"The Left Leg"

While a great many fine authors use humor in their mysteries, often to lighten the mood after (or before) some horrifying event, there are few who write their murder mysteries as out-and-out farces. One who did was Phoebe Atwood Taylor, author under her own name of mysteries featuring Asey Mayo, the New England amateur detective known as the "Codfish Sherlock." But those mysteries are mostly fairly straightforward, although there are some excellent comic elements in many of them.

But Taylor also wrote another series, under the pen name "Alice Tilton" featuring a New England schoolteacher named Leonidas Witherall, whose principal claim to fame is the fact that he strongly resembles playwright William Shakespeare (or at least Shakespearan busts and portraits). And those books are out-and-out farces, racing from cliffhanger to cliffhanger, as Witherall gets himself involved in a murder (often, in fact, he is being framed for one) and must stay a step or two ahead of the police and try to solve the murder before they arrest him.

What kind of farce? Well consider the events in "The Left Leg," first published in 1940. It's the subject of today's review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the entire review by clicking here. In "The Left Leg," we begin with Witherall being thrown off a local bus, after another passenger, a young woman, makes some very peculiar (and fraudulent) accusations against him. As there is a snowstorm raging, he ducks into a nearby hardware store for shelter. The store appears to be empty - but as Witherall stands there, a man runs in wearing a green top hat and green silk suit and carrying an Irish harp under his arm. The man runs to the cash register, opens it, takes an envelope out of the register, and runs out of the store. Witherall leaves (with the store owner, now returned, insisting that Witherall must have robbed him) and next seeks refuge at the home of his boss, the headmaster of the school where Witherall teaches, only to find the man has been murdered and police are banging on the door. And the headmaster's body is missing a (prosthetic) left leg. And Witherall's galoshes are on the floor near the body.

Complicated enough for you? And that's just the BEGINNING of the novel. It's sort of the literary equivalent of the Three Stooges meet the Keystone Cops. And it is hilarious. Leonidas Witherall - usually called "Bill" by the other characters, because of his resemblance to William Shakespeare - is a more-or-less solid pillar of relative sanity in the midst of a remarkably crazy world. Taylor wrote eight of these wild comedy-mysteries between 1937 and 1947, and some are back in print again. I find these books a good way to refresh my own quirky sense of humor. "The Left Leg" is great fun.

Comments

[Joan Kyler]

I love all of Phoebe Atwood Taylor's mysteries. Because I lived in Massachusetts most of my life, I kew many of the places that appear in her books, both the Asey Mayo books and these.

I could kick myself because I owned many of her books in new paperbacks that I bought back in the 1970's or 1980's and then got rid of because I don't usually re-read and hadn't realized that they wouldn't always be readily available. Alas, I could easily re-read her books and now have trouble finding them.

[Les Blatt]

Both of these series are great fun, Joan. My older daughter went to school in Boston (and I went to school in Providence back in the Stone Age), so the New England settings are part of the fun for me. A lot of the Mayo books ARE still available in print, by the way. If you have a mystery bookstore, they can probably get some for you - and there's always Amazon; try typing "Phoebe Atwood Taylor" into the Amazon box in the upper right hand corner of this page and you'll find a listing of them.

[Joan Kyler]

Hmmm ... I'm not sure I should thank you for the tip about availability of the Phoebe Atwood Taylor books. Like many of us Stone Agers, I'm trying to pare down my library, not add to it. On the other hand, my husband keeps giving me Amazon gift certificates, so what does he think I'll do with them?! And I will make sure I buy them through your web site when I order them.

[Les Blatt]

Thanks, Joan. I know what you mean; my TBR pile teeters dangerously. I saw a great post on Facebook: I gave my books their own room. Now they want the whole house.