Classic Mysteries

Malice Aforethought

Malice Domestic, the organization behind the annual conference of traditional mystery readers and authors, has announced the nominees for this year's Agatha Awards. The envelopes, please...

Best Historical Novel

• Heirs and Graces, by Rhys Bowen
• Death in the Time of Ice, by Kaye George
• A Friendly Game of Murder, by JJ Murphy
• Murder in Chelsea, by Victoria Thompson
• A Question of Honor, by Charles Todd

Best Children's/YA Nominations

• The Testing, by Joelle Charbonneau
• Traitor in the Shipyard: A Caroline Mystery, by Kathleen Ernst
• Andi Unexpected, by Amanda Flower
• Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library, by Chris Grabenstein
• Code Busters Club: Mystery of the Pirate's Treasure, by Penny Warner

Best Contemporary Novel

• Through the Evil Days, by Julia Spencer
• Pagan Spring, by G. M. Malliet
• How the Light Gets In, by Louise Penny
• Clammed Up, by Barbara Ross
• The Wrong Girl, by Hank Phillippi Ryan

Best Nonfiction

• Georgette Heyer, by Jennifer Kloester
• Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes, by Maria Konnikova
• Not Everyone's Cup of Tea: An Interesting & Entertaining History of Malice Domestic's First 25 Years, by Verena Rose and Rita Owen (editors)
• The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War, by Daniel Stashower

Best First Novel

• Death Al Dente, by Leslie Budewitz
• You Cannot Die Once, by Shelley Costa
• Board Stiff, by Kendel Lynn
• Kneading to Die, by Liz Mugavero
• Front Page Fatality, by LynDee Walker

Best Short Story

• "Evil Little Girl" in Don't Get Mad, Get Even, by Barb Goffman
• "Nightmare" in Don't Get Mad, Get Even, by Barb Goffman
• "The Hindi Houdini" in Fish Nets, by Gigi Pandian
• "Bread Baby" in Best New England Crime Stories 2014: Stone Cold, by Barbara Ross
• "The Care and Feeding of House Plants" in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, by Art Taylor

The winners will be determined by votes cast by those attending the 26th annual Malice Domestic Conference in Bethesda, MD, from May 2 through May 4, with the awards being presented at a gala banquet at the festivities. Congratulations are in order for all the nominees.

More About Mr. Campion and Friends

I have some more information to share about the new book featuring Albert Campion, coming later this spring. As I wrote yesterday, Mike Ripley has completed a hitherto-unfinished book about Mr. Campion, the character created by Margery Allingham - a book left unfinished at the death of Ms. Allingham's husband, Philip Youngman Carter. It will be called Mr. Campion's Farewell.

Mike Ripley has sent me a note with some more details:

As I make clear in “Mr Campion’s Farewell” it is a continuation of an untitled third solo novel by Youngman Carter. He only managed four chapters before he died in November 1969.

I am well aware of his two Campion novels - as I edited new editions of them for Ostara Publishing last year!

Having read several of Youngman Carter’s short stories (the majority published in Argosy actually), his journalism, his travel writing and even his poetry (!) as background, I can certainly spot his influence on Margery’s character Albert Campion, notably in the earlier books, say 1930-38, and again in the post WWII period, though his collaboration with his wife (which she always admitted) tailed off after about 1950 when he was doing other things.

He got back into Campion to finish off “Cargo of Eagles” when Margery died in 1966 and was the logical choice to keep the series going.

I'm looking forward to reading this one, when it's published. Severn House will be releasing it in the UK in March, with an ebook and a US edition coming a couple of months later.

Ripley did also comment on the growing number of revivals of popular detectives:

My crack about “other revived detectives are available” refers to the latest Lord Peter Wimsey novel (out last month here) by Jill Paton Walsh and the new Hercule Poirot novel coming in September from Sophie Hannah, not to mention a recent James Bond and the much-threatened return of Philip Marlowe....It seems you just can’t keep good characters down.

