Classic Mysteries

"The Hotel Majestic"

This week between Christmas and New Year is often a good time to relax and spend some time in introspection. So perhaps this would be a good time to read a wonderful - and decidedly introspective - mystery featuring Maigret of the French Surete.

Over the course of his long career, Georges Simenon wrote 75 novels (plus a couple dozen short stories) about Inspector Maigret, a hard-working, rarely inspired but generally successful and insightful police detective. "The Hotel Majestic," from 1942, is a very good entry in the series, and it's the subject of today's review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. You can listen to the full review by clicking here.

In "The Hotel Majestic," Maigret is called in to investigate the murder of an American woman, a guest at the very upscale Hotel Majestic. Her body has been found downstairs, jammed into a locker in the working areas of the hotel. Maigret must try to figure out what she might have been doing there. And there will be a second murder to be solved as well.

The world of the Hotel Majestic is a classic "upstairs/downstairs" setting: the upscale hotel seen by the public, with its rich guests, seems to have little connection with the hidden working areas of the hotel, whose employees struggle with the long hours and hard work as they try to survive. It is a fairly straightforward "police procedural," filled with sympathy for many of the people caught up in the story. Maigret himself is a fascinating character, gathering his facts and trying to weigh them and place them based on his own intelligence and past experience. "The Hotel Majestic" is a good place to meet Maigret, if you don't already know him. Once again, for those with e-book readers, there's a Kindle edition as well.

"A Smell of Smoke"

I seem to recall that Sherlock Holmes claimed to have written a treatise on distinctive cigarette ashes. He might have done the same about the distinctive smell of certain types of tobacco. It is on such a scent that the mystery hangs in "A Smell of Smoke," by Miles Burton. It's the subject of today's Classic Mysteries podcast review, and you can listen to the full review by clicking here.

Miles Burton was one of the pen names used by Cecil John Charles Street, who also wrote mysteries as "John Rhode" and a couple of other names. While he is largely forgotten today, he turned out four mysteries a year for 37 years - quite an impressive output.

In "A Smell of Smoke," we meet a man named Matthew Calder. Taking a walk late one night, he hears a splash from a nearby stream. He also smells the scent of a distinctive brand of Turkish cigarettes - a brand used only by his nephew. He thinks no more of it until the next day, when the body of a generally disliked local resident is fished out of the stream. It appears to be an accidental death - but Calder cannot forget the scent of that cigarette. And he suspects foul play - and that his own nephew may have been responsible for it.

His suspicions will lead to another murder. And that will lead to the arrival of Burton's detective team - the police, in the person of Scotland yard Inspector Henry Arnold, and a "freelance" sleuth named Desmond Merrion, who work together to peel back the layers of this most enjoyable mystery.

"Hopjoy Was Here"

Perhaps the mysterious outsiders were right. Perhaps it really was a case of "spy vs. counterspy," complete with a winner and a very unfortunate loser. Or, maybe not. Perhaps it was a more sordid and everyday murder. Or disappearance. In Flaxborough, it's hard to sort out the truth. Which is why "Hopjoy Was Here," by Colin Watson, is really so much fun. It's the subject of today's review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the whole thing by clicking here.

"Hopjoy Was Here" is the third book in Watson's "Flaxborough Chronicles" series of books about a small town which might politely be called "morally challenged." Consider the case of Brian Hopjoy - now vanished and quite possibly rather spectacularly dead. Hopjoy was something of a man of mystery, so it may not be too surprising that two British counterintelligence agents (from a super-super-secret agency) show up to investigate Hopjoy's sudden disappearance. They are convinced Hopjoy is the victim of an international assassin. Sergeant Walter Purbright, and his assistant, Detective Sergeant Sidney Love,  the long-suffering representatives of law and order (such as it is) in Flaxborough, suspect that something far less consequential, if equally deadly, is going on here. Given Flaxborough's rather alarming acceptance of promiscuity and other interesting sins, the police may know better than the supersecret agents...

Colin Watson's books are a great deal of fun, and "Hopjoy Was Here," which originally appeared in 1962, is a fine entry in the series. I do hope that there will be more Watson titles coming from the Rue Morgue Press.

"Charlie Chan Carries On"

A group of American travelers, on a leisurely tour around the world in the early 1930s late 1920s, is having a very pleasant trip - if you don't mind the occasional murder. A detective from Scotland Yard, trying to follow the string of crimes from London to the Riviera to Calcutta, is shot and gravely wounded when the tour gets to Honolulu. As he is carried off to the hospital, he manages to say to his friend, a Honolulu police inspector, "Carry on, Charlie."

Which is exactly what Charlie Chan does in Charlie Chan Carries On," the fifth of six novels about the marvelous Chinese-American detective, written by Earl Derr Biggers. It's the subject of today's Classic Mysteries podcast review, and you can listen to the entire review by clicking here.

 If you don't know Charlie Chan - or if you only know him from the many movies about him that were made in Hollywood during the 1930s and 1940s - here's a chance to meet a remarkably able and intelligent detective. It's also a chance to revisit a time, not so very long ago, when a luxurious trip around the world took months, mostly by ship and train.

Is the character of Charlie Chan something of a caricature, as some Asian-American groups have said? I think that may be true of some of the movies (particularly the later ones), but I don't think it's true of the books. Biggers set out to make his detective a very well-rounded and sympathetic character; the steps Charlie follows to solve this case are brilliantly planned and executed. If you enjoy vintage mysteries with what were, at the time, unusual and exotic settings, the Charlie Chan books are very much worth your attention.

