Classic Mysteries

"The Purple Parrot"

Granted that old Hezekiah Morse was unlucky enough to be a murder victim. But one might argue that his granddaughter Sylvia found herself in an equally unlucky position, given that the police were convinced she must have murdered him. After all, the only way into the room where he was stabbed was through the door from her room - where she was sitting alone, summoning the courage to go tell her grandfather that she was defying his wishes to marry someone of whom he didn't approve. And she was being cut out of his will - being left only a small, apparently worthless statuette of a purple parrot. So there you are - motive, means, opportunity - and a situation where apparently nobody else could have done it.

No, Sylvia's position was anything but ideal. And that's the situation we find in "The Purple Parrot," a 1937 "Golden Age" locked-room mystery by Clyde B. Clason, set in Chicago. It's the subject of this week's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the full review by clicking here.

While the police believe that Sylvia committed the murder, it is worth pointing out that she had a fair number of defenders. Her husband-to-be, a lawyer (and our narrator), was also in the house at the time, and he insists that Sylvia could not have done it. Fortunately, he is supported in that belief by Professor Theocritus Lucius Westborough, an expert on Roman history - and a man with quite a track record as an amateur sleuth who has provided invaluable assistance in the past to Chicago police detective Johnny Mack. Westborough has a reputation for explaining impossible crimes. He also is intrigued by that strange statue of a purple parrot - which, by the way, seems to have disappeared. And it is only when he uncovers the secret of the bird - and a number of other seemingly incidental details concerning rare wines, malevolent gangsters and rare first editions - that the mystery will be explained.

Other American mystery writers - most notably John Dickson Carr - were more famous for their locked room mysteries, but Clyde B. Clason really deserves a wider readership. He wrote ten mysteries between 1936 and 1941, most of them involving seemingly impossible crimes for Professor Westborough to solve. Those of his books which I have read don't have the kind of atmospherics, the touch of terror that Carr brought to his novels. But they were very good, enjoyable mysteries, with some ingenious solutions to the seemingly impossible problems. The Rue Morgue Press has republished "The Purple Parrot" and a few other Clason novels. If you like locked room puzzle mysteries, you really ought to make his acquaintance.

"Death on the High C's"

You know the saying, "It ain't over till the fat lady sings"? Here's a story that really doesn't begin until the fat lady sings - and is murdered. Her singing wasn't that bad, was it?

You'll find out in "Death on the High C's,"* a romp through the world of a small-time English opera company with some major problems. Robert Barnard's 1977 mystery is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the full review by clicking here.

The Northern Opera Company, as it is called, is putting on a new production of Verdi's "Rigoletto," one of the most-frequently performed operas in the repertory - with good reason; the music is exquisite although the plot is pure mellerdrammer. Into the company comes a new singer, Gaylene Ffrench, who - almost immediately - manages to make enemies of just about everyone connected with the production. It comes as little surprise when she is murdered, but the police detective in charge of the case, Superintendent Nichols, believes there must be more to it than small provincial jealousies. A second murder convinces him that there is a lot more going on here than is immediately apparent - and, of course, he is proven right.

All this is handled with Barnard's characteristic humor - one reviewer called it a "quietly malicious sense of humor," which seems right on target. Barnard has a great deal of fun with the opera world and with these characters - and so will the reader. This was Barnard's second book - and, happily, he's still writing.

 

* - Yes, fellow English majors, I know - there shouldn't be an apostrophe in "C's." But that's the title of the book. So hate me.

 

iDr.eam of Books

I received an interesting e-mail this week with a link to the beta version of a new website which aggregates book reviews. It's an interesting idea - you go to the site, browse for books that sound interesting and then read critical reviews by anywhere from a few critics to dozens of them. The site is called "idre.am," and the email says that readers of this blog who might be interested in checking them out are welcome to visit the beta site by going to http://idre.am (note - that's the COMPLETE URL; there's no .com or .net involved). You'll have to give your email to them for what they say will be a weekly newsletter from which they promise you can unsubscribe. In the box marked "Enter Access Code," type in discover_books .

It looks like it's coming together nicely. When you visit idre.am, you can choose to search the books by genre, and there are a LOT of mysteries there. The critics include professional reviewers from magazines and newspapers as well as a growing number of book bloggers. The books, not surprisingly, seem to be new or relatively-new releases; I'm hoping that they'll include some of the classic mysteries being reprinted now by the smaller houses. In any case, the site is interesting, and I think it's worth a look.

