Classic Mysteries

Richard and Josephine

As you may already have heard, British researchers are pretty well convinced that the human skeleton found buried in the ruins deep beneath a parking lot in the English city of Leicester last Autumn belonged to King Richard III, who died on a nearby battlefield in 1485.

No, this is no joke. You can find full details in this excellent story from the New York Times, written by John F. Burns. You may remember Richard III, vilified by Shakespeare and so many others, as the so-called "Wicked Uncle" of history, responsible for the murder of his two young nephews. As Burns points out, that assessment of Richard may now be challenged again:

"Among those who found his remains, there is a passionate belief that new attention drawn to Richard by the discovery will inspire a reappraisal that could rehabilitate the medieval king and show him to be a man with a strong sympathy for the rights of the common man, who was deeply wronged by his vengeful Tudor successors. Far from the villainous character memorialized in English histories, films and novels, far from Shakespeare’s damning representation of him as the limping, withered, haunted murderer of his two princely nephews, Richard III can become the subject of a new age of scholarship and popular reappraisal, these enthusiasts believe."

That argument was made more than sixty years ago in one of the finest historical mysteries ever written: Josephine Tey's "The Daughter of Time." Tey used her detective, Inspector Alan Grant, and the techniques of the classic detective story to examine the case of Richard III. The book's conclusion: King Richard was framed. It's a viewpoint that was not new even then, but one that has remained controversial. The new discovery of Richard's skeleton will reinvigorate the discussion. It is unlikely to settle the argument, however. As one of the characters observes, in "The Daughter of Time":

“It’s an odd thing but when you tell someone the true facts of a mythical tale they are indignant not with the teller but with you. They don’t want to have their ideas upset. It rouses some vague uneasiness in them, I think, and they resent it. So they reject it and refuse to think about it. If they were merely indifferent it would be natural and understandable. But it is much stronger than that, much more positive. They are annoyed. Very odd, isn’t it?”

Indeed. If you're a lover of classic mysteries and haven't read "The Daughter of Time," please do yourself a favor and read this remarkable book. Perhaps the old proverb is right and truth really is the daughter of time...

The Mystery of Gore Vidal

As you may already have heard, American author Gore Vidal has died. He will be (and, in today's obituaries, he is) remembered for a great many books, plays, memoirs, etc., not to mention the celebrity and notoriety that he courted in his long and productive life. For mystery lovers, he may be remembered for the three mysteries he wrote early in his career under the name "Edgar Box."

When Vidal wrote his mysteries, he did so - as he quite often observed in later years - to survive. He had managed to offend the New York Times - which, for a young writer, was not a good thing to do - and found himself writing a series of mysteries as a way of putting food on the table. I reviewed the first of them, Death in the Fifth Position, on this blog last year. They might be described as medium boiled, but they are also influenced by the traditional mystery - in his own words, he "worked very hard at being a mystery writer, somewhat heavily reliant upon Agatha Christie." Each of the three books, he said, was written in eight days at the rate of ten thousand words a day, and, he says, he lived on them for the next dozen years.

It's worth noting that the New York Times has published a lengthy obituary/appreciation for Gore Vidal today. You have to get about halfway down the article before it mentions Vidal's run-in with the Times over an earlier book, The City and the Pillar:

"Mr. Vidal later claimed that the literary and critical establishment, The New York Times especially, had blacklisted him because of the book, and he may have been right. He had such trouble getting subsequent novels reviewed that he turned to writing mysteries under the pseudonym Edgar Box and then, for a time, gave up novel-writing altogether."

Gore Vidal was an interesting and often controversial (and occasionally outrageous) voice, particularly in his later works, but those early mysteries remain light and enjoyable reads. Vintage Books has republished all three under its Vintage Crime/Black Lizard imprint in paperback editions.

