Classic Mysteries

"The Wrong Way Down"

Biblio expert Henry Gamadge was not much of a believer in the supernatural. When an elderly acquaintance asked his opinion about an etching on which some lettering had appeared quite suddenly, Gamadge was quite sure he could come up with a natural, rather than supernatural, explanation. What he could not foresee was how that peculiar lettering could lead to murder. And before it was over, Gamadge himself would become the target of a remarkably determined and increasingly desperate killer.

It all happens in The Wrong Way Down, by Elizabeth Daly. Originally published in 1946, it was the eleventh of Daly's sixteen books about bibliophile and rare book and manuscript expert Henry Gamadge. It is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the entire review by clicking here.

If you're not familiar with Elizabeth Daly - said to be one of Agatha Christie's favorite American authors - then you have a treat in store for you when you read The Wrong Way Down. Daly, like Christie, was an expert in fairly misdirecting her readers, providing clues that I suspect most readers, self included, are likely to miss - until the end of the book. Among the joys of her books is the pleasure of walking with Gamadge through the streets of New York City in the 1940s, visiting the still-occupied city houses of the middle-to-upper class, many of them just east of Central Park – and a surprising number of them hiding possibly deadly secrets.

And of course, that's what seems to be happening in The Wrong Way Down. An elderly woman, trying to close up a New York City house for out-of-town relatives, finds that a familiar, and not particularly remarkable, engraving in that house has acquired some text on its surface - text which definitely had not been there before the visit of a self-styled Spiritualist medium. Supernatural? Gamadge, not surprisingly, says no. He can explain what has happened - and why. But he is not prepared for murder - or to become the target of some unsuccessful attempts on his own life.

It's a lovely book, particularly the sense of nostalgia it evokes for a gentler New York City. The ending is a surprise (or at least it was to me); Gamadge, generally unflappable and polite, is one of my favorite amateur detectives. I must say I do prefer some of Daly's other books - particularly The Book of the Dead, but there is much to enjoy in The Wrong Way Down. I do recommend it heartily.

The Wrong Way Down is another entry in the Vintage Mystery Bingo Reading Challenge under way at the My Reader's Block blog. I am entering it for the requirement to "read one book with an amateur detective."

 

"Death-Watch"

Terrifying scenes, observed through a skylight window. Telltale splashes of gilt paint. Something malevolent crawing around on the roof, peering out from behind a chimney. And murder - murder committed with the sharp, pointed hand of a clock.

That's what you'll find in Death-Watch, by John Dickson Carr. Written in 1935, the heart of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, the book pits Carr's detective, Dr. Gideon Fell, against a far-too-clever opponent and a murder that is macabre in its plotting and its resolution. Death-Watch is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the full review by clicking here.

Carr, of course, is famous for his locked room and impossible crime mysteries, but there's less of that in Death-Watch than in most Carr books. Instead, what you have might best be described as an impossible atmosphere, nightmarish scenes and sensibilities designed to hook the reader. There's less of Carr's usual sense of humor on display here - he often uses humor to relieve the tension in his books, but there's not much of that going on. As Dr. Fell says, "I give you my word the damned case frightened me, and I seem to recollect that it’s the only one that ever did."

I don't want to tell you much about the plot - I won't spoil it for you. Suffice to say that Dr. Fell and his friend, Professor Melson, stumble upon a murder - an unknown man killed with a weapon that turns out to be one of the hands of a clock. And when they find out the identity of the victim - that's when the terror really begins.

Long out of print, Open Road Media has brought “Death-Watch” back as an e-book. It belongs in your collection.

I am submitting Death-Watch as another entry in the Vintage Mystery Bingo reading challenge under way at the My Reader's Block blog. This fills the square "one book with a method of murder in the title." You'll certainly find that in Death-Watch.

Your Indulgence is Requested...

This week's podcast and blog post will be a bit late. The management is moving from a large house to a still large but not quite THAT big apartment.  This necessitates a certain amount of chaos. The podcast is ready; the blog post not quite so...so give me an extra day or two. Everything should  be here by Tuesday or Wednesday.Thank you for your indulgence. It will be worth waiting for - a good John Dickson Carr title coming up...

"Mr. Bazalgette's Agent"

Long before Kinsey Millhone, long before V. I. Warshawski, long before all of today's top-rated - and top-read - female P.I.s, there was Miriam Lea.

Miriam who?

Miriam Lea, one of the very first woman detectives in fiction. In the Victorian era, when a female detective was pretty well unheard of, Miriam Lea applied for, and accepted, a job with a Mr. Bazalgette, the proprietor of a London-based private detective agency. Her story is told in Mr. Bazalgette's Agent, an 1888 book by Leonard Merrick, and that book is the subject of today's  audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. You can listen to the entire review by clicking here.

1888 was just one year after Sherlock Holmes made his first appearance in print, so we are going back quite far in the history of the detective story. Mr. Bazalgette's Agent tells the story of Miriam Lea, a young woman looking for some way to earn a living without having to become, say, a shopkeeper's assistant. She answers an advertisement placed by Mr. Bazalgette, whose detective agency is seeking a woman to act as a private investigator. She is sent out in search of a young man who seems to have absconded with a good deal of the bank's money. Mr. Bazalgette's Agent is the story of her search for that man, a search which takes her first through Europe and, eventually, all the way to South Africa in pursuit of her man. There are a fair number of surprises along the way. It is, I must say, a fairly gentle mystery - no violence, really, and a certain Victorian sensibility. But it is a very enjoyable story, quite worth reading. The British Library has republished this rarity, and they provided a review copy to me.

