Crime Fiction on a EuroPass: Tirol

I hear yodeling, I smell amazing chocolate and baked goods, and I see mountains. They must be the snow covered, jagged peaks of the Austrian Alps. We have arrived in Austria - more specifically the state of Tirol, home of the grandest of the Austrian Alps. Hope you've brought along your ice axe, a warm anorak, sturdy rope and your crampons. We are in for some challenging and deadly mountain climbing in the pages of Lewker in Tirol by Glyn Carr.

When Abercombie Lewker's beloved vintage auto suffers an accident at the hands of a reckless lorry driver he takes "the Dowager" in for hopeful repairs. The mechanic gives him bad news. She's a goner. Then the mechanic, Ted Pirner, starts talking of his hobby as a mountaineering guide. He's looking forward to a trip to Austria, to be exact his parents' home province of South Tirol. Lewker becomes nostalgic for his more active globetrotting days and his own mountain climbing adventures, most of which included some unfortunate murders and some amateur sleuthing. A discussion with Georgie, his wife, and a fellow thespian in his acting troupe decides him to make one last climb. And so he heads off to climb the Zuckerhütl in the Stubai Alps of southeastern Austrian.

Technically, he begins in Italian territory and will cross over into Austria. For we soon learn of some interesting history about Tirol -- how it was split back in 1915 and the southernmost portion annexed to Italy. At the end of WW2 the Austrians were hoping that it would be returned to them, but somehow it was utterly overlooked at the treaty talks, though Italy and Austria worked out an arrangement to recognize the rights of the German speaking population that remained in South Tirol. But a rivalry bordering on hatred still exists at the time of the novel's action and there are signs of dangerous activism intermingled with terrorism.

Zuckerhütl, 3,505 metres (11,499 feet) The highest peak of the Stubai Alps

The Junge Adler (Young Eagles), a German speaking activist group who oppose the still valid annexation of South Tirol to Italy, are becoming violent. Bombs have been set off in the mountains, shootings have taken place at mountaineering parties. All of this in order that attention be drawn to the Junge Adler's cause of returning South Tirol to Austria. Lewker is warned of this activity prior to his setting foot on his tour. His guide, Josef Herkomer, was the most recent victim of these attacks. Josef assures Lewker he will be safe. He cannot imagine another attack would take place so soon. Little do they know.

The mountain climbing sections are intricately described. The climate, the terrain, the history are all neatly woven into the action sequences. We also get the inside dope on a rivalry that exists between Josef and Mario Papi, an Italian guide who happens to be in love with Josef's daughter. This can only mean trouble in a crime novel. When another shooting occurs and one of the guides is wounded in the mountains we know that perhaps there is something a little more than terrorist activity going on in the Alps. Lewker does a fine job of sorting out just who is trying to do in whom. When the expected fatality does occur he offers his assistance to the local police and gets to the bottom of the criminal activity.

Showell Styles, AKA Glyn Carr

"Glyn Carr" is in reality writer Frank Showell Styles, an avid mountaineer himself. Under his own name he has written several non-fiction books on the sport, two series of nautical adventure fiction, and a few espionage thrillers that sometimes incorporate mountain climbing in the plot. In his guise as "Glyn Carr" (a clever pun in Welsh) he created Shakespearean actor, mountaineer and amateur detective Abercrombie Lewker, or "Filthy" as his friends and wife call him. While most of Lewker's adventures are confined to his homeland of Wales he has traveled to Norway, Switzerland, France, Majorca, and even Nepal in his pursuit of his favorite sport and avocation of crime solving.

Several of the Glyn Carr books have been reissued by Rue Morgue Press and are marked with an asterisk in the bibliography at the end of this article. Lewker in Tirol is, however, not one of the reissued titles.

And what's a visit to Austria without some local music? Here are Die Mayrhofner singing about the Zillertal, their home, which is not actually featured in Carr's book but it's in the same Bundesland of Tirol.




For other visits to Austria and more criminal depictions in its gorgeous surroundings be sure to visit Mysteries in Paradise, our host blog for this whirlwind trip through Europe.

