Classic Mysteries

"Vultures in the Sky"

The Mexicans call them zopilotes; in English they are turkey vultures - giant birds that feast primarily on the dead flesh of other animals. Certainly, it cannot be a harbinger of anything good when they are seen flying over a train making its way from Monterrey to Mexico City. It is enough to make the passengers extremely nervous. And that was before the murders really began.

That's the situation we find in a marvelous, largely forgotten book called Vultures in the Sky, by Todd Downing. First published in 1935, at the heart of the American Golden Age of Detective Fiction, it features Downing's series detective, U. S. Customs Service agent Hugh Rennert, who finds himself on this nightmare of a train journey, trapped with a murderer who seems to be killing off the other first-class passengers pretty much at will. Vultures in the Sky is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the entire review by clicking here.

There is a great deal going on aboard - and around - the little train, making its way across Mexico. Hugh Rennert must try to determine why (and how) some of the passengers are being murdered. At the same time, there is an ominous sense that there is a much broader and deadlier danger looming. There is talk of a general strike by Pullman Company workers (the first-class passengers are all traveling in the Pullman cars of the train), possible sabotage and - as the train breaks down more than once along its journey - the possibility exists of some kind of assault against the train. There may also be a connection to a recent spectacular and deadly kidnapping case. And, all the time, above the train, the vultures are flying, perhaps attracted by the smell of death...

Downing juggles all these plot threads admirably, keeping the reader guessing - although it is most definitely a "fair-play" mystery, with clues that, when properly deciphered, can lead the reader to the correct solution.

Long out-of-print, Todd Downing's novels are back in trade paperback editions from Coachwhip Publications. These editions feature a new introduction by mystery scholar Curtis Evans, providing excellent and fascinating background information about Downing and his books, particularly his use of Mexico as the setting for the books, which Evans says "is his most significant contribution to the genre." In addition, Downing's fascinating characters and the brooding atmosphere which hovers over the book rather like the vultures themselves make Vultures in the Sky a book that should not be missed.

This book is my seventh entry in the Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge at the My Reader's Block blog. I am entering it in the category, "World Traveler": one mystery set in any country except the US or Britain. If you haven't checked out some of the first-rate books showing up in this challenge, use the link in this paragraph to see what you're missing.

 

Here Comes Malice

I'm getting ready for next week's visit to Bethesda, MD, and the 25th annual Malice Domestic conference. I see that the conference has sold out - registration has been closed, with something over 600 people set to attend. By my (probably inaccurate) count, about a quarter to a third of that number will be mystery authors, ready to meet with, entertain, instruct and sign books for their readers.

So...anyone else heading that way? If so...I hope to see you there. I've been to several past Malice Domestic conferences and enjoyed them thoroughly. This one is shaping up to be another great weekend.

"The Grand Tour"

Let's turn to non-fiction today, written by one of the greatest storytellers of all time.

In 1922, Agatha Christie and her then-husband, Archie, were approached by an influential friend and offered a trip around the world, lasting nearly a year, on behalf of a British trade mission. Agatha Christie and her husband had always wanted to travel, but in 1922 that required a great deal of money and time. Travel over land mostly meant by rail; travel over sea meant weeks on board a ship.

But recognizing the opportunity, the Christies accepted the offer. Leaving their very young daughter with family members, Archie and Agatha Christie set out on their voyage. And - because Agatha Christie was a writer - she did what she knew best: she wrote. She wrote long letters home, to her mother and her family, and she also mailed home a great many black-and-white photographs, taken with her new camera.

All of that material, together with relevant parts of Christie's Autobiography, have now been assembled and published for the first time as "The Grand Tour: Around the World with the Queen of Mystery," edited by Christie's grandson Mathew Prichard. It is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the full review by clicking here.

It's an enormous and absolutely fascinating work. Agatha Christie recorded everything - her seasickness, the long journeys by ship and by train, the meetings with various Commonwealth government officials as part of the official duties, staying in hotel rooms "reeking of commercial travelers," all of this combined with handwritten letters, postcards, clippings and scores of photographs.

