Classic Mysteries

"They Found Him Dead"

It has occurred to me more than once that, had I been selling insurance during England's Golden Age of Detective Fiction,  I probably would have been most reluctant to insure the lives of those sometimes-tyrannical and patriarchal gentlemen accustomed to riding over the wishes of the increasingly unhappy relatives and business partners who live at the family's country house. The thought arises from reading another of Georgette Heyer's excellent Golden Age mysteries, They Found Him Dead, first published in 1937. It is the book being reviewed today on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the complete review by clicking here.

They Found Him Dead presents us with just such a family patriarch. Silas Kane is not really hated by his relatives, but he IS standing in the way of a business deal which several family members would like to see made. Kane is surrounded by his relatives as he celebrates his sixtieth birthday. That evening, he goes out for a walk on a path by a cliff - quite a foggy path, really - with entirely predictable results. It certainly seems that Silas Kane must have become confused in the fog, slipped, and fell to his death.

But then another person dies - this time shot to death in the house, almost (but not quite) in front of witnesses. And a third person finds himself the target of increasingly dangerous attacks.

Into this situation, Heyer brings her detectives, Superintendent Hannasyde and his assistant, Sergeant Hemingway. And the more they investigate this case, the more puzzled they become, for the pieces of the case don't really seem to fit together. These two professionals are a refreshing change from the all-too-often encountered and not very bright police officers found in too many mysteries. Hannasyde and Hemingway are pretty clear-headed; what's more they have senses of humor and aren't afraid to use them - or even to press some would-be amateur sleuths into service.

Georgette Heyer, of course, is best known for her Regency romance novels, but she also wrote a dozen entertaining mysteries. I think They Found Him Dead is one of the best.

As Hannasyde and Hemingway are thoroughly professional, I am submitting this as another entry in the My Reader's Block blog Vintage Mystery Bingo Reading Challenge, filling the space on my golden bingo card calling for one book with a professional detective.

Love a Mystery!

The newest edition of the bimonthly I Love a Mystery newsletter has just been posted for your reading pleasure. For 20 years, this newsletter has provided readers with reviews of all kinds of mysteries. Whatever genre or sub-genre you prefer, you'll find something here that will intrigue and entertain you. I review classic books and classic authors for the newsletter, but I assure you that there are a great many other reviewers and a huge selection of other books to tempt you. Give it a try - it's free!

The Macavity Awards

Some very fine modern mysteries will be up for awards this fall: Janet Rudolph, the editor of Mystery Readers Journal, has announced the nominees for this year's Macavity Awards, which will be presented in November (along with this year's Anthony Awards) at Bouchercon 2014 in Long Beach, California.

The Macavity Awards are presented for Best Mystery Novel, Best First Mystery, Best Mystery Short Story, Best Non-Fiction and the Sue Feder Historical Mystery Award. For a complete list of the nominees, click here. The awards are nominated, and voted upon, by members and friends of Mystery Readers International and subscribers to Mystery Readers Journal. 

The Macavity Awards are named for Macavity the Mystery Cat, one of the cats celebrated by poet T. S. Eliot in Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats:

Macavity's a Mystery Cat: he's called the Hidden Paw
For he's the master criminal who can defy the Law.
He's the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad's despair:
For when they reach the scene of crime - Macavity's not there!

Well, at least I learned something as an English major.

Congratulations to all the nominees - it looks like a very rich field!

"Death on the Cherwell"

Now here's an interesting mystery. It's a Golden Age classic, set in Oxford, England, in the 1930s. It involves the students and staff at a college for women students, part of Oxford University, at a time when the notion of providing an Oxford education to a woman was still a matter of heated debate. It revolves around a member of that staff who seems to draw criticism and controversy to herself. It was published in 1935. It's title is...

Wait a second. You're thinking that I must be talking about Gaudy Night, by Dorothy L. Sayers, one of the mysteries featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane. 

Wrong.

I am talking about Mavis Doriel Hay's book, Death on the Cherwell.

Mavis who?

Mavis Doriel Hay wrote just three mysteries in the course of her career. They were written at the peak of the so-called Golden Age of Detective Fiction. Death on the Cherwell is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the full review by clicking here.

In Death on the Cherwell, we are introduced to several young women, all undergraduate students at Persephone College for Women within Oxford University. They have gathered at an old boathouse on the Cherwell to form a secret society. Its purpose (for all such organizations must have a purpose): to curse the name of Miss Denning, the college bursar, who has - according to the students - made all their lives miserable.

