Classic Mysteries

Need Some New Reads?

Looking for something new to read? No matter what kinds of mysteries you like, you'll find reviews of a great many new releases and re-releases in a brand new edition of Sally Powers's bimonthly newsletter, "I Love a Mystery." A large stable of reviewers - self included - provide reviews of dozens of new and re-issued titles. It's all free, too. What's not to like?

"Max Carrados Mysteries"

Throughout the month of August, we've been talking about great (if no longer very well-known) short stories, which - to my mind, at least - make great beach reading. Let's close out the series today with one of the more unusual detectives who was popular in the early decades of the 20th century.

Max Carrados, the creation of writer Ernest Bramah, carries out his detective work despite being blind. As he explains, in a number of stories, that blindness has been liberating to him, because it has forced him to sharpen his other senses while avoiding the danger of leaping to conclusions because of something he has seen. In other words, even if a clever killer has staged the scene of his crime in such a way that it would misdirect someone who saw the false clues...Carrados is impervious to that kind of misdirection. The Max Carrados stories are the subject of this week's Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the full review by clicking here.

In the very first Max Carrados story, "The Coin of Dionysius," the blind detective immediately recognizes the voice of an old college friend - even though that friend has carefully created a completely different identity and appearance for himself. That friend, Mr. Carlyle, goes on to become a frequent assistant to Carrados in his investigations - a Watson to Carrados's Holmes.

There are a lot of different collections which include a variety of Max Carrados stories, and they vary pretty widely in terms of price - The ones on Amazon.com, for example, range in price from zero (free) to nearly $600. Most of the stories are out of copyright, and there are some collections which are free, at least in electronic editions. Max Carrados is another of those classic detectives with whom you really ought to be more familiar.

 

Short Subjects

During the month of August, we've been spending much of our time talking about short stories. As I have said, it seemed to me that the summer is the perfect time fo shorter mysteries - something that can be read in a half-hour or so and then get put aside for other, more relaxing (perhaps) pursuits.

If you enjoy reading fine mystery short stories - and particularly stories by some truly classic authors - you owe it to yourself to check out the Lost Classics series from Crippen & Landru publishers. As their website explains:

"The idea behind 'Lost Classics' is simple — and tremendously exciting. There are many authors of the past who wrote excellent short detective tales. These previously uncollected, and in many cases nearly unknown, stories should be brought to a new generation of readers."

If you follow that link to the Lost Classics page, you will see a list of some of the authors whose (for the most part sadly neglected) stories have been collected in C&L editions - authors such as Craig Rice, Ellis Peters, Erle Stanley Gardner, Gladys Mitchell and Laura Caspary. I've reviewed some of them on past podcasts and I expect that I'll be talking about more of them going forward. Most of the volumes feature lively and informative introductory essays from their editors. I recommend the whole series to you very highly.

"Dead Men Tell Tales"

Can the dead speak to us? Not in terms of so-called spiritualism or seances, but in terms of providing hard evidence that - in the case of murder victims - may provide investigators with valuable clues to the truth?

Today, we know that the answer, in many cases, is "yes" - thanks to the science we call forensic medicine, popularized by any number of fine modern mystery writers, not to mention all those crime scene shows on television.

But in the early years of the 20th century, that kind of detective work was still very new. Scientific techniques that we take for granted today were still unknown or little-used either in real life or in detective fiction.

Enter Craig Kennedy, known as "The Scientific Detective." For many years, in the first few decades of the last century, Kennedy starred in a series of novels and short stories written by Arthur B. Reeve. The Black Dog Press has collected several previously-uncollected stories from late in Reeve's career into an enjoyable anthology called "Dead Men Tell Tales: and other stories of Craig Kennedy, Scientific Detective," and it is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. You can listen to the full review by clicking here.

