IN BRIEF - A Shroud for Unlac - S. H. Courtier

In Courtier's fourth detective novel once again this Australian writer explores an aspect of the culture in the land Down Under.  This time it's sheep ranchers, and specifically sheep ranchers who are involved in selling wool to textile companies.  But as Courtier is also one of the finest practitioners of bizarre crime novels he adds an extra twist that borders on science fiction. A Shroud for Unlac (1958) opens just prior the the opening of a textile exhibition on the grounds of Robert Unlac's vast sheep ranch  A secret area cordoned and fenced off contains his greatest invention, or rather cultivation, that will be unveiled at the exhibition.  Before the exhibit can officially open Unlac dies in a tragic fire that destroys most of this cultivated product and the storage of valuable seeds. Autopsy reveals that Unlac, though burned so dreadfully, actually died of a heart attack.  And oddly his clothing was apparently drenched in gasoline. Was it an accident or diabolically arranged sabotage and murder?  Superintendent Ambrose Mahon is on the scene to uncover a horrible plot and unmask the killer. 

So what exactly is this cultivation?  What's going on at Lirra Down Sheep Station that has all the ranchers of merino wool sheep on edge, some truly frightened?  It's the acres and acres of a new cotton hybrid that Unlac has developed.  Fibers of this miracle cotton he calls ininja yield an equally miraculously durable textile impervious to ripping and tearing and nearly all staining. It's no wonder that someone tried to destroy the fields where thousands of the plants were growing behind heavily secured fencing. And no wonder why Unlac was killed. A miracle fabric would not only put sheep wool ranchers out of business but make possible millions for the owner of the plant seeds  and the secret hybridization process.

Courtier in his usual manner weaves a complex plot that involves jealous business men, deep dark family secrets, and a cultural war between aboriginal people and modern Australians interested only in making money. The cast of characters is once again a varied group of Aussies and "abos". I learned a new word (as I always do reading Courtier's books).  Myall is obsolete Australian slang derived from aboriginal languages that means "stranger" or "ignorant person."  Like most local dialects it was appropriated by white men and turned around to a mean "wild" or "uncivilized" or used in a negative connotation as a synonym for any aboriginal person. No matter what meaning the reader chooses for this odd term there is a nearly anonymous man, described only as a myall, who early in the book is found strangled outside the grounds of Lirra Down. This crime almost dismissed by the police (almost forgotten by this reader, as well) has later repercussions as the story unfolds.

The murder of Unlac is presented as something of an impossible crime for it is unknown how the killer managed to get to the odd storage area where the body was found burned to an unrecognizable corpse. Nor is it known how the killer could have escaped such a conflagration. Having read many of Courtier's books I should have known how this would be explained as the solution uses a detective novel convention repeatedly employed in his books even if it is a cliche device. However, in the story's context this cliche is pulled off with ingenuity.  Some diabolical wizardry utilized in the arson recalls John Rhode's gadget-ridden detective novels.

A Shroud for Unlac is fairly scarce these days. Luckily, exactly two copies are available for sale online.  Act now! as they used to say in old 70s American TV commercials. This book comes highly recommended as do most of the mysteries by Sidney H. Courtier, an undeservedly forgotten writer who continually surprises with his originality and invention. A review of one of his best novels -- almost topping The Glass Spear, his incomparable debut mystery novel  -- is coming next week.  It's a retro Golden Age mystery with a corker of an ending worthy of the intricate plotting of the much lauded Crime Queens who flourished in the 30s and 40s.

FFB: Dead to the World - David X Manners

THE STORY: Mystery writer James Stanley Hunt has been drowned in his bathtub. When he “wakes up” he discovers his wife Chili, a dancer in a musical revue, has summoned his ghost via a spiritualist. She wants him to solve his own murder. He takes up the challenge and is helped by a journey into the past via some strange time travel where he encounters himself.

INNOVATIONS: In Dead to the World (1947) Manner’s sophomore and last work as a detective novelist we have quite a melding of genres -- ghost story, detective novel and a timeslip plot motif so often found in science fiction stories. Other notable novels incorporating the motifs of a ghost who solves its own murder are Post Mortem (1953) by Guy Cullingford and for time travel in the context of a detective fiction plot we have Repeat Performance (1942) by William O’Farrell. While the ghost story aspect is often played for laughs and the time travel is hazily explained there is no doubt that Manners has concocted a legitimate detective novel with more than the requisite plot twists and unexpected developments.

UK edition (Hector Kelly, Ltd., 1954)

Unusual for a time travel story is the conceit that James Hunt-human and James Hunt-ghost occur in several scenes simultaneously. In order to clear up the confusion human James of the past is referred to as “Jim” while the ghost narrates the story as “I”. Takes some getting used to the “I” James Hunt referring to himself as “Jim” but as the story progresses the confusion dissipates and it’s easy to distinguish them as separate characters even though they are in essence the same person.

What isn’t too easy to accept is the way the ghost travels around the city. Because he is a wisp of a being and can’t actually be seen by anyone other than his wife who summoned him he is a bind when it comes to getting from place to place. Since he is invisible to nearly everyone he can’t, for instance, hail a cab, so he finds it necessary to hitch rides by closely following a human inside. His “vaporous fingers” can’t turn on a light switch or grasp and turn a door knob. He must wait for humans to perform these actions for him. Yet when it serves the plot he can easily pass through walls in order to access a room! He also behaves too much like a human, taking off clothes in order to sleep, and putting on shoes before leaving his house. Very odd for a ghost, I’d say. These infrequent inconsistencies in the construct of the fantasy world led me to give Manners a few demerits for laziness.

Still from the film Laura (1944)

Still the plot itself makes up for the admittedly few slip-ups and contradictions. The beginning of the novel is actually the end. James announces that he has solved a murder but several chapters pass by before we realize who was killed. Yes, he is supposedly drowned and dead in the bathtub, but we -- along with “I” -- travel back to the previous events and follow “Jim” through the series of events that lead to the murder of a woman folk singer. A surprise is in store when her corpse is replaced with a nude statue. In fact the identity of the missing corpse is a mystery in itself. Is it Jennifer Dell, the singer, or her friend Muriel Paquette? Was there a mix-up because they were dressed similarly and look somewhat alike? This piece of the plot reminded me too much of Laura (novel written four years earlier than Manners' book and the very popular movie coming out in 1944). And that plot similarity carries through to include one of the biggest surprises in Laura. I was disappointed with that copycat plot but once again Manners accomplishes a nifty coup when he outperforms even Vera Caspary in plot machinations. I was genuinely surprised by the murderer’s identity, if not his very old school motive. There are in fact several murders in the book before we get to the climactic moment when Jim ends up in a bathtub.

All is explained in the end including the quirky reason for the appearance of the ghost in the first place. For such a violent and tough action-oriented book there are happy endings all around with several reunions, a couple of planned weddings and a final smile inducing touch of irony in the penultimate chapter.

