Classic Mysteries

The Cat Who...Lost An Author

We have lost an extremely popular mystery author - Lilian Jackson Braun, the author of the best-selling "The Cat Who..." series has died. She was 97 years old.

Lilian Jackson Braun began writing her "The Cat Who..." mysteries back in the mid-1960s, but the series stopped after three novels, because, she said, the publisher wanted her to put more sex and violence into the books, something she was unwilling to do. She didn't return to mystery writing until persuaded to do so by her second husband, Earl Bettinger, in the late 1980s, and all of her later books include a dedication to him as "The husband who..."

Her books featured a newspaperman named Jim Qwilleran, but they were really about his Siamese cats, Koko and Yum Yum, who played major roles in the novels, often by cryptically calling Qwilleran's attention to some object or book that might be construed as a clue. Most of the later books are set in the fictional town of Pickax, which was said to be modeled on the real town of Bad Axe, Michigan, where the Bettingers lived until the mid-1980s.

In all, Lilian Jackson Braun wrote 29 novels in the series. If you enjoy "cozies," you probably already have read some of her books - if not, you should do so. Personally, I can't recommend the last couple - I felt that - to me - they abandoned mystery and simply became loosely connected anecdotes. But most of her earlier books were quite good, surprisingly ingenious, entertaining and she certainly earned her place on the best-seller lists. The Washington Post had a pretty good obituary, and you might also enjoy this profile originally published by the Detroit Free Press in 1987, which the newspaper reprinted this week as a tribute to The Author Who...

Looking Back: The Turquoise Shop

The detectives in Frances Crane's "The Pink Umbrella," the book reviewed on this week's Classic Mysteries podcast, were Pat and Jean Abbott, who became one of the most popular husband-and-wife sleuths in books during the first half of the 20th century and beyond. If you'd like to see where they came from, take a look back at the very first book in the series, "The Turquoise Shop." I reviewed it on this blog last year - here's what I had to say at the time.

"The Turquoise Shop" is set in an artists' colony in New Mexico - quite deliberately modeled after Taos, New Mexico. Turquoise shop proprietor Jean Holly gets involved with the investigation into a body found outside the town. It becomes even more interesting when Pat Abbott, a private detective who says he's on vacation and trying to learn how to be an artist, shows up in town.

Overall, it's a good mystery, a nice portrait of a semi-fictional town, peopled with interesting characters and peppered with a couple of murders. The 1941 book was based on a real incident that had happened in Taos. Crane's series eventually ran to more than two dozen Pat and Jean mysteries - here's where it all began.



"The Pink Umbrella"

In the center of New York City, right during the heart of World War II, a young private detective, Pat Abbott, is dealing with some major changes in his life. For one thing, he has just joined the Marines, and he is awaiting call-up to active duty - which, in 1943, almost certainly meant heading overseas to fight. For another thing, he has just married a young woman named Jean Holly. And the young couple has come to New York City, hoping for some quiet time alone together before Pat is called up.

That's what they had hoped would happen. What happens instead is the events in "The Pink Umbrella," by Frances Crane, the fourth mystery to feature Pat and Jean Abbott, who went on to become enormously popular with the mystery-reading public during the mid-twentieth century. It's the subject of today's review on the Classic Mysteries Podcast, and you can listen to that review here.

In New York, Pat runs into an old friend and her family, now refugees from war-torn Europe. Ellen Bland has a particularly unpleasant former husband still hanging around. The rest of her family is deeply embroiled in feuds, passions and jealousies. And before the Abbotts know it, they're involved in some very nasty murders, and the local police want Pat, as a private detective, to help them solve the case. Jean Abbott serves as both Watson and narrator.

It's all handled with something of a light touch - or as much as you might expect in a story where war is never far from the reader's consciousness. Pat and Jean Abbott appeared in more than two dozen mysteries, most of which would qualify as forerunners of today's "cozies." To a public that loved these husband-and-wife teams such as Nick and Nora Charles or Pam and Jerry North, the Abbotts were great company. The Rue Morgue Press has been republishing Frances Crane's novels. They make for light and enjoyable reading.

"The Pink Umbrella" is another book for the Vintage Mysteries Reading Challenge under way at the My Reader's Block blog. You'll find a huge number of vintage titles there, all pre-1960, offering lots of ideas about books you may not have read - and probably should.