No, there's no mystery here - but there are marvelous stories, and it's fun to read Christie's description of the many people she meets - people who, at least as character types, will show up later in her fiction. In fact, the leader of the trade mission, Major Belcher, turns up as a major character named Sir Eustace Pedlar in Christie's 1924 thriller, The Man in the Brown Suit. Some of the real life incidents from the trip turn up in that book as well, particularly a general strike in South Africa that turned into what Christie called "a young revolution."

The Grand Tour is a wonderful real-life adventure, from the days when travel really was an adventure, a time when most people could never imagine seeing such places as Australia and Hawaii, both stops on the Christies' tour. If you enjoy travel, and you enjoy Agatha Christie, you will enjoy this book.

This post is based on a longer review which I wrote for the I Love a Mystery Newsletter, edited by Sally Powers, and I'm grateful to her for letting me share it with you.

"Make No Bones"

With the annual Malice Domestic conference coming up in less than three weeks, I thought it was high time that I made the acquaintance of some of the fine authors of traditional mysteries who will be honored at the event. One of the honorees this year will be Aaron Elkins, who will be receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award, and I thought it would be good to start by reading one of the books in his primary series featuring the "Skeleton Detective," Dr. Gideon Oliver. Have I been missing a lot?

Well...frankly...yes. I may be late to the party, but I found Dr. Oliver a most enjoyable companion, as he led me through a rudimentary appreciation of forensic anthropology, the scientific study of human remains, in an often funny, if sometimes grisly, mystery.

I found a good example of what that means - and how Gideon Oliver puts together the fragments of a mysterious death to reveal a pretty shocking crime - in "Make No Bones," originally published in 1991, and the seventh book in Elkins' continuing series. 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.

In "Make No Bones," members of the Western Association of Forensic Anthropologists are gathering for their biennial get-together - what the organizer calls the group’s "eagerly anticipated bone bash and weenie roast." It’s a combination of a scientific business conference, with academic discussions of forensic science and anthropology, together with a social gathering. The problem, this year, is that the organizer has chosen to hold it at Whitebark Lodge, in Oregon, where the association was formed, ten years earlier. That original ill-fated conference had ended in tragedy, as Albert Evan Jasper, called the “dean of American forensic anthropologists,” died in a fiery bus crash. As the scientists gather again a decade later at Whitebark Lodge, there will be unpleasant surprises in store – not to mention murders, old and new to be solved. It will be up to Gideon Oliver, working with his wife, Julie, and their friend, FBI Agent John Lau, to unravel a grisly set of clues to reveal a deadly secret.

There's a fair amount of police procedure here, and some insight into how these forensic scientists go about finding clues in a handful of bones or bone fragments. But it's also a traditional mystery, with considerable fair play and some very nicely hidden clues. And there's a lot of humor - sometimes very dark, to be sure, but also quite funny. I thoroughly enjoyed "Make No Bones," and I'm looking forward to meeting Aaron Elkins and hearing him speak at Malice Domestic.

Unlocking the Locked Room

One of the genres I most enjoy is the locked room mystery and its broader implementation as the "impossible crime" story. All of Clyde B. Clason's works fall into that sphere. So do most of the works of John Dickson Carr, the acknowledged master of the field. Many other mystery authors, from the Golden Age and beyond, have written in the genre, with varying degrees of success.

So it's important, I think, to recognize that there are still authors writing today who specialize in locked room detective stories. Many of them, unfortunately, do not write in English, and translations are not always easy to find.

Enter translator John Pugmire, whom I mentioned earlier on this blog for his terrific work translating the contemporary French locked-room mystery author, Paul Halter. Pugmire now has begun a website devoted to the genre, called Locked Room International. I like the way he defines the genre:

"What is a locked room mystery? It is ideally a mystery which follows Golden Age Rules about providing fair clues to the reader and also poses the question: how was it done? A "locked room" is a special case of the more general "impossible crime," in which one or more victims are discovered dead in what appear to be impossible circumstances (hermetically sealed room, no footprints in the snow, inaccessible site, etc.) It makes no pretense to be probable, no attempt to analyze the human condition, and no effort to probe the detective's foibles. Its purpose is purely and simply to baffle while entertaining. It challenges the mind, not the heart or the spirit."

