Classic Mysteries

"Footsteps in the Dark"

A gloomy old English country mansion - actually part of a ruined priory. A group of young, adventurous people who are determined to live in the house. A group of peculiar (and not overly friendly) villagers, full of tales of supernatural doings. A skeleton falling out of a wall. And a far-too-often-sighted cowled spectre known as "the monk." who may be haunting the place.

Just the everyday sort of thing for the characters in "Footsteps in the Dark," a Golden Age mystery by Georgette Heyer. It is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can click here to listen to the full review.

"Footsteps in the Dark" was Georgette Heyer's first mystery, published in 1932. While she is generally remembered more for her romances than for her mysteries, the latter were mostly quite good, written with humor. This one is more along the lines of an Edgar Wallace-type thriller than a traditional "puzzle" mystery - there does tend to be a fair amount of lurching from revelation to revelation - but the overall effect is delightful.

The story concerns Charles Malcolm, whose wife, Celia, along with her brother and sister, Peter and Margaret Fortescue, have inherited a ruined priory, in which they intend to live. The lack of electricity (I am not certain about running water!) appears to be no handicap to their determination. What might be a problem is the fact that the place apparently is haunted; a cowled figure, known as "The Monk," has been seen walking the halls at night.

Naturally, the quartet refuses to be frightened. And, equally naturally, things escalate to the point of murder. But the whole story is told with such good nature and humor that it is hard to take it as anything more than a fine evening's entertainment - which it is. You'll enjoy the characters - there are a few mysterious strangers running around, after all - and the Priory makes a wonderful setting - and there's much more going on there than may meet the eye.

Georgette Heyer's "Footsteps in the Dark" is back in print again from Sourcebooks Landmark; it is also available for the Amazon Kindle.

The Green Spider"

All right, I may as well be honest. As I continue with a review of another short story collection you might enjoy browsing at the beach this month, I make no pretense today to literature, or the finer points of planting clues for the reader to find, or for brilliant characterization or plotting. No, what I have to offer today is, I think, perfect summertime fare - the kind of mindless sensationalism you could expect from a wide range of thriller writers in the early years of the 20th century. It's a collection of short stories by Sax Rohmer, the man who went on to create the infamous Dr. Fu Manchu. It's called "The Green Spider: and Other Forgotten Tales of Mystery and Suspense," and it is the subject of today's review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. You can listen to the full review by clicking here.

Hey, it's summer time, and these rather mindless short stories are nothing more than out-and-out fun, designed to make you look nervously over your shoulder for some evil person - or horrid creature - before it's time to roll over at the beach and bake the other side.

What kind of writing am I talking about? From the title story:

"Professor Brayme-Skepley has been murdered!"

"Murdered!" echoed Harborne.

"And no mortal hand has done the thing, sir!" continued the frightened man. "Heaven grant I never see the like again!"

He's talking about "a thing, like a kind of green spider - only with a body twice the size of that football!"

Actually, when you get past the lurid details, it's a pretty good mystery story (NOT a supernatural horror story). There are 13 stories in this collection, most dating from the first couple of decades of the 20th century. There are even two stories which were the precursors of the Fu Manchu series. This anthology has been published by Black Dog Books with a very lively and informative introduction by Gene Christie. You'll find an odd little story about a mummy that manages to loot a museum, an impossible-murder story set on the desolate English moors, and lots more. Stories with lurid titles: "The Sedgley Abbey Tragedies," "The Secret of Holm Peel," "The Haunting of Low Fennel," "The Six Gates of Joyful Wisdom."

Great literature? No. Great fun? Yes. A warning to the sensitive: These stories, like much of Rohmer's work, may be considered racially offensive by some. It's the way things were at the beginning of the last century - in fact, Earl Derr Biggers' Charlie Chan stories were a reaction against Rohmer's kind of stories. Take them for what they are and enjoy them.

 

"The Secret House"

The name of Edgar Wallace is largely forgotten today, but in his time, roughly the first third of the 20th century, few authors enjoyed a wider readership. During the 1920s, one of Wallace's publishers once claimed that fully one quarter of all the books read in England were written by Wallace; the entry on Wallace in the Golden Age of Detection wiki notes that more than 160 movies have been made from his novels, more than any other author.