THINGS I LEARNED: Towards the end of the book Jim is faced with various domestic troubles in two different families while sorting out possible motives for the killing of Jennifer (or is it Muriel?). Manners writes: “Jim Hunt was feeling suddenly like Mr. Anthony, mender of broken homes.” He is referring to John J Anthony (born Lester Kroll) who had an extremely popular radio show, “The Good Will Hour,” devoted to giving advice to unhappy married people. According to Kroll’s New York Times obituary: “At the peak of his radio career, in 1939, Mr. Anthony was heard on more than 700 stations and his earnings were estimated at $3,000 a week [$55,372 in 2019 money].”

THE AUTHOR: David X Manners (1912-2007) was a highly prolific writer of detective, adventure and western short stories for various pulp fiction magazines. From his first story, “A Striking Resem-blance” (Ten Detective Aces, Nov. 1934) to his last, “The Town that Terror Built"(Adventure, Oct 1959), he was one of the most popular American writers in the second tier magazines. Frequently, his name appeared on the cover of Ten Detective Aces, sometimes he had the featured cover story (see at left). Clearly, the publisher’s thought he was a guaranteed seller for that particular magazine. Though his stories number close to 130 he wrote only two full length crime and detective novels, Memory of A Scream (1946) and Dead to the World (1947).

Oddly, he is best known for being the inventor (according to himself and his family) of the do-it-yourself handbook. An accomplished carpenter and craftsmen he authored several books on DIY home projects some of them still in print today. His nascent career as a pioneer in DIY home repair can be seen in Dead to the World when James Hunt ingeniously uses the knife-like corner of a candlestick as a hatchet and uses it to break open a wooden door (“Remembering that the penetrating power of such things as knives and picks was because all the force behind them was concentrated on a very small point of surface…”). Manners later went on to create his own publishing company devoted to DIY books and a public relations firm which sadly declared bankruptcy last year.

ODDITIES: The Hand of the Chimpanzee - Robert Hare

Imagine a mystery novel that is an extravagant conglomeration of Planet of the Apes, The Island of Dr. Moreau and that creepy cult classic 1973 TV movie A Cold Night's Death. Is such a melange possible? Oh yes my friends, it is. It's called The Hand of Chimpanzee, written in 1934 by Robert Hare who was inspired to write his fantastical novel after a visit to a primate research center. He even dedicates the novel to four "anthropoid apes" that he observed at that center. And what -- I hear you ask -- exactly goes on in this genre-blending alternative classic? Is it a detective novel? A horror novel? Or science fiction? Do the apes talk as in Pierre Boulle's novel and the later fantastic series of 1970s movies? Calm down, gang. All will be revealed.

The setting is the home and laboratory of Damian Strengland, former medical doctor who was stripped of his license after ethical questions about his research. The man has been involved in some genetics research and behavioral studies of chimpanzees. The usual glandular and endocrine mad scientist stuff crops up in the story and we learn that in addition to producing chimps who are now capable of performing human tasks and following orders guided by simple language commands some of the ape servants are actually hybrids of chimps and humans, altered by experimentally changing their endocrine systems that result in physiological changes like lightening of skin. One of the chimps in fact is completely hairless, wears human clothes and responds in simple, one word guttural syllables that seem like genuine speech. Another chimp has mastered spelling out the word "mad" on a typewriter which later turns out to be a key plot element in the solution of the various mysteries.

Hairless chimps and gorillas are a
natural phenomena of aging apes.

There are several murders, all of them rather gruesome, all of them apparently the work of either the gorilla in the research facility or the most violent chimp named Sebastian. Long finger marks and scratches are found on each of the strangled victims. Fingers that are too long to be human. Everyone is convinced that someone among the lab staff has trained one of the apes to become a killer. Increasingly it appears that Strengland whose behavior becomes more unhinged and erratic might be the culprit. But might it also be Gatrall, the slovenly lab assistant? He view their work as the wave of the future when all menial jobs will be performed by apes allowing humans more free time and better job opportunities in more challenging and cerebral work. Or perhaps De Silva, the primary trainer and caretaker of the apes? An aloof and cynical man DeSilva has the cruel streak of sadism in his blood. And what of Lenka, the sinister Greek housekeeper? Thanks to her creativity the apes have all been named, names which supposedly come from her native language. In my translations, however, I get completely different meanings in English (see THINGS I LEARNED for more).

As the story progresses and Strengland's monomania for his ape research begins to affect his sanity the story often also descends into scenes of unintentional self-parody. During the investigation of the violent deaths the police begin to treat the apes as suspects and Strengland launches into a series of tirades. In one scene after trying to figure out how a window that was always locked is now unbolted and hearing one of his chimps accused of fiddling with the bolt he sees the accused ape in his cage locked and secure. He turns to the others and says: "This ape is innocent. Thank goodness! He's a valuable one!"  Later Strengland rants about the most dangerous animal of all: "The police! What do they know of apes? They think all apes are dangerous. Any young fool in a sports car is ten times more dangerous than an ape!"

One of the many splendid pulps offered for sale at John W Knott Jr., Bookseller

I am so tempted to reveal some of the more outrageously horrific sequences but will only allude to Hare's clear influences of H.G.Wells, Maurice Renard, and a humorous nod to Poe. There is quite a bit of Dr. Moreau in this story and more than a fair share of homage to French crime novels, weird menace pulp magazine stories, and mad scientist movies of the 1930s.

THINGS I LEARNED:  Greek lessons!  Strengland and Lenka (and of course this is really Hare speaking) claim that Vlaha means "blabber" (name of a chittering female chimp) but the closest Greek word I found was Vlacha and that translates as shepherdess; Tima he says means "timid" but I got honors in my translation. Basho (name of the gorilla at the lab) does not come up in the Greek dictionary at all. Hare says its English equivalent is "horrible", but the closest phonetic match (páscho) translates as to suffer.  Only Philologos, the ape who has mastered the typewriter and can speak a few words, has a name that any elementary Greek student could figure out and that's because it's a neologism coined by Hare, an elementary student of Greek himself who perhaps got very poor grades in both transliteration and translation.

I wanted to find out how early ape and primate research was being conducted in the United States and that's how I discovered Robert Mearns Yerkes (1876-1956) who is shown above. Yerkes was a prominent psychologist and academic who studied at Harvard and taught at both Harvard (1902-1917) and Yale (1924-1944).  His research was varied beginning with intelligence studies (he developed as test used by the military during WW2) then moving on to human behavior and eventually correlations between ape and human behavior.  In an article for a 1916 issue of Science he wrote: “I am wholly convinced that the various medical sciences and medical practices have vastly more to gain from the persistent and ingenious use of the monkeys and the anthropoid apes in experimental inquiry.” He founded the research laboratory for primate study in 1930 and based it in Orange Park, Florida. The Yale Laboratories for Primate Biology belonged to Yale University for decades but was sold to Emory University in 1956 upon Yerkes death. It was renamed Yerkes Primate Research Center and eventually relocated in 1965 to its present location in Atlanta where Yerkes' work and vision still continue.