According to the back-cover text on this collection, Kennedy's popularity in the United States rivaled that of Sherlock Holmes - in fact, he was called the "American Sherlock Holmes," and he had a Watson-like assistant called Jameson. In addition to many magazine stories and books, Reeve's creation appeared in movies and, untimately, on radio and television.

"Dead Men Tell Tales" provides an interesting assortment of stories. One turns on blood typing, which Kennedy uses to solve both a murder and a question of paternity. Another relies for clues on the bleaching power of chlorine gas; a third looks at ways of reviving a supposedly-dead person. The science, occasionally, is a bit strained, but the clues are certainly fair.

There's an interesting novella-length story called "The Death Cry," which was originally published in the classic "pulp" magazine, Weird Tales. There seems to be some doubt about the authenticity of the story, and how much input Reeve might have had, but it remains a compelling - yes, and weird - story of gruesome murder, complete with an often-heard chilling and seemingly inhuman cry that seems to happen when the murders are committed. Scientific? Maybe. Fun? To be sure.

Actually, the whole collection fits our theme this month of finding short-story collections by authors largely neglected today which seem perfect for beach or poolside reading. "Dead Men Tell Tales" certainly fills the bill, if you're looking for something light to read for a relatively short period of time before you roll over to complete your tanning.

Looking Back: "The Roman Hat Mystery"

Who poisoned the man in the audience of the Roman Theatre in New York City? How was it done? And what happened to the victim's top hat?

That last, I assure you, is not a frivolous question - for the answer will be critical to the solution of "The Roman Hat Mystery," the first mystery novel written by "Ellery Queen."

As most classic mystery buffs know, Ellery Queen was the pen name used by two cousins, Frederick Dannay and Manfred B. Lee. It was also the name of their principle detective character; Ellery (the character) was the son of New York City Inspector Richard Queen and - in many of the books - helped his father solve particularly difficult cases.

I reviewed "The Roman Hat Mystery" a few years back. My blog post is here, and my audio review may be heard by clicking here. At the time, it was only available in a three-novel collection, now out of print, then offered by the Mystery Guild. So I am delighted to find The Mysterious Press offering "The Roman Hat Mystery" in a variety of electronic editions. They were kind enough to provide me with a copy for my Amazon Kindle. I was very pleased to find that the e-book editions include some essential diagrams, lists and illustrations from the original "hard-copy" book.

If you have any e-book reader - or if you simply want to read it on your home computer - I would urge you to give "The Roman Hat Mystery" a try. I think it is unconscionable that the Queen books are just about universally out of print. Ellery Queen, particularly in the first phase of his literary and detecting career, was one of the most powerful influences on American detective stories - at least the traditional story, in its "pre-hardboiled" days. The early books, the ones with titles patterned as "The [Nationality] [Noun] Mystery," are puzzles in their purest form. Readers are given all the clues available to the detective, and there is a formal challenge to the reader, before the final sorting-out, inviting him or her to solve the mystery before it is revealed:

"Who killed Monte Field?" "How was the murder accomplished?" ...Mr. Queen agrees with me that the alert student of mystery tales, now being in possession of all the pertinent facts, should at this stage of the story have reached definite conclusions on the questions propounded."

 I never could do it.

"The Roman Hat Mystery" was the first Queen novel; I don't think it's necessarily the best. The character of Ellery Queen was still pretty raw, still based far too much on the amateur dilettante model of S. S. Van Dine's Philo Vance. And Ellery is totally missing from the final explanation, which is handled by his father - who does credit his son with making all the deductions for him!

As I say, it's good to have this back in print (all right, in pixels). It's a good example that I wish more publishers would follow - making older authors and the backlists of newer authors available to a new generation of readers at a relatively low cost and with few problems of building up unwanted and expensive inventory.

So take advantage of it. If you have never read the early Ellery Queen, this is the place to start.