I am submitting this review as another entry in the My Reader's Block blog Vintage Mystery Bingo Challenge, filling another square on my Golden bingo card that calls for "a book by an author you've never read before."

"The Devil at Saxon Wall"

Saxon Wall was not exactly one of those lovely, idyllic and peaceful little English villages, so often the setting for a rather genteel murder or two. The people were rather nasty and unfriendly, everyone seemed to share some rather sordid secrets, and there was an uneasy aura of witchcraft which hung over the town. So when there were several unexplained deaths - not to mention persistent rumors about babies being switched at birth - psychiatrist and consultant Beatrice Lestrange Bradley was called to town to try and make sense out of what was going on at Saxon Wall.  What she found is explained in Gladys Mitchell's marvelous 1935 book, The Devil at Saxon Wall. It's 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 village is Saxon Wall? Here's how Mitchell describes it:

“The village of Saxon Wall, where they had come to live, was in a remote part of Hampshire. It was an ugly, straggling place, and Constance disliked and feared the people. They were like no villagers that she had ever seen. She had a poor memory for verse, but every time she encountered any of the inhabitants of Saxon Wall there came into her mind the line ‘ugly squat and full of guile.’…Both men and women seemed stupid and ferocious, so that, mixed with the fear of them, was a good deal of disgust. Even the children were ugly, and most of them threw stones at her whenever they saw her.”

Suffice it to say that Constance does not thrive in Saxon Wall. And it is only when an outsider comes to town, an author named Hannibal Jones, that anyone begins to connect the dots around a number of disappearances and mysterious deaths, along with those rumors about exchanged babies. And it is up to Mrs. Bradley to pursue those clues and find some resolution to the case.

That summary probably makes the book sound grimmer than it really is. Gladys Mitchell has a wonderful way of working humor into her text, amid some genuine horrors. Readers looking for eccentric behavior and eerie atmosphere in an excellent Golden Age classic will find much to enjoy here – whether it’s the eldritch laugh of Mrs. Bradley, or the odd behavior of the sisters who keep a goat as their household pet, or the minister who refuses to pray for rain in the midst of a terrible drought, or the rumors of the “long, thin man,” a spirit buried outside town in a prehistoric barrow and believed by villagers to be sleeping there. And, always, back to witchcraft again.

Fair warning: the plot is quite convoluted - so much so that, after the novel ends, we are presented with Mrs. Bradley's notes about the case, which include pointers to the clues (many given to us while reading) that led her eventually to solve the various mysteries of Saxon Wall. This is probably not the best introduction to Mrs. Bradley for a new reader. But if you've encountered her before, and enjoyed the eccentricities and humor along with the requisite horrors, then by all means read The Devil at Saxon Wall. Long unavailable in the U.S., it's now back in print in a new edition and also available as an ebook, and I recommend it strongly to Mrs. Bradley's fans - and Mitchell's fans as well.

I am submitting The Devil at Saxon Wall as another title read as part of the Vintage Mystery Bingo Reading Challenge under way at the My Reader's Block blog, filling the square on my Golden Bingo card calling for "one book set in England."

2013 Agatha Awards

 The 2013/14 Agatha Awards were presented this evening at a banquet at the Malice Domestic conference in Bethesda, MD. Winners are noted in boldface:

Best Contemporary Novel

• The Wrong Girl, by Hank Phillippi Ryan
• 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

Best Historical Novel

• A Question of Honor, by Charles Todd
• 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

Best Children's/YA Nominations

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

Best Nonfiction

• The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War, by Daniel Stashower
• 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)

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

• "The Care and Feeding of House Plants" in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, by Art Taylor
• "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

In addition, Lifetime Achievement Awards were presented to Dorothy Cannell, Joan Hess and Margaret Maron. The Poirot Award went to Tom Schantz, the publisher behind the Rue Morgue Press.

Congratulations to the winners and to all the nominees.

Sign Here, Please

One of the highlights of any mystery conference is the opportunity to gather autographs for your own copy of a favorite author's works.

At Malice Domestic, dozens of authors are brought together as a group just above the hotel lobby to sign autographs.

It's another opportunity for readers to meet and talk with the people who write the books they enjoy.

Coming up this evening: the Agatha Awards.

Open Mike

While I'm off gallivanting about at Malice Domestic, you can and should keep up with the latest news from the mystery world, with emphasis on what's happening in the U. K., by reading Mike Ripley's latest monthly column for Shots ezine. You'll find the usual mix of facts, humor and general stuff. It's worth reading regularly.

Now...exactly what is "gallivanting about," and how does one do it?

The Edgars

The Mystery Writers of America awarded this year's Edgars in New York last night. Some of the winners are on their way down to Bethesda, MD, right now to join us at Malice Domestic. You'll find a full list of the winners and nominees here. Congratulations to all!

Malicious Delights

Back in Bethesda again and ready to rumble:

"Not everyone's cup of tea," is it? It's mine, certainly. There will be more than 500 readers and authors gathered here for the weekend, all fans of (and creators of) traditional mysteries, lacking excessive violence, save for the occasional murder or two, and - as a rule - well-plotted and generally witty and fun to read. If you enjoy these mysteries, you really ought to try one of the major mystery conferences - with Malice Domestic a good example.