Classic Mysteries

Deadly Journey

There's just one week two weeks remaining before the start of this year's Deadly Ink Mystery Conference in Parsippany, New Jersey. Not much of a journey, really, from where I live, but it should be a very worthwhile one - another mystery-reading-and-writing weekend spent talking about mysteries with lots of people who love them as much as I do.

If you're a New Jersey area mystery lover, you might want to take a look at what's being planned for the weekend. It includes an on-scene "murder," to be solved by the attendees, plus some fascinating panels and, of course, a chance to get some new mysteries signed by their authors. All this and a banquet!

Hope to see you there!

Disclosure: I'm registered as a guest, having won a drawing at the recent Malice Domestic conference (they provide my conference registration; I pay for the hotel).

For Children: Something Old, Something New...

For the past six months, we have been participating in the Children's Classics Mystery Challenge, a marvelous idea which was initiated and run by Jennifer and Carrie and their friends at the excellent 5 Minutes for Books blog.

In looking back at the books reviewed here as part of that challenge, I find that it was very much like the old rhyme about weddings, in that we offered "something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue."

Something old: my favorite of all the books I read for this challenge would still have to be "The Westing Game," by Ellen Raskin, the winner of the 1979 Newbery Medal for excellence in children's literature. It has gone out of print - and I cry "SHAME" on the publishers, although there seems to be a fair number of used copies available. "The Westing Game" is a book that adults can enjoy every bit as much as the 9-to-12-year-old audience. Of the children's mysteries I read, it is the closest to a traditional mystery for adults, with fair and unbelievably clever clues. I can't imagine why a young reader wouldn't be hooked on mysteries by a book like this.

Something new: for the past two months, I've been talking about this year's award winners, "The Hanging Hill," by Chris Grabenstein, which won Malice Domestic's Agatha Award for the best juvenile mystery, and "Closed for the Season," by Mary Downing Hahn, which walked off with the best juvenile Edgar from the Mystery Writers of America. It's good to know that exciting new mysteries for children (and adults) are still being written today, and these books should encourage and entertain kids who may be new to mysteries.

Something borrowed: well, a lot of the books I read for this challenge were borrowed from, and recommended by, my wife, who is a school librarian in a K-to-8 school, and those grades make up a pretty good target range for young readers who would enjoy these books. Her advice, as always, has proven to be invaluable.

Something blue: OK, I couldn't resist, as I really had two that fit, both pretty new: "The Other Side of Blue," by Valerie O. Patterson is a well-written, rather haunting book that combines a mystery with a sort of coming-of-age novel. There's a lot here for teen-agers to like. Also, of course, there was "Chasing Vermeer," by Blue Balliett, a fine art-theft story with a lot of unusual twists and wrinkles.

It has been a fun ride. My thanks again to the folks at 5 Minutes for Books, who came up with this idea and who let me be a part of it. Thanks also to all the other bloggers who participated in the challenge and came up with their own lists of "must-read" mysteries for children.

The Children's Mystery Challenge: June

For our final entry in the Children's Classics Mystery Challenge series, I want to recommend another winner of a major award - the winner of this year's coveted Edgar for "Best Juvenile," awarded by the Mystery Writers of America. It's "Closed for the Season," by Mary Downing Hahn, a book intended for roughly fourth through seventh grades (I think it would probably do well among older children too).

"Closed for the Season" stars a thirteen-year-old boy, Logan Forbes, who has just moved with his family into a fairly creepy old house in a new town. Logan meets the almost-twelve-year-old boy next door, Arthur Jenkins, a strange - all right, downright weird boy. Arthur tells Logan that the woman who used to live in the Forbes's new house was murdered, and the killer has never been caught. The victim also was accused of embezzling funds from the Magic Forest amusement park where she was the bookkeeper. Arthur believes that she was no embezzler, and he persuades Logan to help him try to find out what really happened by solving the murder.

The boys explore the Magic Forest - now an abandoned and dangerous place - and uncover a variety of clues, both in Logan's house and in the old park. There's a great deal more: Logan runs afoul of other schoolchildren (who dislike Arthur because, you know, he's weird). The boys do some trespassing, steal some library materials, run afoul of a dangerous convict, get involved with a reporter who may not be all she seems to be, and uncover the truth about the embezzlement and the murder. The book ends in a terrifying return to the abandoned, overgrown and decaying Magic Forest amusement park in the middle of the night - where the murderer is waiting for them.

Hahn keeps things moving, while also providing some really good, frightening atmospherics. The back of the hardcover edition carries this quote, which I think is pretty typical:

If the Magic Forest was scary in the daylight, it was truly terrifying in the dark. All around us kudzu lifted and fell in the breeze, sighing as if it were a living, breathing creature, a shape changer. Now it was a monster, now an ogre, now a long-armed witch, always menacing, never benign, never still. Shadows shifted, darkened, lightened, grew, shrank. Leaves murmured like ghosts, whispering to each other of death and decay.

