Classic Mysteries

Malicious Intent

Getting set to head down to Bethesda, MD, where Malice Domestic will be running all weekend long. It's a festival for some of the finest traditional mystery writers and their readers, and it's always a great deal of fun. This is its 26th year! I'll try to post some of the highlights here, including the Agatha Awards for fine mystery writing, which will be presented Saturday night. I hope I'll see some of you there!

Update on Comments

According to the folks at Typepad, where this blog resides, comments on this blog should be working and accessible now. According to them, the problem lies with Typekey (which handles those checkins for comments). They say "Readers may see a security warning message, they can go ahead and accept the warning and be able to bypass it to go back to your blog and leave a comment." They're still working on getting it set up, but for now, go ahead, click to accept the warning, and you'll be able to comment. Thanks for your patience!

More Mysterious Love

There's a new issue available online of the I Love a Mystery Newsletter, a bimonthly collection of reviews of books in just about every mystery sub-genre. This month, I count over a hundred reviews available for your reading pleasure online, and I suspect that everyone should be able to find some new book and/or new author among all those reviews. For once, I don't have any new ones of my own in this issue, but there are so many other gems here, I doubt anyone will miss me. Enjoy!

"One Coffee With"

At the 26th annual Malice Domestic conference in Bethesda, Maryland, next weekend, three fine mystery writers will be honored by their peers and by their readers with Lifetime Achievement Awards. Dorothy Cannell, Joan Hess and Margaret Maron all have long lists of credits to their name, and they richly deserve their honors.

To observe the occasion, I thought we might look back at the first novel written by one of these three authors: Margaret Maron's One Coffee With. Maron is best known for her later series of mysteries about Judge Deborah Knott. But before those books, Maron wrote an eight-book series about a New York City Police Lieutenant, Sigrid Harald. The first of those books, appearing in 1981, was One Coffee With, and it was Maron's first full-length novel - she had been a short story writer before then. It is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you may listen to the complete review by clicking here.

The mystery and the murder take place in the art department of the fictional Vanderlyn College in New York City. The deputy chairman of the department, Professor Riley Quinn, an art historian, takes a cup of coffee into his office…drinks it…and dies, having been poisoned with potassium dichromate, a chemical used in the art department’s printmaking workshop.

Lieutenant Harald arrives, along with her assistant, Detective Tilden, to begin her investigation of the murder. The first thing she will learn is that practically anyone in the department – certainly among the faculty, but also including a couple of the students and even a member of the building and grounds crew – had excellent reasons to hate Professor Quinn, and little reason to mourn his death.

The main problem – and it’s really a classic puzzle – centers around that poisoned coffee. It seems that the coffee must have been poisoned and placed on the tray that held everyone’s coffee. But – of course – nobody saw that happen. And how could the killer have known that Professor Quinn would take that particular cup…or was it not meant for him at all?

These are the questions Lieutenant Harald and her assistants must answer. The story is more along the lines of a classic mystery than a police procedural, and it is quite well and believably done. Sigrid Harald is a strong character, and part of the book focuses on her role as a woman in a job that, until that time, had been filled almost exclusively by men. Maron writes with grace and wit, and her observations of the academic rivalries at Vanderlyn College are both funny and quite perceptive.

One Coffee With has been republished in a new trade paperback edition from Oconee Spirit Press. It includes a new introduction by Margaret Maron explaining how the book came to be - and, for that matter, how she became a much-honored mystery writer. I think you'll enjoy it.

On Misleading Blurbs

My friend Margot Kinberg, who blogs about mysteries of all kinds over at Confessions of a Mystery Novelist, has written an excellent, thought-provoking post today on the subject of blurbs - those "teasers" printed on the backs or dust jackets of books and meant to entice readers inside to enjoy the full book.

Margot actually set up an admittedly small experiment, where she picked a handful of titles in several sub-genres and compared the books with the advertising copy found in the blurb. She found a surprisingly high percentage of the blurbs were misleading at best - and a disturbing number of them included plot "spoilers" as well.

By all means, go visit her blog and read this article - and please leave comments there. Misleading blurbs are unfair to everyone - unfair to authors, who may lose readers; unfair to readers, who may be either put off a good book or enticed into a poor one by these misleading advertisements. Well done, Margot!

Sorry...

As some of you have noted, comments appear to be down at the moment. Typepad, the service which hosts this blog, has been the victim of a criminal "denial of service" attack for several days. This has knocked our blog (and thousands of others) offline. Typepad has scrambled to get things fixed, but - at the moment - the comment function appears to be down. We're hoping everything returns soon. And, to be clear, the problem lies with the criminals who are trying to disrupt the system, NOT with Typepad, which is struggling to fix things. Your patience is appreciated. Note, by the way, that the podcasts (the audio versions of the reviews) are NOT affected - only the blog.

"Green Shiver"

The Chinese statuette was really quite charming, carved from fine jade. It represented a Taoist deity known as the Goddess of the Green Shiver. It was not particularly valuable. So why, among the pieces of beautiful, rare and valuable artwork on display at the private exhibition, had someone chosen to steal this particular statuette? Before that question was answered, there would be a double murder to solve - and while the police were pretty sure who had committed the crime, historian and professor Lucius Theocritus Westborough disagreed. You can get the full story in Green Shiver, a 1941 mystery by Clyde B. Clason. It's the book you'll find reviewed today on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to that review by clicking here.