Indeed!

The Comeback Kids

Perhaps it is merely a sign that the spring will be with us soon, with its promise of rejuvenescence, but I was reminded that today is the official publishing date for Robert Goldsborough's Murder in the Ball Park, his latest continuation of Rex Stout's series of mysteries starring Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. I've written about it here and Jeff Pierce's excellent interview with Goldsborough is here.

By coincidence, I also received an email today from Mike Ripley, who writes the monthly "Getting Away with Murder" column for Britain's Shots eZine, telling me that we are about to get a new mystery featuring Albert Campion, the character originally created by Margery Allingham. Ripley has "completed" the book, called Mr. Campion's Farewell. Based on a conversation in the Golden Age of Detection group on Facebook, the new book is actually the completion of a book begun by Philip Youngman Carter, Allingham's husband, but never completed. (Carter did complete an earlier manuscript left unfinished by Allingham, Cargo of Eagles. Curtis Evans reminds us in his blog, The Passing Tramp, that Carter also wrote two Campion books of his own, Mr. Campion's Farthing and Mr. Campion's Falcon. (To confuse matters further, the latter may also appear as Mr. Campion's Quarry.) In any case, Severn House plans to release Mr. Campion's Farewell in the U.K. on March 27th, with an ebook and US edition due in June.

Not content with these revivals, Ripley's note also contains the curious line, "Other revived detectives are available." I have no idea what he means and will be very eager to find out.

The Squid Has Spoken

The squids in charge of Left Coast Crime 2014 - the conference also known as Calamari Crime - have announced the nominees for the four 2014 Left Coast Crime Awards. They are:

The Lefty: Best humorous mystery novel

• Donna Andrews, The Hen of the Baskervilles
• Timothy Hallinan, The Fame Thief
• Lisa Lutz, The Last Word
• Brad Parks, The Good Cop
• Cindy Sample, Dying for a Daiquiri

The Bruce Alexander Memorial Historical Mystery Award: Best historical mystery novel covering events before 1960

• Rhys Bowen, Heirs and Graces
• Susan Ella MacNeal, His Majesty's Hope
• Catriona McPherson, Dandy Gilver and a Bothersome Number of Corpses
• David Morrell, Murder as a Fine Art
• Priscilla Royal, Covenant with Hell
• Jacqueline Winspear, Leaving Everything Most Loved

The Squid: Best mystery set within the United States

• Sue Grafton, W is for Wasted
• Darrell James, Purgatory Key
• William Kent Krueger, Ordinary Grace
• Hank Phillippi Ryan, The Wrong Girl
• Terry Shames, A Killing at Cotton Hill

The Calamari: Best mystery set anywhere else in the world

• Cara Black, Murder Below Montparnasse
• Lisa Brackmann, Hour of the Rat
• Catriona McPherson, As She Left It
• Louise Penny, How the Light Gets In
• Jeffrey Siger, Mykonos After Midnight

Congratulations, as always, to all the nominees for a job well done. The people attending Calamari Crime will vote for the winners in each category, who will be announced at the awards banquet on Saturday, March 22nd. I hope to see at least some of you there.

"Gambit"

Someone has murdered the master - the master chess player, that is. Paul Jerin was playing a dozen games of chess blindfolded, against twelve different opponents simultaneously, when someone gave him a cup of hot chocolate quite liberally laced with poison. As far as the police were concerned, it was a simple case - the only person who could have done it was Matthew Blount, the man who gave Jerin the hot chocolate and who immediately washed out the cup afterwards. Blount's daughter wasn't buying it - and she came to Nero Wolfe to persuade him to find the evidence that would clear her father.

In a nutshell, that's what you'll find in Gambit, by Rex Stout. The 1962 mystery featuring Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin is the subject of this week's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the entire review by clicking here.

