The Lake House - John Rhode

Misanthropic George Potterne is found shot in his back at his solitary retreat, a one room cottage known as The Lake House (1946) a five minute walk from his main house on the estate known as Melcote Priory. The weapon employed is an antique dueling pistol, one of two from a recently purchased set.  The case with one pistol inside is found at the scene of the crime, while the other is missing. Later, the second pistol is retrieved from a man-made lake not far from the cottage after Supt. Jimmy Waghorn has the water drained by opening a dam.

Potterne's wife Sylvia, who will inherit the bulk of his estate, is missing.  She was supposedly sent to France due to a health issue. Or so Potterne has told everyone prior to his murder. Police locate Sylvia Potterne living under an assumed name in a hotel in northern England.  She has left her husband for another man and was planning to divorce Potterne. Her husband was too proud to revel the truth; his name and reputation are everything to him.  He only married Sylvia to have an heir, but she refused to have anything to do with bearing him a child.

The Lake House is a thoroughly engaging, intricately detailed mystery with an abundance of good police work and clever detection.  The characters in this particular Rhode novel are -- for a change -- surprisingly complicated and seem true to life rather than stemming from Rhode's usual menagerie on stock characters and stereotypes.  Sylvia, a former actress, may seem flighty and superficial but has a scene where she has an emotional breakdown that is all too real, not at all artificial or stage-like. Potterne's right hand man, Mr. Naseby is another well drawn supporting character.  An overly cheerful man who was hired to manage Potterne's finances, Naseby is extremely helpful in sorting a bit of a mess with two different wills his employer drew up.  As Waghorn and his policemen continue their investigations the superintendent is intrigued by what appears to be Naseby's infatuation with Sylvia, a woman for whom he wants true happiness. Could he have killed his employer in order for her to inherit?  This is only one of the unusual motives considered in a murder investigation that has several unusal elements.

Also worth mentioning are Mrs. Titchmarsh, Potterne's only living relative, who disapproved of her cousin's marriage.  She didn't' think he was husband or father material. She offers many opinions, is intelligent and a bit tart-tongued in her assessment of her cousin. Mrs. Titchmarsh gives Waghorn a fuller, more accurate picture of who George Potterne was and why he was so disliked by nearly everyone - not just his wife. And there is the mystery man referred to by Sylvia as "Doodles" for most of the novel and whose identity presents a minor puzzle for the police. When Waghorn finally locates this man, a used car dealer, he finds that Sylvia is passing herself a off as his wife.  "Doodles" is a horrible liar and Waghorn has a hell of a time trying to get the truth from him. Eventually he becomes the primary suspect with a horrible fate awaiting him.

Curt Evans in Masters of the "Humdrum" Mystery, his book length study of Rhode and other traditional detective novelists known for their purity of the form called The Lake House "bleak and mechanically complex." I would second that opinion. For a long time it seems as if Sylvia and "Doodles" are a doomed couple. But in the surprising finale Dr. Priestley and Harold Merefield, his loyal secretary (and son-in law, don't forget!) leave the staid Priestley manse and travel to the crime scene where the two stage a theatrical re-enactment of the murder presenting an alternative to what the jury's verdict in the climactic courtroom trial. It does, in fact, seem as if the novel with end with a happy ending. 

Harold pulls off an impressive piece of amateur acting in the role of the condemned man. Priestley, is also impressive in a literally death-defying performance as the victim. It's a theatrical scene, one not often found in any of Rhode's detective novels and made the entire reading experience of The Lake House more than worthwhile. The re-enactment succeeds tremendously and is the true highlight; ingenious in conception, entertaining and witty in culmination.

This is definitely in the Top 10 of the Dr. Priestley detective novels I've read. The story teeters on true tragedy while the investigation reveals the murder victim to be a cruel and sadistic man, obsessed with alchemy and antiques and collecting foreign stamps, indifferent to nearly all human beings. It's a fascinating, but grim study in abnormally obsessive behavior.  One can only sympathize with Sylvia as a victim of cruelty and we long for her happiness even if the man she has fallen in love with seems to be almost as hotheaded as Potterne.  Of course it is also the detective work which keeps the reader flipping the pages rapidly.  Waghorn, now a Superintendent at Scotland Yard, is determined to prove himself worthy of his new job title and position. He is admirable as both a leader and investigator,  In fact Waghorn is complimented three separate times by Priestley for his insight and intelligence.  The crime itself is a marvel of both cruelty and ingenuity.  Rhode is known for gizmos and gadgets and those readers who turn to the Dr. Priestley books for such old-fashioned detective novel gimmickry will not be disappointed. Notably, it's possible to arrive at the solution chapters before the re-enactment takes place in the penultimate chapter.

I was so happy to read a cracking good John Rhode mystery because my last attempt proved a bore. An Experiment in Crime (AKA Nothing But the Truth) began with an interesting concept, but the investigation of the crime was so dreary and repetitive that I couldn't finish it, closed the book, returned it to the CPL and didn't bother writing up a review.  The Lake House is absolutely NOT a bore. Most definitely worth seeking out. Luckily there are several copies out there (ranging from affordable to ridiculously pricey) in both the original UK edition and the US edition re-titled Secret of The Lake House. Currently, my copy is now for sale here. It's priced to sell. Happy Hunting! 

Death Took a Publisher - Norman Forrest (Nigel Morland)

THE STORY:  Inspector Jack Grief and John Finnegan, a forensic chemist, join forces to solve two baffling poisoning murders that seem impossible. In the first case the detectives cannot figure out how the poison was administered in a time span of less than five minutes when no food or drink were in the room and the victim showed no signs of a hypodermic needle being used. In the second the victim is found in a locked room with a fireplace blazing and a unlatched window leading to a precarious ledge that no one would dare use as an escape.