I must admit that I count Wallace's books among my own secret pleasures. It's not great literature, but I guarantee you'll have a good time when you read them - particularly his thrillers.

If you want a good example of the kind of story that was Wallace's specialty, you'll find it in a marvelous book originally published in 1917 called "The Secret House." It's the subject of this week's review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the full review by clicking here.  

"The Secret House" is pure escapism, a lovely little thriller which, like most of Wallace's works, gets off to a high-speed and energetic start and doesn't slow down for an instant. I'm not going to try for a synopsis, because it pretty well defies description, as only a Wallace thriller could. It involves an international blackmailer - whose picture, of course, is unknown to police - and a couple of quick and easy murders on a millionaire's doorstep. Among the sure-fire thriller ingredients, you'll find a damsel in distress, a young hero, a major international criminal and blackmailer, a number of thoroughly disreputable types who work for said blackmailer (including a would-be suitor for the hand of the aforementioned distressed damsel), a crafty senior policeman, some suspicious doctors, a very rich and possibly insane American millionaire...get the idea?

Oh, and there's the Secret House itself, a rather fantastic dwelling with interior rooms that can be shifted around mechanically to literally rearrange the architecture of the place. And would such a house be complete without some hidden escape tunnels? It's all quite ridiculous, but the action is so fast-paced that the reader hardly has a chance to remark on the sheer unbelievability of it all. My best advice is to hang on to your seat and enjoy it; "The Secret House" is as much fun as a good roller coaster ride and about as long-lasting. It's available in print, to be sure, but it's also available absolutely free for the Amazon Kindle (see the Amazon link above).

"The Secret House," from 1917, is my third entry in the "Deadly Decades" themed section of the Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge at Bev Hankins' excellent "My Reader's Block" blog. Follow the link to see what everyone is reading - you may find some worthwhile additions to your "to be read" pile.

"The Man in Lower Ten"

Back in the early years of the last century, long distance travel in the United States generally meant getting on board a train. If you could afford it, you would generally get yourself a bunk in a Pullman sleeper car, where upper and lower berths extended the length of the car, affording little privacy but a certain degree of comfort on an overnight journey. Of course, things could go wrong. And did. Which brings us to "The Man in Lower Ten," by Mary Roberts Rinehart, the subject of this week's book review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. You can listen to the full review by clicking here.

"The Man in Lower Ten" follows the adventures and misadventures of a lawyer named Lawrence Blakely, who is traveling by train to take a deposition in a major forgery case. Blakely is assigned to sleep in "lower ten" - the designation for a particular lower berth in the Pullman car. For a variety of reasons, he winds up sleeping elsewhere, which turns out to be a good thing, because the unfortunate man who does go to sleep in "lower ten" is murdered during the night - and suspicion falls on Blakely. The train is then wrecked in a disastrous crash...and the story goes on from there, as Blakely and his friends try to stay one step ahead of the police while attempting to solve the murder. It's mostly a thriller, with some detective work involved as well, and it's all great fun. Rinehart was enormously popular during the first half of the 20th century, coming up with very enjoyable mysteries and thrillers.

"The Man in Lower Ten" was first published in 1909, and it is my entry for a book published during the first decade of the 20th century in the ongoing Vintage Mysteries Reading Challenge at the My Reader's Block blog. I suspect most visitors here would enjoy it. While it's still available in regular print editions, I see that Amazon is offering a free eBook version for the Kindle. At that price, what are you waiting for?

"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.

"The Man Who Was Thursday"

A most unusual book is featured on this week's "Classic Mysteries" podcast. It is a thriller, a traditional struggle between good and evil, order and anarchy. It is a mystery. It is also a surreal farce, richly funny and profoundly dark, a work of metaphysics and logic and illogic. It is, in fact, a nightmare - or, to be specific, it is "The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare," by G. K. Chesterton. It is, as I say, the subject of this week's podcast review, which you may listen to by clicking here.