It's a fine thriller, with legitimate clues and some pretty clever detective work on the part of Logan and Arthur. It's also a great story about friendship and learning to understand that your parents don't always get it right. If you're looking for a book that could convince those almost-teen-aged boys to get involved with mysteries and reading, this is a really good book, richly deserving its Edgar.

The Classics Circuit Blog Tour: "Evidence of Things Seen," by Elizabeth Daly

A special welcome today to visitors brought here by the Classics Circuit blog's Golden Age of Detective Fiction tour. For the past several weeks, they have been touring a series of participating literary blogs, learning about some of the finest mysteries and mystery writers from the Golden Age, that period from roughly the end of World War I to the end of World War II. Not surprisingly, most of the Golden Age authors whom they have met are English. Today, I'd like to recommend an American mystery writer, a woman who was one of Agatha Christie's favorite authors: Elizabeth Daly. Long out of print and hard to find, Daly's books are being reissued by the Felony & Mayhem Press.

I think one of the best Daly books to start with is one I first reviewed on the Classic Mystetries podcast a couple of years ago, Evidence of Things Seen. It's a remarkably well-written mystery. If you would like to listen to a full review, you can click here.

"Evidence of Things Seen" features Daly's series detective, Henry Gamadge. He's an expert on books and documents, which play a significant role in many of Daly's mysteries. Gamadge also has a knack for solving murder cases. This time, he has a particularly strong reason to get involved, for his wife, Clara, is in jeopardy.

With the Second World War under way, and Gamadge away on a government assignment, Clara finds herself staying at a remote cottage in the Berkshires. She is becoming increasingly frightened by the sudden appearances and disappearances of an unidentified woman, who appears on a path, at some distance from the cottage, wearing a faded dress and a sunbonnet which hides her face. Is it the ghost of the old woman who died in that cottage, who may have been murdered by her sister? Soon enough, there will be a murder - an apparently impossible crime that, it appears, must have been committed by a ghost.

But Henry Gamadge doesn't believe in murderous ghosts. And when he arrives on the scene to find his wife's sanity and honesty questioned, he goes to work to clear her name and to find out who and what is behind the events at the cottage.

This is a scrupulously fair mystery, as a great Golden Age mystery should be. The reader can follow Gamadge's investigations and reasoning. But, as with any good traditional mystery, the reader is likely to be led astray by some expert misdirection, and the writing is wonderful. Amazon.com quotes a New York Times review as saying "Ingenious ...most readers will be completely fooled." Agreed.

I'll be reviewing another of Daly's books next Monday - "The Book of the Dead," which is finally back in print. Meanwhile, if you are new to this site, welcome! If you enjoy traditional mysteries, or if you want to learn more about them, please take a few minutes to look around here - you'll find reviews of books that I hope will intrigue you. Your comments are more than welcome. You'll find a new review here every Monday.

"Murder Loves Company"

Ever been to a World's Fair? These days, apparently, they're more-or-less called "expos," and they appear to have lost some of the central importance they once had for world trade and world understanding (but don't tell that to the expo investors and exhibitors). But they used to be really big attractions - so much so that, in 1939, there were two world's fairs in the United States - one in New York, one in San Francisco.

It was that 1939 World's Fair in San Francisco that provided the setting for John Mersereau's entertaining murder mystery, "Murder Loves Company," and it makes a satisfying and interesting background for the reader. The central character, an agriculture professor who has been very involved in developing and providing decorative plants for the San Francisco Fair on Treasure Island, is witness to a double murder, when two men are thrown from a speeding car. But he is truly incensed by the apparent murder of some ancient olive trees, which he had helped move to Treasure Island. You can listen to the full review here.

It's a fun read, with plenty of nostalgia for pre-World-War-II San Francisco, and a fascinating look inside the fair, at some of the exhibitions and the attractions along the midway. The mystery from late in the Golden Age of Detection, 1940, has long been out of print, but the Rue Morgue Press has brought it back to take readers on a last tour of a memorable fair while enjoying a good murder mystery.

The Anthony Nominees

This year's nominees for the Anthony Awards, to be presented at Bouchercon in the fall, include:

BEST NOVEL

THE LAST CHILD - John Hart [Minotaur Books]
THE MYSTIC ARTS OF ERASING ALL SIGNS OF DEATH - Charlie Huston [Ballantine Books]
THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE - Stieg Larsson, translated by Reg Keeland [Quercus/Knopf]
THE BRUTAL TELLING - Louise Penny [Minotaur Books]
THE SHANGHAI MOON - S.J. Rozan [Minotaur Books]

BEST FIRST NOVEL

THE SWEETNESS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PIE - Alan Bradley [Delacorte Press]
STARVATION LAKE - Bryan Gruley [Touchstone]
A BAD DAY FOR SORRY - Sophie Littlefield [Minotaur Books]
THE TWELVE/THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST - Stuart Neville [Harvill Secker/Soho Press]
IN THE SHADOW OF GOTHAM - Stefanie Pintoff [Minotaur Books]