The Green Spider"

All right, I may as well be honest. As I continue with a review of another short story collection you might enjoy browsing at the beach this month, I make no pretense today to literature, or the finer points of planting clues for the reader to find, or for brilliant characterization or plotting. No, what I have to offer today is, I think, perfect summertime fare - the kind of mindless sensationalism you could expect from a wide range of thriller writers in the early years of the 20th century. It's a collection of short stories by Sax Rohmer, the man who went on to create the infamous Dr. Fu Manchu. It's called "The Green Spider: and Other Forgotten Tales of Mystery and Suspense," and it is the subject of today's review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. You can listen to the full review by clicking here.

Hey, it's summer time, and these rather mindless short stories are nothing more than out-and-out fun, designed to make you look nervously over your shoulder for some evil person - or horrid creature - before it's time to roll over at the beach and bake the other side.

What kind of writing am I talking about? From the title story:

"Professor Brayme-Skepley has been murdered!"

"Murdered!" echoed Harborne.

"And no mortal hand has done the thing, sir!" continued the frightened man. "Heaven grant I never see the like again!"

He's talking about "a thing, like a kind of green spider - only with a body twice the size of that football!"

Actually, when you get past the lurid details, it's a pretty good mystery story (NOT a supernatural horror story). There are 13 stories in this collection, most dating from the first couple of decades of the 20th century. There are even two stories which were the precursors of the Fu Manchu series. This anthology has been published by Black Dog Books with a very lively and informative introduction by Gene Christie. You'll find an odd little story about a mummy that manages to loot a museum, an impossible-murder story set on the desolate English moors, and lots more. Stories with lurid titles: "The Sedgley Abbey Tragedies," "The Secret of Holm Peel," "The Haunting of Low Fennel," "The Six Gates of Joyful Wisdom."

Great literature? No. Great fun? Yes. A warning to the sensitive: These stories, like much of Rohmer's work, may be considered racially offensive by some. It's the way things were at the beginning of the last century - in fact, Earl Derr Biggers' Charlie Chan stories were a reaction against Rohmer's kind of stories. Take them for what they are and enjoy them.

 

White Wine or Red? (Or, Wait in the Carr)

There has been an interesting discussion lately among members of the Golden Age of Detection mail group on Yahoo about two particularly fine books by John Dickson Carr, the master of the locked room/impossible crime genre. The debate is about which is better - "The Three Coffins" (known in the UK as "The Hollow Man) or "The Judas Window."

To me, it's like having an argument over which is better - white wine or red. I would have to agree that both books are among Carr's best plotted and written.

For "red wine" lovers, there's "The Three Coffins," a book whose opening paragraph defines the mysteries within and challenges the reader to solve them. The detective is Carr's main series detective, Dr. Gideon Fell. It's also famous for the chapter called "The Locked Room Lecture," in which Dr. Fell expounds on the various ways in which seemingly impossible crimes can be created - and explained. Unfortunately, it is out of print - and getting harder to find.

For those who prefer "white wine," there's "The Judas Window," written by Carr using the name "Carter Dickson," and featuring his other primary series character, Sir Henry Merrivale. This doesn't pose the same direct challenge to the reader, but it is one of the best-plotted mysteries I have ever read - and the reader's nose will be rubbed quite thoroughly in the concept of a "judas window,"  through which murder can be committed in a locked room, before the solution is explained. This one IS still available, thanks to the Rue Morgue Press.

Which is "better"? Both. As a matter of personal preference, I still like "The Three Coffins," because Carr manages to create such a frightening and uncanny atmosphere around the events of the story. On the other hand, "The Judas Window," with some classic Merrivale humor, can be quite funny even as the central character's life and freedom are threatened. But both books are well plotted - and both give the reader all the necessary clues, marvelously hidden. to solve the puzzle - if you can.

White wine? Red wine? Both can complement a meal very nicely, thank you. No need to choose - enjoy them both!