Oliver, a trained chimp that started
the human/ape hybrid insanity

Sometime in the late 1970s and becoming blown out of proportion by the age of the internet in the late 1990s several bizarre conspiracy theories began to surface about human and ape hybridization projects conducted at the Yerkes Primate Research Center. Although there have been factual stories of horrible cruelties perpetuated on the animals during one period of poor management when the facility was under the direction of a non-scientist there has been no proof of the existence of "humanzees" being created at the facility. I wonder if anyone had read this book and used it as fodder for the rumor mill and creating the Wellsian nightmare conspiracy theories.

HARE & YERKES: Robert Hare Hutchinson was a 1910 graduate of Harvard University. After his marriage to Delia Dana in 1912 and their tour of New Zealand he returned to the US and planned on getting his Masters degree at Harvard. He attended the university at the graduate level from 1912-1913. There he met Robert Mearns Yerkes who was Assistant Professor in Comparative Psychology during the same time span. Both men were also active in the eugenics movement. The Hand of The Chimpanzee addresses the concept of eugenics and ethical medicine at various points in the book. The unusual dedication of the novel coupled with their shared Harvard background leads me to believe that Hutchinson kept in contact with Yerkes and must have visited his research center in Florida prior to writing this detective novel.

Don't mess with me, Doctor!

INNOVATIONS:  The first murder to occur in Strengland's home involves a locked laboratory with a body found on a table several feet away from the door and the key still in the corpse's hand.  The two self-appointed amateur sleuths, Evan Heath and his fiancee Jessie (Strengland's niece), try to convince the police that the victim could not possibly have locked the lab and kept the key in his hand afterwards. He would've locked the door, put the key in his pocket or the desk. But the key is found lying loose inside the dead man's hand. And so there is, in fact, a locked room problem, one not listed in Adey's bibliography Locked Room Murders. The solution is suitably bizarre for such a fantastical book.

EASY TO FIND? Those interested in owning their own copy ought to act fast. There are is only five  ONE! copy for sale on the usual bookselling sites. Three copies are priced fairly but have no dust jackets. The other two copy is in better condition, comes with the original DJ, and of course is priced well above $100. Though published both in the US and the UK I only uncovered US editions for sale. I guess the UK first edition is a genuine rarity. I'd suggest trying libraries for other copies out there.

UPDATE:  Please note the strikeouts and grammatical changes in the above paragraph. Once again, within one week after I wrote about an obscure book nearly every available copy was sold to readers of this blog. Where are my referral royalties?

Death Has Many Doors - Fredric Brown

A G rated drawing for the cover. In the novel
Sally is found dead au naturel

In the fifth book featuring Ed Hunter and his Uncle Ambrose the two have set up shop in their own private eye agency. Death Has Many Doors (1951) is the story of a young woman named Sally Doerr who wants to hire the two detectives because she fears for her life. She is convinced that someone is going to murder her. And that someone happens to be a Martian. When Sally dies in her locked bedroom on her third floor apartment with all possible ways in and out of the room guarded or impossible to access Ed begins to wonder if something extraterrestrial really did have something to do with her death.

To be honest this was a very middling detective novel. While there seems to be a lot going on when you start to look at it closely you see it as a formulaic Q&A style detective novel with lots of padding. And lots of alcohol.

Sally is plied with alcohol at a bar when Ed, in an earnest attempt to show concern, tries to convince her that she doesn’t need a private detective she needs to see a psychiatrist. (One, two cocktails, “Oh no more please…” pleads Sally. Three, "I really shouldn't" four) Then off they go to her apartment where she asks him to spend the night ("In the other room, please.") because she’s so frightened. To Ed’s shock she dies in her room about three hours later.

More imbibing follows. Ed seems to find it necessary to bring alcohol wherever he goes. He gets Sally’s sister Dorothy drunk on whiskey and then they go skinny dipping by moonlight near the shores of Indiana Dunes State Park. She insists on the swimming, he cannot get her to change her mind. That doesn’t go very well. I wonder why! Drinking and swimming is just as stupid and drinking and driving. Dorothy is the second corpse to turn up in the book. No one bothers to question whether the whiskey she drank had anything to do with her death. In real life it most definitely would have. The real reason for her death (it’s a murder by proxy, sort of) is ridiculously far-fetched, probably literally impossible to accomplish. Brown relies on a detective novel gimmick that I thought went out of fashion in the mid-1940s.

The landlord at Sally’s apartment has lots of info to offer up, but once again Ed decides it’s best to cajole him with whiskey not flattery. All this booze bribing! It was not only disheartening, it was sickening. The landlord not only gives up all the details on the building's occupants, how long they’ve been there and all their personal business (were there ever really landlords this involved in their tenants’ lives?), but he gives Ed the keys to Sally’s apartment so Ed can come and go as he pleases and continue his investigative work. Or what passes for investigation.

By the way, there is only one policeman in the story -- their friend Frank Bassett. Ed and Uncle Am report their findings to him while he shares with them the lack of evidence. But strangely he’s curious about what they have turned up. Which is hardly anything. This is the only example of a negative detective novel I’ve ever come across. The more the two detectives delve into the case the less they find.

Here’s the pattern of how this detective novel unfolds. Ed wanders all over Chicago’s North and South sides with side trips to Evanston and Indiana constantly telling himself he’s stupid, he can’t figure anything out and that he’ll never get enough evidence to convict the killer. He goes into Sally’s apartment, finds nothing. Insert several mediocre action scenes. Then he visits again, still finds nothing. Insert scene brimming with sexual innuendo featuring Ed and Monica Wright, the gorgeous blond secretary. Does he go a third time? You betcha. What does he find? More self-doubt and psychological masochism. After each instance of miserable failure and beating himself up guess what he does? That’s right. Seeks out a bottle of whiskey.

Should I tell you about his interview with Sally’s ex-fiance in Evanston at a used car lot? That Ed never introduces himself or states his purpose or even tells the guy that Sally is dead. How the guy misinterprets who Ed is and how they get into a boxing match. Oh, too late.

The only reason to keep reading is to find out how Sally and Dorothy were killed. Brown does a good job of making the reader believe that the two deaths were cleverly disguised murders. I wanted something startlingly inventive to be part of the solution to both murders. But the end comes as something of an anticlimax. The major clue is provided to us in the third to last chapter by a whiz kid 11 year-old boy who (after being talked about frequently) makes his only appearance in that chapter. In order to come up with a smidgen of the final solution the reader needs to apply what the boy talks about to something that Ed saw in Sally’s bedroom. While Sally’s death fits into the realm of a scientifically sound yet bizarre murder method, Dorothy’s cause of death (as mentioned previously) is pure fantasy. If all this isn't disappointing enough for you the identity of the murderer is not at all surprising. It all ends in an electrical fizzle instead of a satisfying explosive bang.

Despite the bizarre murder methods Death Has Many Doors is a pseudo-mystery. Those metaphorical doors open to bring about death, but no other doors open to bring about a fair play resolution. This is a book I’d not recommend unless you enjoy reading about fictional characters drinking heavily and fantasizing about getting naked and dancing between the sheets.