BEA: An Interim Report

My head is spinning and my feet and knees are aching after two days (so far) at BEA, Book Expo America, the annual show and party celebrating books and publishing. A brief interim report, to be fleshed out after this ends in another couple of days:

• Lots of e-publishers on hand - in fact, there's a new "Digital Zone" for e-book publishing and companies that service electronic publishers. But the digital publishing, really, is spread throughout the display floor.
• There are more than 1300 exhibitors on the floor this year - two dozen very long aisles (each a city block or two) jammed with every possible kind of book. The best mysteries, perhaps not surprisingly, are to be found at the table of the Mystery Writers of America, and a LOT of great writers are using that booth for autograph signings.
• I don't know how many thousand people are roaming the floor, but there are times when you can barely move through the crowds.
• Most interesting find so far: a small book by R. William Bennett called Jacob T. Marley. It contains the "backstory" of Marley - of Scrooge and Marley from Dickens's A Christmas Carol - and explains how and why Marley was able to come back to warn Ebenezer Scrooge to change his ways. As the blurb says, "Jacob T. Marley is to A Christmas Carol as the world-famous Wicked is to The Wizard of Oz. This should be fun to read - I'll try to do so pretty quickly and give you a report.

Much more, if I survive my return visit to the expo tomorrow. That's when I also get to go through the exhibitors set up for BlogWorld/NewMediaExpo, which is running concurrently with, and in cooperation with, BEA.

A Forethought on Malice

OK, OK, I apologize, but I can't resist wordplay. Anyway, I'm about to head out (tomorrow) to Malice Domestic, that marvelous weekend get-together for mystery writers and mystery readers all of whom enjoy (and write and read) what we call "traditional" mysteries.

There may be other genres mixed in, but the basic ground rules are: no gratuitous violence or sex, both of which preferably take place off-stage as needed; a real emphasis on the mystery - that is, it's not just an excuse for other devices regarded as more fun or more literary. Suspense? Sure. "Thrillers"? Some. Private eyes, hardworking cops? Frequently. Noir? Has been spotted. But still the elements of the traditional mystery - usually including fair-play and clues - are generally there to be found and enjoyed by the reader.

This will be the 24th annual Malice Domestic conference. During the weekend, attendees will be voting for the "Agatha Awards," which will be presented to the winners - named, obviously, for the grand "crime queen" herself, Agatha Christie. Nominees are at the link. It's going to be a great weekend; I'll try to file occasional reports. See you there?

Celebrating with Carberry

A friend has just reminded me that today, being Friday the 13th, is officially Josiah S. Carberry Day, a day to be observed by all students of psychoceramics. As mystery readers certainly will find a study of psychoceramics to be useful while encountering some of the characters in our favorite books, I thought it would be wise to remind my friends about the day. It certainly crept up on me, which is generally not a good thing when dealing with psychoceramics.

If you are unfamilliar with Professor Carberry, his Wikipedia entry may or may not be helpful.

National Library Week

Someone has been circulating a frequently-"liked" picture of a sign over on Facebook. It says, "Closing libraries during hard economic times is like closing hospitals during a plague epidemic." That makes sense - depressing sense, perhaps, but sense nonetheless.

Which is by way of saying, we have a couple of days left this week to celebrate National Library Week. And I would be remiss in my general literary duties as a book blogger (and risk grave disharmony with my spouse, a school librarian) not to call your attention to the festivities and suggest that you take a moment to honor these houses of books.

After all, as one of my friends reminds me almost weekly, the public libraries of my home state, New Jersey, have some very good (if sadly spotty) selections of classic mysteries, still available to be read and enjoyed by anyone with a library card. I'm pretty sure the same is true for libraries in other states. I know that my home-town library has many shelves devoted to every conceivable type of mystery and crime story. What's not to like?

If you can, visit your library this weekend, check out a couple of books - and take a moment to thank the librarians for being there. Believe me, they have to love the job; it's certainly not the high pay which keeps them there. If you can't make it in this weekend, make it a point to get there soon. There are a lot of good books waiting for you.

Taking a Flying Leap

OK. This has NOTHING to do with mysteries. But today's the day to wish a "happy birthday" to Frederick. He celebrated his 21st birthday in 1940, so he has officially reached his 39th birthday today. Our best wishes to Mabel as well, to be sure.