Reading Reminder

As I observed in my last post, this is vacation time for many, myself included. Consequently, I will be less likely to post here for the remainder of the week - at least until Friday. The next podcast will be released next Monday, as usual - a review of another group of short stories. Enjoy your week - and, really, DO read those Uncle Abner stories. He's a remarkable character.

"Uncle Abner: Master of Mysteries"

As we move into August, and the traditional "dog days" of summer - vacation time for many, myself included - I thought it might be a good time to introduce some more-or-less neglected short story writers to this audience. The mystery short story is, to me, the perfect length for summer reading, preferably with a cool drink at hand. Read a story, then do something more important, such as taking a nap.

With that in mind, let me introduce you today to Uncle Abner, the creation of mystery writer Melville Davisson Post. In the book "Uncle Abner: Master of Mysteries," published in 1918, Post created a truly remarkable character: a deeply religious, moral pioneer living in the rugged mountain country of Western Virginia back in the mid-1800s. This collection of 18 stories is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the entire review by clicking here.

What kind of man was Uncle Abner - and, perhaps a more important question, what kind of stories are these? They are marvelous tales of a man who sets out to bring justice to a frontier society that did not always allow for it. Uncle Abner has a knack for finding the truth - the moral truth, sometimes, rather than the literal truth. In these stories, he detects - and sometimes prevents - murder.  Often, he uncovers an unsuspected crime even as he sets about solving it. As his nephew, Martin, who often narrates the stories, tells us, “for all his iron ways, Abner was a man who saw justice in its large and human aspect, and he stood for the spirit, above the letter, of the truth.”

The stories are powerful and moving. And, for the politically correct, be advised that there is some language used which today's readers are likely to find offensive, although they were certainly a part of their times, particularly in the mountains of western Virginia. I hope that won't distract you from the heart of the stories - and from Uncle Abner himself, who acts so often as the champion of the wrongly accused.

The Uncle Abner stories are out of copyright. The link above will take you to a very nice paperback edition which, to my mind, is a bit on the expensive side. There is a much less expensive electronic edition for the Amazon Kindle, and, I suspect, there are probably equally inexpensive or even free editions, via Project Gutenberg, in other popular e-book formats.

On Amazon.com, I see that a reviewer has written, “If you are a fan of mystery stories and you have not read Uncle Abner, your education is incomplete.” I couldn’t agree more.

The Mystery of Gore Vidal

As you may already have heard, American author Gore Vidal has died. He will be (and, in today's obituaries, he is) remembered for a great many books, plays, memoirs, etc., not to mention the celebrity and notoriety that he courted in his long and productive life. For mystery lovers, he may be remembered for the three mysteries he wrote early in his career under the name "Edgar Box."

When Vidal wrote his mysteries, he did so - as he quite often observed in later years - to survive. He had managed to offend the New York Times - which, for a young writer, was not a good thing to do - and found himself writing a series of mysteries as a way of putting food on the table. I reviewed the first of them, Death in the Fifth Position, on this blog last year. They might be described as medium boiled, but they are also influenced by the traditional mystery - in his own words, he "worked very hard at being a mystery writer, somewhat heavily reliant upon Agatha Christie." Each of the three books, he said, was written in eight days at the rate of ten thousand words a day, and, he says, he lived on them for the next dozen years.

It's worth noting that the New York Times has published a lengthy obituary/appreciation for Gore Vidal today. You have to get about halfway down the article before it mentions Vidal's run-in with the Times over an earlier book, The City and the Pillar:

"Mr. Vidal later claimed that the literary and critical establishment, The New York Times especially, had blacklisted him because of the book, and he may have been right. He had such trouble getting subsequent novels reviewed that he turned to writing mysteries under the pseudonym Edgar Box and then, for a time, gave up novel-writing altogether."

Gore Vidal was an interesting and often controversial (and occasionally outrageous) voice, particularly in his later works, but those early mysteries remain light and enjoyable reads. Vintage Books has republished all three under its Vintage Crime/Black Lizard imprint in paperback editions.