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

BURY ME DEEP - Megan Abbott [Simon & Schuster]
TOWER - Ken Bruen and Reed Farrel Coleman [Busted Flush Press]
QUARRY IN THE MIDDLE - Max Allan Collins [Hard Case Crime]
STARVATION LAKE - Bryan Gruley [Touchstone]
DEATH AND THE LIT CHICK - G.M. Malliet [Midnight Ink]
AIR TIME - Hank Phillippi Ryan [Mira]

BEST SHORT STORY

"Last Fair Deal Gone Down" - Ace Atkins, CROSSROAD BLUES [Busted Flush Press]
"Femme Sole" - Dana Cameron, BOSTON NOIR [Akashic Books]
"Animal Rescue" - Dennis Lehane, BOSTON NOIR [Akashic Books]
"On the House" - Hank Phillippi Ryan, QUARRY: Crime Stories by New England Writers [Level Best Books]
"Amapola" - Luis Alberto Urrea, PHOENIX NOIR [Akashic Books]

BEST CRITICAL NONFICTION WORK

TALKING ABOUT DETECTIVE FICTION - P.D. James [Bodleian Library/Knopf]
THE LINE UP: The World's Greatest Crime Writers Tell the Inside Story of Their Greatest Detectives - Otto Penzler, ed. [Little, Brown and Co]
HAUNTED HEART: The Life and Times of Stephen King - Lisa Rogak [Thomas Dunne Books]
DAME AGATHA'S SHORTS: An Agatha Christie Short Story Companion - Elena Santangelo [Bella Rosa Books]
THE TALENTED MISS HIGHSMITH: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith - Joan Schenkar [St. Martin's Press]

Both the awards and the conference are named for the late Anthony Boucher, mystery and science fiction author, editor and critic. Bouchercon is, I believe, the largest mystery fan conference anywhere, and the Anthonys have become prestigious awards, so congratulations to all the nominees. They'll be presented during this year's conference in San Francisco at a brunch on October 17, and I plan to be there.

Hat tips: Rae Helmsworth and The Rap Sheet

Well, YEAH.

Want your kids to stay in school longer and do better in life? Get some books into your house. Now.

Well, yeah. If you needed proof that having books around the house can have a positive influence on your kid's education, there's a new Scientific Study (that should always be capitalized, right?) to make the point. According to this article in Salon, children with as few as 25 books in the house stayed in school two years longer, on average, than kids from homes with no books.

For that matter, growing up in homes with 500 books (there were more at my parents' house and far more than that in my house) is "as great an advantage as having university-educated rather than unschooled parents, and twice the advantage of having a professional rather than an unskilled father."

This all strikes me as something that ought to be self-evident, but I suppose it never hurts to have that Scientific Study to back you up.

Hat tip: The Rap Sheet blog.

Cross-posted to LB's Rambles.

Looking Back: Two by Innes

While I strongly recommend Michael Innes's "Appleby Talks About Crime," reviewed in my last post, it would be wrong of me not to invite you to look back on at least two other books by Michael Innes that I consider to be truly outstanding. Not mentioning them here would be a little like inviting you to enjoy some really delicious dessert candy while ignoring your excellent dinner.

I have posted before about "Lament for a Maker," one of the early Innes novels featuring John Appleby, which I think is one of the best mysteries - overall - ever written. It is set in a remote castle in the Scottish Highlands, where the autocratic and miserly laird falls to his death from a high tower. Did he merely fall, or was he pushed or did he jump? Nothing is quite as it seems in this sometimes surreal exercise in impossible crimes. Innes tells his story through the eyes of a series of narrators, each of whom peels away more layers to come closer and closer to the truth - and when that truth is revealed, it will be devastating for some of the characters. There is some wonderful and occasionally bizarre humor - wait until you meet the "learned rats," for example - as well as some real tragedy. The whole thing is beautifully written, and it remains one of my favorite mysteries, to be re-read and savored again from time to time. You can listen to my earlier review here.

If you prefer thrillers to more cerebral mysteries, let me recommend "The Journeying Boy," which I reviewed here a few months ago. Appleby is not featured - in fact, with typical Innes humor, he is mentioned only in passing, and disparagingly, by this book's detective. But this is primarily a thriller - one where the reader, who is being fed two different threads more or less simultaneously, is in a better position than any of the characters to understand what is going on. Briefly, an out-of-work tutor is hired to accompany a precocious, if trouble-making, schoolboy on a holiday to Ireland - and finds himself in a world of intrigue, fighting off apparent kidnapping attempts and armed raids, not to mention the occasional murder. All of this is told in a very high-spirited narrative with a great deal of humor; I am particularly fond of one extended sequence of surreal humor, which takes place at night in an Irish mansion, where the tutor and some unidentified would-be burglars (or something more) cautiously track each other around the darkened house. It is first rate fun. Again, you can listen to my complete review here.