Classic Mysteries

Orchids for Wolfe

The Wolfe Pack, the organization for fans and students of Rex Stout, has announced plans for this year's Black Orchid Weekend, December 2, 3 and 4. It's the thirty-fourth year for this celebration, always held the first weekend of December. This year will be special, as it marks the 125th anniversary of Rex Stout's birthday, December 1, 1886.

The events are spread over three days, with the highlight being the annual Black Orchid Banquet on Saturday night. There's also a Friday evening book discussion (and video viewing), a Sunday morning brunch and a Saturday afternoon "assembly," where there will be papers and presentations about all things Wolfean.

You can find full details on the Wolfe Pack's website. The events are available individually or at a discounted package price, and the group even has standby hotel arrangements, should you need them. Based on my experiences there last year, it's a weekend not to be missed by Nero Wolfe fans. Check it out.

Getting Kids Hooked on Mysteries

Because I am married to a school librarian, I am very much aware of the need to get children interested in reading - to give them the idea that reading is something they do not just because they have to, but because they want to. It is also no secret that a lot of children love mysteries of all sorts.

So it's worth repeating from time to time, as I try to do here, that there are a great many mysteries that are appropriate for kids and are also a great deal of fun to read. I mention it again today because a reader named Jay Smith sent me a link today to a blog post on "The 9 Best Mystery Books for Kids." I haven't read some of them, but agree - wholeheartedly - with the number one choice: Ellen Raskin's brilliant, "The Westing Game" - a book which I'd recommend for adults as well as children.

I wrote about "The Westing Game" here last year, as part of my contribution to the Children's Classics Mystery Challenge organized at the 5 Minutes for Books blog. It's perfect for showing young readers the joys of the traditional mystery - where they are given all the clues, yet are very likely to find themselves led astray by clever red herrings. I'm sure most of my readers will have ideas of their own (and no, I haven't forgotten the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew or Encyclopedia Brown), and I invite you to leave suggestions in the comments.

"The Clocks"

Certainly the murder scene was most unusual. A typist, sent by a secretarial agency to do some typing for an elderly blind woman, almost trips over the dead body of a man in the woman's house. In the room with the body, there are five clocks - four of them set to 4:13. The woman who owns the house insists she did not call the agency asking for a typist - nor does she own the extra clocks. Nor, for that matter, does anyone know the dead man, whose body has had all possible identification marks removed.

That's the rather fantastic situation which opens Agatha Christie's "The Clocks," a 1963 novel featuring an aging Hercule Poirot. "The Clocks" is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to that review by clicking here.

"The Clocks" is unusual in that there are really two separate mysteries in play here, with some of the key characters overlapping. There is the murder mystery and, interwoven with it, there is an espionage story line as well. Poirot really is involved primarily in the murder mystery. In fact, he only operates more or less on the fringes of the story - one or more of the characters bring him reports about the case and Poirot exercises his "little grey cells" to solve the mystery. And - in typical Poirot fashion - he is adamant on one point, in this seemingly complex and bizarre case: "It must be a very simple crime...because it appears so complex. If it has necessarily to appear complex, it must be simple."

I would have to admit that "The Clocks" isn't my favorite Christie novel. I missed the more active participation of Poirot. I also felt that the complex setup really deserved a better "payoff" than we are given - but that may just be the usual "is that all there is" moment that readers frequently get when they find out how the author has legitimately misled them. It is still a Christie novel, with all that implies in terms of characters and plot development, and it is a lot of fun. The Clocks is also available in an inexpensive edition for the Amazon Kindle.

Random Shots

Well, not exactly random, to be honest. If you enjoy Rex Stout, or Margery Allingham, or Sherlock Holmes or are just curious about what's happening "across the pond" in crime literature, Mike Ripley's latest "Getting Away With Murder" column is out in the Shots Crime & Thriller E-Zine.

Ripley has discovered Stout's "The Black Mountain," citing many of the reasons it's also one of my favorites - not least among them the image of Nero Wolfe taken away from his beloved West 35th Street home and dropped down in Montenegro. You'll also find Ripley's thoughts on a new Sherlock Holmes novel and an old Margery Allingham one, along with interesting news about the British crime story scene, all told in Ripley's lucid and amusing prose style.