99-Cent Mysteries on Kindle

The folks at Amazon are having one of their daily Gold Box Specials, making a number of mysteries available for 99-cents for the Kindle. Here's the information. The books are readable on the Kindle, of course, and on any number of free apps which you can download to read Kindle books on other readers, such as iPads and regular computers.

And, yes, if you get one of these, I get a few cents. I promise not to spend it all in one place. Sheesh.

Anyway, these deals are for today (Sunday) only.

Malice Aforethought

Well, that headline may have it a bit backwards: I am talking here about an excellent "forethought" on the part of the Malice Domestic board, the folks responsible for the annual conference for readers and writers of the "traditional" mystery - the organization that presents the Agatha Awards to books that carry on those traditions.

Malice Domestic has added another award to be presented at next year's conference - to mystery writer Carolyn Hart, who has several series and a number of stand-alones to her credit. She will be honored next year with an award caled the Amelia Award, presented, as their e-mail puts it, to "someone we feel has contributed significantly not only to the Malice Domestic convention but to the Malice Community. Malice Domestic 25 is a milestone year for us and we felt that the celebrations would not be complete without honoring someone who has been a part of Malice from the very beginning."

Next year is the 25th annual Malice Domestic conference, which will be held in Bethesda, MD, outside Washington D. C., from May 3 to May 5, 2013. Other honored guests at the conference will include Laurie R King, Guest of Honor; Laura Lippman, Toastmaster; Aaron Elkins, Lifetime Achievement; Peter Robinson, International Guest of Honor; Cindy Silberblatt, Fan Guest of Honor; and Malice Remembers Dick Francis.

It ought to be quite a gathering. I'm already registered, and I urge you, if you enjoy "traditional" mysteries, to consider joining us there. On-line registration is open; you can find full details at the Malice Domestic site.

More on Marley

Writing about BookExpo America last week, I mentioned that one of the most interesting discoveries there (for me, anyway) was a small book called Jacob T. Marley. Written by R. William Bennett, the book tells the familiar story of Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" from the point of view of Jacob Marley.

If you have read "A Christmas Carol," you will remember Marley. He was originally Ebenezer Scrooge's business partner. It is Marley's ghost who comes to Scrooge in the night to warn him of his impending doom and to herald the forthcoming visits of three spirits. Those visits will lead to a new, and reformed, Scrooge, a Scrooge who keeps the spirit of Christmas and becomes a patron of charity for the poor. Scrooge is saved.

But who was Marley?

We are told very little about him. And that's where Bennett begins his book, telling us all about Marley and showing us how the reformation of Scrooge was accomplished - and why. We will get to see the events of "A Christmas Carol" through Marley's eyes and learn a good deal more about those ghostly visitors. No, it's not a mystery, strictly speaking - and yet it is written almost as a mystery, with some fascinating, mystery-like twists and turns in the story, as we try to determine the truth about what is happening, and why.

It is a lovely story, quite well told. Bennett doesn't try to write in the style of Dickens, but the incidents he describes could have come right out of the pages of any Dickens novel. If you enjoy "A Christmas Carol" - and, really, I suspect that is most of us - you will almost certainly enjoy "Jacob T. Marley." That "T," by the way, is quite significant. You will see why when you read the book.

Anthony Award Nominees

Bouchercon 2012 organizers have released the list of nominees for the annual Anthony Awards. You can find the list here.

There are few real surprises on the list - I'm pleased to see that several of the nominated books are "repeats" from Malice Domestic's Agatha Award nominees earlier this year. That's particularly true of the non-fiction nominees. Of the five books nominated for Anthonys, four were also Agatha nominees, which is a pretty good record.

The awards will be presented at Bouchercon, to be held this October in Cleveland. If you haven't made plans to attend, this would be a good time to think about it.

"The Fourth Door"

So you like puzzles with impossible crimes? Consider this situation:

A man named Patrick Latimer - whose wife is said to be a psychic medium - decides he will confront a malevolent ghost apparently haunting the house where he lives. So he has himself sealed into the haunted room - the only door sealed with wax, which has been stamped with the image of a rare coin, chosen from several hundred different coins just moments before its use, and never out of the possession of a trusted witness.    