Nevertheless, I’m moving on to some other Fredric Brown books I have uncovered on my shelves. I’ll be reporting back next month. For a couple of  other opinions on Death Has Many Doors see the links below, both less scathing but neither very complimentary.

TomCat's post at Beneath the Stains of Time
JJ's post at The Invisible Event

It's Alive! - Celebrating 200 Years of Frankenstein

The Creature by Nino Carbe (Illustrated Editions, 1932)

I've been receiving lot of publicity from various publishers reminding me that Mary Shelley's landmark novel Frankenstein will be celebrating its 200th anniversary of publication which was January 1, 1818. There are various books, both fiction and non-fiction, being released this month and throughout the year in honor of this date. Soon we'll have the first English translation of Iraqi author Ahmad Saadawi's prize-winning Frankenstein of Baghdad (originally published in Arabic in 2013) which I'll be reviewing shortly.

It's not just the world of literature and books involved in the bicentennial. All over the web there are websites connecting various science projects, lecture series and memes to honor Shelley and her novel with talk of cloning, stem cell research and other related topics of ethics in science research. One of the most ambitious is Arizona State's Frankenstein Bicentennial Project.

This is a world wide celebration with over 100 participating institutions from 27 different countries. For a list of the universities and libraries taking part visit Frankenreads, the central website and sponsoring agency connecting the world with the "Frankenstein@200" year long celebration. You may be lucky enough to have an event or series of events in your own city or town.

I've decided to join in this celebration by reading and discussing various contemporary books and vintage novels that employ the Frankenstein theme or Shelley's characters. I'll try to do this at least once a month on a Sunday like today. If I'm lucky in finding most of the books and read them quickly I may sneak in two per month.

Why not join in the fun and read the novel itself or watch the movie and write about it on your blog? The novel is very different from the many movies, I assure you. The TV version back in the mid 1970s with Michael Sarrazin as the Creature is probably the most faithful to Shelley's novel.

To start us off with a bang I'll offer up a video clip of the iconic creation scene from James Whales' original Frankenstein from 1931.

FFB: What Happened to Hammond? - John Russell Fearn

THE STORY: Shipping magnate Benson T. Hammond is being threatened with anonymous letters promising his imminent demise.  As if that isn't enough to worry him his daughter announces her engagement to a man he thinks is a fortune hunter. Hours after an argument with the young man during which he refuses permission to marry his daughter Hammond is found dead -- 60 miles from a house he was seen to last enter but never exited. Inspector Garth much to his consternation is forced to once again collaborate with the irascible Dr. Hiram Carruthers, physicist and genius detective, to discover who killed Hammond and how his body ended up being so mysteriously transported from the house to Worthing Road such a far distance in less than ten minutes.

THE CHARACTERS: Garth and his crew of policemen do most of the real detective work. About three quarters of the book is modeled on a standard police procedural. There are several constables and sergeants who do much of the legwork and a pathologist who delivers all the gruesome news about What Happened to Hammond? (1951). Carruthers is called upon late in the book, a bit past the midpoint, when the case seems to involve a strange invention that most likely has something to do with radio transmission.

Hiram Carruthers is one of Fearn's series detectives and he belongs to the group of what I've grown to call the "arrogant prick" detectives. He likes to call himself the "Admirable Crichton of Science" alluding to James Barrie's play in which the title character, a butler with common sense, saves his employer and a group of know-nothing aristocrats when they are shipwrecked on a deserted island. I can't imagine a more inappropriate nickname for Carruthers since the Crichton of Barrie's play is the model of civility. Obviously it's meant to be ironic. Carruthers is ridiculously egocentric, belittles everyone for their ignorance, openly insults Garth and his colleagues, and loves to flaunt his knowledge unchecked by anyone. He alone solves the bizarre case by managing to rebuild the strange invention that was discovered dismantled with several parts disposed of in an underground river. He accomplishes this feat with little help from anyone other than a few clever engineers who build him some custom parts, and using the design plans recovered from a safe in the offices of one of the suspects.

INNOVATIONS: As with most of Fearn's novels, most of which are structured as long form short stories, he has a limited number of suspects. Figuring out who the guilty parties are in this very short novel is rather easy. The bulk of Fearn's work was in short story format and I think he found it easiest to write his longer works, including all his novels, using the basic rule of short story writing that only the essentials are necessary. Red herrings in the form of characters rarely occur in his novels. We get only the people who are needed to tell the story. In this book there is the additional element of multiple culprits, when all is revealed and the villains are identified there is hardly one innocent character left over.

When originally published in 1951 the solution was perhaps a shocker. More than any other of his mystery novels I've read here Fearn resorts to science fiction in explaining just how Benton Hammond disappeared from the house on Stanton Street and ended up on Worthing Road. Modern readers may find it easy to guess what happened without needing any real understanding of physics or radio transmission since many of us are familiar with some well known TV shows that employ similar mysterious inventions. As the plot progressed I was reminded of the experiments depicted in a cult horror movie based on a story written in 1957. Turns out my analogy was right.

THINGS I LEARNED: Hammond suffers from fragilitus ossiumtarda, a genetic bone disorder now known as osteogenesis imperfecta or "brittle bone disease," an incurable condition that forces the sufferer to live a life of diminished athletic activity less they fracture a bone doing something as simple as running or lifting a heavy object. When Hammond's body is found nearly every bone in his body has been reduced to a jelly-like state making the police think that he fell from a great height. The real solution to his death is grounded more in science fiction than reality.

THE AUTHOR: John Russell Fearn was a prolific pulp writer who is better known for his science fiction though he also wrote many detective stories and mystery novels, even dabbling in romance. Sometimes he wrote detective stories like What Happened to Hammond? in which the solution melds with the world of science fiction. He wrote under numerous pseudonyms and finding his work in original format tends to be a chore if you are not familiar with his assortment of odd pen names like Vargo Statten, Thornton Ayre, Polton Cross among many others. The Dr. Hiram Carruthers detective novels apparently did not first appear in the pulps like many of his other work and were written under the pen name "Hugo Blayn." Luckily, much of Fearn's fiction has been reprinted under his real name and can be found in Linford Mystery Library series, part of F.A. Thorpe Publishing's large print reprint series for readers with poor eyesight. Wildside Press has also reprinted a lot of Fearn's crime fiction.

You can find a lot of bibliographies and biographical information on John Russell Fearn through a general internet search, but you will most likely turn up only his science fiction stories and novels and little about his crime fiction. Thanks to TomCat at the Beneath the Stains of Time blog most of Fearn's impossible crime novels have been reviewed in depth, including nearly all of the books in the Garth/Carruthers series. You can read about them by clicking here.  I hope to review the only "un-covered" Hugo Blayn book left -- Flashpoint -- later this month.

