Best Mystery VIntage Reprint of 2022, part one

"It's that time of year
"When the world falls in love
"Every song you hear seems to say
"Merry Christmas, may your
 "New Year dreams come true"

There's some idealized seasonal wishing, right? It's also a song I keep hearing everywhere I go in December.  Those somewhat schmaltzy lyrics remind me once again we are in the midst of our end of the year tradition involving optimistic wishing and dreams coming true. At least as those dreams and wishes relate to old murder mysteries.

Our dear friend Kate Jackson who blogs at Cross Examining Crime has initiated phase one of the two part nomination process for Best Vintage Mystery Reprint of the Year, or the ROY as we who offer up our nominees have come to call it.  2022 continued the exciting Renaissance in vintage crime fiction with an avalanche of reprint editions that immersed us in all aspects of the genre from traditional detective novels to novels of suspense.  This year topped last year's list with over 160 books on the list Kate sent us.

As an annual reminder I like to tack on my personal standard in choosing these "Best of the Year" reprint candidates. The two most important rules for what I feel merit a wise choice of a vintage reprint:

1. A truly forgotten author, long out of print
2. Writing and plotting that contributes substantially to the genre

Here's Nominee #1 from your opinionated maven at Pretty Sinister Books...

Villainy at Vespers by Joan Cockin

I discovered this book through serendipity while poring over various vintage mystery listings on Ebay.  The full review was posted back in 2020 before most people even knew of Joan Cockin's existence or the three mystery novels she wrote while she was working in British foreign service. 

Cockin's second mystery in her trio of novels is a thoroughly engaging traditional detective novel that invigorates the subgenre category of the "Policeman's Holiday" with wit and verve.  The opening paragraph (a photo of which appeared in the tempting Ebay listing) was intriguing enough to get me to buy the book and I eagerly read the book tearing through it in a few days.  You will meet her series detective Inspector Cam, his wife and children, and myriad offbeat characters as he reluctantly helps the local police solve the gruesome death of an unidentified naked corpse found ritualistically slaughtered on the altar of the local church.  In addition to her satirical skewering of tourism in English seaside villages the book treats the reader to the lore and art of brass rubbing, a spurt of thefts of antiques, chicanery among antique dealers and the legends of smugglers in the Cornish town where the story takes place. We even get the bonus of a ghost story featuring a visit from Satan.

Cockin's book is literate, delightfully amusing and devilishly plotted.  The crimes are all presented with fair play clueing and I thought the finale was truly unexpected if a bit outlandish.  But then I love rule breaking writers of detective novels. The more outlandish a plot the more I'll love it. That Galileo has decided to reprint this excellent example of post WW2 mystery writing is cause for celebration for all devotees of the genre.  It is a "must read" for anyone who cares about what makes mystery novels one of the best forms of popular entertainment.

And the best news is that Cockin's other books will follow over the next two years.  Looking forward to telling you about her debut novel Curiosity Killed the Cat later this month.  Also, I am eagerly awaiting the reprint edition of her third and last novel Deadly Ernest.  I've never seen a copy of that in my lifetime.  It's a truly rare book.  One, I hope, as entertaining as Villainy at Vespers.

FIRST BOOKS: The Templeton Case - Victor L. Whitechurch

Victor Whitechurch is best known for his short story collection Thrilling Stories of the Railway with his vegetarian detective Thorpe Hazell and for being one of the founding members of the Detection Club.  He wrote a mere five detective novels and one comic crime novel (which is not very funny at all) as well as penning the first chapter of the seminal round robin detective novel The Floating Admiral.  I was thinking a lot about that round robin novel while reading The Templeton Case (1924), his first foray into detective fiction. Reginald Templeton is found stabbed in his yacht while moored off the coast of Marsh Quay, a tiny village situated near an estuary. Sailing and boating feature prominently in the story and there are myriad suspects who were in and around the yacht before and after the murder.  Several intriguing puzzles surrounding the murder crop up leading to some excellent examples of early 20th century detection in a murder mystery.

Our persistent and clever detective is Det-Sgt. Colson ably assisted by a lawyer and inadvertent detective of sorts in the person of Canon Fittleworth.  To be truthful the Canon is an accidental obstructor of justice because he finds and pockets a distinctive cigar label rather than handing it over to the police.  For a while I thought perhaps Whitechurch meant us to think this absentminded member of the clergy was involved in a cover-up. Whitechurch, being a canon himself, would never stoop to such a sacrilege. Eventually the Canon hands over the cigar label at the inquest which leads to an intriguing sort of shell game that I immediately picked up on though I was incorrect in my assuming who did the switcheroo.

Victor L. Whitechurch in his youth

I also liked many of the supporting characters including Mrs Yayes, the owner of the local pub; a young mystery man who claims to be a painter and seems very suspicious; a handful of hired boating men; and Colson's very perceptive and imaginative wife with whom he discusses the case. She gives her husband several ideas about the murder mystery. Unfortunately towards the end of the book we meet an ugly portrayal of a Jewish man and the book descends into the typical kind of "Jew talk" that pollutes so much of early 20th century British fiction. It didn't ruin the book for me but I can imagine it would make for a "skipping it" deal-breaker for lots of readers these days.

In addition to the puzzle of the cigar label there is a clever bit of code breaking of sorts when Colson and his crew discover a blotting pad with a string of words missing some letters. We are courteously given that string of letterless words in the text and can return to it repeatedly as the story unfolds.  Colson's lawyer friend keen on puzzle solving mulls it over and using a combination of intuition, logic, and a lot of luck remarkably comes up with the actual sentence and identifies the name of a key player in the mystery.

The Crown & Anchor and Harbor View house in Dell Quay

 Templeton was an explorer and his past life in South Africa coupled with the discovery of a single raw diamond on the yacht will lead Colson to a dark motive and a web of past criminal activity.  I thought the reveal of the murderer was a delightful surprise.  Never saw it coming and it seems to be something of an original rule breaking coup. I've never encountered this twist in any detective novel I've read to date.  So hats off to Canon Whitechurch for this clever and engaging debut.

THINGS I LEARNED:  The geography was so specific in describing an estuary that Templeton's man navigated that I thought perhaps all the towns mentioned were real.  They weren't.  But I looked up those I knew were real and followed the course of the yacht as described by Whitechurch.  It lead me to the small town of Dell Quay not far form Chichester which just happens to have a famous cathedral.  I think that this is exactly the area that Whitechurch set his story. It certainly fits in with all the descriptions and definitely follows the sailing route of Templeton's hired yacht, Firefly.

As this is out of copyright I was planning to reprint The Templeton Case but someone beat me to it earlier this year.  I guess that's from whom I bought my truly cheap copy of the US first edition a few months ago.  The Templeton Case is now available in paperback and digital format from an outfit called Spitfire Publishing.  They sell their books on that giant internet source of nearly everything under the sun.  If intrigued by this review you can get a cheap eBook or modestly priced paperback.  Despite the depiction of the Jewish man at the end I thought this was rather good.  Even Jacques Barzun in his Catalog of Crime thought it was a notable effort for a first try at writing a detective novel.