Their meeting is interrupted rather rudely by the appearance of a canoe - the bursar's canoe, in fact - floating down the river with - I very much regret to say - the bursar's dead body inside. And so begins a lively, quite well written (and well-clued) mystery. The students are concerned that a lot of the evidence, as it turns up, seems to be pointing to one of their fellow students. They don't believe it - or do they? They are determined to find out what really happened. And the police, though they are quite competent and pleasant themselves, are quite willing to let the young women do some of their investigating for them...

This is the second novel by Mavis Doriel Hay that I have read. There is one more still to go, sitting in my To Be Read pile, and I'm inclined to move it up and read it pretty quickly. I like what I've read of Hay's books and I do wish she had written more - she lived on into the 1970s, but abandoned crime novels after those first three. Her books quickly disappeared and remained out of print and virtually impossible to find until British Library reprinted them among their Crime Classics books. This edition contains an informative introduction by Stephen Booth providing more background about Hay and her books.

Death on the Cherwell is another of my entries in the Vintage Mystery Bingo Reading Challenge under way at the My Reader's Block blog, and it fills the space on my golden scorecard calling for "One academic mystery." 

Follow That Carr!

Or follow that Dickson, anyway. I noted in my review of And So to Murder this week that it wasn't really my favorite Sir Henry Merrivale novel written by John Dickson Carr writing as Carter Dickson. A quick check online shows me that two of my favorite H.M. novels are still available, both in print and electronic editions.

The Judas Window is nothing short of brilliant - what seems to be a totally impossible crime (with an obvious candidate for the gallows) is de-mystified by H.M. - who keeps reminding readers throughout the book that the crime was simple and relied on a Judas window. And what is a Judas window, you may ask? Read the book...

Also still available is The Plague Court Murders, which was the very first Merrivale novel. The impossible crime is quite good, but it is the eerie atmosphere which really carries the book; it wouldn't have taken much to turn this into a great ghost or horror story along the lines of M.R. James, but it's a mystery instead - and I certainly didn't follow the cleverly hidden clues while I was reading it!

I've written about both before - The Judas Window is here, and The Plague Court Murders is here. Take your pick - you can't go wrong with either choice.

Deadly in the Northeast

For those of you who may live in the northeastern U. S. - particularly in New Jersey and/or New York - there's another event coming up a little more than a month from now which ought to interest you: a conference of mystery writers and readers called Deadly Ink. It's not a huge gathering, like Bouchercon, or a fair-to-middling-sized one like Malice Domestic or Left Coast Crime. As a result, it might be a good introduction to these conferences for those of you in the region who have never tried one before and are looking to get your feet wet at a relatively small event. It happens August 1 through 3 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in New Brunswick, NJ.

Small in size, but large in talent. Guests of honor this year will be Donald Bain and his wife and co-author, Renee Paley-Bain, who are responsible, among other achievements, for nearly forty "Murder She Wrote" books whose characters are based on the TV series.  Toastmaster for the event will be Donna Andrews. (Disclosure: The group has named me as their Fan Guest of Honor this year, which is flattering, to say the least.) There will be a banquet Saturday night, August 2, to announce the winner of the group's David Award, presented in memory of David G. Sasher, Sr., for the best book published during the last calendar year. This year's nominees are:

•  Lethal Treasure, by Jane Cleland;
• There Was an Old Woman, by Hallie Ephron;
• Condemned to Repeat, by Janice MacDonald;
• The Wrong Girl, by Hank Phillippi Ryan;
• Dark Music, by Eric Watkins.

Attendees will vote for the winner during the conference.

I've attended Deadly Ink before - I enjoy the intimacy of the event and the chance to get to know some of these talented authors and ardent fans a little better. There's a lot happening here for all the attendees. You'll go home with new reads - and new friends. I hope to see some of you there!

"And So to Murder"

There is no question that the book that Monica Stanton wrote was scandalous. For a minister's daughter to write a book named Desire was certainly something her relatives wished had never happened. For a British movie company to buy the film rights turned her world upside down - particularly when she discovered that the studio was not hiring her to rewrite her own book. Instead, she would rewrite a detective novel...and the man who wrote that book would rewrite Monica's book for the movie version. And all that was before the deadly attacks began...

That's the situation we find in And So To Murder, by John Dickson Carr, writing as Carter Dickson. The 1941 mystery, featuring Sir Henry Merrivale, is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the complete review by clicking here.

