FFB: I Met Murder - Selwyn Jepson

THE STORY: I Met Murder (1930) literally starts off with a bang. On the very first page someone attempts to kill John Arden, prominent sociologist and narrator of the book. The wine glass he was holding shatters and a bullet is found in the wall behind him. All this happens while he and five other guests are sitting at the dinner table during a party given by Hamish Page, wealthy businessman and war profiteer. Page soon confesses that someone had attempted to shoot him earlier in the week and that he has hired a private detective to look into the matter. But the next day someone succeeds in shooting Page dead. Was Arden not the intended target at all? When it is discovered that Page has left his entire estate to Anita Skinner, daughter to a professor of mathematics and a weapons designer, suspicion falls on the young lady. Anita turns to Arden as her confidante and enlists his aid in recovering an incriminating letter in which she had threatened Page. If the letter should be found by the police Anita is sure to be arrested. Then a second person is shot dead making it appear that someone has targeted every person at Page's dinner party. Can the police stop the killer before he makes his way through the rest of the guest list?

THE CHARACTERS: Though John Arden is the narrator he is only a sort of Watson character to the main detective of the book. Inspector English is a by-the-book kind of policeman so often found in Golden Age detective fiction. He has his ideas and is rarely open to having them challenged though he is not unaccustomed to compliment his cohorts' detective skills. George Jupp, the private detective hired by Page, conducts his own investigation parallel to the police one. He shares his opinions with English who on occasion can be startled by his perceptions and will begrudgingly accept some of Jupp's theories. Our narrator Arden is mostly along for the ride offering up his few eyewitness accounts, some perceptive observations, but mostly acting as a sidekick to Jupp. Interestingly, in the final chapters two of the main suspects (and last remaining survivors of the massacred dinner party guests) discuss the series of murders and come up with their own astonishing theory of who the killer might be. It turns out to be not too far from the true solution. In effect there are four detectives and two Watsons over the course of the novel.

Out of the lot of suspects it is Anita Skinner and her father Professor Skinner who are the most fascinating. Anita is the primary suspect who has the most obvious motive for killing Hamish Page. But as the body count continues to rise she is eliminated from the pool of suspects. Her father then draws the attention of the police. Skinner's work in weapons design is constantly being discussed. This gives Jepson an opportunity to make the detective plot touch on topical issues in post World War I era when anti-war movement and disarmament debates were always in the news.

Each of the suspects (and later victims) seems to have been created in order to discuss a "hot topic" of the era. Lady Codrington is a writer of erotic poetry that is deemed too overt for publication in Britain. She is called a pornographer by her detractors and enemies and she seeks to have her writing privately published by a small press based in Paris. Jepson devotes several pages to discussing her work and how it affects her life and how she interacts with the others. Likewise, in creating Lionel Lake, a sanctimonious minister who is suspected of having an affair with the poet, Jepson allows for ample talk of religious hypocrisy with an emphasis an issues surrounding sexuality and fidelity.

INNOVATIONS: Jepson presents the reader with multiple puzzling murders many of which involve near impossibilities. The most interesting will turn out to be how the killer managed to shoot through the window at Arden without being seen. The whereabouts of the murder weapon causes a lot of consternation as well. Inspector English and Jupp both comment on the numerous varieties of .22 caliber weapons in Professor Skinner's home and the main suspects' easy access to all of them. But they do not manage to find the correct weapon until the murderer actually shows them where it was secreted.

Despite the humdrum style of plotting with the puzzles overtaking the story and a dry prose style heavy on character monologues the overall tone of the book has a very contemporary feel. Characters like Anita Skinner presented as a willful, devil-may-care "bad girl" bordering on a kind of anti-social amorality is more frequently found in books published thirty or forty years after this one written in the late 20s and published in 1930. The talk about provocative sexuality (Anita confesses to having a three-way with two men), erotic poetry and pornography, gun design and weapon manufacturing, and religious hypocrisy all still have resonance for a 21st century reader.

As far as crime plotting goes every one of the murders comes at the most unexpected moments. Even if you know prior to reading (which I did not) that the body count is rather high in this book it is doubtful that you will be able to predict just who is the killer's next target or when in the story each death will take place. In this regard Jepson's novel impresses with its sophisticated construction and brilliant use of suspense. Like many of the early serial killer novels that deal with insanity I Met Murder focuses a bit too heavily on the question of motive and when that appears to be the investigators' stumbling block they begin to see the killing spree as the work of a madman. Nothing could be further from the truth. The motivations when revealed are less the product of an insane mind than they are the work of a popular and paradoxical type of literary murderer found in the late 1920s and early 1930s detective fiction -- the obsessively moral killer.