The Abercrombie Lewker detective novels

*Death on Milestone Buttress (1951)
*Murder on the Matterhorn (1951)
*The Youth Hostel Murders (1952)
The Corpse in the Crevasse (1952)
*Death under Snowdon (1954)
A Corpse at Camp Two (1955)
Murder of an Owl (1956)
Swing Away, Climber (1956)
The Ice Axe Murders (1958)
Holiday with Murder (1960)
*Death Finds a Foothold (1961)
Lewker in Norway (1963)
Death of a Weirdy (1965)
Lewker in Tirol (1967)
Fat Man's Agony (1969)

FFB: Jack Mann & His Occult Detective Gees

Cover artwork by Rudolph Belarski

E. Charles Vivian was a prolific British writer who wrote detective novels, espionage thrillers, adventure stories and supernatural thrillers. Under the pseudonym "Jack Mann" he gave us Gregory George Gordon Green, or as he is known to his friends "Gees," a private investigator who had a habit of stumbling upon mysterious crimes and murders that had supernatural origins. He appeared in eight books and only one of them was a straight crime novel. The other seven touched upon ancient curses, shape-shifters, the practices of a Druid cult, Viking legends, Egyptian reincarnated princess, Atlantean witchcraft and other visitors and entities from other dimensions.

I especially like Maker of Shadows (1938) set in Cumberland, in the northwest corner of England now known as Cumbria. Here Gees must do battle with a powerful warlock who might easily have stepped out of the pages of a book by Sax Rohmer. He is descended from a mythical race Mann created called the Azilians. Like the Picts of ancient Scotland the Azilians are a pagan people of pre-medieval times. But they deviate from the Picts in their religion devoted to "the Unnamed" – a demon goddess who brings the worshipper all he or she desires. The supernatural content in the book is less familiar and trite than found in some of the other books.

Take, for example, Grey Shapes (1937) which for me seemed like a complete rip-off of The Door of the Unreal by Gerald Biss. The entire first half of Mann's book from the sheep mutilations to the strange relationship between the father and daughter and the finale are nearly exactly the same in each book. The Door of the Unreal (1919) is considered a classic of its type but I really shouldn't mention anything of the plot for fear of ruining each book. Written almost twenty years earlier than Mann's Grey Shapes there is a strong case for plagiarism that few critics have ever pointed out. Having previously read Biss' book before Mann's I found nothing new about Grey Shapes, wasn't surprised in the least by anything, and was dumbfounded by the transparent similarities in the two books.

Illustration by Virgil Finlay for Maker of Shadows as serialized in Argosy

from the DJ collection at the Supernatural Fiction Database

Nightmare Farm (1937) is another unusual treatment of the supernatural in a detective novel. This is more along the lines of a ghostbuster adventure complete with haunted house and grisly material horror in one of the best scenes towards the end of the novel. Gees must solve a murder or two and exorcise some evil spirits trapped in the haunted farmhouse.

The Glass Too Many (1940) is sequel of sorts to The Maker of Shadows in that it also deals with a descendant of Mann's completely made-up "lost race" of the Azilians. There is also some more lurid business as in Maker of Shadows with ritual sacrifice in the catacombs beneath an ancestral home and some impossible poisonings that John Dickson Carr might envy. Gees is hired to discover who might be poisoning a British lord. He has started to tremble and shake uncontrollably just like a parlor maid had weeks earlier. Five weeks after her tremors she attacked another maid in a homicidal rage and was sent off to an asylum. As part of his investigations Gees, along with young Claire, discover an underground altar where very recently someone had been burning hallucinogenic herbs as part of a ritual to "the Unnamed."

At one time seven of the eight Gees books were easily found in used bookstores in the reissued formats from Bookfinger. Several years ago I found a bunch of the Bookfinger editions for $15 each. Sometimes it was possible to find one or two for under ten bucks. But as usual with scarce books of this type that are in demand the prices have skyrocketed. Luckily, Ramble House has issued affordable trade paperbacks. Only The Kleinert Case has proven to be elusive. It was the only title not reissued by Bookfinger and to date remains a truly rare title in the Gees series. I have never seen a copy in my lifetime, though there seem to be a few copies in public libraries in the United States.  I doubt they circulate though.

UPDATE: Several months after I originally posted this article I learned that Ramble House has reissued all the Gees books including The Kleinert Case. What a boon to Jack Mann collectors! It is currently the only affordable edition of that extremely rare title. I suggest Jack Mann and E. Charles Vivian fans make their way to the Ramble House or amazon.com and buy a copy pronto.

The Gees Books by Jack Mann
*Gees’ First Case (1936)
*Grey Shapes (1937)
*Nightmare Farm (1937)
*The Kleinert Case (1938)
*Maker of Shadows (1938)
*The Ninth Life (1939)
*Her Ways Are Death (1940)
*The Glass Too Many (1940)

*Available in trade paperback editions from Ramble House.