THE CHARACTERS:  Death Took a Publisher (1936) is the first of two books Nigel Morland wrote using his Norman Forrest pseudonym.  In it we meet Grief, a typical British policeman of the Golden Age, who is grounded in reality and will have nothing to do with so-called impossible murders.  "I hate mysteries!" he exclaims in exasperation at the midpoint of the book. He prefers solid police work though he delegates much of it to his platoon of constables and sergeants. Grief is not above some unorthodox breaking and entering to follow-up on leads.  Twice he basically commits burglary in order to go through the apartments of two suspects and faces grave consequences when he realizes he will somehow have to justify his breaking the law. 

John Finnegan is the super-genius of the novel. Formerly employed in the United States by the Justice Department he is handpicked by the Home Office in England to head up the newly created Department of Forensic Chemistry in London. Here he spends much of his time poring over fingerprints both legitimate and forged (more on that later) via his high powered microscopes and conducts experiments using other other technical wizardry. He also performs some elaborate detective work in discovering the bizarre murder means that killed Willoughby Royle, an ostensibly well liked publisher at Royle & Gray, Ltd. The method of killing is the book's most ingenious and -- to borrow Grief's adjective-- diabolical aspect of the story.

The suspects, especially the women, are an eccentric group.  There is Rebecca Finck, Royle's secretary who seems to spend much of her time covering up and inventing stories about what happened in the office when Royle was killed.  Also among the publishing employees is the elderly spinster Miss Thyme who is primarily a reader and copy editor of sorts. She determines whether or not most manuscripts are worthy of the publishing house or if they contain problems that need to be addressed prior to being sent to the printer. Grief discovers she is a secret devourer of erotica and risque literature and belittles her in his mind.  He treats her less than kindly and as a consequence seriously underestimates her. Miss Thyme will prove to be the only person to solve the crime because of her job as the firm's reader.

Sybelline Higgins is a caricature of a romance novelist who reminded me of Salome Otterbourne, the vociferous and opinionated novelist in Death on the Nile.  Miss Higgins first draws Grief's attention when she is astonished not that Royle was murdered but that he was poisoned with hydrocyanic acid. Each time the poison is mentioned Miss Higgins has an overly theatrical reaction. Grief mulls this over and comes up with a surprising theory that ultimately leads him to rummaging around in the novelist's home while she is conveniently not at home.

There are a handful of other employees at the firm but apart from the second victim and Mr. Brew, a satirical character who exists only for Morland to ridicule "anarchists" and "budding Communists", they all seem to be cut from the same drab cloth. I was proven right when they all, for the most part, turned out to be bogey characters.

INNOVATIONS:  The real interest of the novel is in the police work and the technical aspects of Finnegan's crime solving. Morland was a proponent of realism in crime fiction. When he tackles the science of criminology (a great interest of his) the book rises above its pulpy origins. Much of the crime solving is focused on fingerprints allowing Finnegan to lecture frequently about his mentors and textbooks he has read on the topic.

Death Took a Publisher is often poking fun at professional writers and the entire business of publishing.  It's as much a story of those two worlds as it is a near send-up of detective fiction. Ultimately, all the allusions to detective fiction and specific writers (there are many) lead to the novel being a rather involved meta-fictional mystery novel. A minor character, Sheraton Andrews, is a reclusive mystery writer and he seems to have gone missing. Also missing is the manuscript of his latest book A Half Bucket of Blood. This all seems almost thrown in as an afterthought until Grief, during one of his burglaries, locates the manuscript and hands it over to Gavin Gray, co-owner of the publishing house. Gray then gives the manuscript to Miss Thyme to review for any issues prior to sending it to the printer. Suddenly, Andrews and his book become the focus of the novel. The denouement is as meta-fictional as any similar mystery novel I've ever read.  It may not be the first time this gimmick was employed, but Morland certainly gets his money's worth in the final chapter. 

THINGS I LEARNED: When Grief enters the home of the second victim he is impressed with the tasteful furnishings and the decor focused on racehorse art. He notices a print of "The Worst View in Europe" and a portrait of a horse called Plenipotentiary. Of course I had to have my curiosity satisfied so off I went a-Googling.  The painting is by Charles Johnson Payne (aka "Snaffles") and depicts a rider falling disastrously in a steeplechase or in a failed attempt to jump a stonewall while fox hunting. Payne also did a painting called "The Finest View in Europe" as a companion piece which is a POV painting of a rider on horseback.

The horse is also real and during its time was better know as "Plenipo". The Thoroughbred won six out of seven races during its year-long career from April 1834-April 1835.

"Fingerprints Can Be Forged" (1924) is a monograph by Albert Wehde and John Nicholas Beffel.  Their work is cited by John Finnegan when he encounters an elaborate frame-up involving obviously faked prints that are meant to implicate an author in the murders. I found more on Beffel, a leftist journalist who specialized in writing about radical political ideas, especially promoting labor organizations and criticism of lynchings, than I did on Wehde. This 134 page treatise was reviewed in 1927 by Edmond Locard, Director of the Laboratory of Police Technique in Lyons. Locard, like Finnegan, also mentions in passing the work of Minovici of Bucharest who wrote about the possibility of forging fingerprints in his Manual of Forensic Medicine (1904). 

QUOTES:  Miss Higgins; "Mr. Royle was not a gentleman -- he was publisher. Therefore we cannot attribute to him the qualities reserved for ordinary mortals."

Finnegan: "...I'm not a Sherlock Holmes, and I can't tell if the man wore a pink hat and had an epileptic sister in Tooting!"

He picked up the latest Sayers, then put it down with a sour look on his face when he felt the weight of it. Van Dine came in for a minute's consideration, and Gardner was equally treated. Finally he picked up the new Freeman and paid...his seven-and-sixpence.

Finnegan: "I like a detective story to be a detective story. When they try to write novels at the same time I've no patience for 'em."