Dr. Hiram Carruthers/Inspector Garth Detective Novels
Except for One Thing (1947) - without Dr. Carruthers
The Five Matchboxes (1948)
Flashpoint (1950)
What Happened to Hammond? (1951)
Vision Sinister (1954)
The Silvered Cage (1955)

FFB: The Mummy - Riccardo Stephens

Believe it or not, during the late Victorian and early Edwardian eras there was another Scottish doctor who turned to writing novels, some of which were detective novels, some mainstream and two with elements of the supernatural. His name was Riccardo Stephens and like Arthur Conan Doyle he set up practice in Edinburgh but moved on later to northern Scotland prior to serving as Captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps during World War One. His writing career lasted from 1896 to 1912 and he died in 1923 at the age of 63. His last novel, The Mummy (1912), is an unusual blend of detective novel, occult thriller and the mad scientist novel. Those looking for some- thing similar to a Universal horror movie with a revived mummy hunting for his reincarnated lover will be sorely disappointed. This mummy barely makes an appearance in the novel, though the mummy case is very active.

The novel is narrated by Dr. Armiston (no first name ever given) who becomes involved in the deaths of two men, both of whom die under suspicious circumstances in their homes. Both men had been host to a mummy that because of a strange wager has been making the rounds in several private houses for a period of two weeks. So far each man who has hosted the mummy has died. The bet was dreamed up in order to scoff oat the curse attached to the mummy, but in light of the deaths it seems to be true. Inexplicably, the group insists on continuing with the ritual of hosting the mummy. Dr. Armiston is asked to join the group after serving a consultant in finding the causes of death for the two men.

The bet was begun by a subset of a group known as the Plain Speakers, a private social club whose members enjoy the luxury of uninhibited truthful conversation on any subject. The only rule being that all talk must be straightforward - plain spoken - with no habits of evasion, circumlocution so often resorted to in polite society when one is faced with potentially embarrassing topics. The subset of these Plain Speakers are known as The Open Minds and they gather in secret to tell stories of unusual encounters with paranormal and seemingly inexplicable events. When Professor Maundeville tells a tale of his mummy and the s curse it seems to carry one of the members devises the bet that each man must live with the mummy under his roof for a fortnight in order to dispel the supernatural legend and prove Maundeville wrong. The host is selected by dealing out a deck of cards and the one who ends up the ace of spades takes home the mummy for two weeks.

Eveleigh Nash, 1912 - the rare 1st ed.
(courtesy of Sotheby's auction results:
English Literature & History Books, London,
Lot #291, Dec 15, 2005)

This is the crux of the plot but it is not at all the real meat of the book. Stephens uses an incident so well known to readers of Sax Rohmer's thrillers as a skeletal framework for a novel that is more concerned with ethics in medicine, the fad of miracle drugs, and the desire for long lasting youth well into middle age. Other topics raised include respect for antiquity, the responsibility the living have for the dead and the ethics of archeological digs that one character likens to culturally supported grave robbing.  As is usual with novels of this era there is a woman at the center of all the trouble as well and jealousy and obsession play a big part in the melodramatic moments towards the finale. For a while I was certain he was going to pull something along the lines of She Who Sleeps, but I was letting my imagination run away with me. While Stephens is at first tempted by the occult his ultimate aim is much more grounded in a harsher reality than any of the lurid plot tricks of Sax Rohmer.

Reading the novel is a constant surprise for the title seems to have nothing to do with what Stephens is really after with his characters. Armiston and Professor Maundeville become the focus with the professor increasingly taking on a sinister aspect. He seems to have uncanny talent for magic and performs breathtaking illusions at a birthday party to the delight of the children but unsettling Armiston who sees it as an almost supernatural gift.  When Maundeville begins to talk of his experiments in rejuvenation and strength enhancing drugs Armiston finds himself becoming seduced to "the lure of the hypodermic".

It seemed to me that this summer the prolongation of life became what I am inclined to call more shriekingly fashionable than ever. To turn one's face to the wall and die decently seemed the last thing possible.

Riccardo Stephens
(illus from The Bookman, June 1898)

There is a large section of the novel devoted to Armiston's reactions to the quack remedies and patent medicines being hawked. Advertisements for miracle drugs are inescapable and he remarks that everyone is being told they are ill or suffering from some complaint. Armiston is disgusted by it all. The physician's responsibility for maintaining health and encouraging wellness seems to have disappeared overnight from medicine. All has been replaced by talk of disease and illness, the possible cure for any ailment or the alternative of death. It's a powerfully resonant scene for a modern reader who is also assaulted with TV and magazine ads for every prescription drug under the sun.

The Mummy has been long unavailable and is one of those books that has achieved ultra rare status in the used book market.  In this 21st century renaissance of reissuing extremely hard to find books Valancourt Books has once again rescued a noteworthy novel from Limbo.  The Mummy is their latest reprint and can be purchased in handsomely designed hardcover, paperback and digital editions. This new edition, the only reprint in nearly a century, includes an informative introduction by Mark Valentine covering almost all of Stephens' work with some enticing details on four of his other novels. For those who like their genre fiction unclassifiable I highly recommend this unusual book. A mix of detection, other worldly mystery, and social criticism The Mummy is an extraordinarily resonant book in our age of the relentless pursuit of the fountain of youth, both literally and metaphorically.

NEW STUFF: World of Trouble - Ben H Winters

World of Trouble
by Ben H. Winters
Quirk Books
ISBN: 978-1-59474-685-7
316 pp. $14.95
July 15, 2014

Usually I avoid dystopian and apocalyptic fiction. I'm not all that interested in the dark imagination of writers showing human behavior at its most hedonistic and desperate. I live in a chaotic city and I ride public transportation. I get enough of this on a daily basis without the fear of the end of the world literally looming over my head.

Ben H. Winters, however, in his final installment of his "Last Policeman" trilogy has dreamed up a world facing inevitable doom that is plausible in its mix of indulgence and dread. As many readers already know the premise behind this trilogy is Earth's impending collision with asteroid 2011GV1 predicted to strike the planet sometime in October and all of civilization is counting down to that impact date. Over the course of the first two books we have seen towns all across the United States disintegrate in lawlessness and paranoia. But periodically, Winters adds a very human touch in his depiction of this end of the world scenario. Drunks and drug addicts feast on roasted chicken while blaring classic rock until Doomsday.  This is a world where "Bucket List" criminals, fantasists who have always wanted to loot and rape and murder, can now do so without fear of arrest, trial and incarceration.  "Last Call" parties are the trendy way to go out big and those revellers brave enough to take part in one can indulge in one last party cruise before they throw in the towel on Life and allow their cruise director to blow them up at sea. Now there's mass suicide with a twist! Crime and death and traps are omnipresent. And Hank Palace, Winters' last policeman hero, is looking for his sister in this final volume.