The word "gambit" is a technical term in chess, referring to an opening move by a player in which a pawn or other chess piece is sacrificed to gain a strategic advantage. It becomes a central image in the book, as Nero Wolve and his right-hand assistant, Archie Goodwin, try to determine who killed Paul Jerin and why. They must, of course, come up with an answer that satisfies the police - and they quickly discover that they are working on a case in which they simply haven't a shred of evidence, even after they answer the questions of who and why.

That's all I'll say about the plot - but I will also recommend this story because it has what I think is probably the finest opening scene of any of the Nero Wolfe novels. We are treated to the spectacle of Nero Wolfe, sitting in his office, tearing pages out of the then-new, third edition of Webster’s New International Dictionary, Unabridged. The book outraged Wolfe's sense of what he considered to be proper English usage, by, for instance, using "imply" and "infer" interchangeably, and his response is quite visceral. It's a marvelous scene. The book also ends with what Archie calls "one of the best charades Wolfe has ever staged," as he sets up a gambit of his own to catch the killer.

Gambit, unfortunately, appears to be out of print again, although the link above will take you to a version for the Kindle; I also see that Amazon's web of used book dealers seem to have a number of reasonably priced copies. It's worth going to the trouble to get it - it's a clever plot, and if you find yourself arriving, along with Wolfe and Archie, at the correct identity of the killer, you will still face...but why spoil it? I do think you'll enjoy it.

One more thing: Gambit will be my first entry this year in Bev Hankins's newest vintage mystery reading challenge over at the My Reader's Block blog - you can read all about it at the link, but it's a challenge involving matching books to categories. Players can choose "Golden" (pre-1960) or "Silver" (1960-1980) bingo cards. Gambit fits nicely on the Silver card as "a book with a detective team." It's going to be an interesting year.

----

UPDATED to fix broken link

Looking for the Podcast?

As I mentioned earlier, the company that hosted my podcast for the past nearly-seven years has decided to close up. As a result, I've been relocating my podcast files - and you may discover that your computer has "lost" the regular weekly updates and new audio reviews. (This blog, happily, is not affected.)

So far, I think, iTunes has redirected itself to my new host, so if that's how you get the podcasts, you should be fine. I don't seem to be able (so far) to redirect any other users to the new home. So if you need to paste the new information into your reader or collection program, copy-and-paste this link and everything should work. You can always find the latest podcasts, of course, in the list on the right side of this page.

I'm leaving this post at the top of the blog for a few weeks, to catch any stragglers and help them find the new location. If you still have a problem, please leave a comment below, and I'll try to help.

Searching for Gold(sborough)

I have written here about the new mystery featuring Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, written by Robert Goldsborough, called "Murder in the Ball Park," which will be published officially next week.

Over at The Rap Sheet blog, Jeff Pierce has published an interview which he conducted via email with Goldsborough, talking about the new book and also about some of Goldsborough's books which are not continuations of the Nero Wolfe series, featuring a Chicago police reporter named Snap Malek. It's an interesting interview, and I think you'll enjoy reading it. Among other points, Goldsborough says that his favorite among the original Nero Wolfe books is The League of Frightened Men, a book which is also among my favorites - I think it's one of the best of the very early books in the series.

By the way, The Rap Sheet ought to be on your regular checklist for staying up with news from the broader world of mystery fiction. 

"The Dishonest Murderer"

Now here's a title for a murder mystery that sounds a bit odd, doesn't it? The Dishonest Murderer surely reflects a peculiar way of looking at a violent crime such as murder, right? And yet here's a case in which the entire setting of the murder - from its victim, to the method of murder, to the setting where the body was found - all seemed wrong. And that's at the heart of the mystery in The Dishonest Murderer, by Frances and Richard Lockridge. The Dishonest Murderer is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the entire review by clicking here.