Dan Lewis, Grief's superior: "I don't think I've ever come across a case like this. It's a detective novel, down to the ground--all the trimmings: red herrings, the senseless and complicated method of killing you would expect to find in a seven-and sixpence thriller..."

EASY TO FIND?  Rather scarce as usual, my friends. Both US and UK editions come in at least two types -- hardcover and paperback. However, both the US and UK paperback editions may be abridged. If you speak and read French, the cheapest copies out there are int hat language. All copies I turned up seem fairly priced.  Happy hunting!

Death Walks Softly - Neal Shepherd (Nigel Morland)

THE STORY: Inspector Michael Tandy makes his debut in Death Walks Softly (1938) an excellent example of three subgenres:  police procedural, scientific detective novel and impossible crime mystery.  Tandy using his expert knowledge in chemistry quickly disproves that a chemist supposedly committed suicide in his locked office, accessible by only one door and a private elevator that can only be summoned from the ground floor with a special key. Murder, theft and burglary are the many the crimes that arise in a complicated case involving professional jealousy and romantic entanglements. Heavy use of scientific detection makes for a dizzying yet fascinating detective novel.

THE CHARACTERS: The action is set primarily in a research facility where Robert Sherry, a reclusive anti-social chemist, was working diligently on two chemical formulas -- one for a universal solvent and another for stainless steel alloy that would be able to contain the solvent. Sherry has the use of only his left arm, his right having been amputated years ago.  He is found in his locked office with an injection mark in his usable arm and some Veronal found nearby.  Everyone in the company assumes he has committed suicide.  Tandy quickly asserts it cannot be suicide because 1. drug users addicted to Veronal do not inject the drug, it is ingested orally and 2. the injection was administered into the left arm.  Since Sherry is left handed and cannot use the artificial limb on his right arm as he would a hand with fingers he could not have injected himself.

Suspicion immediately falls on Mrs. Sherry who says her husband was more in love with chemistry than her and Daniel Lyne, the CEO of the chemical company. Lyne and Mrs. Sherry were carrying on a not very discreet affair.  Though the police know that Mrs. Sherry stopped by the office many times for visits, the CEO will not elaborate on the real reason. He is, however, quick to draw Tandy's attention to an embittered former employee Alan Talaver, who not only lost his job to Sherry but swore to kill him. When Tandy tracks down Talaver he turns out to be not only embittered but paranoid.  He volubly criticizes everyone at the chemical lab, rants about conspiracy theories and reveals a marked persecution complex. 

One of the bits of evidence found in Sherry's lab is a thumb mark with a scar running across the print.  Talaver, surprisingly, is quick to show that he has such a thumb mark and offers up no real alibi for the night of the poisoning murder. Nevertheless, he maintains his innocence. This confession of sorts will lead to one of the most remarkable aspects of the murder mystery and recalls a similar incident in one of the memorable Carter Dickson impossible crime mystery novels

Then there's Frank Donegal, Sherry's lab assistant.  Donegal gives a fuller picture of Sherry's misanthropy and utter immersion in his work. He was also the only person with an apparently iron-clad alibi having been in an enclosed study room at the research library across the street.  Reading Cabinet #5, Donegal's favorite place to study, is located at the rear of the library and is constructed similar to a telephone booth. The reading cabinets are shown to be occupied by a red light on the outside wall activated when someone sits down and the door is closed.

The impossibility of the locked room involves Sherry's office elevator that leads to a hidden doorway in the alley behind the lab building (see the plan at left). Oddly designed the elevator can only be operated with a key that summons the elevator from the ground floor to the office above.  The key must be also used to exit the elevator. Any time the elevator is used the car returns to the ground floor automatically. There is a lot of business about a load meter installed in the elevator that helps to save on the firm's electric bill. This portion sort of went over my head, but Nigel Morland in his "Neal Shepherd" guise certainly turned on his expert mode during this electrical engineering lesson. Tandy retrieves the time graphs -- basically reports of each instance the elevator went up and down -- in order to determine if the elevator was the murderer's method of escape from the locked office.   

INNOVATIONS:  Tandy studied chemistry prior to becoming a police officer.  He mentions this to many of the scientists he interviews and it helps him to get some of the suspects to talk more freely and, of course, more expertly on the scientific aspects of the murder case.  There are several lectures on chemical alloy structures, the previously mentioned mechanical and electrical design of the elevator, the creation of plastic molds, chemical nature of poisons and a lot more. After one of these long lectures that goes on for nearly four pages (!) Sgt Bill Holland, Tandy's hero worshiping colleague, is astonished: "Holland's eyes opened wide. This was the type of detection he had hitherto believed existed only in detective novels."

French edition of Death Rides Swiftly
translated less poetically as Death is Swift

Bill is right of course. But not in the ironic sense that Morland intends.  It is the kind of detection that exists only in detective novels and not ever in real life.  Rarely do real life criminals engage in the kind of guile and scientific trickery employed in this deviously constructed and often ingenious mystery novel. But this trickery is also what makes the "Napper" Tandy mystery novels so fascinating to read and mark them as stand-outs of the impossible crime and scientific detection subgenres at the tail end of the Golden Age.

I hope to get three of these novels reprinted by the middle of next year. Unfortunately, I have not been able to locate an English language copy of Death Rides Swiftly though I do have the other three.  But I have not given up my search for that elusive fourth title.

 Inspector "Napper " Tandy Detective Novels
Death Walks Softly (1938)
Death Flies Low (1938)
Death Rides Swiftly (1939)
Exit to Music (1940)

 

MOONLIGHTERS: W. Stanley Sykes, Anesthesiologist Obsessed with Crime

There are mystery writers whose work in their primary field is far more interesting than their dabbling in genre fiction. Then there are those who dabbled whose work is so strong on plotting, character and imaginative use of detective novel motifs they should have kept on writing books for decades. Such is the case of William Stanley Sykes, an anesthesiologist (or anesthetist as they say in the UK) who was a pioneer in his field. His monumental Essays on the First Hundred Years of Anaesthesia, a three volume work, is still held in high regard, mostly for his painstakingly researched history and the evolution and development of treatment methods. But his interest in criminology, ingenious murder methods and the exacting nature of police work in the pre-WW 2 era resulted in only three novels and three solve-them-yourself mysteries. It's a shame we have no more than that small output from him. He had a real flair for the genre.