Chesterton, the creator of the Father Brown stories, had a profound influence on mystery fiction. In "The Man Who Was Thursday," first published more than a century ago in 1908, he begins with the exposure of a terrible plot by anarchists to destroy the civilized world. The leaders of the plot are seven men, each of whom uses the name of a day of the week as an alias. The leader of the plot is a terrifying man who calls himself "Sunday."

But the group is infiltrated by our protagonist, a poet named Gabriel Syme, who is elected to the leadership council as "Thursday." Syme is, secretly, working for the police against the plotters. What he finds out, as he infiltrates the group, is that all is not as clear-cut as it seems. In a series of increasingly fantastic episodes - many of them quite comic, most equally surreal (there is, for example, a chase sequence involving both a hot-air balloon and an elephant) - much is revealed. And, ultimately, it is a nightmare - whether real or surreal is up to the reader to judge.

Penguin Books has released a new edition of "The Man Who Was Thursday," with an introduction and comprehensive footnotes by Matthew Beaumont. Penguin provided me with a copy of the book for this review. Frankly, I would urge you to read the story itself before reading Beaumont's introduction, because the latter does, of necessity, give away much of the plot. It is useful and informative, after reading the book itself, for explaining some of the cultural and social references of the time.

For readers of vintage mysteries, this is one of the finest, written by Chesterton at the top of his form. The Penguin edition is also available electronically for the Amazon Kindle. The book is entertaining, funny, frightening, often all at once; it is, in fact, "a nightmare," as the subtitle indicates. Enjoy the dream!

"The Exploits of the Patent Leather Kid"

The police hate him. The prohibition-era crooks, gangsters and bootleggers in his city hate him. He's certainly a crook - though an elegant one, in his patent leather mask, gloves and shoes. And somehow his crimes usually wind up with justice being served. He's the Patent Leather Kid, the creation of Erle Stanley Gardner, an author far better known as the creator of Perry Mason.

The Kid only appeared in thirteen stories, all of them published between 1932 and 1934 in a "pulp" magazine called Detective Fiction Weekly. Now, thanks to Crippen & Landru, all of the stories have been gathered together and reprinted as "The Exploits of the Patent Leather Kid." The collection, edited and with an introduction by mystery author Bill Pronzini, is the subject of this week's review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, which you may hear by clicking here.

These stories are great fun and thoroughly entertaining. They tend to follow a formula: the Kid (who, in "real life," is disguised as an apparently lazy, overly-rich socialite) hears of some injustice - usually someone falsely accused of a crime by the Kid's enemy, Inspector Brame. So the Kid comes up with an ingenious plot which usually profits both the Kid and the unjustly accused person, leaves the real "bad guys" either dead or incarcerated, and further infuriates Brame, who hates the Kid for making the cops appear inept and crooked.

The plots are usually fairly complex, but they all follow that basic pattern, and "good," as represented by the Kid, always triumphs. In that, of course, he shares both outlook and outcome with Perry Mason, who was every bit as troublesome to the police and the legal establishment as the Kid is to the police and the gangs. This volume is another in the series of "Lost Classics" which Crippen & Landru have been republishing. If you enjoy vintage crime, these short stories will certainly please you.

"The Man in the Brown Suit"

Agatha Christie created several outstanding series detectives - Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Tommy & Tuppence, to name the most widely read ones. But she also wrote a great many "stand-alone" mysteries and thrillers, and some of her best books are among them.

I'd have to put "The Man in the Brown Suit" in that category. It's the subject of today's review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the full review here. One of Christie's earliest books, originally published in 1924, it's a delightful, often funny Golden Age thriller, which centers on a young woman named Anne Beddingfield. Anne's father having recently died, and having left her nearly penniless, Anne is certain she is facing life in some low-paying hard-working position. She wishes for a little excitement in her life.

I don't think I'm providing any spoilers when I assure you that she gets excitement, all right. And then some. First, she witnesses the death of a man who falls onto the tracks of the London underground. She also sees a mysterious man in a brown suit who shows up right after the apparent accident, claiming to be a doctor, and examines the victim's body before disappearing into the street. Police aren't interested. But before you know it, poor Anne finds herself mixed up in a murder case in a London house - a case marked again by the appearance of that mysterious man in the brown suit. And Anne winds up as a passenger on a ship bound for South Africa. Attempts are made on her life. Another mysterious man bursts into her cabin in the middle of the night, nearly dead of a stab wound. What's going on? A great deal, as it turns out, involving murder, robbery, smuggling, even a mysterious super-criminal. Anne will need a little help from a lot of her friends before the mystery is solved.

