Classic Mysteries

And Then There Was the First One...

As noted earlier in this week's review, the existence of a book entitled "Our Second Murder" is a very strong hint that there must have been a first one. And, indeed, Torrey Chanslor's first book about the Beagle sisters is called just that - "Our First Murder," and it was published in 1940.

In their first case, Amanda and Lutie Beagle (and their cousin and Watson, Marthy) are confronted with a headless corpse discovered in a theatrical boarding house. You might not think that a couple of sisters from a small town in upstate New York, circa 1940, would have a good idea about how to go about solving a murder case in New York City - but you'd be wrong. The Beagles are determined to make a success out of the private detective business they inherited from their older brother. And they do so quite wittily.

I did review this on a Classic Mysteries podcast a couple of years back, and you can listen to the full review here. According to the book's blurb, the New York Times called the book "Delightful," and that would seem to be an admirable description.

"Our Second Murder"

The murder of a society glamour girl at a charity fundraiser in New York City is the mystery at the heart of "Our Second Murder," by Torrey Chanslor. It's the subject of this week's review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the full review here.

As you can probably guess from the title, "Our Second Murder" is the second book to feature the detective skills of the Beagle Sisters, two women who inherited their late brother's private detective agency. That makes them professionals, I suppose - odd, when you consider that sister Lutie Beagle learned her trade by reading thrillers borrowed from the public library. She and her older sister, and their cousin Marthy, who acts as their Watson, find themselves confronted with what seems to be an impossible murder - the death of a young woman found strangled with a million-dollar necklace, one of the items on display at that charity fundraiser.

The book dates from 1941. It's fairly clued, fast and funny. And there's another mystery - the mystery of its author. Torrey Chanslor, or Marjorie Torrey Chanslor, was primarily a book illustrator, nominated in 1946 and again in 1947 for a Caldecott Medal for her illustrations for children's books. She wrote two mysteries - "Our First Murder" and "Our Second Murder," worked on a few other projects, but then pretty well dropped out of the public eye. I can't find a death date for her or any indication what might have happened to her after the mid-1950s. Fortunately, the Rue Morgue Press has republished these first mysteries, which are, as the publishers say, a mix of early cozy-style with private eye investigation, "filled with clues, timetables, a crime scene drawing, and more than a few red herrings." The books certainly are a lot of fun to read.

Trailer-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?

OK, not exactly. But there is a new trailer out (from YouTube via Mashable) for the seventh (and next-to-last) Harry Potter movie, based on the first half of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and there is a great deal of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named in this one. Not surprising, given the events that make up the plot of this book.

Oh - and, yes, Harry Potter belongs on this website. Taken in their entirety, the seven Harry Potter novels make up a brilliant mystery, complete with clues carefully planted in all the books leading up to the conclusion. There's a lot of warfare and action in "Deathly Hallows"; I hope the movie won't get so carried away with the action that it leaves out any of the critical and sometimes even heartbreaking plot twists and turns. The Harry Potter novels are classics - classic mysteries, really.

One word of advice: if you're new to the Potter saga, you should read the books in order FROM THE BEGINNING - or at least watch the movies in order FROM THE BEGINNING, or the later books/movies may make little sense to you. I find them tremendously entertaining.

"Double for Death"

The writer who created a memorable Wolfe also came up with a fine Fox. In the late 1930s, when Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe was establishing his reputation among readers, Stout experimented with some other detectives as well. Most notable among these, perhaps, was Tecumseh Fox, whose first appearance, in 1939's Double for Death, is the subject of today's Classic Mysteries podcast. You can listen to the full review here.

Unlike Wolfe, Fox is a much more active detective, managing to contain both Wolfe's detective brilliance and Archie Goodwin's practical legwork. Fox finds himself involved in a most peculiar case: he is approached by a young woman whose uncle has been jailed as a suspect in the murder of a wealthy businessman. Unfortunately for the Westchester County District Attorney, there's no proof against the suspect and no motive. But things really get interesting when the supposedly dead businessman (or someone claiming to be him) turns up alive and well. Ultimately, we have a lot of doubles - victims, suspects, motives - and Fox has his hands full figuring out what really happened - and how to prove it to the police.

"Double for Death" contains some fine writing, with a lot of humor, along with a complex plot and interesting characters. Tecumseh Fox appeared in three novels before being retired to make room for a great many more novels and novellas starring Nero Wolfe. But "Double for Death" is more than just a footnote on Rex Stout's distinguished writing career - it's a very good late Golden Age mystery on its own, and it deserves your attention.

Happy Birthday, Agatha

Today marks the 120th anniversary of the birth of Agatha Christie, born on September 15, 1890. I suppose that means it is also the birthday of Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, Harley Quin, Parker Pyne and so many other characters. What an amazing and enduring author and playwright. Among other achievements, her play "The Mousetrap" opened in London on November 25, 1952 - and is still running, nearly 58 years and more than 23,000 performances later.

I have several favorite Christies. Perhaps her greatest, I think, was "And Then There Were None." She broke rules and got away with it - see "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd." She gave us Poirot on the Orient Express and Miss Marple in St. Mary Mead. She could write puzzles and thrillers and books which crossed all artificial boundaries, and she did so with style and grace. Looking back over this site, I find that I have done podcast reviews of 13 Agatha Christie books over the past 3 years, and there are lots more of hers still to be discussed here.

What are your favorites? Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments.

Shameless Amazon Plug

Amazon.com is in the midst of their Fall Blowout Sale, and they have what look like good deals on a wide range of products. If you're in the market for a gift for yourself or a family member, and if you buy it through my link, I will get a small percentage, which would be most welcome. Thank you.