Looking Back: "Envious Casca"

Let me point out another Georgette Heyer mystery that is, I think, very much worth your time: her 1941 book, "Envious Casca." It's not only a fine and ingenious locked room puzzle, it's also a wonderfully, laugh-out-loud funny book. I reviewed it here last Fall, pointing out that what appear at first glance to be stereotypical English-country-house-mystery characters are anything but stereotypical. The reader is in for some rude shocks along the way, coupled with a pretty good number of laughs. It's also available in an Amazon Kindle edition. A fun read.

"The Puzzle of the Silver Persian"

There are a fair number of modern mystery series which have an animal as a central character. I regard these with mixed emotions: I tend to dislike books that rely on anthropomorphic animals or overall "cuteness" to replace traditional mystery elements in order to make the animals act as detectives.

There are, however, significant exceptions. And one of those must be made for the titular animal in "The Puzzle of the Silver Persian," by Stuart Palmer, one of his Hildegarde Withers mysteries , originally published in 1934. It is the subject of this week's review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, which you may listen to here. It is also another of my entries in in the Vintage Mysteries Reading Challenge at the My Readers Block blog.

Hildegarde Withers was Stuart Palmer's central character, a New York City schoolteacher. Hildy wound up doing a fair amount of traveling over the course of these novels, and "The Riddle of the Silver Persian" puts her on a ship to England, where one of the passengers disappears and another person dies quite suddenly - murder, says Hildy. She then moves on to England, where other people from the ship meet untimely ends until she finally helps unravel the mystery at a castle in Cornwall.

And the animal in question? That would be Tobermory, a silver Persian cat with a great deal of patience. Tobermory provides a critical clue that finally point Hildy in the right direction. It is no artificial, "cute" cat detective work, but the natural instinctive behavior of a cat that leads to the solution of a particularly nasty crime.

As with most of the series, there's a fair amount of humor in the book and some real suspense and fair play as well. Scotland Yard may initially be somewhat less appreciative of this meddlesome schoolmarm, Hildegarde Withers, than her old crony, New York City homicide detective Oscar Piper, but the British quickly learn that very little gets by Miss Withers - and that turns out to be a good thing indeed.

With Malice Aforethought

Well, about two months' worth of "aforethought," I guess. I just received the latest edition of Malice Domestic's newslettter, The Usual Suspects, which reminds me that the 23rd annual Malice Domestic conference begins just a little more than two months from now, on April 29, in Bethesda, MD.

I attended my first Malice Domestic last year, and I am really looking forward to attending again this year. It's a huge amount of fun. My wife, the librarian, will be joining me as well for this one. If you've never attended, think about it - it's not particularly expensive (as conferences go), and you'll have an opportunity to meet a lot of fans of traditional mysteries as well as authors working along traditional lines. As of January 31, the Malice Domestic site has a list of more than 150 authors who have registered to attend. The rest of us - hundreds of fans of traditional mysteries and their linear descendents, today's cozies - get to attend entertaining and informative panel discussions, get a lot of books signed (got a favorite author who'll be there? Bring his/her books from home!), attend the Agatha Awards banquet and meet a lot of people. This year's lifetime achievement award will be going to Sue Grafton, Carole Nelson Douglas is Guest of Honor and Donna Andrews will be toastmaster (or toastmistress).

Take a look at the newsletter for a lot more information about what's in store and registration information, or check out the Malice website. I hope to see you there.

The Case of the Moonlighting Detectives

They are a staple of traditional and Golden Age mysteries, as well as today's cozies: the amateur detectives. They have regular day jobs, but, out of inclination or necessity, they wind up investigating crimes for our benefit, with or without the cooperation of assorted legal authorities.

Most of us have our favorites, to be sure - but which one is the favorite? My fellow book blogger, Jen Forbus of Jen's Book Thoughts, wants to know - and, as usual, has come up with a way to find out. She is inviting readers to submit the names of their favorite amateur detectives - no police, no private eyes, no legal or medical practitioners - for what will eventually be a "March Madness" elimination tournament, in which we can all vote for our favorites. She'll follow that up with a "Moonlighting for Murder" week, in which a large number of book bloggers (self included) will be submitting suggestions and posts about their own - our own - favorites.