His first novel The Missing Moneylender (1931) was published with the prosaically dull title The Man Who Was Dead in the US. Of his three novels this is the most easily obtainable title for it was reprinted several times by Penguin in paperback editions. ...Moneylender has been reviewed favorably by TomCat at Beneath the Stains of Time and Ron at Vintage Pop Fiction and is examined in a highly opinionated, post-modern approach that is completely ignorant of detective fiction conventions at A Penguin a Week. His second The Harness of Death (1932) is the focus here. It's the only Sykes mystery novel I own and one of two remaining works not reviewed anywhere in the blogosphere.

Unlike his debut mystery novel Sykes decided to make The Harness of Death an inverted mystery novel. The first chapter we watch a blackmail scheme go terribly wrong. The victim Edgar Marston turns on his tormentor, the snide and weasely owner of Reinhold Metal Works and foundry. Even though the blackmailer is holding his victim at bay with a revolver Marston manages to turn the tables, disarm Reinhold and bash in his brains. He then disposes of the body in the metalwork's foundry furnace.

Chapter Two follows in a different setting which interestingly occurs almost simultaneously as the action in the preceding chapter. The attendant in charge of the stored luggage at Southbourne Station notices blood seeping out of a trunk, opens it and discovers a "disarticulated leg." He is horrified and immediately calls the police. The police set up a trap for the owner of the trunk. When he shows up to claim his property the police learn there was a terrible misunderstanding. Dr. Hemsworth, the owner of the trunk, tells them: "I don't blame you for arresting me. But the person who owns that leg is very much alive." It seems Hemsworth has a research project and he was allowed to take the leg from a recent amputation at the hospital where he works. He foolishly left the trunk too long at the storage room due to some delays at his job. Now the leg is spoiled and useless for his research. The police find this all hard to believe so they drag the doctor to the station and have a parade of hospital employees come in to verify his identity and story.

These two incidents will eventually link up in the first of several eyebrow raising surprises in a book replete with criminal ingenuity and viciously executed murders. The case is investigated by Sykes' series detective Inspector Dennis Drury and his capable team of policemen and law officials. The foundry is a front for an intricate criminal operation populated with myriad scoundrels and duplicitous employees with secrets in their past. The police wonder why someone didn't bash in Reinhold's brains years ago, he turns out to have made several enemies. Drury is always turning up someone he remembers from his days as a beat cop as he interviews the various employees at the foundry. The final third of the book is taken up with a pursuit at sea as the police track down their quarry and attempt to prevent another murder. Deep sea fishing is described with expert gusto that would have Ernest Hemingway dripping with envy. The climax is heightened by a battle to hook a 200 pound tuna with two men harnessed into a high tech rod and reel and fisherman's chair. Who will do in whom?

William Stanley Sykes, 1939
photo © by Howard Coster
(Courtesy of National Portrait Gallery, London)

Not only is the plot intricate and engaging but Sykes has a talent for making even the most minor characters like Sam Garside, the stowed luggage attendant, fully human. Like George Bellairs who also enjoys giving us micro-biographies of characters who appear on only a few pages, Sykes has fun with filing us in on the quirks and homelife of his supporting cast while often revealing secrets the police will never uncover. Garside spends much of his workday working the contest crossword puzzles in the newspaper longing to strike it rich with the prize money. Wayland Harrison, Reinhold's crooked partner, likes to cheat at golf. Marston is embezzling funds from Reinhold to help finance his expensive, sometimes dangerous, hobby of tuna fishing. Black humor and untold criminality add satiric spice and enliven his detective plot.

The life and medical career of William Stanley Sykes (1894-1961) has been written about extensively all over the internet and I'm not going to reiterate any of it. The most detailed and concise summation is his obituary that appeared in the British Journal of Anesthesia.  I was fortunate to find two portraits of him at the National Portrait Gallery's vast database. So there he is over on the left as he appeared in 1939, seven years after the publication of The Harness of Death. As for his fiction writing I have lots to report.

Sykes' third and last detective novel is The Ray of Doom (1935) which incorporates elements of science fiction was published only in the UK by Hodder & Stoughton. This is the rarest of his detective novels. The Worldcat.org database tells me that there are only 9 copies held in a mix of US, Canadian, UK and Australian libraries. Currently, two copies are offered for a sale from online dealers, but they both appear to be battered ex-library books. Pass! No one is getting $129 (plus postage) from me for a dirty, beat up book no matter how rare it is.

Hush #8, January 1931

He contributed three mini short stories that were solve-them-yourself mysteries for Hush, edited by Edgar Wallace and created by William Collins & Company as a way to help market the work of their bestselling mystery writers who were part of Collins Crime Club. It may have been a perk for subscribers who signed up for The Detective Story Club, a short-lived imprint & subscriber book club from Collins that reprinted in cheap hardback format several popular detective fiction books and thrillers from the 1920s and earlier. Three of Agatha Christie's Jane Marple short stories that would eventually appear in The 13 Problems (1932) -- The Tuesday Night Murders in the US -- as well as works by Sydney Horler, the Coles, and J.S. Fletcher all appeared in Hush alongside Sykes' puzzles. The magazine ran from June 1930 to June 1931 and had only 13 issues. Subtitled "Problems in Detection" Sykes' only short stories as such are "How Was the Knife Thrown? (Jan 1931), "The Dangerous Safe" (Feb 1931), and "The Locked Room" (March 1931).