The site is still pretty basic, and we are promised additions and improvements as it is developed. It's not primarily a blog. Locked Room International is involved in publishing (as print-on-demand and/or e-book editions) good, English-language translations of locked-room masterpieces by Paul Halter and others; there are hints that we may eventually see translated versions from a modern Japanese master of the form.

The site is well worth a visit from anyone interested in the genre. I have more Halter books in my ever-massive "To Be Read" pile, and I'm looking forward to them and other LRI books.

Hat tip to the Golden Age of Detective Fiction mail group on Yahoo, which alerted me to the existence of this new LRI website.

"Blind Drifts"

When one of the directors of the Virgin Queen Gold Mine was shot, deep inside the mine, it happened in front of seven witnesses. Unfortunately, none of them apparently saw the shot fired, nor did they have any idea who might have fired it. And there was no sign of a gun. It was, to be blunt, an impossible situation. So it was probably a good thing that one of the witnesses on hand was a professor of Roman history and amateur detective named Theocritus Lucius Westborough, a man who had earned something of a reputation for solving impossible crime puzzles. He does so again in "Blind Drifts," a 1937 "impossible crime" novel by Clyde B. Clason which is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. You can listen to the full review by clicking here.

Professor Westborough, having inherited a large amount of stock in the Virgin Queen mine from his brother, finds himself at the mine in Baddington, Colorado and caught in the middle of a power struggle between two groups of directors seeking control of the mine. The more he investigates, the more he finds himself caught up in the remarkable violence that seems to befall some of the key players in the power struggle. Another of the mine’s directors has vanished, and may be the victim of foul play. That director’s daughter has also vanished, last having been seen walking onto the campus of the local university – and apparently vanishing. As the situation grows more complicated and dangerous, the local sheriff is more than happy to have assistance from Professor Westborough.

In the 1930s, writing during America's Golden Age of Detective Fiction, Clyde B. Clason made a reputation for himself as an author with a knack for coming up with ingenious locked room/impossible crime situations. Although I find his stories are less exciting than those of John Dickson Carr, whose gift for creating eerie atmospheres was unequalled, I think Clason's books about Professor Westborough are clever and quite enjoyable. "Blind Drifts" takes the reader into a very unusual world - a world of gold mining, drifts, adits, crosscuts, stopes, vugs, strikes and more. The action is fairly slow to start, but once it picks up and the bodies start falling, and believe me they do, it moves to a good, tight conclusion.

"Blind Drifts" is another book read for the Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge under way at Bev's Reader's Block blog. I'm putting it in the category called Amateur Night: a book with a "detective" who is not a P.I., police officer, official.

It's also another book which I have reviewed for the I Love a Mystery newsletter, edited by Sally Powers, who has graciously given me her permission to use portions of that review here and on my podcast. She also provided me with a copy of the new Rue Morgue Press edition of "Blind Drifts" for my review.

 

"Three at Wolfe's Door"

Who's that knocking at my door?

Why it's three nasty little murder cases!

First, there's the problem of the gourmet who found that the arsenic sprinkled on his appetizer really didn't agree with him at all.

Then there was the female cab driver who pulled up outside the door...with a dead body in the back seat.

And finally, there was a party for some visiting rodeo stars where a visitor died rather suddenly when somebody decided to practice a fancy rope toss that wound up around the guest's neck.

We're talking about three interesting cases for Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin in "Three at Wolfe's Door," by Rex Stout. The 1960 collection of three novellas is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the full review by clicking here.

It's worth pointing out that none of these cases which landed at Wolfe's door made Nero Wolfe particularly happy - but he wound up having to solve all of them, for a variety of reasons. After all, that deadly gourmet dinner was prepared by his own personal chef, Fritz Brenner. That cab driver showed up just as Archie had walked off the job, so Wolfe really had to get involved as well. And that deadly little party for the rodeo stars took place in the apartment of Archie's close friend, Lily Rowan, who promptly hired Wolfe to find out who had abused her hospitality.

I would argue that many of Rex Stout's novella-length mysteries are better than many of his full-length books, and I think that's the case with these three novellas. Yes, there are some better ones in other collections, but this is a thoroughly enjoyable collection displaying the talents of Nero Wolfe, Archie Goodwin and Rex Stout quite nicely. It seems to be available both in paper and as an e-book, and you should add it to your To Be Read pile.