In the previous two books Winters was finding both his voice and his way around a new genre.  Though The Last Policeman won an Edgar, and deservedly so for its sheer inventiveness, his work with the structure and tropes of the detective novel were rudimentary and at times very disappointing. In Countdown City, the second book, he abandoned the detective novel format instead opting for an adventure thriller that focussed more on science fiction elements than crime.  Finally, in World of Trouble Winters seems to have found his footing. He treads more assuredly in the land of the detective novel and there are fine touches of retro detection. Palace is forced to resort to the old fashioned methods in this world where the internet has been destroyed and computers and crime labs are useless. He carries with him a magnifying glass and often finds himself examining clues and evidence like the most hackneyed of comic detectives. Yet, in this dystopian world of ravaged shopping malls and citizens armed with high powered rifles a policeman with a magnifying glass is ironically original and inventive.

Ben H. Winters (photo: Quirk Books)

Probably the best parts of the book are when Winters allows Palace long scenes with some of the most endearing yet dangerous supporting characters in the trilogy.  Notable are the young couple living in an RV who befriend Hank Palace and invite him to their daily chicken roast even while pointing automatic rifles at him throughout his visit.  An extended sequence on an Amish farm is the highlight of the book when Hank meets up with Atlee Miller, a man who has stooped to lying and kidnapping to protect his family from the truth of what is in store for the entire planet.
  
The story itself is the age old cherchez la femme plot with Palace trying to locate his sister and his determination to solve one last mysterious murder and learn the identity of the victim. The plot is well done, the detection is genuine and surprisingly fair play, and there are an ample amount of twists and surprises. World of Trouble was well worth the wait and its reassuring to see a young crime writer returning to the fundamentals of the mystery novel and concocting an intriguing and moving novel of raw human emotion. Often in reading these types of trilogies the reader finds as he progresses to the last volume not satisfaction but a let down in an anticlimactic conclusion. Winters has lived up to the promise of his first award winning novel and has delivered a stunning conclusion that mixes the mystery of crime with the mystery of the human heart. As the characters face the inevitable end one of the most powerful images is that of one human reaching out for the hand of another. Winters reminds us that -- Apocalypse or not -- in the end all we really have is one another.

FFB: Foam of the Daze - Boris Vian



Tam Tam Books ed., English translation
Currently in its 3rd printing

The fantastical world of Boris Vian’s L’Ecume des Jours (1946) -- punnily translated as Foam of the Daze by Mark Harper -- is populated with kitchen mice that act as miniature housekeepers; deadly tools of assassination like the cop-killer and the heart-snatcher; and a mind boggling invention called a pianocktail, a combination robotic bartender and musical instrument that mixes, blends, and delivers potent potables by simply playing a tune on the keyboard. And Vian’s invention is not only limited to bizarre machines and anthropomorphic animals. The writer, also an accomplished musician, composer and friend of 1940s Parisian jazz and literary elite, was a lover of linguistic trickery and wordplay. Translating his many puns and jokes must’ve been a challenge to Harper who does an admirable job trying to capture the playfulness and humor that, as with most foreign language puns, are often untranslatable. For much of its brief but densely filled 220 pages the story is one of Vian’s most exuberant and joyous works.

Foam of the Daze is an unapologetic romance, a surreal fairy tale, and a literary satire all wrapped up in one delightful package. The story, however, is not all hearts and flowers though those two images feature heavily in the story. Vian scales the heights of delirious newfound love and plummets into the depths of despair when a mysterious illness threatens to end the ecstasy of a young couple’s honeymoon.

Wide eyed jazz lover Colin lives a carefree life enjoying cocktails and playing Duke Ellington records with his musician friend Chick who quickly meets and falls in love with the beautiful Alise. Colin is immediately jealous and longs for his own Alise. No sooner does he make his wish then he meets Chloe, as equally wide-eyed and optimistic as he is. It’s no coincidence that she bears the same name as a popular Duke Ellington song. There are no real coincidences at all in Vian’s world. Every action, every word of dialog has a purpose and is interconnected to every object and character in the story.

Boris Vian, circa 1940s

The most remarkable thing about this love story is the way illness is depicted. So often people talk about how their lives fall apart when a loved one is suffering a terminal illness. That is literally what happens to Colin’s world. His house begins to deteriorate, the ceiling crumbles, glass windows and tiles shatter, rooms shrink and doorways become almost inaccessible. All because Chloe has succumbed to an inexplicable malady, a miracle illness. Somehow a water lily has begun to grow around her lungs and heart. It’s not possible to operate and remove the plant without killing her. The only treatment method is to surround her with flowers and plants, tend and care for them so that in their beauty the water lily is shamed into withering and disappearing from Chloe’s body.

Filled with a soundtrack of Ellington’s music, multiple references to New Orleans and Memphis style jazz, and a subplot involving a satirical jibe at Vian’s good friend Jean-Paul Sartre who appears in the book as pop sensation Jean-Sol Partre, author of Vomit and other works of existentialist bestseller-dom, Foam of the Daze is like no other book I have ever read. Practically unclassifiable in the way it absorbs so many genres Vian's novel is bewitching and strange and hysterical and ultimately deeply moving. It’s an assault on the senses and the intellect. Imagine entering a floral shop crammed full of exotic plants and breathing in the mix of heady scents, taking in the wide array of colors and shapes, all while drinking an unnameable, rainbow hued cocktail with an indescribable yet utterly intoxicating flavor. This is what it’s like to read Vian’s novel.

Graphic novel adapted by Benoît Preteseille

His writing can be hilarious as in the sections making fun of collector mania. When Chick is not satisfied with owning Sartre’s books a wily bookseller coerces the musician into buying the writer’s fingerprints and old pants convincing him the items will increase in value as much as the writer’s books. Only a few pages later Vian tugs at our heartstrings in relating Colin’s desperate attempts to become gainfully employed often humiliating himself in the process so that he can earn enough money to keep buying plants and flowers that will help in his wife’s strange treatment plan. Not only do Colin and Chloe and their house suffer as the water lily infiltrates everyone and everything, but Chick and Alise undergo a rift in their relationship that leads to a surprisingly violent climax.

L’Ecume des Jours has been adapted into a movie by French director Michel Gondry and retitled aptly enough Mood Indigo, after the Ellington jazz standard, starring Audrey Tatou and Romain Duris as Chloe and Colin. The movie has already appeared throughout Europe at a variety of film festivals and will be shown at the Music Box Theater here in Chicago Sunday, May 11, 2014 as part of the Chicago Film Critics Film Festival. The movie has been picked up by Drafthouse Films and should appear in a limited release at art house cinemas sometime in the summer and eventually be released on DVD. A paperback tie-in edition is being released in the summer under the movie’s title. Anyone too impatient to wait for that edition can order Foam of the Daze directly from Tam Tam Books or any on-line retailer right now.

Haunted by a Movie

Yes, this is supposed to be a book blog but I went to see a movie by myself (as I almost always do) and I was so overwhelmed by the mixture of emotions I felt and now I have no one to talk to about it. So let me invite discussion with any of you out there who may have seen it.

The movie was Her with Joaquin Phoenix as a lonely man on the verge of a divorce who slowly falls in love with an operating system named Samantha. Set in a not too distant future where everyone seems to be talking to themselves but is actually conversing with artificial intelligence systems that have the ability to manage nearly every facet of one's life, Her is a very odd movie in which we learn how absurd relationships can be. But it is in the extremes to which lonely people will go in order to find any sort of connection that will bring them joy that is the most profound aspect of the movie.

