Classic Mysteries

Looking Back: Vintage Ngaio Marsh

Judging from what I see in bookstores and at Amazon, the books of Ngaio Marsh may soon attain endangered species status. In other words, a lot of them seem to be going out of print. I think that's a pity, as Marsh remains one of my favorite authors.

I have reviewed some of her other books on our podcasts. Here are four of the reviews:

Killer Dolphin - one of Marsh's best mysteries set in the world of the theater.

Tied Up in Tinsel - a marvelous Christmas murder mystery, with a truly fantastic sense of atmosphere.

Clutch of Constables - Alleyn's wife finds herself on a river cruise with a notorious killer.

Overture to Death - an impossible murder of a rather unpleasant pianist.

All of them feature Roderick Alleyn of Scotland Yard as the primary detective. I think Marsh's characters are more believable than those of some other Golden Age authors, and I am particularly fond of Alleyn's wife, the painter, Agatha Troy. You will find links to a number of her mysteries - some in print, some not - on Amazon.com's "author page" for Ngaio Marsh.

Looking back: "Trent" and the Imperfect Detective

The subject of this week's Classic Mysteries podcast, "The Poisoned Chocolates Case," features a half dozen amateur detectives, most coming up with incorrect solutions to the mystery. This was one of the "Golden Age" responses to the super-intellect of the standard-issue detective hero. Think "Sherlock Holmes," for instance, and you will understand the type of rarely-if-ever-wrong sleuth we mean.

It's a tradition which really dates back to 1913 and E. C. Bentley's marvelous "Trent's Last Case." I reviewed this book some time ago, and you can listen to the podcast here. Bentley felt that the detective story had become far too sterile and predictable. So his amateur detective,Trent, is a more human character than Holmes or other early detectives, with complex emotions and the ability to make mistakes - sometimes enormous ones.

In his introduction to the Dover edition of "Trent's Last Case," Douglas G. Greene notes that Bentley really invented the mystery format that features "the false solution, or solutions, followed by the true." That's precisely the format followed later in "The Poisoned Chocolates Case" and so many other mysteries, and it's quite familiar to readers of such masters as Ellery Queen and John Dickson Carr.

Agatha Christie called "Trent's Last Case" "one of the best detective stories ever written." Nearly a century after its first appearance, there are still a lot of readers who would agree with her. It's still in print; it's also available in an ebook version for the Kindle - you will find details at the Amazon link above.

A Christie Challenge

I see where Mysteries in Paradise blogger Kerrie  is taken on quite a challenge: she has challenged herself and anyone who cares to join her to read all of Agatha Christie, more-or-less in the order of writing. She's going slowly (which is wise). You can find details here, as well as an invitation to join the challenge yourself.

As I posted over there, anyone interested in doing this might also want to take a look at Mark Campbell's little book, "Agatha Christie." It contains what seems to be a complete list of EVERYTHING Christie wrote - books, stories, plays, etc. - with very brief, one-or-two line reviews of each item. It makes a great checklist.

Christie in Small Doses

As I mentioned in the previous post, I think Agatha Christie did some of her best work in her short stories. Maybe because it required her to keep everything very tight, or maybe it just gave her the opportunity to use some really ingenious tricks to fool the reader, the short stories really distill most of her best qualities into some very small packages.

While "The Tuesday Club Murders" is probably the best of her Miss Marple stories, I think "The Labors of Hercules" probably shows off Hercule Poirot at his finest. These stories, all patterned after the original twelve labors of the Graeco-Roman hero Hercules, are beautifully put together. I have more extensive notes here. They may start from a premise as trivial as the kidnapping of a woman's dog, or as serious as a murder. But they are all carefully designed to lead the reader astray, so that he/she will not see the clues as they are fairly presented - until it is too late.

I am also very fond of another of her detectives, who only appeared in a dozen short stories, all but one of them collected into a volume called "The Mysterious Mr. Quin." It's Christie bordering on the supernatural. The solutions to the mysteries are all straightforward, solved, mostly, by one of her most endearing characters, little Mr. Satterthwaite, but he solves them with guidance provided by the engimatic and mhysterious Harley Quin. I enjoy all of Christie's detectives, and the short stories are a good way to meet them - and really to appreciate the amazing skill with which she plotted and wrote these fine mysteries.

Looking Back: "Trent's Last Case"

In "Case for Three Detectives," the book reviewed on our podcast this week, a lot of the fun is generated by the fact that three great amateur detectives - we are assured they are amateurs and much smarter than the police! - come up with brilliant - but wrong - solutions to the mystery.

In doing so, those detectives really are offering a homage to E. C. Bentley's wonderful "Trent's Last Case." Published in 1913, this book features a brilliant amateur detective who, in the course of a complex and highly enjoyable mystery, manages to come up with a dazzling and ingenious solution to the crime, marred only by the fact that he is totally wrong. I reviewed it on the podcast more than two years ago, but you can still listen to the review here.

