Classic Mysteries

"An English Murder"

So you like old-fashioned, traditional mysteries, do you? Well, here's one for you traditionalists:

• Murder at a country manor? CHECK.
• An English family gathering for the Christmas holidays? CHECK.
• The house isolated by an impassable snowstorm? CHECK.
• Suspects include feuding family members, an enigmatic butler, his ambitious daughter? CHECK.
• Additional suspects among the upper-class English house guests? CHECK.
• Diligent (and rather intelligent) official investigator, plus a gifted amateur on hand? CHECK.

Traditional enough for you? Then let's talk about An English Murder, by Cyril Hare, a 1951 mystery that takes all those very English features as the starting point for a witty and thoroughly enjoyable - if not always as English as one might expect - murder mystery. An English Murder is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the full review by clicking here.

An English Murder takes place at Warbeck Hall, a country manor belonging to Lord Warbeck. He is a very sick man who has invited members of his family to gather at the hall for what he is certain will be his last Christmas.

Now this book was written in 1951, a time when much of British politics had become an all-out class struggle, in the wake of the second world war. That struggle is reflected within the Warbeck family: old Lord Warbeck himself is, not surprisingly, a conservative; his brother, Sir Julius Warbeck, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, is a Socialist; and his son, Robert Warbeck, is an out-and-out Fascist. These three get along about as well as you might expect from those conflicting political positions.

It doesn't take long for strains to appear - in the family relations, in the tensions between the members of different social classes, between servants and the people they serve. A snowstorm, which (of course!) cuts them off completely from the outside world, does not help matters. And when murder occurs - as it soon will - it is worth noting that this "most English" murder can only be solved by the very un-English house guest of Lord Warbeck, an historian who is also a  middle-European Jewish refugee, named Dr. Bottwink. It will be up to him, working with a more-or-less lower class but very intelligent detective sergeant named Rogers, to find the true solution to the puzzling murders.

I don't want to say much more about An English Murder except to note that - despite its publication date of 1951 - the book reads very much like a classic, Golden Age mystery. Cyril Hare was quite popular in the middle years of the 20th century, but his books have largely fallen out of print. This one is available again in a nice reprint from the British publishers Faber & Faber, in their "Faber Finds" series. An interesting plot, lots of clues, and a great many of the staples of the Golden Age murder mystery lovingly presented make this book worth reading.

In Memoriam: Robert Barnard

Word came while Bouchercon was under way last week that the English mystery writer Robert Barnard has died. Perhaps the timing was ironic, as Barnard had graced several previous Bouchercons as well as Malice Domestic. If you enjoy the traditional British mystery, you will most certainly enjoy Barnard's books, for he was one of the finest modern practitioners of the classic puzzle-oriented mystery. He also had a knack for writing humor; some of his mysteries, especially the early ones, are an absolute delight.

I find that I have reviewed three Barnard books over the years, on this blog and on the podcast: Death and the Chaste Apprentice, Corpse in a Gilded Cage and Death on the High C's. You can't go wrong with any of them.

Curiously enough, the only obituary I can find on Google News is in a British publication, the Bradford Telegraph and Argus, which remembers Barnard not so much for his mysteries as for his expertise in scholarship about the Bronte family - the headline says "Former chairman of the Bronte Society has died aged 76." I think you'll find a great deal more in the personal reminiscences of some of the people in the crime fiction community who knew him well: the editor/publisher at Felony & Mayhem Press, which has republished several of his books; Janet Rudolph, of the Mystery Fanfare newsletter; and Mike Ripley, the columnist for the British ezine Shots. They are all tributes to the unique and memorable voice of Robert Barnard.

Bouchercon 2013: The Week That Was

Another Bouchercon - number 44 - is in the history books, and my wife and I are home after another glorious long weekend devoted to all kinds of mysteries and the people who write - and read - them. Named for Anthony Boucher, the extraordinary author and mystery critic for the New York Times, the annual event which began in 1970 after Boucher's death has become the largest such convention in the crime fiction world. Organizers say somewhere between 1200 and 1300 people were on hand in Albany, New York, for this weekend.

 

Most Bouchercons are held in a central venue large enough to hold all the visitors. This year, it wasn't in a large hotel; Albany couldn't shoehorn all of us into a single (or even a few) hotels' ballrooms. Instead, the conference was held in - and under - this rather odd-looking building, the state's convention center, also known as "The Egg," for reasons which the picture probably makes quite clear. We're told that if you fly over Albany and look down, the building looks exactly like a sort of giant fried egg.

 

Among the guests were a few hundred authors. Most were available at some point during the weekend for book signings - either after participating in public panel discussions or at events (usually with book giveaways) sponsored by publishers and/or bookstores and/or the authors themselves.