Readers old enough to remember the glory days of radio and television drama may well remember the radio mysteries - and later television shows - centered around the characters of Pam and Jerry North, a husband and wife team who always seemed, somehow, to get involved in murder cases. As the article about the Norths in Wikipedia points out, quite accurately, “They were not professional detectives but simply an ordinary couple who stumbled across a murder or two every week for 12 years.” Most of the time, they would wind up helping their police friends solve the case. 

The Norths carried out their investigations in more than two dozen books, written by Frances and Richard Lockridge. The Dishonest Murderer appeared in 1949. The Norths become involved in the search for the murderer of a United States senator, who was found dead in a doorway on the seedy Bowery in New York City. The murder was bad enough - but what intrigued Pam North in particular - and eventually led to the solution of the case - was that the setting for the crime was all wrong. Why was the senator, who had been expected at his fiancee's New Year's Eve party, walking around on the Bowery, dressed in ill-fitting and disreputable clothes? Why was he given a drink laced with knockout drops and left to die of exposure in an unlighted doorway?

For those who are new to the Norths, and I must admit that I can't remember reading one of the Lockridges' books before, The Dishonest Murderer is a good way to meet a couple of very nicely drawn, intelligent protagonists. The supporting cast are also very well characterized, and readers will find themselves liking most of these people and wishing them well. The Lockridge books are mostly out of print, alas, but The Dishonest Murderer is available as an inexpensive ebook for the Kindle (and, I would presume, in other electronic formats as well). You'll enjoy their company.

Just a Poe Boy...

It's probably a little late to be baking a cake and sending it, but today marks the 205th anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe, the man who is generally credited with having invented the detective story. Happy birthday to an American original!

Nero Wolfe as Umpire?

Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin tackle the murder of a New York state senator who was shot while attending a ball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds in Manhattan.

If that sentence doesn't make sense to you, let's start with a bit of semi-ancient history (which I, fortunately or not, am old enough to remember) - a time when there were only 16 major league baseball teams, three of which - the Dodgers, Giants and Yankees - all played in New York. I am told by reliable sources that the Dodgers and Giants continue to play baseball somewhere out west, but I cannot prove it.

At any rate, readers of the Nero Wolfe mysteries will want to know that there is a new book coming out at the end of January, written by Robert Goldsborough, called Murder in the Ball Park. It is a continuation of the series written by Rex Stout featuring the irascible, largely immobile Nero Wolfe, and his assistant, Archie Goodwin, and it appears with the blessing of the Stout estate.

The story deals with the shooting of state senator Orson Milbank in the middle of a ball game, where Archie Goodwin is in attendance. The senator's widow tries to persuade Archie to investigate the murder, and Archie, in turn, must persuade Wolfe to get involved - no easy task.

As readers of this blog probably know, I am an enormous fan of the original series of books and novellas to feature Wolfe, Goodwin and the rest of the 35th Street crew. So how is this continuation?

I must say I have mixed feelings.

I'm not a huge fan of continuations, especially of books featuring characters I know as well as I know Wolfe and Goodwin. I do think Goldsborough's last book, Archie Meets Nero Wolfe, worked very well. It dealt with the meeting of Wolfe and Goodwin; as a result, I was more willing to suspend my disbelief in any details that might seem jarring to a regular reader of the series - the inevitable passages where a reader might say, "That doesn't sound like the Nero Wolfe (or Archie) that I know." It worked because it was set at the time when the two first met so the characters really hadn't formed their familiar speech and behavior patterns.

Murder in the Ball Park, on the other hand, doesn't have that grace. And, yes, I did find myself frowning occasionally and saying "That doesn't sound..." or "Wolfe (or Goodwin) would never do/say that."

But if I were a new reader? If I didn't come with my own preconceptions of the characters? Well, in that case, I'd probably enjoy Murder in the Ball Park a lot more - perhaps enough to want to go back and read some of the Rex Stout originals. And I think that's a good thing. The story is clever and Goldsborough certainly makes it clear that he respects the characters and Stout's legacy. With that in mind, I'd say, yes, you're likely to enjoy Murder in the Ball Park.