiction. Why not start by acquainting yourself with Helen Nielsen's work? You're sure to come back for more after sampling this one.

This book serves as part of Rich Westwood's 1952 Crime Novel Reading Challenge for August and another book knocked off my Bingo card for Bev Hansen's year long Golden Age Reading Challenge.