Classic Mysteries

"Appleby Talks About Crime"

This week's selection for our "Classic Mysteries" podcast review is pretty exciting to me, because it represents a series of new adventures for an old friend. The adventures are new to me, anyway, and the old friend is Sir John Appleby, the detective created by Michael Innes. 18 previously uncollected short stories about Appleby are contained in the newly-released volume, "Appleby Talks About Crime," edited by John Cooper and published by Crippen & Landru in their Lost Classics series. You can listen to a full review here.

Michael Innes was the pen name of John Innes Macintosh Stewart. He created Appleby during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, and he carried on with stories and novels well into the 1980s. The short stories collected in this new volume were written primarily in the 1950s for newspapers and magazines, so they are generally quite short. But they are all intricate and many are amusing, for Innes wrote his mysteries with humor and wit. Many deal with murder, some with other crimes, most have the ability to surprise the reader even while they follow the rules of fair play.

The collection is rounded out with John Cooper's interesting introduction, a memoir about her father by Dr. Margaret Macintosh Hamilton and an essay on Appleby by Innes himself. "In forty years," he writes, "I have never quite got tired of John Appleby as a pivot round which farce and mild comedy and parody and freakish fantasy revolve." That is what you will find in "Appleby Talks About Crime."

Looking Back: "The Four Just Men"

While we're on the subject of Edgar Wallace, let me remind everyone again that Wallace's career as a novelist began in 1905 with a smash hit: his thriller "The Four Just Men." It's the story of a group of men who take the law into their own hands, threatening to murder the British foreign minister if he insists on signing what they consider an unjust law. You can listen to my podcast review here.

While the book was an incredible success, it was also a financial disaster for Wallace. As a promotional gimmick for this first book, he offered a huge reward to anyone who could solve the book's mystery. Unfortunately for him, a pretty large number of people did solve it - and Wallace was obliged to pay them all.

But "The Four Just Men" began a career which eventually extended to more than 170 novels, most of them mysteries and thrillers, and many of them hold up remarkably well today. The characters of the Four Just Men - later reduced (by death) to Three Just Men - recur through several other Wallace books. They're great fun to read.

"The Mind of Mr. J. G. Reeder"

Could it be considered a handicap for a dedicated law-enforcement officer to possess what might be called a criminal mind? By that, I mean an understanding of the way a criminal might be expected to think. Certainly, that is the problem - if it is a problem - faced by Mr. J. G. Reeder, an unassuming gentleman working for the Public Prosecutor in London. He is always explaining to his superior in that office, quite apologetically, that he has a criminal mind, and that that fact may account for his considerable success in fighting crime.

In essence, that's what you will discover in Edgar Wallace's 1925 collection of short stories, "The Mind Of Mr J G Reeder," which was originally published in the United States as "The Murder Book of Mr. J. G. Reeder." I think the English title is more appropriate, particularly as many of the stories deal with other forms of crime - theft, embezzlement, forgery. It is the subject of this week's Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the full review here.

I think Mr. Reeder was one of Wallace's most successful creations. The stories are fairly short, generally quite funny, with plenty of thriller elements. Wallace doesn't give away much about Mr. Reeder - not even how he manages to leap to some of his conclusions, except for that always apologetic statement, which explains how he usually stays one jump ahead of the villains. Reading these stories may be a good way to discover a writer who really is not well remembered today, despite having been one of the most phenomenally popular English authors of the early years of the 20th century. More than 160 movies have been based on Wallace's books and stories, including "King Kong." I think you'll find Mr. Reeder an amiable and memorable companion.

Favorites of the (20th) Century

I picked up an interesting little volume at the recent Malice Domestic conference: "100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century," chosen by the Independent Mystery Bookisellers Association, and edited by Jim Huang. It's pretty much explained by the title: a list of 100 20th century mysteries - no more than one per author - chosen by indie mystery book dealers. There's an essay on each novel, each written by one of the book dealers.

Not surprisingly, from a group of book sellers, there's an obvious bias towards more recent books - which are often (though not always!) more likely to be in print and readily available for readers. But most of the classic authors are at least represented, from 1902's "The Hound of the Baskervilles," by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, to 1998's "On Beulah Height," by Reginald Hill.

I must admit some of the choices surprised me - I would have picked different titles for many of the authors (why "Hamlet, Revenge" rather than "Lament for a Maker" for Michael Innes? Why "Cat of Many Tails" for Ellery Queen?). And I was a little surprised not to find some of the trailblazers in the field - there's no representation for, say, S. S. Van Dine, R. Austin Freeman or H. C. Bailey.

But fortunately the list of 100 books is supplemented by additional suggestions and comments from the booksellers, many of whom offer up to five additional picks that didn't make the main list. The bottom line, of course, is that if you're looking for a list of "must reads," and you don't mind the skew towards more recent writers, this is a very useful starting point for you. It's a Drood Review Book, published by the Crum Creek Press, and I'd be very surprised if your own favorite indie mystery book dealer couldn't get it for you.