 

Fans and other readers would line up for these signing sessions - this one was one of the "main" sessions which followed the panel discussions, with the authors lined up at tables along the rear wall of the center, waiting to meet their readers. Everyone is very friendly at Bouchercon; as one author once observed, "Of COURSE everyone is friendly. You have hundreds of people here whose business is thinking up untraceable and ingenious ways to kill somebody..."

(There's a lot more below, if you want to read more...)

"Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives"

Among the many outstanding authors of today's mysteries, you will find a great many very successful and talented women. As with their male counterparts, they write crime fiction in all its many sub-genres. But many of them write compelling stories in the area we might call "domestic suspense." Now, editor Sarah Weinman has anthologized fourteen marvelous stories written by women who essentially created that sub-genre. The result is Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives: Stories from the Trailblazers of Domestic Suspense, and it is very much worth your while. It is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you may listen to that complete review by clicking here.

Some of the names of these authors should be familiar to lovers of classic mysteries: Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, Vera Caspary, Margaret Millar. Others may be less well-known. All are amazing writers, who were able to find the suspense and terror hiding among the apparent comforts of home. Whether it is Helen Nielsen writing of the terrifying middle-of-the-night phone calls tormenting one woman, or Charlotte Armstrong showing what happens when an elderly woman tries to uncover a family secret, or Nedra Tyre writing of the desperate lengths one woman will go to in order to find a sense of security in her life - these are brilliant stories of psychological suspense, usually rooted in seeming domestic tranquility.

In addition to choosing these marvelous stories, Sarah Weinman contributes a thoughtful and illuminating introduction to Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives, along with a brief introduction to each story. If you enjoy some of today's classic suspense writers, such as Gillian Flynn, Laura Lippman, Megan Abbott and Tana French, you really owe it to yourself - and to them - to explore some of the earlier writers who helped to create the genre in which they all excel. These are short masterpieces, and I suspect that at least a few of them will haunt your memory long after you finish reading them.

(NOTE: These comments are a brief version of a longer view which I contributed to Sally Powers' excellent I Love a Mystery Newsletter. She and the publisher, Penguin, kindly provided me with a copy for review.)

A Little Late...

Still on my way home from Bouchercon. Today's podcast and new post will be posted later this afternoon (Monday). Sorry for the delay...

The 2013 Anthony Awards

The winners of the 2013 Anthony Awards were announced Saturday evening at Bouchercon 2013. The awards are named for Anthony Boucher and are awarded based on votes from the registered attendees at the conference.

The winners:

• Best Novel: The Beautiful Mystery, by Louise Penny
• Best FIrst Novel: The Expats, by Chris Pavone
• Best Paperback Original: Big Maria, by Johnny Shaw
• Best Short Story: "Mischief in Mesopotamia," by Dana Cameron, in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, November, 2012
• Best Critical Nonfiction Work: Books to Die For, edited by John Connolly and Declan Burke

For a complete list of the nominees, please click here.

North to Bouchercon

I'm excited to be heading north to Albany, NY, for this year's Bouchercon, the oldest and (I think) largest such conference for the crime fiction community, which begins officially on Thursday and runs through mid-day Sunday. No promises (depends on availability of Internet, etc.), but I'll try and post some updates on the doings there, including the Anthony Awards presentations on Saturday night. Lots of mystery readers, lots of mystery writers, and a good time available to be had by all.

The Resurrection of Hattie Annis

Hattie Annis, Nero Wolfe's client in "Counterfeit for Murder," one of the novellas in Homicide Trinity, is a fascinating character. As I mentioned in my review of that book, Hattie Annis narrowly escapes with her life when somebody tries to run her down with a stolen car.

She's lucky. In the original version of the story, Rex Stout actually had allowed Hattie Annis to die under the wheels of that hit-and-run car; by the seventh page of the story, she was out of it. According to John J. McAleer, Stout's biographer, while it was very unusual for Rex Stout to rewrite at all, that first version of the story really was inferior to the final version - largely because of the fascinating character of Hattie Annis. That first version was published after Stout's death as "Assault on a Brownstone," which appeared in the collection Death Times Three, along with McAleer's introduction.

All of which leaves open the question of why Rex Stout chose to rewrite this story. McAleer says he asked the author, but Stout replied, "There must be a reason, but I have forgotten what it was." Most of us who have read both versions are just grateful that he did change it.