You're welcome to submit your own nominations. You'll find details and an entry form here. Jen says that multiple suggestions are welcomed (although I think you have to submit them one at a time through that form). She's accepting nomination through the month of February. Go ahead - get involved.

"Aunt Dimity's Christmas"

Maybe it's a result of being immersed, as we are, in the holiday spirit, but the book reviewed this week on the Classic Mysteries podcast is one of the more unusual books on our list. For one thing, it's one of the newest we've recommended here, having been written in 1999. For another, the traditional mystery element is mixed with a dose of the supernatural or "paranormal," as one of the central characters of the entire series has been dead for a number of years, a fact which doesn't stop her from regular communication with the heroine.

But "Aunt Dimity's Christmas" is really a fine Christmas story and an engaging mystery, and, as always, you can listen to the full review here. I admit to a fondness for the entire series, by Nancy Atherton - a series which continues to grow with a new volume every year or so. The presence of Aunt Dimity - the ghost who communicates with heroine Lori Shepherd via the pages of a private journal - is never overstated; the mysteries will be solved by Lori and her friends, guided (but never really led) by Dimity.

And this is a fine Christmas story. It begins with the discovery of a homeless man, frozen nearly to death outside Lori's door. She will spend much of the book trying to determine who he is - and why he was there. There are secrets to be uncovered and a surprising hostility from Lori's neighbors, all set against a background of Christmas in the English countryside. It's a good book to snuggle down with on a long winter's night.

"Our Second Murder"

The murder of a society glamour girl at a charity fundraiser in New York City is the mystery at the heart of "Our Second Murder," by Torrey Chanslor. It's the subject of this week's review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the full review here.

As you can probably guess from the title, "Our Second Murder" is the second book to feature the detective skills of the Beagle Sisters, two women who inherited their late brother's private detective agency. That makes them professionals, I suppose - odd, when you consider that sister Lutie Beagle learned her trade by reading thrillers borrowed from the public library. She and her older sister, and their cousin Marthy, who acts as their Watson, find themselves confronted with what seems to be an impossible murder - the death of a young woman found strangled with a million-dollar necklace, one of the items on display at that charity fundraiser.

The book dates from 1941. It's fairly clued, fast and funny. And there's another mystery - the mystery of its author. Torrey Chanslor, or Marjorie Torrey Chanslor, was primarily a book illustrator, nominated in 1946 and again in 1947 for a Caldecott Medal for her illustrations for children's books. She wrote two mysteries - "Our First Murder" and "Our Second Murder," worked on a few other projects, but then pretty well dropped out of the public eye. I can't find a death date for her or any indication what might have happened to her after the mid-1950s. Fortunately, the Rue Morgue Press has republished these first mysteries, which are, as the publishers say, a mix of early cozy-style with private eye investigation, "filled with clues, timetables, a crime scene drawing, and more than a few red herrings." The books certainly are a lot of fun to read.

An Unexpected Discovery

To the avid mystery reader, those words, "an unexpected discovery," can be quite ominous - frequently applying to a protagonist tripping over a victim's body. But I am relieved to say that the unexpected discovery I made today was a great deal happier. Looking through the collection of used books in the rack at our train station, where commuters are encouraged to leave a book and take a book, I found a copy of "The Circular Staircase," by Mary Roberts Rinehart.

This was Rinehart's first published book, appearing in 1908, and it is the book which certainly established the device known as "Had I But Known." In many of Rinehart's books, not to mention those by scores of lesser imitators, the reader is frequently told that had the narrator only known that five murders were about to occur, she or he - usually she - would have hightailed it out of the creepy old mansion, but she didn't so look at what happened. The genre really began with Rinehart and with "The Circular Staircase."

Here's the opening sentence:

This is the story of how a middle-aged spinster lost her mind, deserted her domestic gods in the city, took a furnished house for the summer out of town, and found herself involved in one of those mysterious crimes that keep ournewspapers and detective agencies happy and prosperous.

I might add that the Dover edition which I picked up for free at the train station this morning also has an introduction by Douglas G. Greene, who reminds us that during the first half of the 20th century, Mary Roberts Rinehart was probably the most popular woman writer in the United States. I'm looking forward to it.