The Classics Circuit visits the Golden Age of Detection

It's good to have company, though this is one of those "wish-I-had-known-earlier" posts: The Classics Circuit blog of Rebecca Reid has begun a month-long "blog tour" focusing on the Golden Age of Detection. The link will take you to her blog's GAD-related stops on the circuit.

It looks like the first batch of titles are heavily weighted to Agatha Christie, with the occasional Allingham and Sayers. Not a bad place to start; I look forward to seeing what other authors will be covered.

"The Green Plaid Pants"

Running a small decorating shop in New York City is no easy business for Emily Bryce. Married just 28 months, with her husband Henry firmly on the shop's payroll, Emily tries to juggle perpetually late projects, demanding clients and the fine art of antiquing and painting with bigger worries. Like that peculiar English family that attached itself to her in London and flew back to New York. Or the murder that ensued. And somehow it all seemed to be tied together by a pair of trousers that belonged to Bonnie Prince Charlie.

Welcome to "The Green Plaid Pants," by Margaret Scherf, a 1951 cross between a classic mystery puzzle and a screwball comedy, and the subject of our Classic Mysteries podcast review this week. You can listen to the full review here. Henry and Emily Bryce fit into the pattern of husband-and-wife amateur sleuths that included Nick and Nora Charles and Mr. and Mrs. North. When Emily gets herself involved with a rich and eccentric English family - and acquires a pair of trousers said to have belonged to the rebellious prince - she and Henry find themselves receiving a fair amount of unwanted attention from somebody who is trying rather desperately to get hold of those pants. Nobody seems to be quite sure why; all Emily can find concealed in them is a fair amount of lint. But she gets knocked unconscious for her troubles at one point, and Henry is nearly poisoned at another, and the two figure they'd better solve the mystery while they are still surviving.

The Rue Morgue Press calls this book a "sparkling comedy of mismanners by one of the funniest mystery writers of the twentieth century." That seems a pretty fair description. Add the Bryces to your list of detectives worth knowing.

Welcome to the Backlist

As promised, the list of Classic Mysteries podcasts on the right side of this page has been shortened and now includes only about a year's worth of podcast reviews, arranged so that the newest reviews appear at the top of the list. Also, you can now click a link called 'THE BACKLIST" to see a list of all the podcast reviews available for your listening pleasure. The list is arranged alphabetically, by author, and each title is linked directly to the audio review.

I'm hoping that this change will make this site download to your computer more quickly while still providing great flexibility for your listening and reading pleasure. I think you'll appreciate the new alphabetical listing, which should make it much easier to find a review of a book by an author you enjoy.

Please feel free to leave comments with suggestions - about the site, about the reviews, whatever. And thanks for visiting.

Looking Back: "Swan Song"

The centerpiece of the book reviewed this week on the Classic Mysteries Podcast, "Murder a Mile High," is the murder of an operatic tenor, a breed that often takes more than its share of unfair jibes.

On the other hand, the book does remind me that the principal victim in one of my favorite mysteries is a particularly nasty  and unpleasant operatic baritone, named Edwin Shorthouse. He is murdered quite effectively in Edmund Crispin's marvelous "Swan Song," a book which I reviewed a couple of years ago (you can listen to that review here). Let me explain some of the reasons why it is one of my favorites - one I recommend wholeheartedly:

It is an impossible crime. Based on the evidence, there is no way that the hanging of Shorthouse could possible be a murder - and yet, given the evidence that he had been drugged and that his hands may have been tied, it could not be suicide or accident. As readers of this blog know, I love a good impossible-crime mystery.

It is fairly clued. In fact, the author occasionally breaks the "fourth wall" to tell us directly, for example, that an eyewitness account is correct. That he does so in ways that may make us draw possibly incorrect conclusions is both fair and fun.

It is very funny. The humor can be dark, though there are occasional touches of slapstick comedy. For example, when police notify the singer's brother by telegram that Shorthouse has been murdered, they get a telegram back which reads “Delighted. Hoping for this for months. Suicide eh query. Don’t bother me now.”

It is remarkably well-written, by an author who can charm you and then shock you. The first quarter of the book could be an elegant comedy of theatrical/operatic manners (with some menancing undertones, perhaps), until the reader is jarred awake suddenly by this chapter ending:

Meanwhile, in a dressing-room almost directly opposite to Furbelow's open door, Edwin Shorthouse swayed a little in a cold draught. Now and again the rope creaked against the iron hook from which he was suspended, but that was the only sound.

It is by an author you should meet. If you enjoy Golden Age mysteries at all, and haven't read any Edmund Crispin, you should meet him and his principal character, Oxford don Gervase Fen. Fen is marvelously eccentric. I enjoy all his cases (including the much-better-known "The Moving Toyshop"), but I think this may be his best.

