Classic Mysteries

Kindle Envy

Amazon has announced a new, third generation of its Kindle e-book reader that, frankly, is starting to make it more and more attractive to me.

The newest Kindle, set to retail for $189, same price as the current model which it replaces, seems to have a number of improvements - it's smaller (but the reading area is the same), clearer, lightweight, glare-free and readable in bright sunlight, will hold up to 3500 books, battery life of up to a month, etc. etc. etc. This version will come with both 3G and Wi-Fi communication capabilities. Amazon says the 3G works globally.

But perhaps even more impressive, Amazon is going to release a version that's $50 cheaper - a $139 version of the Kindle without 3G, so that it works on Wi-Fi only.  Amazon says that if you plan to use your reader mostly in places that have Wi-Fi hotspots (like your home), then this is a good deal. At $139, they're obviously hoping for a much broader base of users - maybe parents will get the less expensive models for their kids.

Disclosure: If you're interested, and use one of the links above to go to Amazon to buy one, I do get a (small) percentage from Amazon.

Both models are available now for pre-order, and Amazon plans to start shipping them on August 27.

L. C. and his Elsie

It's always good to come across a new mystery - usually a cozy - that adheres to at least some of the traditions of earlier crime stories. That's one of the reasons why I enjoyed the Malice Domestic conference a couple of months back. I've just had the chance to finish reading one of the new books I picked up at the conference - "Ten Little Herrings," by L. C. Tyler, which manages to combine cozy and traditional elements with a very funny parody of British crime fiction.

When it comes to detection, L. C. has his Elsie - Elsie Thirkettle, a literary agent and remarkably amateur detective. Her primary client is Ethelred Tressider, a not-very-good-or-productive mystery writer. It would be fair to say that there is a fair amount of distrust between Elsie and Ethelred, and it is often very difficult to tell whether they are working with or against each other, as they attempt to solve a double murder in a run-down French hotel. Sometimes Elsie and Ethelred are more concerned with scoring points off each other than with solving the crime - which, by the way, is being quite competently investigated by the local police.

Ethelred and Elsie take turns as narrator, and both narratives are a great deal of fun. Here's one of Elsie's observations, for example:

It was a pensive group of guests who gathered for tea in the echoing, baronial dining room. Though the hotel had gone to town in providing appealing sandwiches and yummy gateaux, few of us seemed to have much appetite. Possibly it was the weather, or possibly it was that two guests had recently been poisoned, one fatally. People picked at their food, pausing after each mouthful to see what would happen. Nobody was competing to be the first to try the nice cakes. We all checked what the others were eating and then watched them with more than casual interest.

As that suggests, the setting is very much the traditional small-group-in-a-fixed-setting typical of English country house mysteries (even though it is a French hotel), and Tyler has a lot of fun knocking down some of the stereotypes. That's one of the reasons for the title - an obvious play off Christie's "Ten Little Indians," but also a reference to the variety of suspects (some of whom are murdered as we go along). The mystery ultimately concludes with one of those scenes in which the detective - Elsie in this case - convenes all the suspects and lays out what she believes is the solution to the case. That her conclusions are wildly off-the-mark is almost irrelevant...

"Ten Little Herrings" is the second in a series of Ethelred and Elsie mysteries, and there is more than a touch of the surreal (perhaps reminiscent of Michael Innes or Gladys Mitchell), particularly in the very ending of the book. I won't spoil the fun - and it is fun. I'm going to have to go back and read the first book in the series - and await the next one.

R. I. P. Nero Wolfe

Actor Maury Chaykin, who played Nero Wolfe in the excellent A&E Television series of Nero Wolfe stories, died yesterday on his 61st birthday. The American-born actor lived much of his life in Canada, and he died in Toronto.

The Washington Post has the Associated Press obituary. Also, Examiner.com has a very good appreciation of Chaykin's life and work, written by Christopher Garcia.

Hat tip: The Rap Sheet blog.

"Why Didn't They Ask Evans"

A man, who has fallen from a cliff, is dying. Before he dies, he speaks just five words - a question, heard only by the young golfer who has seen the fall and is waiting for police and a doctor to arrive on the scene. The question the dying man asks is simply, "Why Didn't They Ask Evans?" - and then he dies. And we have been well and truly captivated by one of Agatha Christie's best and most enjoyable non-series mysteries. It's the subject of this week's Classic Mysteries podcast review, and you can listen to the entire review here.

It's amazing how much tantalizing information Christie has packed into those five words - how many questions she forces the reader to ask, including:

• Who is Evans?
• Who, in this case, is "they"?
• What question did "they" not ask, and why?
• Why was that question the last thing on the mind of the dying man - and did he fall or was he pushed?
• And - implied - who was the dying man?