An Unexpected Discovery

To the avid mystery reader, those words, "an unexpected discovery," can be quite ominous - frequently applying to a protagonist tripping over a victim's body. But I am relieved to say that the unexpected discovery I made today was a great deal happier. Looking through the collection of used books in the rack at our train station, where commuters are encouraged to leave a book and take a book, I found a copy of "The Circular Staircase," by Mary Roberts Rinehart.

This was Rinehart's first published book, appearing in 1908, and it is the book which certainly established the device known as "Had I But Known." In many of Rinehart's books, not to mention those by scores of lesser imitators, the reader is frequently told that had the narrator only known that five murders were about to occur, she or he - usually she - would have hightailed it out of the creepy old mansion, but she didn't so look at what happened. The genre really began with Rinehart and with "The Circular Staircase."

Here's the opening sentence:

This is the story of how a middle-aged spinster lost her mind, deserted her domestic gods in the city, took a furnished house for the summer out of town, and found herself involved in one of those mysterious crimes that keep ournewspapers and detective agencies happy and prosperous.

I might add that the Dover edition which I picked up for free at the train station this morning also has an introduction by Douglas G. Greene, who reminds us that during the first half of the 20th century, Mary Roberts Rinehart was probably the most popular woman writer in the United States. I'm looking forward to it.

"The Old Man in the Corner"

This week, we are going back more than a century to London, at the turn of the 20th century. In the often-foggy streets, you could find a tea shop, where an old man sat, talking to a woman journalist while he tied and untied complex knots in pieces of string. He also unravelled mysteries that had baffled police. He was among the first real armchair detectives, the creation of Baroness Emmuska Orczy, and you can read about his exploits in "The Old Man in the Corner: Twelve Classic Detective Stories," which is the subject of this week's review on our Classic Mysteries podcast. You can listen to the full review here.

Unlike most detectives before or since, the Old Man in the Corner simply sat in the tea shop, reading newspaper accounts of lurid crimes, discussing them with the woman journalist and explaining the mysteries which had baffled police. As E. F. Bleiler says in his introduction to this edition, Baroness Orczy's stories, which began appearing in 1901 in magazines, were the first significant stories to feature an armchair detective, which he defines as "one who resolves crimes simply from reports and by logic." But they are more than just historical curiosities - they are cleverly plotted puzzles, with surprise twists, and are quite enjoyable even today, a century after their original appearances.

It's worth noting that the Baroness Orczy is also remembered as the creator of the romantic and swashbuckling character called "The Scarlet Pimpernel," a young Englishman who staged daring rescues of French aristocrats during the French revolution. As a mystery reader, I prefer the escapades of the old man sitting in the London tea shop, the young woman journalist listening to him dutifully as he expounds the solutions of difficult mysteries, all the while playing with a piece of string. In addition to the volume of twelve stories, Amazon has several editions available for the Kindle, most of which have additional stories about the Old Man in the Corner.

Looking Back: "Coffin, Scarcely Used" and Mayhem Parva

Colin Watson's "Bump in the Night," reviewed below, was the second of his Flaxborough Chronicles. The first, written in 1958, was called "Coffin, Scarcely Used," and it is another witty romp about a couple of murders and assorted other illicit activities in a town with remarkably few civic virtues on display. Inspector Purbright and Sergeant Love must solve the apparent murder of the local newspaper publisher, whose electrocuted body is found naked - and with its mouth stuffed full of marshmallows. Go figure. My full podcast review is available here .

Watson was also the author of a fine collection of essays about British mysteries, called "Snobbery With Violence: English Crime Stories and Their Audience." It's out of print, and the only copies I can find (at that Amazon.com link) are fairly expensive, but you may still be able to find it through your local library or a bookseller who specializes in mysteries. Watson's Flaxborough, in its licentious and sometimes criminal glory, is meant to be the antithesis of what he calls "Mayhem Parva," the typical English village of Christie and other authors:

It would have a well-attended church, an inn with reasonable accommodation for itinerant detective-inspectors, a village institute, library and shops - including a chemist's where weed killer and hair dye might conveniently be bought. The district would be rural, but not uncompromisingly so - there would be a good bus service for the keeping of suspicious appointments in the nearby town, for instance - but its general character would be sufficiently picturesque to chime with the English suburb dweller's sadly uninformed hankering after retirement to 'the country.'

There's a great deal more of that, of course, and while I don't always agree with Watson by any means, I do enjoy his writing thoroughly. It's worth seeking out, if you can find it.

"Bump in the Night"

There may be a good deal to be said for the charms of English village life (as of the mid-20th century), but you are not likely to find many of those charms on display in the fictional villages of Flaxborough and Chalmsbury. Beginning in 1958, British author Colin Watson wrote a series of wickedly funny mysteries set in these towns in a series now known as the "Flaxborough Chronicles." The second of these, "Bump in the Night," published in 1960, is reviewed today on our Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the full review here.

What is so different about these charming villages? Well, Flaxborough has been described by one of its residents as "a high-spirited town...like Gommorah." And, as the book's back-cover writeup notes, nearby Chalmsbury may be the Sodom to Flaxborough's Gommorah. In both towns, the residents are eccentric and quirky at best, downright insane (and occasionally both corrupt and criminal) at worst. When somebody begins planting bombs in public places in Chalmsbury, the town calls on Flaxborough's Detective Inspector Purbright for help. The bombings quickly devolve into murder, and Purbright finds himself struggling to figure out what happened and why - and how to stop things from getting worse.

The book is witty - not surprising, given Watson's witty criticism of other mystery authors; his book, "Snobbery with Violence," is a provocative delight (even if I disagree with a number of his conclusions). The Rue Morgue Press edition of "Bump in the Night" makes me want to search out more of Watson's Flaxborough books.