FFB: Case of the Talking Dust - John Donavan

THE STORY: Sgt Johnny Lamb and his superior Inspector Cross are teamed up an intriguing case of a murdered man found with a mutilated face and no identification. In addition to determining the identity of the corpse through ingenious detective work the two policeman find the case complicated when they uncover a privately funded expedition to Scandinavia, a suspicious sculptor whose studio figures into the crime, and a wealthy patron of the arts whose recently felled beech trees were exploited by the murderer for an unusual purpose.

THE CHARACTERS: The Case of the Talking Dust (1938) is the second of the short series featuring Sgt. Johnny Lamb, the son of a renowned forensic pathologist who like his father is equipped with keen scientific mind. Lamb draws on his vast knowledge of chemistry, physics and biology to aid him in his detective work much to the exasperation of his superior Cross, a by-the-book policeman guided by routine principles and a bit skeptical of Lamb’s often byzantine approach to a crime scene. The contrast in their two methods as detectives makes for engaging often fascinating reading. Lamb is ironically often the teacher to his more experienced senior officer and Cross finds himself stubbornly listening to mini lectures on chemical compounds and skeletal deformities. In the end Cross is often marveling at Lamb’s observations.

The case focusses on a trio of characters who on the surface seem unconnected . After learning the name and profession of the corpse, Percy Dalby a pugnacious explorer given to impulsive journeys to points exotic and remote, the two policeman trace Dalby to financier Gregory Shard. Our heroes soon learn Shard was backing Dalby’s private expedition to Norway, the purpose of which he is reluctant to discuss since it involves business that may prove lucrative and he wants to protect his interests from competitors or as he puts it “we [have] to take the utmost precautions against leakage.” So guarded is their business that resort to using a special code in their correspondence. When some encoded telegrams from Dalby turn up after the murder is committed Shard and the police believe that Dalby is still alive. And if that is the case, then who is the corpse? And why was it disguised in Dalby’s clothes?

Pavilion Gardens in Buxton, UK
Beech tree sculpture (© 2014, Andrew Frost)

The second and third characters are connected via money and sponsorship as well. They are Derek Hirsch, a sculptor of contemporary statues made from tree wood and bark, and his wealthy patron Jacob Essler. Hirsch comes into the story when his electric boat is proven to have transported the corpse to the scene of the crime.

Essler’s estate contains a grove of beech trees some of which he wanted cleared and he invited Hirsch to visit the grove to select a few choice trees for future artwork projects. Evidence of bloodstains prove that the cut down trees were used to help transport the corpse to the crime scene several miles from Essler’s estate. If this is the case Lamb reasons then the murder victim – Dalby or not – was killed on Essler’s grounds. How did he get there and why was he killed there in the beech tree grove? Lamb is determined to link Dalby with Shard, Hirsch and Essler and get to the bottom of an overly complicated crime committed by a murderer with a strange sense of humor.

INNOVATIONS: Nigel Morland writing as “John Donavan” is in his element in the series of books featuring Johnny Lamb. These intricately plotted books reveal Morland’s early interest in criminal behavior and strange motivations which would later become an obsession leading Morland to write a handful of non-fiction works on criminal psychopathology. The detective work here is mindboggling in its complexity. The title refers to some dust found at the crime scene purposely scattered on the hinges of a trapdoor that leads to a underground passage. Lamb has it analyzed and finds it to be a combination of two types of dust, one sample includes lead and radioactive lead to boot. This will be a major breakthrough in the case for the police duo.

Other pieces of ingenuity involve Lamb’s observations of the tailored clothing found on the corpse and the unusual construction of lapels that he knows are the signature work of only a handful of London tailors. They visit the editorial offices of a registry of tailors and manage to pinpoint the exact maker of the corpse’s jacket who of course knows the owner from memory.

In addition to this sartorial investigation other brilliant detective work highlights dentistry, radioactive isotopes, tides and river water movement, the differences between electric boats and gasoline powered boats, and the most impressive bit of all – the examination of the bill of lading from the truck that delivered the beech tree lumber to Hirsch’s studio and how Lamb uses his knowledge of tree wood weights (!) and some simple math to figure out that the excessive weight of one lumber bundle must have included something other than just the cut down trees.

Much of the detection in this book reminded me of the tour de force kind of plotting and ingenuity you find in the work of J. J. Connington and John Rhode. Morland can certainly be classed among those other so-called “humdrum” detective writers who wanted their mystery novels to be first and foremost about the art of detection. In his guise as “John Donavan” (and also “Neal Shepherd”) Morland was approaching true art in the detective novel.

THINGS I LEARNED: Lamb and a physician have a discussion devoted to the recent work of radioactive elements as a treatment for cancer which I thought was a much later development in medicine. And pages of talk are about the physics of lead isotopes, radioisotopes and the radioactive decay chain all of which led me to a-Googling to see whether or not it was true and accurate. Of course it was.

QUOTES: “I really don’t know how Hepplewhite does it. It’d have taken me days to collect all this when I was a junior.”
“Gradual mental evolution of the race,” Johnny remarked. “Alertness and vigour, the essence of modern youth.”
“Laziness and cinema-minded, more like.” Cross’s voice was savage.

[Lamb] had seen something of Hirsch’s work, and what he had seen had been a revelation. He suddenly felt convinced that a man who could do such work could be no killer. Whatever its artistic merit – and Johnny did not feel competent to judge, though he had been impressed – this was creative. And he could not associate the man who had done it with the idea of destruction.

EASY TO FIND? Take a wild guess. After reading TomCat’s laudatory review of Case of the Rusted Room, the first Johnny Lamb mystery novel, a few weeks ago I was reminded that I still had not found a copy of …Talking Dust and decided to look one more time Lo and behold! I found a copy for sale in a mystery bookshop I had visited in Minneapolis several years ago. The store now has an annex within the same shop devoted to the sale of vintage mystery novels and the entire stock is available via their store website. I don’t think that vintage mystery annex was there when I visited or else I would’ve bought a lot of their stock. Of course, I bought the book since it was only $20 and I had been wanting a copy for over 20 years now. Good luck finding another copy. Apart from The Case of the Plastic Mask (1940) this is the most difficult title in the Johnny Lamb series to find.

