NEW STUFF: The Herring Seller's Apprentice – L.C. Tyler

Surprise! Every now and then I like to remind myself I'm living in the 21st century. I'll be posting reviews of notable contemporary writers whose work is largely influenced by the guys and gals I love and whose books I think you ought to check out as well. Here's the first in a new category aptly called NEW STUFF.

I remember coming across in the Rue Morgue Press catalog this new series featuring a sardonic writer of mysteries, thrillers and romance novels. When I learned that the second book Ten Little Herrings earned an Edgar nomination I thought it was time to acquaint myself with Ethelred Tressider, the hack writer, and Elsie Thirkettle, his literary agent. So, of course I started with this one - the first book.

The book begins with a "Postscript" and ends with a section titled "In The Beginning."  I thought I was in for a 21^st century spin on the old inverted detective novel so masterfully handled by R. Austin Freeman and made popular on TV in "Columbo".  But I was wrong.  There is a hint that the reader knows that Tressider is up to something other than just tracking down a murderer, but the book does indeed follow the format of a traditional whodunit.

After an opening chapter introducing the jaded Tressider and his brash, vulgar agent Elsie (whose outbursts seem forced and not too funny) the book settles in for an intriguing blend of whodunit and con game thriller.  Tressider's ex-wife Geraldine has apparently committed suicide.  The police find a rental car in her name parked near the shoreline, inside the car an oddly written suicide note signed "Cordially yours, G Tressider (Mrs.)," and some clothes set out on the beach.  When a strangled woman's body is found nearby and Tressider is asked to confirm its identity, he has a compulsion to discover what really happened.  The plot takes a very strange turn with the introduction of a serial killer targetting blond women and the discovery of a secret Swiss bank account in Geraldine's name.

Tressider likes to talk about the construction of his books, how he misleads readers and his mixed feelings about "red herrings" to which the title alludes.  He tells of how he built his first novel All on a Summer's Day out of a very simple premise - the misinterpretation of how a date was written - and how his hero Sergeant Fairfax in a single day solved a case ready to be filed as unsolved.  That any novel could hinge on something as seemingly insignificant as whether 6/7 means July 6 or June 7 seems to poke fun at the minutiae that tend to flood traditional whodunits.

I'm not really sure if Tyler has an affection for the crime novel or if, like Tressider, he is plain fed up with all genre fiction. Because of his unmarketable multisyllabic name, Tressider writes all his books under appropriate pseudonyms: Amanda Collins for romance, J.K. Elliott for historical novels, Peter Fielding for mysteries. But as he tells us of each one he systematically condemns each genre. He belittles the detective novel and its obsession with plot gimmickry. He calls romance novels phony, insults the audience that devours them, and mentions how much he loathes writing sex scenes. He chose the end of the 14^th century as the topic for his historical novels because "[it] is a well established fact that nobody had sex between 1377 and 1399." An embittered writer? Yes. The voice of the author L.C. Tyler himself? Unclear. But to be sure there are valid points made in all the digs. There are also playful and knowledgeable allusions to authors and fictional characters from the Golden Age plus a few mentions of contemporary writers so Tyler definitely knows his stuff. But does he really love the genre? I began to wonder if it was all play or if there was an undercurrent of ridicule rippling through his ideas.

Whether or not Tyler thinks well of the detective novel is probably a moot point. It certainly doesn't detract from the book as a whole. It is soundly written, cleverly plotted and very funny (often coarsely so). If the reader catches on to Tressider's game early (as I did – at the exact moment the game occurs to him, in fact) this should not deter from finishing the book. There are several surprises in store. Not the least of which, as Tressider says to Elsie, is this:

"…I have to point out that here was your other mistake. You thought this was a detective story. In fact, it was love story all along."

L.C. Tyler's Mysteries (all dates are from the UK editions)
The Herring Seller's Apprentice (2007) - Edgar nomination as "Best Paperback Original"
Ten Little Herrings (2009) - Edgar nomination as "Best Paperback Original"
The Herring in the Library (2010)

Friday's Forgotten Books: Candidate for Lilies - Roger East

Here's my first post for Friday's Forgotten Books, the weekly homage to books of yesteryear hosted by Patti Abbot. Or, rather this week the guest host is Kerrie Smith.

Seemingly omniscient and slightly sinister Uncle Arnold who has been estranged from his nephews and niece invites them all for a weekend at his enormous mansion.  During dinner he reveals to them secrets they thought were private, insinuates unflattering traits, often insults them, and finally informs them that his will is about to be changed.  Shortly thereafter he is shot dead with one of his French dueling pistols.

Although the plot sounds like hundreds of other similar whodunits, East's sophisticated prose style and intelligent characters raise it a notch above what might have been ho-hum and run-of the-mill.  The arch tone and comedy are soon abandoned when it is discovered that Herbert, one of the nephews, seems to be slowly losing his mind.  An alienist is consulted who believes at first there is a biological or hidden genetic component as the root cause of the madness, then he believes that guilt is manifesting itself physically.  But Sophy, Herbert's sister, soon comes to the conclusion that her brother is being poisoned by an insidious means.

The revelation of the killer may not be a huge surprise but the motive is and makes perfect sense in the context of the story which is about inheritance, family honor and family history.  In this regard it reminded me of Death on Tiptoe (see my review here), but in East's case his ending is far from melodramatic. In fact, it is one of the saddest and most poignant endings I have encountered in a detective novel from this era.  How East manages to change the tone of the book and get the reader to empathize with the murderer is nothing short of brilliant.

Roger East is a very underrated - and largely forgotten - writer deserving of reissued books. Candidate for Lilies (1934)  is his third book.  It was preceded by the bizarrely titled The Mystery of the Monkey Gland Cocktail (1932) and Murder Rehearsal (1933), a intricately plotted novel in which a mystery writer learns that one of his books is being eerily reproduced in a series of supposed suicides that turn out to be cleverly disguised murders. As far as I can tell none of his books were reprinted in paperback and only one (Twenty-Five Sanitary Inspectors) received a hardcover reissue. His last three books are more crime novels and thrillers than detective novels and can be found every now and then. But out of his six books written in the 1930s only three can be found from the usual online bookselling sites.  The others seem to be extremely scarce - perhaps even genuinely rare books.

Roger East's Detective Fiction
The Mystery of the Monkey Gland Cocktail (1932)
Murder Rehearsal (1933)
Candidate for Lilies (1934)
The Bell is Answered (1934)
Twenty-Five Sanitary Inspectors (1935)
Detectives in Gum Boots (1936)
Pearl Choker (1954)
Kingston Black (1960)
The Pin Men (1963)