When the room is opened, though, with that wax seal still intact, Patrick Latimer has disappeared. Instead, an unknown man is found dead - stabbed in the back inside that locked and sealed room.

My kind of mystery, to be sure - and not a "Golden Age" mystery, but a relatively new one (1985), the first book of a French author who is still turning out first-rate "impossible crime" stories today. It is "The Fourth Door," by Paul Halter, and it is the subject of this week's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. You can listen to my full review by clicking here.

Paul Halter is a living rebuke to those of us who read John Dickson Carr and other classic mystery writers and sigh, "They don't write them like that any more." That's not true. Paul Halter is doing very nicely with his new locked room novels. A few of them, in first-rate translations by John Pugmire, are available now, either as "regular" books or as an e-book available for the Amazon Kindle.

"The Fourth Door" has other puzzles besides that main one about the murder in the sealed room. There is a second murder - committed in a house surrounded by freshly-fallen snow, meaning no murderer could have escaped - and yet the victim is alone in the house. There are all kinds of eerie trappings; for example, that medium I mentioned earlier manages to read a message that has been sealed inside a closely-watched envelope. There are seances which may or may not be real. There is an apparent case of "bilocation" - the same individual being seen at precisely the same time in two, widely-separated, locations. And there is a heavy atmosphere of evil and madness - the sort of atmosphere that John Dickson Carr was particularly adept at producing. Halter plays fairly with the reader, too, providing clues which will challenge the reader to find and use them. Carr would most certainly have approved.

Halter is a devotee of Carr, and the book contains some nice homages to him - including a key character who says he is a mystery writer named "John Carter." I came to Halter through mystery-loving friends, who recommended him quite highly. They are right. If you want to read an author who can make the old form of the impossible puzzle mystery appear fresh and new, you will certainly enjoy Paul Halter's "The Fourth Door."

Talking Mysteries at BEA

There was a great panel discussion at BEA, BookExpo America, Wednesday afternoon, giving attendees a chance to hear about mystery writing from four stars of the mystery world.

From the left: moderator Skip Prichard, the President and CEO of Ingram Content Group; authors Nelson DeMille, Brad Meltzer, Michael Connelly and Michael Koryta.

It was a pretty free-wheeling discussion about the authors, how they work and write, and some of the influences that have helped them shape their craft.

From the standpoint of a traditionalist, it was great to hear Meltzer talk about his first fascination with mysteries coming from reading Agatha Christie. DeMille had a lot to say about his enduring enjoyment of Sherlock Holmes, saying that he could easily reread the stories every year and still enjoy them. For the two Michaels, their main influences were such giants as Hammett and Chandler, along with Ross MacDonald.

The BEA website has this conversation and others available as streaming video - this one is called "Inside the Mystery." It's informative and enjoyable. I'm not sure how long it will be on their front page, and there's an annoyingly loud ad on the beginning of the video, but it does let four mystery writing pros share their knowledge with us.

BEA: An Interim Report

My head is spinning and my feet and knees are aching after two days (so far) at BEA, Book Expo America, the annual show and party celebrating books and publishing. A brief interim report, to be fleshed out after this ends in another couple of days:

• Lots of e-publishers on hand - in fact, there's a new "Digital Zone" for e-book publishing and companies that service electronic publishers. But the digital publishing, really, is spread throughout the display floor.
• There are more than 1300 exhibitors on the floor this year - two dozen very long aisles (each a city block or two) jammed with every possible kind of book. The best mysteries, perhaps not surprisingly, are to be found at the table of the Mystery Writers of America, and a LOT of great writers are using that booth for autograph signings.
• I don't know how many thousand people are roaming the floor, but there are times when you can barely move through the crowds.
• Most interesting find so far: a small book by R. William Bennett called Jacob T. Marley. It contains the "backstory" of Marley - of Scrooge and Marley from Dickens's A Christmas Carol - and explains how and why Marley was able to come back to warn Ebenezer Scrooge to change his ways. As the blurb says, "Jacob T. Marley is to A Christmas Carol as the world-famous Wicked is to The Wizard of Oz. This should be fun to read - I'll try to do so pretty quickly and give you a report.

Much more, if I survive my return visit to the expo tomorrow. That's when I also get to go through the exhibitors set up for BlogWorld/NewMediaExpo, which is running concurrently with, and in cooperation with, BEA.