Classic Mysteries

Weinman on Allingham

Writing at the Wall Street Journal, Sarah Weinman has written an excellent appreciation of Margery Allingham, one of Britain's "Crime Queens" of the Golden Age and beyond, whose detective, Albert Campion, matured nicely over the course of the books, from a rather foppish young man to a much sharper and better investigator. Allingham's books are always hard to classify - some were classic mysteries, others were thrillers and the best were amalgams of several genres. If you don't know Campion and Allingham, this article will give you a good reason to become acquainted with them; if you do know them already, you'll enjoy the article even more.

One warning - unless you're a subscriber to the Journal online, the link to the (free) article will disappear after this Thursday - so read it now, while you still can. It's worth your time.

"The League of Frightened Men"

Before Rex Stout created Nero Wolfe and the other characters who populate the old brownstone on West 35th Street in New York City, he tried his hand at a number of "psychological" novels. These remain largely unread today, and readers who have made the attempt say that they are mostly unreadable. But their existence may explain why one of the very best of the early Nero Wolfe novels revolves around a character with a most intense personality disorder.

The book is "The League of Frightened Men," written in 1935. The characters of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin are still a bit rough around the edges (though somewhat smoother than in the very first novel, "Fer-de-Lance"). But the book revolves around another character, a man names Paul Chapin, who is, by far, one of the most interesting and memorable figures in any of the Nero Wolfe books. "The League of Frightened Men" is the subject of this week's Classic Mysteries podcast review, and you can listen to the entire review here.

Many years before the beginning of the story, a group of Harvard students were involved in a "hazing" incident against a younger student, Paul Chapin. The outcome was that Chapin was seriously hurt, with permanent injury to his legs and a serious warping of his personality. Now, he has gone on to become a successful novelist (of "obscene" novels, we are told). And, one by one, the older men who were responsible for his injury are dying. Are they being murdered? Is Chapin responsible? They think so - and form the "League of Frightened Men" which comes to Nero Wolfe, asking him to stop Chapin from killing them.

As I said, Chapin is a memorable character, creepy, sinister, twisted, terrifying. To me, he's one of the most interesting characters ever created by Stout. Is he really a killer? And how can Wolfe force him to stop terrorizing the remaining league members? You'll have to read the book to find out. After 76 years, it's still available; there's also a two-for-one edition with "Fer-de-Lance" as well as an Amazon Kindle edition.

"The League of Frightened Men" is another entry in the Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge at My Reader's Block blog.

Looking Back: "Green for Danger"

The short stories of Christianna Brand reviewed on the podcast this week are excellent. But I have to take this opportunity to recommend Brand's best-known and, quite possibly, best mystery, "Green for Danger."

When I reviewed the book a couple of years back, I said, "This is the kind of book that reminds me why I am so hooked on good, classic mysteries." I stand by that statement today. Written during World War II, it brings Inspector Cockrill to a military hospital to investigate the mysterious death of a patient, who dies during surgery. It appears impossible for it to have been a crime, and there appears to be absolutely no motive. Yet one of the nurses insists it was murder and that she can prove it - and she, in turn, is murdered.

It's a marvelous book. The reader is given plenty of clues - yet I suspect that the final twists and turns in the story will absolutely stun you. I know I was left gasping. Even Inspector Cockrill got some of the key points exactly backwards.

The blurb on my edition of "Green for Danger" quotes mystery writer and critic H. R. F. Keating as calling it "perhaps the last golden crown of the Golden Age detective story." If you've never read it - and even if you've seen the classic 1946 British mystery thriller of the same name starring Alastair Sim as Inspector Cockrill - you owe it to yourself to read "Green for Danger." It appears to be out of print again, but Amazon's booksellers appear to have a variety of inexpensive copies in various editions.

"The Spotted Cat, and Other Mysteries"

The British writer Christianna Brand wrote a number of very good mysteries, though today she really is remembered for only one, "Green for Danger." Her work, and her detective, Inspector Cockrill, really deserve introduction to a wider audience. So it's a pleasure to bring "The Spotted Cat and Other Mysteries from Inspector Cockrill's Casebook" to your attention. This collection of all the Inspector Cockrill short stories (plus a hitherto-unpublished play), written between the 1950s and 1980s, from Crippen & Landru's "Lost Classics" series is reviewed on our Classic Mysteries podcast this week. You can listen to the full review here.

Inspector Cockrill, who stars in this collection, is a memorable character, in part because - unlike too many other fictional detectives - he is not always right. In some of the best stories here, in fact, he makes some erroneous judgements which, ironically, lead to a satisfactory ending to a given case.

But even beyond Inspector Cockrill, you will meet some fascinating villains here - including a couple in that unpublished play, "The Spotted Cat," who are truly terrifying. For any number of reasons - weakness, greed, stupidity, jealousy - they commit murder - and they they run up against Inspector Cockrill. The characters, and their stories, are memorable.

The collection includes a fine introduction from Tony Medawar who provides a great deal more information about Christianna Brand. it also includes Brand's own essay about Inspector Cockrill, originally written for Otto Penzler's indispensable "The Great Detectives."