When stripped to its bare essentials Her is the story of a man falling in love with a computer. It sounds like it would be a great comedy, and though it is funny and amusing at times the overall tone is more serious. It turns out to be an oddly beautiful and poignant movie thanks largely to Phoenix' nuanced and entirely grounded performance. I was reminded of As She Climbed Across the Table, a novel Jonathan Lethem wrote during his early career when he was toying with science fiction and fantasy. There are also elements of Colossus: The Forbin Project, especially in the very strange, somewhat ambiguous ending.

I was both disturbed and profoundly moved by what I saw. Granted there are several instances when it's just absurd and not a little bit creepy (the sex scene in particular and the very sad sequence with the sex surrogate). Yet I think it has a lot to teach about the ultimate mystery of life -- falling in love -- and the importance of not caring what other people think about you as you try to find joy in a world that increasingly seems to rob of us of that elusive state.

Anyone see Her yet? Any thoughts? I'm eager to talk about this with anyone.

ODDITIES: Department of Uncollectable Collectibles

I get a lot of book catalogs in my email and I peruse them mostly for my select interests: Victorian sensation fiction and obscure detective, supernatural and adventure fiction. Every now and then pulp magazines strike my fancy. While looking over the pulps offered by Michael John Thompson, a bookseller in British Columbia, I came across one of the most absurd catalog listings ever. It's reproduced below (with some typos fixed) along with the illustration that accompanies the listing.

I'd file this under "Why Bother?" Seems it was included in the catalog only for the amusement of the bookseller and his customers. He's right about that artwork. It's a real nightmare.


"THE NIGHT LAND" by WILLIAM HOPE HODGSON - CLASSICS OF SCIENCE - FANTASY FICTION. The cover artwork for CANADIAN FANDOM 17. September, 1951 issue.

HODGSON, William Hope [marginal interest].
$30.00 CAD

First edition. Quarto, original pictorial wrappers, stapled at spine. A fanzine, issued in an edition of 104 numbered copies, this being copy #56. 17 pp. Contains Editorials and Convention reports, no fiction. Most notably, it bears perhaps the singularly worst drawing ever to illustrate a Hodgson story, the cover artwork, which is by Bill Grant. The editor prints a long report on the convention, an SF con; and reproduces the signatures of the likes of Bok, Leiber, Williamson et al., but it is of little interest. In fact, there really is nothing of interest in this fanzine at all except for the atrocious cover artwork. It's not like anybody needs to buy this thing - it's hideous. A very good copy in original wrappers, if that matters.

You can click to enlarge this, but be prepared for a real horror show.

FFB: Space Opera - Jack Vance

Pyramid Books (R-1140), 1965
1st paperback edition

Like most people who might see Space Opera on a shelf I figured the title was a nod to that denigrating phrase used to describe science fiction books filled with epic battles in outer space, populated with a variety of bizarre aliens and extraterrestrial creatures and larger than life heroes and heroines. The publishers of the first paperback edition commissioned Jack Vance to write a book using the phrase as his title thinking the same thing I bet. Vance fooled them. He decided to use the term literally. Space Opera (1965) is a about an opera company that tours the galaxies as "musical missionaries" and cultural ambassadors of Earth with the hope of enlightening and teaching the numerous alien life forms just how artistically rich is life on Earth. I think Vance meant it to be a comedy but it leans towards the melodramatic in the final chapters.

In only a few days Dame Isabel Grayce, the tenacious former Secretary-Treasurer of a little opera company, contacts the world's greatest opera singers, gets them to commit to space travel for several months, and expects them to perform the world's most famous operas with little rehearsal. Dame Isabel has the kind of bravado and persuasive skills needed to pull this off and succeeds impressively. Yet by the midpoint in the story Vance shows he knows very little about opera singers and how a performing group on tour operates.

In one chapter Dame Isabel demands her company to perform no less than three operas -- one each by Rossini, Wagner and Alban Berg -- back to back with only twenty minutes rest period in between the three works. Three operas (two with huge casts), completely different sets and costumes, and radically different musical styles all performed in one evening. Will any reader, regardless of his or her opera knowledge, swallow such a concept? That the same performers can sing Italian bel canto, German Romantic and a modern atonal opera like Wozzeck? Never. And only twenty minutes rest between the two? Ridiculous! Never mind that Vance tries to point out the absurdity of such a Herculean marathon of singing and musicianship by pointing out that one violinist is in pain and has to bandage his fingers and one diva so exhausted refuses to go on. The truth would be that everyone would be exhausted. Talk about science fiction! These musicians would be superhumans -- aliens even -- who could perform three operas like those one right after other.

Underwood-Miller, 1984
1st hardcover (limited edition)

The book is really not a novel at all. It comes across as a series of short stories slapped together with the unifying framework of a space journey to the mysterious planet Rlaru from which a company of performers travelled to Earth, did their thing, and then apparently vanished. Seemed like a good premise for an additional mystery novel element but it's almost immediately forgotten about as Dame Isabel and her company of singers and musicians travel the universe spreading the gospel of highbrow art.

Vance does a good job of showing how snobbish and intolerant Dame Isabel is when she encounters indifferent alien cultures who cannot grasp the magic of classical Earth opera. In one case she is convinced that Fidelio needs to be presented in an expurgated, re-written format so it won't offend the race of cavern dwelling rock-like beings that are the company's intended audience. In another scene one group of aliens believed that the company was actually a sort of travelling infomercial. At the conclusion of the opera a representative of the planet's denizens approaches Dame Isabel and says that they would like to purchase a few oboes and one coloratura soprano if they have any in stock. That was the first sign I thought the book was meant to be a satire.

Captain Adolph Gondar is the only person who has travelled to Rlaru and is very evasive about talking about the planet. He keeps wanting to take detours which continually delay arriving at the tour's intended destination. Gondar's behavior is so strange and secretive many of the crew suspect their captain is losing his mind. Dame Isabel won't stand for it; she insists they stick to their plan and make Rlaru their final destination. A romantic subplot involving a stowaway woman named Madoc Roswyn who is bewitching the male crew members and Dame Isabel's nephew Roger Wool with her charm and sex appeal in order to achieve her own secret plan is yet another incident that derails the book's main plotline.

When the story finally gets back on track and the spaceship lands on Rlaru I was ready for a kind of Rod Serlingesque surprise. Something like the twist in the "To Serve Man" episode of The Twilight Zone or a shocker like the one in Planet of the Apes. But it's an anticlimactic ending. I wanted to gasp and I merely shrugged. The secret of Rlaru is not at all shocking nor eye opening or even very interesting. I noticed that the planet's name is an anagram for rural and thought "Aha!" but even that didn't play out.

Vance has won a few awards for his science fiction. I'm sure he does better in his later work. This commissioned paperback original seemed like nothing more than a way to earn another paycheck with a lot of private jokes thrown in to entertain the writer. This reader found it to be like eating Crackerjacks and being disappointed when the toy prize promised inside never made it to this particular box.