Clyde B. Clason, and his detective, Professor Westborough, are probably best known for their "impossible crime" sagas, but Green Shiver, the last of Clason's ten mysteries featuring the Professor, does not really have any impossible crimes to be solved. What it does have, however, is a rather exotic atmosphere and a mystery surrounding that jade statuette, and the mystery proves to be every bit as complicated and difficult to solve as an impossible crime might be. The story was written in the year leading up to the American entry into World War II, and that war, well under way in both Europe and the Pacific, plays a significant role in the events of the book. The mystery is quite fairly clued, but the reader should expect a surprising number of twists and turns in the plot before the mystery is resolved.

It should be noted that there is a fair amount of anti-Oriental prejudice expressed by some of the characters in the book, particularly the deliberately ignorant local police. Professor Westborough, by contrast, appreciates many of the nuances of Chinese culture (and the bitter hatred at the time between the Chinese and the Japanese who had invaded China), and it is only that appreciation of Chinese history and culture which allows Professor Westborough to reach a satisfactory solution to the mystery. Bottom line: Green Shiver is, in my estimation, one of Clason's best books, and I recommend it highly.

Once again, I am submitting this post as an entry in the My Reader's Block Vintage Mystery Bingo Reading Challenge, filling the square on the Golden bingo card calling for one book with a color in the title. For those keeping score, that completes the top line on my score card, and I call "Bingo!" accordingly.

 

"Necklace and Calabash"

Judge Dee was looking forward to his stopover in Rivertown, on his way home to his district. He was tired, and the prospect of a couple of days of fishing and rest sounded good. What he found instead was a gruesome murder, the theft of an exquisite pearl necklace from the Emperor's favorite daughter, and a court intrigue that had the potential to shake the foundations of the Chinese empire.

That's the situation we find in Necklace and Calabash, by Robert Van Gulik. Set in seventh-century imperial China, this was the next-to-last of his novels about Judge Dee, an actual statesman and detective who lived during the T'ang dynasty. Originally published in 1967, Necklace and Calabash is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. You can listen to the entire review by clicking here.

Judge Dee has barely arrived in Rivertown when he is confronted with the murder of a clerk who had worked at one of the local inns. Rivertown was a special area administered by the military because the Emperor's favorite daughter, the Third Princess, had her summer residence nearby in the Water Palace. The military authorities ask Judge Dee for his help. But he has barely arrived in town before he is summoned to the Water Palace for an audience with the Third Princess, who orders him to help locate a missing pearl necklace, apparently stolen from her room.

It's a wonderful plot. Judge Dee will encounter many fascinating characters, some helpful, some hostile. Among those characters is a Taoist recluse who calls himself Master Gourd, who travels with an empty gourd, a calabash, and who will be instrumental in helping Judge Dee solve the mysteries - in fact, Master Gourd will save the judge's life...

Necklace and Calabash is my favorite of the Judge Dee books. There are three major mysteries expertly interwoven here. Judge Dee, who is ably assisted by a team of aides in most of the other books, is on his own in Rivertown and must form new alliances. All this takes place against a backdrop of imperial China. Van Gulik, who was a Dutch diplomat, was an authority on Chinese history and culture, and his insight into what life may have been like in Judge Dee's time adds a fascinating subtext to the book. I can't recommend this one highly enough.

I'm also including this book in the My Reader's Block Vintage Mystery Bingo Challenge, filling in the square on the silver score card calling for "one book with a lawyer, courtroom, judge, etc." Judge Dee will fit right in.

For those of you who might want to discuss this book further, we'll be talking about it among the 4 Mystery Addicts newsgroup on Yahoo! Groups between April 20 and April 30. If you don't belong to the group already...well, you should, no matter what kind of mysteries and crime fiction you enjoy. Come join the fun!

Ripley Returns

I am late in pointing out that Mike Ripley is back with his monthly column, "Getting Away With Murder," in the Shots ezine. It's the usual mix of criticism, gossip, and general good will. Among the current topics, is a rather remarkable display of some books allegedly written by Jack Higgins, though probably not the thriller writer by that name...

"Pietr the Latvian"

Tracing the man should have been easy for Chief Detective Inspector Maigret. He knew exactly what the man looked like, right down to the shape of his ears. So it was a bit disconcerting, to say the least, after Maigret watched Pietr the Latvian walk off a train and out of the railroad station, to discover a dead man still on board the train who might very well have been...Pietr the Latvian.

It happens in Georges Simenon's first book about Maigret, called Pietr the Latvian, and it is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. You can listen to the complete review by clicking here.

The question Maigret must answer is, who is this Pietr the Latvian. Is he an international criminal, whose movements are being tracked by police all over Europe? Could he be, perhaps, that respectable, married sea captain? A drunken Russian vagrant? A murderous hit man? Or could he be that man whose body was found murdered on a train traveling through France? The answer will not come easily - and it will come at a startling high price in terms of violence and lives lost.

Pietr the Latvian first appeared as a serial in 1930 and was published in book form the next year. Simenon went on to write some 75 books and stories about Maigret. This story is pretty grim and gritty, but it is an absorbing novel, and Maigret's character is pretty clearly defined as it will continue throughout his and Simenon's careers. 

Penguin Books has announced plans to reissue all of the Maigret books. This first one, in an excellent new translation by David Bellos, is a good place to begin your friendship with Maigret.

My thanks to Sally Powers, who provided me with a copy for review and who has allowed me to cannibalize my earlier review of Pietr the Latvian for the I Love a Mystery newsletter. This review is also being submitted to the Vintage Mystery Bingo Reading Challenge, filling in the square on the Bingo score card that calls for one book with a man in the title.