Sgt. Johnny Lamb Detective Novels
The Case of the Rusted Room (1937)

The Case of the Talking Dust (1938)

The Case of the Beckoning Dead (1938)

The Case of the Coloured Wind (1939) (US title: Case of the Violet Smoke)

The Case of the Plastic Man (1940) (US title: Case of the Plastic Mask)

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

IN BRIEF: Pattern of Murder - John Russell Fearn

Any fans of Columbo out there? Of course there are. Well, let me point you to your next required read:  Pattern of Murder (1957) by the ambitious and prolific John Russell Fearn. Decades before Link and Levinson dreamed up their wily, cigar chomping police lieutenant who matched wits with egotistical murderers foolishly content with their supposed perfect crimes Fearn wrote this masterful example of the inverted crime novel. Like the best Columbo episodes Fearn's novel is chockful of specialized background info.  In fact, while reading Fearn's book I could not help but remember an episode featuring Trish Van Devere (George C. Scott's one time actress wife) as the killer whose supposed alibi is tied to her knowledge of how movie reels are changed in a projection room.  For that's exactly what is featured in all its mechanical marvel in Pattern of Murder. The two main characters Sid and Terry work in a movie theater and run the movie projectors.  A minor character who provides some key info is their assistant who tends to do nothing more than cracks jokes and rewind all the spools of film in the rear of their projector rooms.

What makes this book even more remarkable is that it is both an inverted detective novel AND a traditional detective novel.  As with the inverted form we are privy to a killer's murder plan. Here it is gambling addict Terry who plots a gruesome and fiendishly designed deathtrap for an usherette who knows he is a thief and is threatening to expose him.  We have little sympathy for the victim Vera, however, because she too is a thief!  She stole two hundred pounds from Terry the day he lost a bet at the race track and that loss drives him to steal from his employer. He threatens Vera with exposure too. They seem to be at a sort of Mexican standoff, each waiting for the other to make their move.  Terry decides he must carry out his murder plan and yet as we watch him plan it and rehearse it (!) there is much that occurs that he never anticipated.

Sid was Vera's boyfriend and he can't understand Terry's callous attitude after her death. Terry, after all, was friendly with Vera and the two went off to the horse races a few weeks before her death. But then the theft occurred. Was Terry responsible for that?

Assisted by his movie theater co-workers Sid comes across oddities that make him question what the coroner and police seem to think was a bizarre accident. What happened to the glass tumbler in the bathroom Sid and Terry use? Why did Terry claim the film broke just prior to the accident? Why did he also jam his hand into the projector claiming he was fixing the film? Why did the short travel film go back to the movie distributor with a ruined soundtrack when the main feature that followed the travel short was perfectly fine? Sid becomes the amateur sleuth and puts it all together. Then it's a game of cat and mouse as Sid tries to prove Terry a killer while Terry tries to outwit Sid.

This is a fascinating book on so many levels -- the mix of traditional and inverted detective novel plot techniques, the eye-opening world of a 1950s movie theater business, and the ingenious murder method employed -- all of it adds up to a truly engrossing, page-turner. If you must choose to read only one mystery novel by John Russell Fearn, then this is it. It's quintessential Fearn - some of his best plotting, his love of scientific detection, arcane background info and an exciting, fast paced story.

Pattern of Murder is available as a digital download or paperback book from Wildside Press as well as paperback copy (albeit a large print edition) from Linford Mystery. There are many used copies all priced cheaply of the Linford edition, almost all of them ex-library editions, for sale on multiple bookselling outlets in this vast digital shopping mall we call the internet.

In a bit of a role reversal I have chosen to be very bare bones about this book. If you want more detail about the story and Fearn's life as both a cinéaste and a movie projectionist then read TomCat's meaty post on Pattern of Murder.  He is the vintage mystery blogosphere's #1 JRF fan and like me he found this to be one of Fearn's best mystery novels.

FFB: Merridrew Follows the Trail - John Russell Fearn

THE STORY:  A series of gruesome murders in which the victims are mutilated and bodies disposed of in quicklime are plaguing the denizens of Double Peak, Arizona. Mayor Jenkinson Talbot Merridrew joins forces with Sheriff Brad Wood to discover who has a grudge against the family of Jacob Tilsden, long deceased head of a dye manufacturing company.

THE CHARACTERS: This is pretty much a stock in trade western with a unique murder mystery tacked on that probably would've been better as a short story. The book is dragged out to novel length with a series of set pieces drawn from American western movies of the late 1940s and early 1950s. There are barroom fights, shootouts in the hills, an engineered landslide to trap some bandits, chases on horseback, and a barrage of bullets flying from Derringers, pistols and rifles. And like a typical B movie Western we have stock characters with typically Hollywood style names. There's Rock McAllister, the villain dressed in black and his posse of bad guys menacing the townspeople and out to get Merridrew; Mike Tanner, the saloon keeper who's just hired West Virginia transplant Sylvia Danning as his latest singer/ hostess for the entertainment of his mostly male patrons; Clem Dawlish, the lugubrious undertaker with plenty of bodies to bury; and my favorite -- Hap Hazard, whose name tells you all you need to know about him. Hap, of course, is not his real first name, but he's pretty much a loser from the get go and is Sheriff Wood's prime suspect as the murderer of the various members of the Tilsden family.