THINGS I LEARNED: The book is very much about guns, specifically .22 caliber rifles and the bullets they use. This kind of thing can be both fascinating and utterly boring to me depending on how much gun love the author indulges in. Contemporary crime writers tend to get a bit masturbatory about guns and ballistics and it truly sickens me. Here the gun information is necessary to understand the plot and Jepson clearly knows what he is talking about. Thankfully, the gun talk when it comes sticks to basics. The most interesting discussions were on the difference between rifles that shoot bullets and air rifles, how the barrel determines range and distance a bullet or projectile can travel. There was none of the obsessive often pretentious talk that many writers who are also gun enthusiasts tend to throw in. Because the theme of the novel is very much anti-war and leans towards disarmament often the discussion of guns and the ever increasing changes in design to make them more deadly is highly critical.

QUOTES: Inspector English: "I am very glad to have you with me Mr. Arden, on these occasions quite often you produce a useful piece of information at the right time. If I may say so, you have the makings of a deductive mind."

As long as there are Professor Skinners in the world the peacemakers will never succeed in outlawing war; invent an engine of destruction, and you invent a dozen, for you will set rivals at work. To argue with them, to point out their folly, is a certain waste of time and breath and I had long ago discovered the Professor to be particularly impatient of such evangelistic efforts.

THE AUTHOR: Selwyn Jepson was the son of noted weird fiction and detective fiction writer Edgar Jepson. He is also the uncle of British novelist Fay Weldon. Like his father Jepson began as a novelist but quickly became involved in screenwriting and his career as a scriptwriter often overshadows his life as an author of crime fiction books. By 1930 Jepson had already published eleven books, a mix of crime and adventure fiction, before he was drawn to the world of movie making. From 1930 through 1953 he wrote or adapted over a dozen screenplays. In the 1950s he wrote for the US anthology television series "Rheingold Theatre." His novel Man Running (1948) was adapted for the movies as Stage Fright directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It features Eve Gill (played by Jane Wyman in the movie), the only true series character Jepson created.

But perhaps it is Jepson's life as a British agent assigned to the Special Operations Executive, the arm of British intelligence during World War II that has become his true claim to fame. As his detailed biography on the Fandango website tells us: "Jepson was put in charge of the recruitment and training of agents. His own, most direct task was personally interviewing potential agents. He usually used the name "Potter" in a now well-recounted procedure that took place in a sparely appointed, totally non-descript office in London." His renowned work with the SOE has been recounted in books and movies like Charlotte Gray, Carve Her Name with Pride, and most recently in Shadow Knights: The Secret War with Hitler by Gary Kamiya, marvelously illustrated by Jeffrey Smith.

EASY TO FIND? I'll deliver the bad news first. Neither the first US nor the first UK edition are common. In fact, I found absolutely no copies of the UK edition and only two of the Harper & Brothers 1930 edition for sale. The good news is there are many copies available, all of them priced affordably, of the reprint issued by Modern Publishing Company sometime in the 1950s. Exactly when in that decade I haven't a clue because this publisher does not bother with printing copyright information in any of their books. The dust jacket doesn't even identify their own company anywhere! Even better news is that a contemporary reprint exists. But you'll have to be able to read Italian. Polillo Editore released the first Italian translation in 2012 as part of their classic mystery imprint "I Bassotti". Typically for this publisher, the title has been changed and rendered as Tutto iniziò con un calice spezzato (It All Started with a Broken Goblet). I suspect this was done because the original English title is a subtle fair play clue, almost a spoiler, reminiscent of the kind of thing Helen McCloy used to do with her titles.

FFB: Go, Lovely Rose - Jean Potts

US paperback edition (Berkley, 1961)

THE STORY: Coreyville is rid of its worst pest. Rose Anthony has fallen down her cellar stairs and suffered a fatal head wound. Rachel Buckmaster travels from Chicago to settle the estate with her nineteen year-old brother Hartley. Both are relieved the horrible housekeeper who was willed the house by their father and had helped raised the two after their mother's death is finally out of their lives. They plan to sell the place and each can be free of her miserable hold over them...and everyone else in town. But when Rose's look-alike sister Mrs. Pierce arrives to get to the bottom of the accident circumstances arise that lead her to believe Rose was murdered. She has Hartley arrested and is determined to see him on trial for murder. Rachel and young Dr. Craig are equally determined to foil Mrs. Pierce's vengeful plans by proving Hartley's innocence. But things do not look good for the boy.