"Homicide Trinity"

Long-time readers of Rex Stout's books about Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin will understand that there are some things one simply does not do in Wolfe's New York City brownstone. One does not, for example, use the words "imply" and "infer" interchangeably, nor should you use "contact" as a verb. Add to that list: murder. It is definitely not a good idea to walk into Wolfe's office and murder someone, especially not by strangling them with a tie Wolfe himself had worn and left on his desk. That is likely to upset Mr. Wolfe. And he is very likely to soothe his outraged ego by hunting you down.

And that is what happens in "Eeny Meeny Murder Mo," the first of three nicely polished gems in Homicide Trinity, a trio of Stout novellas originally published in 1963, and the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, which you may listen to by clicking here. "Nicely polished" indeed. Nero Wolfe, having spilled some sauce from his lunch on his tie, removes it and leaves it on his desk. While he is upstairs for his afternoon session with his orchids, Archie Goodwin admits a young woman to the office; she wants to see Wolfe and won't take "no" for an answer. So Archie goes up to the orchid room to consult with Wolfe (who echoes that "no," by the way). But when Archie comes downstairs he finds the visitor lying on the floor of the office, with Wolfe's tie knotted far too tightly around her throat.

The great man is not pleased. And I don't need to tell regular visitors to the series what Inspector Cramer will have to say about it. The only remedy for that bruised ego is for Wolfe to solve the murder himself. The problem is there are four equally-good suspects. How to find the guilty party? Hence that title, "Eeny Meeny Murder Mo."

There are two other stories here as well. In "Death of a Demon," a woman comes to Wolfe's office carrying a gun which she want to leave with him. She says it's the gun she will NOT use to murder her really awful husband. The only problem, of course, is that the husband is already dead. Shot to death. And here, once again, is Wolfe, drawn into a murder case despite his will, and forced to tread a very fine line between protecting his cient's interests and obstruction of justice.

In the third story, ""Counterfeit for Murder," we meet someone who may be one of the most engaging clients in Wolfe's career: a boarding-house keeper named Hattie Annis. She shows up at Wolfe's door with a bundle of counterfeit currency, apparently belonging to one of her boarders. When somebody tries to run her down with a stolen car, it becomes apparent that she is in considerable danger. But she's not a happy client - she hates the police, and wants Wolfe to solve the case without involving the police or (as quickly becomes apparent) the secret service.

Hattie Annis is also something of a law to herself, when it comes to dealing with the brownstone crew. Not only does she call Archie "Buster," but she astounds Wolfe by asking him to feed her lamb kidneys bourguignionne. I can think of very few characters in ANY of the Wolfe books, male or female, who has successfully astounded Wolfe. You will like Hattie Annis.

There we are. Three very good little Rex Stout novellas, in a tidy little package. Homicide Trinity is worth your time - particularly for Hattie Annis.

"The Strawstack Murder Case"

Ever notice how often people nicknamed "Tiny" are actually pretty big? I know that some people nicknamed "Slim" can get pretty hefty too, and I have met quite a few named "Shorty" who towered over me. So I guess we shouldn't be surprised when somebody nicknamed "Lucky" turns up as a corpse in a classic mystery novel, his body partly hidden in the middle of a giant strawstack in the Great Plains near Wichita, Kansas. "Lucky" was the nickname of a Kansas oilman named Ralph Loundon, and how he died - and how he wound up in that strawstack - are explained in The Strawstack Murder Case, by Kirke Mechem, a 1936 mystery from America's Golden Age of Detective Fiction - and one of the few of the period to be set in America's heartland, the Great Plains states. The Strawstack Murder Case is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the entire review by clicking here.

When the local lawmen, Sheriff Andy Burke and County Attorney Jim Warren, are confronted with the murder of Loundon, they have a hard time juggling all the suspects - there are a great many of them - and keeping the clues straight. Fortunately, they have help, in the person of Steven Steele, an amateur detective with a very good track record at solving this kind of crime. Hey, Steele is known as the Philo Vance of the Great Plains, though I'd say in his defense that he has fewer irritatin' habits than S. S. Van Dine's character. At any rate, Steele must deal with the murder investigation and all kinds of other fascinating and dangerous events, including an oil well fire and another murder. And what exactly are those mysterious clumps of animal hair found near the body and elsewhere around the scene of the crime? Our sleuth will solve it all - even finding time to stop at a White Castle stand for some hamburgers.

Mystery historian Curtis Evans gets credit for calling my attention to The Strawstack Murder Case, and he has contributed an informative and entertaining introduction to the newly-reprinted book from Coachwhip Publications. In that introduction, he notes, "The Strawstack Murder Case merits reprinting today as a fine formal example of a classical Golden Age detective novel that takes modern mystery readers down a road traveled but infrequently in crime genre tales." For fans of the American Golden Age mystery, Kirke Mechem's book makes a fine addition to your collections.