According to the blurb for the Dover edition of this book (see the link above), Agatha Christie called "Trent's Last Case" "one of the best detective stories ever written." Dorothy L. Sayers was another fan. The Dover edition also features an excellent and informative introduction by Douglas G. Greene, who is widely recognized as an authority on classic mysteries and the author of the definitive biography of John Dickson Carr. The story itself is clever, occasionally funny, and a fair puzzle mystery. The Dover edition is very inexpensive, but there's also an electronic edition, for those of you with Amazon Kindles; it's accessible through the linked page where you can read about the Dover edition.

Looking Back: "Swan Song"

I noted earlier that Edmund Crispin's "The Moving Toyshop" remains out of print in the United States - something which I suppose must be involved with difficulty in obtaining the republication rights. That's a pity. But, fortunately, other Crispins are in print, and they are very much worth your reading time.

In particular, I would recommend "Swan Song," perhaps my favorite Crispin novel. It is an engaging locked room/impossible crime puzzle, set against the background of an operatic production. I reviewed it a couple of years ago, and you can listen to that audio review here.

The victim is a most unlikeable operatic bass-baritone. His own brother, when advised of the death, sends back a cable reading "DELIGHTED HOPING FOR THIS FOR MONTHS." The suspects are all involved, in one way or another, with the production of Wagner's "Die Meistersinger" which forms the backdrop for the book. And the primary detective is Oxford professor Gervase Fen, as eccentric as always.  It's a first-rate puzzle, with clues presented to the reader - even summed up occasionally for the reader's benefit - and one of Crispin's best.

Looking Back: "Death and the Chaste Apprentice"

One of the reasons why I enjoy so many of Robert Barnard's mysteries is his sense of humor. It's evident in the book reviewed on the podcast this week, "Corpse in a Gilded Cage." It is even more evident in the wonderfully funny "Death And the Chaste Apprentice," which I reviewed more than a year ago.

You can listen to the full review here, but let me summarize: "Death and the Chaste Apprentice" is about a murder at an English arts festival. It gives Barnard the opportunity to create a couple of marvelous parodies, including one of a (non-existent) Donizetti opera. Add to that some wonderful characters of actors and singers and others involved in the festival and the opportunities for sharp wit are excellent. If you enjoy humorous mysteries in the classic mold, I recommend this one quite heartily.

Looking Back: "The Frightened Stiff"

In my podcast review of "If the Shroud Fits" this week, I mentioned the fact that the Kelley Roos novel sounds as if it was the dialogue from a screwball comedy movie.

That really shouldn't come as a surprise, as another Roos mystery, "The Frightened Stiff," published in 1942, actually was made into a popular and successful movie, called "A Night to Remember." It starred Brian Aherne and Loretta Young as Jeff and Haila Troy - Haila was renamed "Nancy" for the movie. I checked Amazon, and the movie is still available as part of a collection of classic screwball comedies called "Icons of Screwball Comedy, Vol. 2 (Theodora Goes Wild / Together Again / A Night to Remember / The Doctor Takes a Wife)." Read it, watch it - or both, it's an enjoyable way to spend an evening.

The book answers the rather awkward social question: what do you say when the police knock on your Grfeenwich Village apartment door in the morning to ask about that naked dead man in your garden. It's a situation made doubly embarrassing when it becomes apparent that the man had been drowned in your bathtub. And it goes on from there.

(And, again for disclosure, if you buy something from Amazon through my links, I get a small commission, which is much appreciated..."

Looking Back at a Christmas Lament

It would be wrong to be discussing a Michael Innes mystery this week - even one as brilliant as "The Journeying Boy" - without also mentioning what I still think was his single finest work, "Lament for a Maker." It features John Appleby - not yet Sir John, by any means - as the detective, but the detection is the least of it. It is a brilliant tour de force, a strange story of murder and madness told by a succession of narrators - yet a classic puzzle mystery as well. Set in a remote and lonely castle in the Scottish Highlands, it is a mystery which is peeled away, layer by layer, to reveal new depths with each successive narrator. It never fails to surprise or delight, even on repeated readings.

I have a full audio review available here, if you want to hear it. I would also have to recommend it as a Christmas mystery - for it was, indeed, on Christmas morning, as the first narrator, Ewan Bell tells us, during the morning service at the local kirk, that Tammas, "the daftie" from the Laird of Erchany's castle, came howling through the snow into the town, and "I heard the great cry of him as he breasted the last rise, crying the awful death of his master Ranald Guthrie of Erchany." It's back in print. Read it.

Looking Back: "The Judas Window"

This week's selection of plays by John Dickson Carr remind me all too vividly of the difficulty of finding many of Carr's finest works. He's virtually out of print in the United States. That means a generation of mystery readers have little or no access to the master of the locked-room, impossible crime story.

That's one reason why I am particularly grateful to the Rue Morgue Press for having brought back "The Judas Window," which Carr wrote under the name of Carter Dickson. It features the irascible and colorful Sir Henry Merrivale, an absolutely fiendish locked-room plot which is among Carr's best (and that is saying something!), and a stunning solution which is reflected both in the title of the book and in Sir Henry's own observation, made frequently and with the obvious intention of rubbing the reader's nose in it, that the murder was committed inside a locked room through use of a "Judas Window." And what, you will ask, is that? For the answer, you're going to have to read the book. You won't regret it. You can listen to a full audio review here.