"Why Didn't They Ask Evans" is a mystery disguised as an action-filled "thriller." When young golfer Bobby Jones overhears the question from the dying man, he thinks nothing of it - in fact he forgets it until he is asked, by someone claiming to be a relative of the victim, if that dying man had said anything before he died. That's when Bobby remembers and dutifully reports the question. Doing so immediately puts his life at danger - but why? And from whom? What does he know that he shouldn't know? Only answering those questions about Evans will reveal the truth.

It's a well-done mystery (complete with red herrings, surprise plot twists and misleading clues) and a fine thriller. Bobby and his friend, Lady Frances Derwent, are cut from the same character pattern as Christie's Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. It's one of my favorite Christie novels, and I recommend it strongly.

More Gentle Reads

Having just done a post last week about the gentleness of Alexander McCall Smith's marvelous No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books, I was interested to see this article in Friday's Wall Street Journal about "gentle reads and cozy mysteries."

I can't testify to Cynthia Crossen's non-mystery recommendations, but I can enthusiastically endorse some of the cozy authors she talks about - though I'm surprised she didn't mention Smith among them. But I am also a fan of Rhys Bowen, Laurie R. King and Nancy Atherton, among others, and it's good to see an endorsement of their books in the Journal. Some violence is pretty well unavoidable in a mystery, but most cozy authors will keep the violence well out of sight, unless it is such an integral part of the book that they have no choice but to make it more prominent.

And, of course, cozies are the natural heirs of the traditions of Golden Age mysteries. In fact, I was a bit surprised to see Josephine Tey listed as a "cozy" author. Tey began writing during the Golden Age and continued into the 1950s; her books generally have the necessary qualities shared by cozies, but they certainly predate today's true cozy authors.

Do you have some favorite authors in the cozy genre? If so, please feel free to leave a comment.

 

Of Dinner, Discussion and a Doxy

The Wolfe Pack, the organization of Nero Wolfe readers and fans, holds bi-monthly meetings at a pub in New York City's midtown area, where members gather for dinner and coversation about various Wolfean topics. Last night, the group met to discuss one of my favorite books, "Death of a Doxy." In the book, one of Wolfe's regular assistant detectives, Orrie Cather, is arrested by police for the murder of a woman - the titular "Doxy" - whose bills are being paid (to put it politely) by a business tycoon. Said tycoon is terrified that his relationship with the woman will be revealed, and he is less concerned with seeing Wolfe find a way to clear Orrie and find the real murderer than he is with getting Wolfe to guarantee that the tycoon's name is never made public.

I am fond of it not so much because of the mystery - halfway through the book, it's clear who committed the murder - but because of a marvelous character named Julie Jaquette. She is one of the most memorable characters in any Nero Wolfe story. She's a cabaret singer, and Wolfe makes her the centerpiece of his strategem which ultimately succeeds in exposing the real killer while keeping the tycoon's name out of the case completely. Julie Jaquette not only manages to be one of the VERY few women in the entire Wolfean library to call Wolfe by his first name and get away with it, she is also treated to a personalized tour of the orchids by Wolfe himself. And he pays her what may be the most amazing tribute in any of the books: "I have the impression that your opinion of our fellow beings and their qualities is somewhat similar to mine." And he stands to say goodbye when she leaves - something he almost never does for anyone, man or woman.

At the Wolfe Pack gathering, our discussion centered around a video of "Death of a Doxy," which is contained in Nero Wolfe - The Complete Classic Whodunit Series, a compilation of some of the excellent teleplays created for the A&E Network based on  Stout's books. Timothy Hutton plays Archie and Maury Chaykin is Wolfe, and the supporting cast is outstanding. Special marks go to actress Kari Matchett, who played Julie Jacquette. As Wolfe would say, satisfactory.  Most of us were amazed at how faithfully "Death of a Doxy" was translated to the screen, with most of the dialogue and much of Archie's narration taken word-for-word from the book. I hadn't seen the A&E shows when they first ran, a decade ago. I'll have to see more of them.

This was my first visit to a Wolfe Pack gathering. I'll be back.

"The Golden Spiders"

It is certainly no surprise to anyone who has read a few stories about Nero Wolfe to find that Wolfe can be childish and petulant. It is also no surprise to learn that Archie Goodwin can take pleasure in being playful and irritating Wolfe. That is how "The Golden Spiders," by Rex Stout, begins: Wolfe has been behaving like a spoiled child, and so Archie decides to annoy Wolfe by allowing a 12-year-old neighborhood boy to come into the office and tell Wolfe about a series of peculiar events. Ordinarily, Archie would have turned the boy away, but, as he says of Wolfe, "I thought it would do him good to have another child to play with."