FFB: Vanishing Men - G McLeod Winsor

Looking at the table of contents and reading the chapter titles I learned that Vanishing Men (1927) promised five disappearances and a laboratory explosion. Good enough for me. I plunked down my money and bought the book. I was hoping for something along the lines of the scientific impossible crime novels of Nigel Morland under his many pseudonyms. Would this one involve esoteric chemistry experiments like the books featuring Johnny Lamb? Would I learn of mechanical or engineering problems as in the novels Morland wrote as Neal Shepard? Perhaps physics or biology would be featured. I was surprised when the story hinted at invisibility, matter disintegration and experiments with radioactive elements. The solution to the crimes seemed to be heading toward science fiction and fantasy rather than real hard science.

Prosaically titled The Mysterious Disappearances in the original UK edition the story takes the form of a detective novel opening with the theft of diamonds and gems from a jeweler's office and several apparent murders. The biggest mystery that plagues the several policemen from Scotland yard tackling the various crimes, accidents and vanishings is the fact that the victims' bodies cannot be found. Among the many baffling and inexplicable events the police face:

• A jeweler disappears from his locked office. There is only one door watched by two clerks who saw only a single visitor enter and exit during the work day.
• The body of a Maharajah disappears from a plane crash site with no sign of footprints or any other disturbances surrounding the wreckage.
• A policeman enters a building in full view of his colleagues but never returns. A search of the house reveals it to be completely empty of inhabitants.

The primary suspect is Arthur Seymour, a reclusive misanthropic amateur scientist who lives next door to narrator Sir Henry Fordyce. Seymour has been conducting strange experiments with uranium and radium but will not go into details about the specifics of his work. Fordyce happens to be privy to Seymour's personal life and relates how a broken engagement and his one time fiancée's marriage to another man drove Seymour to the brink of madness. The man who stole Seymour's bride-to-be is also the jeweler who disappears at the start of the book. The police are determined to find a connection between all the vanished men and Seymour and thus prove a case of elaborate revenge. They, however, need some vital information from Miss Arnold, the adopted daughter of the jeweler's widow. Inspector Gilmour turns to Fordyce who he believes might more skillfully obtain Miss Arnold's cooperation. She has refused to talk with Gilmour who she finds a boor and Inspector Glynn who she found inappropriately friendly. Fordyce, a dignified middle-aged gentleman, is shocked when in the course of his sly interrogation he finds himself falling in love with the woman, fifteen years his junior.

The book has a somber often humorless tone thanks in large part to the extremely uptight Henry Fordyce as narrator. But the adventures and multiple puzzles keep the reader engaged. Only the introduction of the at times sappy love story subplot periodically detract from what otherwise is an intriguing mystery that soon becomes a science fiction adventure. In the final chapters Seymour's experimental work is revealed to be an early form of quantum mechanics and particle physics. Fordyce finds himself rendering those experiments in very basic layman's terms in an attempt to convey the often difficult mathematics involved which he confesses he does not understand at all.

George McLeod Winsor, apart from sounding like a character found in the pages of a Stevenson novel, was a little known scientific romance writer from the early part of the 20th century. His best known work -- thanks to its inclusion in 333, a bibliography of fantasy, science fiction, lost race and supernatural fiction -- is his novel Station X (1919). The book is a bizarre tale of interplanetary warfare between Mars and Earth. I have not read the book but the plot summary in 333 certainly makes it seem like a War of the Worlds knock-off with the added bonus of alien mind control. But then there are dozens of books published between 1890 and 1920 about evil Martians invading Earth taking all sorts of forms from bat winged humanoids to metal encased tentacled machines. Though no aliens are involved in the mysterious events in Vanishing Men the solution depends on something just as fantastical as Martians or Venusians.

FFB: Someone Like You - Roald Dahl

A recent post at Patti Abbott's blog (also the host blog for this weekly tribute to forgotten and overlooked books) asked us which writers' short stories we find ourselves coming back to again and again, or which particular volume we often find ourselves re-reading. I surprised myself when I answered Roald Dahl, a writer who I think was my very first introduction to the strange and the weird in adult fiction. I read him long before I discovered the writers found in Weird Tales. In many ways I think it is Dahl's writing moreso than any other writer that led me at such an early age to seek out the weird and the outré in crime fiction.

Most people know Roald Dahl as a children's book writer and creator of fantastic, weird and wonderful characters like Willy Wonka, James and the Giant Peach, the Fantastic Mr Fox. The kid's books have their fair share of wickedness and cruelty as well, but his adult fiction is just as weird and fantastic and lays it on a bit thick in the wicked cruelty department. Those stories introduce us to murderers who escape police detection,  greedy gamblers willing to make terrible sacrifices to get what they want, bickering married couples who resort to murder to end their long standing disagreements and intense dislike of each other, and nightmarish inventions that are the undoing of their curious creators. Someone Like You (1953) is only Dahl's second collection of his adult short stories with original magazine publication dates ranging back to 1948, but I think it is his best.

Take a look at the table of contents which includes such immediately recognizable titles as "Lamb to the Slaughter," "Man from the South",  and "A Dip in the Pool" -- all three having been adapted for television as part of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents anthology series. Dahl more than any other writer is the person whose stories Hitchcock himself directed for the series. Of the five stories adapted from Dahl's work four were directed by the master of suspense, a testament to the storytelling skill and originality on display in Dahl's writing. Hitchcock was never one to take on the mundane or cliche.

In Someone Like You Roald Dahl tries his hand at a variety of genres and moods. While many of the tales involve crime there are also examples of social satire, fantasy, and even two fine stories that could be classified as science fiction. "The Sound Machine" is one of his inventor tales in which a man discovers his machine intended to explore the secret world of inaudible sound has accidentally allowed him entry into a disturbing world of plants he never could have imagined. Among the satires are "Taste" about a wine tasting contest that goes a bit too far and "Skin", a perfect burlesque of art collecting mania and the grotesque extremes one painting enthusiast undertakes to get what he wants. The crime stories are, not surprisingly, my favorites.  How can you not get a little thrill out of the cops talking in the kitchen in "Lamb to the Slaughter" or the grisly final sentence of "Man from the South?"

I was so enthralled with Dahl when I was a teen I wrote him a fan letter. Though sadly the letter was lost with a lot of other treasures when my parents sold our Connecticut home back in the 1980s I still remember verbatim his curt reply to me.

Thank you for your letter which contained many questions none of which I propose to answer. A writer receives many such letters in his life and often cannot take the time to answer them. I am glad you enjoyed the stories.

Roald Dahl

I shouldn't have been surprised that a man who could create such delightfully nasty people would be that brusque with a fan letter from a high school aged American boy. Though I was taken aback and disappointed initially, over time I grew to admire the chutzpah of that reply.  Dahl's letter writing has never diminished my appreciation for his fiction writing.  I still read his stories. And you should, too. At least once.