Now, to get this into mystery format, WHAT (or who) AM I TALKING ABOUT HERE?

Again, it is NOT mystery related.

Here They Are: The Agatha Nominees

Malice Domestic has just announced the nominees for this year's Agatha Awards, which will be presented at the 24th Malice Domestic conference in Bethesda, MD at the end of April. The nominees:

Best Novel:
The Real Macaw by Donna Andrews
The Diva Haunts the House by Krista Davis
Wicked Autumn by G.M. Malliet
Three Day Town by Margaret Maron
A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny

Best First Novel:
Dire Threads by Janet Bolin
Choke by Kaye George
Learning to Swim by Sara J. Henry
Who Do, Voodoo? by Rochelle Staab
Tempest in the Tea Leaves by Kari Lee Townsend

Best Non-fiction:
Books, Crooks and Counselors: How to Write Accurately About Criminal Law and Courtroom Procedure by Leslie Budewitz
Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making: More Stories and Secrets from Her Notebooks by John Curran
On Conan Doyle: Or, The Whole Art of Storytelling by Michael Dirda
Wilkie Collins, Vera Caspary and the Evolution of the Casebook Novel by A. B. Emrys
The Sookie Stackhouse Companion by Charlaine Harris

Best Short Story:
"Disarming" by Dana Cameron, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine - June 2011
"Dead Eye Gravy" by Krista Davis, Fish Tales: The Guppy Anthology
"Palace by the Lake" by Daryl Wood Gerber, Fish Tales: The Guppy Anthology
"Truth and Consequences" by Barb Goffman, Mystery Times Ten
"The Itinerary" by Roberta Isleib, WMA Presents the Rich and the Dead

Best Children's/Young Adult:
Shelter by Harlan Coben
The Black Heart Crypt by Chris Grabenstein
Icefall by Matthew J. Kirby
The Wizard of Dark Street by Shawn Thomas Odyssey
The Code Busters Club, Case #1: The Secret of the Skeleton Key by Penny Warner

Best Historical Novel:
Naughty in Nice by Rhys Bowen
Murder Your Darlings by J.J. Murphy
Mercury's Rise by Ann Parker
Troubled Bones by Jeri Westerson
A Lesson in Secrets by Jacqueline Winspear

Quite a distinguished collection, to be sure. The Agatha Awards honor what we may broadly call "traditional" mysteries, typified by the works of Agatha Christie. Specifically, as the Malice news release puts it, these are mysteries with no explicit sex, excessive gore or gratuitous violence. Congratulations to all the nominees!

Stop SOPA

As I suspect most of my visitors today realize, a number of major web sites have shut down (Wikipedia) or otherwise altered their sites (Google) for the day to protest the so-called "Stop Online Piracy Act," or SOPA.

This site isn't a major web site (I wish!), but I do feel it necessary to go off-topic for this post just to say that I wholeheartedly agree with the critics who want to see a more reasoned, less entertainment-industry dictated bill.

Look, I'm a writer, and I both respect and (for many years) have lived by copyright. But there are ways to protect copyrights and fight offshore pirate websites without essentially destroying the Internet, which is what many critics warn will happen if SOPA (or its senate equivalent, PIPA) becomes law.

Please check out this excellent FAQ from CNET to find out what's at stake and how these proposed laws could affect you. And please join us in petitioning your senators and congressperson - respectfully - to throw out these disasters and come up with legislation that will protect copyrights while also preserving the rights of all Internet providers and users. Thank you.

R. I. P. Peter Falk

Sad news today of the death of actor Peter Falk, the actor who played Lieutenant Columbo on TV between 1971 and 1993. Falk's quiet, low-key delivery style, his rumpled trenchcoat, his signature line of "Just one more thing," as he prepared to trip up the villain - all combined beautifully to create a likeable, familiar police detective. He won five Emmy awards in his career - four of them for his role as Columbo.

Falk was 83 when he died at home in Beverly Hills. He had been suffering from Alzheimer's. You can learn more from a good obituary from USA Today.