 [UPDATED to change "early 1930s" to "late 1920s" - the book was published in 1930]

"A Late Phoenix"

I always wind up feeling a bit sorry for C. D. Sloan, the clever Detective Inspector created by British author Catherine Aird. Sloan has a difficult boss, Superintendent Leeyes, who is remarkably little help to him in solving crimes. Sloan is generally saddled with an underling, Detective Constable Crosby, who is even less help (he is known around the station as the "defective constable"). And yet Sloan continues to come up with correct solutions for even the most difficult of cases.

Take his appearance in "A Late Phoenix," which Aird wrote in 1970. It was the fourth novel to feature Sloan and the other members of the Berebury C. I. D. A murder comes to light which evidently took place in a local house when the town was bombed by the Germans during June, 1941. It has taken nearly thirty years for the local government to get its act together and tear down the remains of the houses leveled in the bombing - and, when they do tear it down, they find the skeleton of a woman. There is a bullet lodged in the skeleton, so it quite clearly was a case of murder. But nobody was ever reported missingaround the time of the bombing, and no crime was even suspected until the skeleton was unearthed.

"A Late Phoenix" is the subject of this week's review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the full review by clicking here. As always, Sloan is a delight, examining the scanty evidence, looking for a lead, any lead, that can turn this unbelievably cold case into a meaningful investigation. How he does it - and the consequences of the discovery and investigation - make a fascinating novel in the series of Inspector Sloan mysteries. The story is told with the kind of tongue-in-cheek wit that readers have come to expect from Catherine Aird over the years. Fortunately, she is still writing mysteries, and I think she deserves a wider audience in the United States than she has today.

"The Columbo Collection"

If you enjoy watching classic mysteries on television, you're probably familiar with Lieutenant Columbo. He's a fairly quiet, self-effacing kind of police detective; his opponents tend to underestimate his abilities. That is generally a mistake. As played by Peter Falk, Columbo, the creation of William Link and the late Richard Levinson, may look fairly shabby, but he is both smart and patient.

Well, if you enjoy Columbo on the small screen, his co-creator, William Link, has written "The Columbo Collection," a fine collection of short stories about the intrepid Lieutenant. The collection, from publisher Crippen & Landru, is reviewed this week on our Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the full review here.

These stories are good, fair-to-the-reader mysteries written as "inverted mysteries," a style invented nearly 100 years ago by the late R. Austin Freeman, the creator of Dr. Thorndyke. In an inverted mystery, you generally start with the crime and the criminal fully exposed to the reader; the story then goes on to follow the investigator as he or she tries to identify and catch the criminal. As Link says, the stories are not "whodunits," they're more "howcatchems."

That may be, but they are certainly very firmly in the classic mystery tradition; for that matter, the Columbo character has been around for half a century. And while many of the books written around characters who began their fictional existence on TV are not very good, that's not true of the short stories in "The Columbo Collection." It may be the hand of Bill Link - after all, who could know better how to write Columbo stories than the man who created the character? If you enjoy the character on television - or even if you've never seen him - you'll enjoy these stories.

The Winner Is...

The battle is over. The title of "World's Favorite Detective" goes to Michael Connelly's Hieronymus Bosch. He was selected as the winner by your votes, winnowed down from the 64 original contestants in a March (and April) Madness - style contest organized by Jen Forbus at Jen's Book Thoughts.

I may as well say it: frankly, I'm amazed. I haven't read any of the Connelly books, which are, as I understand it, fairly edgy and well-written police procedurals - that's not really my preferred style, as readers of this blog will know. Still, I find it hard to believe that he'd be selected - overwhelmingly - as the favorite over such competitors as Sherlock Holmes, Phillip Marlowe, Sam Spade and Hercule Poirot.

Taste, of course, is an intensely personal thing, and the fact that so many people apparently prefer Bosch over the others is probably a very good thing for contemporary mystery writers such as Connelly. I'll go off and nurse my wounds...and offer my congratulations to the winner. Also, my thanks to Jen - she has done an astounding job organizing and running the contest.

Championship Round

OK, it's time. You have until this Friday, April 16, to vote for the winner of the World's Favorite Detective contest. Only two detectives have survived, out of the 64 who began this contest - now it's up to you to determine a winner. The choices in the championship round are:

Hieronymous ("Harry") Bosch, created by Michael Connelly

OR

Phillip Marlowe, created by Raymond Chandler.

Now, I'm a classic mystery kind of person - so I think my choice should be obvious. But what's yours?

Go to Jen's Book Thoughts Blog now and cast your vote.

Got a Favorite Detective?

I'm late coming to this, but Jen over at Jen's Book Thoughts wants to know if you have a favorite detective. She's only accepting nominations through today, February 28, but - starting next week - you'll be able to vote for already-nominated favorites at her site.

She's looking for official detectives - somebody connected with the police, or a licensed private investigator. He/she can be from anywhere in the world.

Go to it!

hat tip: The Rap Sheet

More Maigret

As I mentioned some time ago, I was never a big fan of Georges Simenon's Inspector Maigret mysteries when I first read them, many years ago. Lately, I have rediscovered some of them. I don't know whether my taste has improved with maturity or merely become less selective, but I find I really enjoy them now.

I came across another one in my local library this week: "Maigret and the Fortuneteller." As with most of the Maigret novels, it is a cross between a police procedural and a psychological drama. It begins with the murder of a fortune teller, a murder predicted in a note to police from a mysterious character who signs it "Picpus." Maigret pieces together a handful of odd clues: the man who discovered the Picpus note attempts suicide; a strange old man is discovered locked in a room in the fortune teller's apartment; a mysterious financier goes fishing - but the fish he catches have no hook marks. Maigret pieces it all together, with his own keen insight into the personalities and psychological quirks of some very memorable characters. For a hardened detective, Maigret can be quite compassionate.

The book is currently out of print; as usual, Amazon.com has links to a variety of sources for new and used copies of the book. I think this one is really one of Simenon's better efforts.