Happily, "Swan Song" is available again, in a Felony & Mayhem Press edition. It really should not be missed.

The Children's Mystery Challenge: May

This is a good time to be a child interested in mysteries. Malice Domestic, the organization of traditional mystery lovers, has just announced their Agatha Awards, including the award for Best Children's/Young Adult Mystery.

There were five nominees this year, and I want to give you a brief taste of each. I have read three of the five so far, including the Agatha winner, and I think that each of these books could, should and would get a child excited about mysteries.

Let's start with this year's winner: Chris Grabenstein's "The Hanging Hill." Intended for readers around the 5th-6th grade level (the hero is an eleven-year-old boy), "The Hanging Hill" has supernatural elements as well as traditional mystery sleuthing. Eleven-year-old Zack Jennings, who can see ghosts, arrives at the Hanging Hill Playhouse with his stepmother and dog. His mother has written a play which will be produced at the theater. But the presence of a number of ominous and malevolent ghosts suggests that there's something very wrong with the events going on at the playhouse. The theater director appears to be an evil necromancer - and he appears to be getting ready for a different kind of production that could imperil Zack and the other kids in the play. The supernatural elements are integral to the book - but so are the clues that help Zack determine what's really going on, and what he can do about it. There's a lot of humor - some of it clearly aimed at the intended age group - and it's an excellent story.

For younger children, about 3rd-grade level, I'd recommend another nominee, "The Case of the Poisoned Pig," by Lewis B. Montgomery. The book is the second in a series featuring two school kids, Milo and Jazz, who are trying to learn to be detectives. In this one, they face the problem of Jazz's new pet piglet: somebody appears to be poisoning the pig. Who would do such a thing? With help from their pen-pal instructor, private eye Dash Marlowe, the two young detectives track down the poisoner. The story is studded with clues about what's really happening, and young readers will enjoy puzzling over the clues, reading the messages from Dash Marlowe and getting advice on some of the things detectives look for when solving crimes. It's a good, funny introduction to mysteries for younger readers.

I think that a more mature teen-aged audience will love the book which I admit turned out to be my own favorite among the award nominees that I've read: Valerie O. Patterson's "The Other Side of Blue." The heroine is a 15-year-old girl, named Cyan, the name of a shade of blue. Cyan returns to the island of Curacao one year after the death of her father, who apparently drowned in a boating accident. Cyan isn't so sure it was an accident. She suspects that her mother may have been at least partly responsible. What about the shattered champagne glasses found on board the boat after the accident? As a gulf grows between daughter and mother, Cyan finds she must also play hostess to a younger girl who may soon become her stepsister. She must also deal with some of the boys who live on the island. Part coming-of-age novel, part classic mystery, the book is marvelous, as Cyan struggles to come to terms with her father's death - and with her mother and stepsister-to-be as well. She will be surprised by what she learns, as she explores the overall symbolism within the color blue.

The other two Agatha nominees were books I haven't had a chance to read yet. John C. Ford's "The Morgue and Me" is described by the author as a "modern take on the classic detective genre." School Library Journal pegs it for 7th-grade and up, with a teen-aged boy named Christopher as the hero. He was looking for a summer job after graduating high school - and wound up with a job at the morgue - where he discovers a murder cover-up. Bribery and kidnappings are involved as well, as Christopher and his reporter friend Tina work to solve the mystery, which - according to the author's blurb - involves plenty of plot twists and red herrings.

The last Agatha nominee is "The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline ," by Nancy Springer, and it's the latest adventure involving Enola Holmes, the much younger sister of Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes. Back in January, I recommended this series as an excellent way to introduce fourth-to-eighth graders to traditional mysteries. The new book apparently involves the kidnapping of her landlady. Enola is led to Florence Nightingale - but what could the latter have to do with a spy network as well as a kidnapping? I'm looking forward to this one too.

There you have it. Five nominees (and one winner). Five more opportunities to introduce young readers to the joys of traditional mysteries.

"Murder A Mile High"

It sounds like a pleasant enough way to spend the summer: out in the Colorado Rockies, at an opera festival in a small mountain town. And, in fact, it really is delightful - until you literally trip over the dead body of your friend's lover. All right, so he was a tenor, but even so...

That's what happens in Elizabeth Dean's comic mystery from 1944, "Murder a Mile High," the subject of this week's review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. You can listen to the full review here. It's set in Central City, Colorado, at the old opera house. Emma Marsh, the story's central character, is a Boston antiques dealer. She is invited to spend the summer in Central City by her friend, Mary, who is singing a leading role in the Opera House's production of an opera called "The Stolen Bride." Mary has also fallen in love with a tenor. Unfortunately, he turns up dead. And that's when really strange things start to happen.  Suffice to say there's a suspected nest of Nazi spies...and a strange old man who seems to run the town (who may or may not be on Emma's side)...and Emma's boyfriend Hank, who's on his way to a job with Army intelligence...

It gets complicated. But it's also a lot of fun.