What Archie thinks is simply a practical joke on his part has unforeseen consequences. As a result of that initial visit, Wolfe and Archie will be drawn into an unusual murder case. Wolfe will accept a client for the unheard-of fee of four dollars and thirty cents. They will engage in a hunt for an unusual pair of gold earrings shaped like spiders. And they will uncover a remarkably sordid story of greed, blackmail and murder.

In other words, they will be part of a really fine Nero Wolfe adventure. "The Golden Spiders" is the subject of this week's review on our Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can hear the entire review here.

The Gentle Detective

"Gentle" is probably not the first adjective that comes to mind when we talk about our favorite fictional detectives. Sherlock Holmes is hardly "gentle," nor Hercule Poirot, nor even Miss Marple, and don't even think about Sam Spade or Phillip Marlowe.

But "gentle" is probably the best adjective to describe one of my secret pleasures, the marvelous Precious Ramotswe, the proprietor of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency in Botswana and the heroine of a dozen novels by Alexander McCall Smith. In fact, the mysteries themselves are gentle indeed. There are few deaths (I can only recall a couple from the earliest novels) and fewer of those are murders. Mma Ramotswe deals with more everyday crimes - husbands and wives dealing with unfaithful partners; somebody pilfering the petty cash; someone trying to track down a former friend or acquaintance. She solves her mysteries with a shrewd mixture of insight, common sense and humor.

The latest of the novels to feature Mma Ramotswe is "The Double Comfort Safari Club," which I had a chance to read a couple of weeks ago. Like all the others, it is a warm, gentle mystery. Smith's characters are marvelous, believable and complex, with very human failings. And the deep love of the characters and of the author for Botswana itself comes across beautifully in the books. They need not be read in order; there are many series characters who are developed over the course of the novels, but reading a later book will not give away very much about what may have happened to those characters in earlier books.

The bottom line: if you are looking for thrilling, can't-put-it-down page-turners, these are not the books for you. If you enjoy mysteries with fine characters, magnificent settings, a relaxed pace and, well, gentleness, try the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency books.

The Queen of Shorts

I have written a number of posts here about Agatha Christie's many marvelous short stories. In her lifetime, Christie turned out more than 160 short stories. Poirot, Miss Marple, Harley Quin and the others make excellent bedside companions, and there are times when a short story may provide as much satisfaction as a full-length novel. 

For such times, I am delighted to be able to recommend an excellent guide to all those stories. Elena Santangelo has compiled a book called "Dame Agatha's Shorts," which sorts out all of Christie's short stories, including her forays into the supernatural and even some romances. Santangelo manages to provide brief critiques and information about each story without giving away any spoilers. She indicates which stories are in which anthologies, too, which can be very valuable in trying to determine whether you already have read all the stories in a particular volume.

"Dame Agatha's Shorts" won the Agatha award for the best non-fiction work at this year's Malice Domestic conference. It has been nominated for an Anthony at this fall's Bouchercon conference. If you enjoy Christie and want a reliable and readable guide to her short stories, this book is exactly what you need.

"The Message of the Mute Dog"

"Formidable"!

There's a good, old-fashioned word to describe a character who is of awesome size and strength, one who can induce fear in the heart of an adversary. I tend to think of, say, Superman, or Batman, both formidable opponents.

Or, perhaps, Jane Amanda Edwards.

You don't know Jane Amanda Edwards? Time to rectify that oversight. She's a "spinster," as older, unmarried women were generally called in Jane's time, but she tips the scales at around 180 - "full-fashioned," she might say - and she is a most aggressive pursuer of villains. She's the heroine of "The Message of the Mute Dog," by Charlotte Murray Russell, our book reviewed on this week's "Classic Mysteries" podcast, and you can listen to the full review here. Jane was the precursor of many of today's cozy mystery heroines. She tends to ride roughshod over her occasional friend, Rockford, Illinois, Police Captain George Hammond. She has been known to walk off with - and hide - evidence from Captain Hammond and the police, mostly because she doesn't think they'll know what to do with it. And, as she has a pretty good reputation as a crime solver (and always makes sure that Captain Hammond gets all the credit), she gets away with things that might earn you or me a long prison sentence.

In "The Affair of the Mute Dog," published in 1942, Jane gets mixed up with a murder that may (or may not) be tied in with the operation of some suspected Nazi spies at the local defense plant. Jane's younger brother, Arthur, and their sister, Annie, get on Captain Hammond's list of suspects, but Jane isn't having any of that, thank you very much, and plows her way through to the true solution, with help from a small China figurine of a dog. It's all good fun, a very light-hearted mystery indeed. Today's cozies are the spiritual descendents of the traditional Golden-Age mysteries, and Charlotte Murray Russell certainly was among the first to take the traditional mystery along the cozy path. You'll enjoy meeting Jane, who says of herself, "She sees all, hears some, and tells everything."