Merridrew is the most colorful of the bunch. He's a former butler who emigrated from England and somehow became mayor of the town after first serving as valet to Wood. Oddly (and in a forced kind of humor) he still serves as manservant to Wood while at the same time leading the town as mayor. He has an arch sense of humor, a sophisticated vocabulary and is a sharpshooter of the highest order. Merridrew Follows the Trail (1953) is his final adventure in a quintet of books. I'm guessing his origin and how he came to be mayor is detailed in the previous titles. Here we get only a few sentences to fill us in on his background. Like many of Fearn's detectives, he has a unique blend of basic science knowledge and arcane information to stun both the characters and the reader. Here we get a mini lecture on various dying processes since that is a crucial element of a very original crime plot.

INNOVATIONS: Those of you familiar with H. Rider Haggard's only detective novel Mr. Meeson's Will (1888) will probably catch on to the one truly unique aspect of the crime plot. Because I'm familiar with that book it was easy for me to figure out why the bodies were being mutilated or disposed of in quicklime.

ATMOSPHERE: One of my problems with the book is that I never really knew if this was supposed to be 19th or 20th century American West. Modern references to fingerprints, medical examination of the bodies, and legal aspects of the story seemed to indicate a contemporary setting. But then the absence of cars, phones, even a telegraph made it all seem ersatz 19th century. Most of the story seemed more like Fearn was drawing from Hollywood's imagining of the Old West than he was from genuine history. Everyone lives on a ranch, vigilante style justice is rampant, disputes are settled more often with gunfire than with common sense. Wood and Merridrew are often forced to resort to violence as much as they try to keep the peace among the rowdy, lawless citizens.

THINGS I LEARNED: The crux of the plot involves a secret dye manufacturing process. I learned about something called Turkey red, a deep rich red dye made from the root of the madder plant. The name of the dye refers to its country of origin and not the edible fowl. There is lots of talk about various sources of black dye and the importance to the textile industry in finding dyes that are resistant to sun fading, especially in the arid, sun-drenched desert climates of the American West.

A buckboard is "an open, four-wheeled, horse-drawn carriage with seating that is attached to a plank stretching between the front and rear axles," basically a type of wagon used to deliver goods. Merridrew is often hopping aboard one or borrowing one from the Double Peak general store keeper to get out to the remote ranches where the various murders take place. The name refers to the wooden board that protects the rider/driver from the hazards of bucking horse hooves.

EASY TO FIND? Like most of John Russell Fearn's books this one has been reprinted by the UK publisher Linford Western Library in a large print format edition. They publish nearly all of his traditional detective novels and crime fiction under their Linford Mystery Library imprint. Luckily, for all your 21sst century readers this title (as are many of Fearn's westerns) is also available as an eBook. I found my copy, the incredibly scarce first edition, in one of my lucky book hunting searches. I've never seen a copy since I bought mine. The DJ shown at the top of this post has got to be a true rarity and I'm sure that the hardcover book is just as uncommon.

Jenkinson Talbot Merridrew Western Detective Novels
Valley of the Doomed (1949)
Merridrew Rides Again (1950)
Merridrew Marches On (1951)
Merridrew Fights Again (1952)
Merridrew Follows the Trail (1953)

FFB: Flashpoint - John Russell Fearn

THE STORY: Oscar Bilkin, grocer and fishmonger in the village of Halingford, receives an anonymous letter warning he and his family to "GET OUT BEFORE TOMORROW. YOU ARE ALL IN DANGER". He has no idea why he was warned nor who might have sent such an ominous letter. his family is convinced it's a nasty joke so Bilkin asks around and approaches a local known for stupid pranks. Everyone including the prankster (aptly named Wagstaff) denies sending the note. He heads to the police thinking it may not be a joke at all. They provide him with protection for the next two days. The policeman sent to guard the place will intervene if he sees anything remotely suspicious about to take place. the next day shortly after the daily delivery of Bilkin's ice he does as he always does - takes a hammer and chisel to the big slab to break it up for the fish display. After one strike of the chisel there is a horrible explosion and the Bilkin's shop goes up in flames. Everyone in the vicinity is knocked to ground. Mr. Bilkin does not fare as well. The police seem to have a sinister arsonist in their midst. Soon another building is targeted. Can the police prevent another raging fire and stop a mad arsonist from destroying the village?

THE CHARACTERS: Flashpoint (1950) is unlike many of the previous Dr. Hiram Carruthers detective novels I've read. First, Inspector Garth is nowhere in sight. Instead we have Supt. Denning and his crew of policeman in Halingford. Also, the suspect pool is much larger than usual and Fearn does a good job of making the arson attacks appear to be the work of several different people with different motives over the course of the story. There are more women characters than usual with a surprise coming in the form of Claire Denbury, a chorus girl who provides one of the more satisfying dramatic moments late in the book.

In this second outing in a relatively short series Dr. Carruthers proves to be less irascible than usual and reveals a hidden romantic side. He has hired as his assistant Gordon Drew recently returned to his hometown after losing his job when the London firm he was working for was destroyed in a fire. Pure coincidence that arson rears its ugly head again when Gordon comes to Halingford? Drew claims to have come to town to renew his friendship with Janet Lloyd, his former sweetheart. Dr. Carruthers approves and makes light jibes about Gordon and Janet whenever he has a chance. But of course the real reason he is on hand is to help the police solve the mystery of the fires. How did someone manage to start a fire in what appears to have been an explosive chunk of ice? Later the physicist is asked to explain the eerie purple color of a second fire (reminding me of The Case of the Violet Smoke by Nigel Morland writing as "John Donavan") and how the arsonist managed to set fire to a building when the place was under constant guard. Students of basic chemistry might be able to uncover these two mysteries pages before Carruthers stuns everyone with his knowledge.

INNOVATIONS: The means of the first arson is extremely clever. I managed to figure it out based solely on the description of how the ice was delivered and its odd appearance. Going into anymore detail might ruin what amounts to several well hidden clues. The second quasi-impossible fire was less impressive but did include similar unusual chemical properties that made it less than an average firebug's crime.

