Classic Mysteries

Mystery's Elite Eight - Time to Vote Again

Over at Jen's Book Thoughts, Jen Forbus has counted the last round of voting - and come down to the Elite Eight detectives still surviving in the tournament to find the World's Favorite Detective. You can and should vote here by Friday to choose the detectives who will move on to the Final Four.

And if you want to see who was eliminated in the last round, you'll find that here. Most of my favorites (who weren't eliminated in earlier rounds...grr!) made it through this time, but now the choices are REALLY getting tough.

"The Case of the One-Eyed Witness"

All right, I have a confession to make. Despite being a mystery fan - and a fan of classic mysteries at that - there was an enormous, gaping hole in my literary background: somehow, I have managed to get through my reading career without ever having read a Perry Mason mystery. Oh, like most people who were around in the late 1950s and early 1960s, I had seen some of the many televised Perry Mason stories starring Raymond Burr as the impassioned defense lawyer. But I had never really read any of the original stories.

My bad. And I am delighted to report that I have corrected this omission. Moreover, I can whole-heartedly recommend "The Case of the One-Eyed Witness," by Erle Stanley Gardner, as an excellent demonstration of the strengths of this wildly popular series. It's the subject of this week's review on our Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the entire review here.

As a lawyer, Perry Mason was tireless in the defense of his clients, believing that each was entitled to his or her day in court. In "The Case of the One-Eyed Witness," he receives a telephone call from an unidentified woman, clearly terrified, who wants to hire him - but who suddenly disappears in mid-call. Who is she? Mason doesn't know; all he knows is that she clearly needs help and wants him to get involved. So he does. How he does, and what he learns, is at the heart of a remarkably clever murder mystery, full of unusual twists and turns. It's good to see some of these classics returning to print. It was my first Mason mystery. It won't be the last.

Biographies of Great Detectives

A great many mystery readers are particular fans of specific fictional detectives. We may regard them as friends, or as efficient machines, or as vigorous antiheros. But, in many cases, we feel we'd like to know more about these great detectives. Perhaps a biographical note would help explain some of their characteristics.

If you feel that way, you might want to try to find a copy of "The Great Detectives," a 1978 anthology edited by Otto Penzler. It contains 26 short biographical essays about famous detectives, written by their creators. For example, Ngaio Marsh writes about Roderick Alleyn, Richard Lockridge provides the background on Mr. and Mrs. North, Dell Shannon explains Lieutenant Luis Mendoza, and Peter Dickinson writes about Superintendent Pibble. There's even a contribution from "Carolyn Keene" about Nancy Drew - and one from cartoonist Chester Gould on Dick Tracy.

The book is long out of print; there are a few copies available from Amazon dealers, but they're all pretty pricey. Your own mystery bookstore may be able to locate a copy for you at a better price. But for the true mystery fan, it's a collection that belongs in your own library.

And Then There Were 16...

It's as if a serial killer had passed through the detective ranks over at Jen Forbus's "World's Favorite Detective" contest. 16 more great detectives have been eliminated - including Nero Wolfe (HOW COULD YOU!) - and 16 remain. Now it is up to you voters to narrow that down again to the elite eight.

You can vote at Jen's Book Thoughts until this Friday, when Jen will count them up and release the results for next week's balloting. Go to it!

"The Detections of Francis Quarles"

So you enjoy a good mystery - but who has time to read? Want to figure out some really clever puzzle mysteries, but don't have time to get involved with a lengthy book, or even a short story? Have I got a book for you: "The Detections of Francis Quarles," by Julian Symons, the subject of this week's review on our Classic Mysteries podcast. You can hear the complete review here.

Julian Symons was one of the most highly regarded mystery writers and critics of the mid-20th century. In the 1950s, writing for the London Evening Standard newspaper, Symons created detective Francis Quarles, a private investigator, frequently consulted by the police. Quarles starred in a great many short-short stories; few of those in this book are over 3 or 4 pages long - just right when you want to pick up something that can relax you at the end of a stress-filled day. This book has 41 Quarles stories, all previously uncollected.

They're not all murders - there are all kinds of crime stories. But they are fair, classic puzzle mysteries, written by a man given the highest honors by his fellow mystery-writers in both England and the United States. There are some really choice stories here - take the time to savor them.

Fine Day to be Irish

Adding to my comments from last week, recommending Eilis Dillon's three mysteries as excellent choices for St. Patrick's Day, blogger Janet Rudolph has a longer and more comprehensive list for readers who want more of the Emerald Isle's mysteries. Enjoy!

Hat tip: The Rap Sheet

More Carkeet

If you'd like to know more about David Carkeet and "Double Negative," the subject of this week's podcast review, may I recommend an excellent and informative post by Sarah Weinman at "The Criminalist" blog, part of the Barnes & Noble Review. In addition to talking about "Double Negative," she also includes her review of Carkeet's new and  newly-published mystery - his second - called "From Away."  Sounds interesting.

"Double Negative"

I remember in my college career being fascinated by the study of linguistics - the underlying structure beneath any language. I mention it because it may be one of the reasons why I found this week's book on the Classic Mysteries podcast, "Double Negative," by David Carkeet, to be so fascinating. You can listen to the full review here.

Carkeet's novel is relatively new, having first appeared in 1980, but it's still fresh and surprisingly fair, along classic lines: it's a murderous puzzle, and we are given clues to help us find the right answer, along with the book's hero, linguist Jeremy Cook. He is one of the linguists at a place called the Wabash Institute, which conducts its studies of pre-language within a day-care center located on the premises. Cook and the others are trying to learn how toddlers acquire language and the mechanisms they use to understand basic concepts. There is a murder: one of Cook's colleagues - and the killer is nasty enough to leave the body in Cook's office. In a marvelous twist, one of the most important clues is provided by a toddler, and I can't think of another book that uses pre-language sounds in a similar way to find a killer.  

It's an enjuoyable book - a lot of humor and a good, classic mystery - in fact, as the St. Lous Post Dispatch notes (in the blurb on the back cover of this edition), "the plot [is] as unusual and engaging as any from the Golden Age of the classic detective story." Agreed.

"Double Negative" has been re-released by the Overlook Press (which provided me with a reading copy).

(UPDATED to add tags. D'oh!)

Round 2

Here we go into the second week of Jen Forbus's "World's Favorite Detective" tournament. The results of the first week's voting, knocking the initial 64 entries down to 32, are interesting. I lost a couple of my favorites, but several of them have made it through intact.

This week, you'll be voting on sixteen contests, and, as Jen says, you'll have some tough contests to decide. But why are you wasting time? Get over to Jen's Book Thoughts, look at the winners from Round 1 and the matchups for Round 2 and choose your favorites!

Irish Mysteries

With St. Patrick's Day coming up next Wednesday, a day on which most Americans, if they are not Irish, become so by adoption, I would like to recommend the mysteries of Eilis Dillon as an appropriate "read" for the season and the holiday.

That would include her first mystery, "Death at Crane's Court," and her second, "Sent to His Account," both of which have been the subject of reviews on the Classic Mysteries podcast. Her third (and last) mystery, "Death in the Quadrangle," has just been published by the Rue Morgue Press, and I'll be reviewing that here in a few weeks.

Dillon was a very prolific writer, with a deep love of her native country - a love which comes across in the way she writes about Ireland. Her books are full of wit, marvelous characters, the beauty of the Irish countryside (particularly as it existed in the 1950s, when the books were written) and - of course - are excellent mysteries as well. Give them a try. Take it from me - no, I'm not Irish, but my son-in-law is a Duffy...