Agatha Christie was in fine form with this one, and it's great, light reading. As usual, Christie manages to pull a few rabbits out of hats along the way, and there are plenty of surprises and twists in store. Unfortunately, except for a rather pricey hardback, "The Man in the Brown Suit" appears to be out of print at the moment (Christie titles bounce in and out of print with some frequency), but the link above will take you to Amazon's collection of third party booksellers who do seem to have inexpensive copies available.

Once again, I'm offering this vintage Christie to the Vintage Mysteries Reading Challenge at the My Reader's Block blog - and I suggest you check out their site for a lot of excellent reading suggestions.

"The Riddle of the Sands"

Long before Ian Fleming, or John Le Carré, or Len Deighton, or Tom Clancy, there was a writer named Erskine Childers, whose book, "The Riddle of the Sands: A Record of Secret Service," quite literally began the entire genre of political espionage thrillers. First published in 1904, it remains what Le Carré has called "one of the great foundation stories of the contemporary novel of espionage and adventure with political teeth." It is the subject of this week's review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the entire review here.

It tells the story of a young man from the British Foreign Office who accepts an invitation from an old acquaintance to go yachting on the Baltic Sea. He is rather horrified to find that the "yacht" is actually a fairly decrepit sailboat, the "Dulcibella." But as the two are sailing in the waters of the North Sea, they stumble into a vast political plot - one which nearly costs them their lives. Through their own rather heroic efforts, they manage to avert a catastrophe that would (remember, this is 1904!) have changed the political map of Europe forever.

Is it dated? It's certainly a little slower than today's political thrillers. You won't find a new thrill on every page. But you will find classic adventure, some rather amazing physical and mental feats, and a deep love on the author's part for sailing in the treacherous waters and shifting sands of the North Sea. It is illustrated with the original maps and charts which Childers included for his readers to follow the action. After more than a century, "The Riddle of the Sands" remains a wonderful read. It has been reissued by Penguin Classics which has added an introduction by the author's great-grandson. There's an edition for the Amazon Kindle which has additional features exclusive to the electronic edition.

"The Riddle of the Sands" marks another entry in the Vintage Mysteries Reading Challenge at the My Reader's Block blog. If you haven't checked out what everyone there is reading, I suggest you do so - you may discover some really great traditional mysteries.

"The Circular Staircase"

Here's a book that has been thrilling and frightening readers for more than a century. "The Circular Staircase," which first appeared in 1908, was the first book published by the prolific Mary Roberts Rinehart, a woman who, according to mystery historian Douglas G. Greene, was probably the most popular U. S. woman writer during the first half of the twentieth century. The book created an entire genre of mystery fiction - the one we call, somewhat disparagingly, "Had I But Known." When Rinehart created it, it was fresh and new, a way to focus (and sometimes misdirect) the reader's attention; later and lesser writers brought the genre into disrepute. In these mysteries, the narrator often drops hints of coming events - along the lines of, "Had I but known the horrors hidden behind that innocent-looking door, I would never have done thus-and-so..."

"The Circular Staircase" is the subject of this week's review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you may listen to the complete review here. It is the story of an older woman who takes a house in the country for the summer, only to find that the place is the stuff of nightmares: there are intruders, a murder or two, a bank robbery and missing bonds that may be hidden in the house, and enough night-time antics to keep everything moving at a lively pace. Rinehart handles it all superbly, providing some engaging characters and a truly nasty villain or two. It holds up remarkably well for a book that has been entertaining us for more than a hundred years.

"The Circular Staircase" is my entry this week in the continuing Vintage Mysteries Reading Challenge at the My Reader's Block blog. There are a great many paper editions of "The Circular Staircase," but if you happen to own an Amazon Kindle, it's worth noting that this Kindle edition is free!