Apart from the chemistry involved in the arson Fearn neatly handles other clues related to motive and the identity of the culprit behind the fires and a later murder. By far this is the most mature detective novel of Fearn's I have read. It suffers not from Fearn's usual pulpy style of writing or the sense that it was a padded short story. All the characters were much more human, and believable than in other books in this series. This one resembles more closely the style of the Maria Black detective novels with their emphasis on character relationships and human drama, rather than outlandish plotting and detective novel gimmickry.

QUOTES: "The modern criminal, my boy is one of the most scientific beings alive," Caruuthers answered. "... The average murderer you'll find plastered in every newspaper in the country, but not the ingenious one--unless he's caught. That's where I come in--and other experts like me. We are dedicated to the task of defeating the new criminal, the man or woman who makes use of modern methods to perpetrate his or her villainy. ...Why else do you imagine the Yard has become so highly scientific these days? Only to keep pace with the even more subtle ways of the scientific evil-doer."

THINGS I LEARNED: This book was teeming with trivia and odd vocabulary. I haven't included this section in a while so here's a delayed avalanche for all you who have missed this regular feature.

Prior to his unfortunate death Mr. Bilkin spends the morning "arranging cabbages in the form of an Aunt Sally". I had no idea what that was supposed to mean. Off to the internet I went. Took a couple of searches before I came up with the right Aunt Sally. Turns out Fearn was alluding to a traditional pub game (see illustration at right). Players throw sticks at a model of a woman's head that had come to be called Aunt Sally. The game dates back to the 17th century apparently and today is still played by teams in pubs. However, the Aunt Sally now resembles something like a giant chess pawn than it does a woman's head.

pernoctation - multisyllabic, fancy way to say night vigil. Comes from the nearly obsolete verb "pernoctate" meaning "to stay up or out all night; especially: to pass the night in vigil or prayer."

Hans Gross is mentioned in passing when Carruthers is discoursing on the psychology behind and methods of arson. I vaguely recalled his name but had to resort to Googling to refresh my memory. Gross is a name that crops up many times in Golden Age detective fiction, especially in the works of John Dickson Carr. An Austrian psychologist who specialized in criminal behavior Hans Gross has been dubbed the "father of forensics" in various website articles. His seminal work, Handbuch für Untersuchungsrichter als System der Kriminalistik (1893) was a groundbreaking manual for the intended audience of police coroners but also was useful for judges and lawyers. In it Gross called attention to the psychology of the criminal mind and warned members of the police and legal professions to pay heed to everything over the course of a criminal investigation. He stressed preserving the integrity of a crime scene, to treat all physical evidence with care, and even discussed the importance of noting the body language of the accused while in the courtroom.

Chemical properties of elements and compounds are discussed in detail with an emphasis on flame color and smoke color. I can't say anything else about this or else the mystery of the arson methods will be spoiled.

EASY TO FIND? This was at one time one of the most difficult titles in John Russell Fearn's large output of detective fiction. Originally published under his pseudonym "Hugo Blayn" it was reprinted at least four times according to the copy I own. But used hardcover copies of this 1950s edition are rare these days. According to the email exchange I had with Philip Harbottle, Fearn's literary executor and tireless champion of his friend's work, this book will be reprinted by Endeavour Press and made available as an eBook. I'm unsure when it will be released. Until then you can find Flashpoint in a paperback, large print edition put out by Linford Mystery Library. Currently, there are at least five used copies available for sale online.


NEWS FLASH! Be sure to read TomCat's post "The Detective Fiction of John Russell Fearn", a guest post consisting of a long letter that Philip Harbottle wrote to me. But he made an error in typing my email address and it went into digital limbo. He then asked for TomCat's help in contacting me. Eventually I got the letter and he and I also exchanged some emails of our own. In the meantime TomCat had an idea to share this letter with everyone and Phil granted permission to have the letter uploaded to TomCat's blog.

VERDICT OF US ALL: The Shadow of the Wolf - R. Austin Freeman

JJ at "The Invisible Event" has revived the once somewhat regular meme on the vintage mystery blogs in which participants ramble on a particular topic. This month we talk about our favorite book by a writer who we don't care for or have avoided over time because we just don't like his or her style of mystery writing. Took me a while to come up with one for this because most bad mystery writers in my experience don't really have much to recommend in their overall work unless you want to read the books as self-parodies or "Alternative Classics." But that's not the point of this week's topic. So I had to reach back in time to remember one single book by a writer who I just don't read anymore because... well... frankly he bores me to death. And that's R. Austin Freeman.

Freeman as we all know was a pioneer in the scientific detective short story and also the inverted detective story. He also wrote several inverted detective novels but only one of them stands out in my mind as something rather remarkable. The Shadow of the Wolf (1928) is one of his more complex mystery novels loaded with the kind of arcane scientific talk (like a long dissertation on the formation of barnacles on a ship) that aid Dr. John Thorndyke in tracking down his elusive murderous prey. And yet despite what might have been yet another droning, boring book I found it utterly fascinating. There's a paradox worthy of Father Brown. It's one of the few Thorndyke novels that I found truly suspenseful. Another of Freeman's inverted detective novels we therefore know the identity of the murderer in The Shadow of the Wolf from the outset. Thorndyke's methods, however, are so odd and unusual in this novel, a nautical mystery about ships and the sea, that I was transfixed. I tend to write a lot about the "Things I Learned" in books of this type and there is a lot to fill the head of the insatiably curious reader in The Shadow of the Wolf.

I rarely go back to Freeman's books because they belong to an old-fashioned type of detective story that no longer excites me. His obsession with all things related to Egyptology gets tiresome; his characters don't ring true as human beings to me; and his often stodgy prose hasn't aged well. But I will always recommend The Shadow of the Wolf for its faster than normal pace (for Freeman, that is), its unusual subject matter, and a story that unravels with true suspense and a couple of thrilling surprises.

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)