John Dickson Carr on Kindle

This is news to me - and, I suspect, good news for those of us who love traditional mysteries and own an Amazon Kindle. A number of John Dickson Carr's best books are being made available now for the Kindle. That includes two of my absolute favorites. "He Who Whispers," one of the most atmospheric and best written of Carr's  books, is a mystery in which Dr. Fell solves a seemingly impossible murder which may have been committed by a vampire. "The Plague Court Murders," the first mystery featuring Sir Henry Merrivale, is another brilliantly written book, with its eerie atmosphere and impossible locked room crime.

If you haven't read either of those books, I think they are among Carr's finest, and I urge you - if you have a Kindle - to get them and read them. I hope more classic mystery authors will be appearing on Kindle, if they cannot be brought back in regular mass market or trade paperback editions (or even if they can), so that more readers can enjoy them. Frankly, if I didn't already own a Kindle, this could push me into getting one. (Disclosure: if you decide to get a Kindle, and use my link, I get a remarkably small percentage).

Updated to add a hat tip to "Scott" on the Golden Age of Detection mail list on Yahoo, for calling this availability to my attention.

The Edgar Nominees

The Mystery Writers of America has announced the nominees for this year's Edgar Allan Poe Awards - the Edgars, as they are more colloquially known. Jeff Pierce has the complete list posted at The Rap Sheet. The winners will be announced at the group's 65th awards banquet in New York at the end of April.

It's quite an impressive list, including a Grand Master award for Sara Peretsky. And one other nominee jumped off the page at me: would you believe Wiley has published a Sherlock Holmes For Dummies, by Steven Doyle and David A. Crowder? Really! It's one of the nominees for Best Critical/Biographical. I may have to get a copy.

At any rate, congratulations to all the nominees!

Another Appleby Fan

I have written frequently about books by Michael Innes, including several featuring the detective work of his Scotland Yard man, John Appleby. I was delighted to find, this past weekend, that the estimable BV Lawson of the In Reference to Murder blog has posted a "Friday's Forgotten Books" review of "Appleby's End," which I commend to you. I reviewed it on this blog a couple of years back, but it's always pleasant to find others who agree with me!

"Punch with Care"

It is one thing to stumble over a body in a private railroad car, as Asey Mayo, the "Codfish Sherlock," did. It becomes somewhat more complicated, however, when the body promptly disappears. That's what happens in "Punch with Care," by Phoebe Atwood Taylor, another of her humorous vintage Cape Cod mysteries. This one dates from 1946. It is the subject of this week's review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the full review here.

Taylor wrote some two dozen mysteries featured Asey Mayo, a Cape Cod native whose job (as best we can tell) is as a general factotum, inventor, handyman and overall assistant to the owner of a major automobile manufacturer. But on Cape Cod, where he lives and relaxes, he's also known for his ability to solve puzzling and sometimes extremely complex crimes. "Punch with Care" falls in that category: Asey is asked to find a missing house guest. He finds her - dead - in a private railroad car, holding a punched green rail ticket. But before he can summon police, the body disappears - and that's when it REALLY starts to get complicated.

Many of the Asey Mayo books feature pretty outrageous plots with a fair amount of slapstick humor, and that's certainly true of "Punch with Care." By the way, if that title sounds familiar, it's because it comes from a bit of doggerel verse about railroad conductors, made infamous by Mark Twain:

Punch, brothers, punch with care,

Punch in the presence of the passenjare...

Yes, even that doggerel, which tends to invade your brain somewhat the same way as the song from Disney's "It's a Small World,"  gets wound into the plot before Asey Mayo unravels it all. It's fun to read - sort of a vintage cozy, if you will.  "Punch with Care" is a great way to meet Asey Mayo.

This is another entry in the Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge, sponsored by Bev at the My Reader's Block blog. Follow the link to see what others are reading - and I hope you'll decide to join the challenge!

Revisiting Troy

As I indicated in a comment earlier, readers of Ngaio Marsh's excellent who enjoy meeting Agatha Troy in "Artists in Crime" will almost certainly enjoy "Clutch of Constables" as well. While Inspector Alleyn is on hand to solve the mystery, as always, the book is really about Troy, who yields to an impulse to take a peaceful English river cruise - and finds herself on a river boat with a very strange group of characters indeed. I've reviewed it before, and you can find additional links in that post. "Clutch of Constables" is currently out of print, but the first link above to Amazon should turn up a number of dealers who have reasonably (and unreasonably) priced copies available.

The First Mystery Novelist

A friend was kind enough to point out a fascinating article in this past Sunday's New York Times book Review about the book said to be the first mystery novel - and identifying its hitherto unknown author as the first mystery novelist.

I say "hitherto unknown" author because the 1864 book, "The Notting Hill Mystery," was written by someone using the pen name "Charles Felix." The author's identity has remained unknown until now, but the author of this article, Paul Collins, believes he has sufficient evidence to identify the person who deserves the credit (or blame) for the first mystery novel. Interesting stuff indeed. Meanwhile, I see that "The Notting Hill Mystery" is being made available via a print-on-demand system. I'll have to get a copy - I don't think I have ever read it.