THE CHARACTERS: At first we think that the story will be told primarily from Rachel's viewpoint, but it is Dr. Craig who mostly takes over the narrative. He acts as a sort of amateur detective while the primary murder investigation is in the hands of Sheriff Jeffreys and a police detective known only as Mr. Pigeon. But over the course of the novel we are allowed to know the thoughts of nearly everyone in the book with only Hartley consigned to the background. He spends most of the book in jail while the others do their best to look for the evidence they need to bring to the police and get him out.

Essentially it is the story of two families: the Buckmasters and the Bovards. In Rachel we see the beginnings of the new crime fiction heroine -- outspoken, willful, risk taking and thoroughly independent. Similarly, Beatrix "Bix" Bovard is the kind of teenager who seems more real than those normally depicted in fiction. Bix is a conflicted young woman on the verge of adulthood, incapable of reining in her volatile emotions, mimicking speech and dialogue from the movies, and generally looking for good time whenever possible. Her homelife is messy, her mother has rejected her and she has a difficult love/hate relationship with her father to whom we know she is utterly devoted. She's a breath of fresh air when she's unself-conscious and poignant in quiet moments when Potts allows us to enter her troubled mind burdened with familial conflicts and her presumed role as a loyal daughter.

Penguin UK paperback

Dr. Craig has his own share of troubles and secrets. Rumor and gossip follow in his wake about how he left his bad marriage and where his wife is now. A minor subplot concerns his attraction to Rachel who complicates matters with her suspicion of ulterior motives. Is the physician interested in helping Rachel clear her brother's name only to be physically closer to her?

The most fascinating person in the cast may be Francis Henshaw, dubbed Francie by the townspeople. In his youth Francie was a go-getter, a handsome young man engaged to marry a banker's daughter and voted most likely to succeed at anything by his high school classmates. That marriage was ruined by Rose and her evil machinations when Francie ended up chained to Rose for decades in a loveless marriage. Now long divorced from his "abomination" of a wife he has fallen into a pathetic hermit's existence. Running a second hand furniture shop he retreats into a world of dusty chairs, rusting metalwork and the cobwebs of his past. A candlestick turns out to be the murder weapon and has gone missing from Rose's home. It's mate was taken out of spite by Francie as part of the spoils of their divorce. Now Bix and Rachel are sure that both candlesticks are hidden somewhere in Francie's shop. The climax of the book involves an elaborate hunt for the murder weapon leading to violence and a showdown with Henshaw in the local hospital.

INNOVATIONS: Go Lovely Rose (1954) won Jean Potts the Best First Novel Edgar award for her debut mystery novel. It belongs to the burgeoning domestic suspense subgenre already becoming more prevalent and popular with the work of her contemporaries like Margaret Millar and Charlotte Armstrong, neither of whom had written their best books by 1954 making Potts' novel all the more noticeable in her debut. And its quite a performance for a first novel.

Potts helped forge the way for more women writers who were fascinated with dissecting the underbelly of rural and suburban life, rooting out callousness and seemingly inexplicable malicious behavior from which no good comes. As an examination of a horrible woman's vindictive lifestyle and its effect on not just two families, but an entire town, Go, Lovely Rose is easily one of the most arresting and perceptive crime novels of the 1950s. Potts succeeds in finding the balance between attack and compassion in her critique of the small-minded and malicious Rose and the long lasting wounds she has caused. The murder investigation, as is the case in many of these domestic suspense novels, is both a revelation and healing for all. But the restitution of well-being and equanimity for all families involved always comes at a costly price.

Go, Lovely Rose, US 1st edition (Scribner, 1954)

Potts has a writing style both colloquial and sophisticated with a talent for turning phrases that smack of real truth. With so many damaged people in the cast she is never patronizing or judgmental. Potts examines her characters from all angles often resorting to an omniscient narrative voice. She shines her unflattering spotlight on the most conflicted people like Bix and Rose's ex-husband Francis revealing them at their most vulnerable and truthful selves despite their outwardly deceptive ways. She has a fine ear for the way people talk, especially in her two teenage characters, "Bix" Bovard and Hartley Buckmaster. Bix in particular has the most unique speech pattern, kind of a junior 1950s Mrs. Malaprop, in her mispronunciation of ten dollar (scintillating with an "sk" sound) and a general misuse of words she's only seen in print but never heard.

At the heart of the story's mystery is Althea Bovard's unending grief for the death of her son, Ronnie. His ghost hovers over the Bovard house and his name is never far from his mother's lips. No conversation is free from the mention of some memory or wisp of Ronnie's short, difficult life. Ronnie has died more than 15 years ago when Bix was an infant and he is still Althea's favorite child. Primarily because Ronnie was severely disabled, born with Down syndrome though that genetic disorder is referred by its uglier 1950s terms -- Mongoloid and Mongolism. It is a rare writer of any period, let alone the 1950s, who gives us insight into the turmoil and struggles of a parent raising a child like Ronnie. Althea cannot forgive herself for not allowing him a longer life, for failing to find ways for him to adapt. Her grief is her punishment. Ronnie's death will prove to be the most significant aspect of the book, the key to gleaning everyone's unspoken resentments, and the ultimate answer to understanding why Rose Henshaw was such an odious woman.

QUOTES: The morning after Hartley's arrest Dr. Craig woke up late, realized it was Sunday, and lay for a few minutes contentedly surveying his cluttered little back room and his own large feet which stuck out beyond the end of the studio couch. He had forgotten to pull the shades again, and the winter sunshine lay in lemon-colored wafers on the dusty congoleum rug. Simultaneously the Methodist and Presbyterian church bells began ringing, loud and bossy-sounding, as if they were quarreling over the souls of Coreyville. They had something to quarrel about all right, thought Dr. Craig affably. A real prize package: the soul of a murderer.

The detective's name turned out to be Mr. Pigeon, of all things. And he couldn't have looked less like a detective if he had actually had pink feet and a fantail.

"So you're engaged to Etta Kincaid," Rose had said to him. "How nice. And you work down at the bank, for her father. How nice." Thus, with a flick of Rose's tongue, was love reduced to expediency.

"Oh, he's in it all right. He's up to his neck. As for motive -- well, you never can tell about these eccentric old birds. They get notions. They brood over some little thing, magnify it till it turns into what is, to them, perfectly good grounds for murder. It happens all the time -- people get killed for picking their teeth, or wearing the wrong color necktie."

THINGS I LEARNED: That mention of the congoleum rug in that first quote above was a puzzler for me. I always thought that congoleum was a floor tiling. It actually is an offshoot of a roofing material called Congo (supposedly named for the fact that asphalt used as a saturate in the roofing material came from that African region) created in 1902 by the United Roofing and Manufacturing Co. Here's the lowdown from the Congoleum Corporation's "History & Heritage" web page: "It soon became evident that the three foot wide strips of Congo roofing material could easily be used as floor runners to deaden noise and minimize dust and dirt collection in traffic patterns. It was also more durable than the rubber mats which were being used at the time. To differentiate between the Congo roofing and the flooring material, the flooring was given the name Congoleum." So really they were mats. But by the mid 1920s the company managed to make intricate decorative patterns in the material in order to mimic the look of an area rug. There's also another story about how congoleum and linoleum became cousins when two companies merged and the Congoleum Corporation simplified the costly and laborious manufacturing process for making linoleum. Click here for more on flooring material history and development.

THE AUTHOR: Jean Potts was born and raised in Nebraska. After graduation from Nebraska Wesleyan University she became a journalist for a Nebraska newspaper. Later she moved to New York to continue her journalism career and branching out into fiction for magazines. In 1946 her first story was published in Collier's ("The Other Woman") and she continued writing domestic melodramas for other "slicks" like McCall's, Cosmopolitan and Redbook throughout the 1950s and 1960s. After the great success of her award-winning debut mystery novel Go, Lovely Rose she focused more on crime fiction though she would occasionally write a "woman's story". Her crime fiction consists of a handful of short stories nearly all published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and fourteen novels. According to a Nebraska literary website Go, Lovely Rose had been optioned by a London movie company and her 1963 novel The Evil Wish (an Edgar nominee) was supposed to have been filmed with Barbara Stanwyck and Sir Ralph Richardson. Neither movie was made, nor can I find any confirmation that either piece of information is true. Jean Potts died in New York in 1999.

EASY TO FIND? As far as I know none of Jean Potts' novels have been reprinted. Few of her books turn up for sale in the used book market, but there are a handful of paperback copies of both the US and UK editions of Go, Lovely Rose. The US first edition is truly scarce and finding one with a dust jacket is next to impossible. I found no images online of the original first edition dust jacket proving that copies probably haven't been for sale for a long time. (BUT! thanks to Bill Pronzini I now have a photo of the US 1st edition DJ up there in the Innovations section.) Currently there is exactly one copy with a DJ offered for purchase from a Minnesota dealer but that's an ex-library copy.