The attacks on Monica really began in earnest when somebody lured her to the set of another movie and tried to pour vitriol - sulfuric acid - down a speaking tube and onto her face. The unsuccessful attack was followed by frightening anonymous letters. And there were more attacks. Fortunately for Monica, Bill Cartwright, the writer of that detective story which she had been assigned to rewrite, was nearby - and a friend of Sir Henry Merrivale. And it turns out that Sir Henry was very interested in some other mysterious goings-on at the movie studio, which might have been the work of enemy spies.

 I have always been fond of Carr's Sir Henry Merrivale mysteries. The Old Man, as "H.M." is known, is a brilliant but irascible man, apparently qualified as both a lawyer and a doctor. He spends much of his time working for the British government - particularly in wartime books, such as And So to Murder, where he is heading up British secret service. In many of Carr's books, Sir Henry provides a great deal of comic relief - not nearly as much so, however, in And So to Murder. There is a lot of humor in the goings-on at the film studio, where it is considered only normal to have two writers working to adapt each other's books rather than adapting their own work. But Sir Henry is remarkably restrained. He doesn't even appear in the book until well past the halfway point, and, aside for a few bursts of bad temper, he is mostly serious. Perhaps that was only to be expected in 1941 Britain, deep into the war years.

It is also worth noting that, by the time of And So to Murder, Carr had had very bad experiences with film studios; Carr's wife is quoted as saying that her husband hated "with complete loathing" his time at the studio. He certainly gets his revenge in his biting and often hilarious picture of the industry.

And So to Murder isn't my favorite Carr book - for one thing, without drifting into spoiler territory, I think Carr violated one of his own fair-play rules to mislead the reader. Still, for the characters, for the film industry byplay, and for the plot, you will most likely enjoy And So to Murder. Contrary to what I said when I recorded the podcast version of this review, the book is available in a trade paperback edition from the Langtail Press, and it's certainly worth your purchase!

This is another entry in the continuing Vintage Mystery Bingo reading challenge under way at the My Reader's Block blog. On my bingo card, it fulfills the requirement for "one book set in the entertainment world."

See You at Bouchercon?

Have you ever attended a mystery conference?

No, I'm not talking about one of those business get-togethers and trade shows where you frequently wonder, "Why am I here?"  I mean a conference of mystery writers and - most important - the people who read their stories and books.

I'm attending three national events this year, two of which have already happened - Left Coast Crime in March and Malice Domestic last month.

And then there is - or rather will be - Bouchercon.

We're just about five months away from this year's Bouchercon, which will be held in Long Beach, California November 13 - November 16. This will be the 45th annual Bouchercon. It began after the death of mystery writer and critic Anthony Boucher, for whom it is named, and has met every year since then. The last time I talked to the event's chairpeople, they were expecting somewhere between 1500 and 2000 people to attend this year, which makes Bouchercon the largest such gathering in the world.

Who will be there? Well, there are the author guests of honor: Edward Marston, J. A. Jance, Jeffrey Deaver, Eoin Colfer, with Simon Wood serving as toastmaster. But beside the honorees, there will be literally hundreds of mystery authors mingling with, talking to (and signing autographs for) their fans. Many are quite well known to mystery readers - and then there are newer authors, building their audiences who will be honored guests themselves in future years.

What happens at a Bouchercon? Panels - authors (and the occasional fan) will talk about  every aspect of every kind of mystery fiction - opportunities to learn and to laugh. Awards - the Anthony Awards are selected every year by the conference attendees and presented during the event. Free books - every attendee gets a large bag stuffed with the latest mysteries, courtesy of the many publishers who support the event. Autographs - for new and old books, the authors are always most gracious. Mingling - authors are a thirsty lot, and a great many long-time friendships are celebrated at the hotel's bar. Charity - there are live and silent auctions to benefit the Long Beach Public Library Foundation and an organization called WriteGirl. Side events - a lot of other organizations, such as the Private Eye Writers and the Wolfe Pack, sponsor their own events in conjunction with Bouchercon. And, perhaps above all else, the opportunity to make new friends, chat about books and authors, and - I promise you - laugh a lot.

If you've never been to a big mystery conference, I recommend this one heartily. I'll be there - click here to see the latest list of the people attending, both authors and their fans. But you'd better move quickly; the host hotel is already full, and other nearby hotels are filling up quickly. Come meet the people who write the books you enjoy reading.

"Whose Body?"

A shocking discovery is made in the Battersea area of South London: the naked body of an unknown man – wearing only gold pince-nez glasses on a gold chain – is discovered in a bathtub in a flat belonging to mild-mannered Mr. Thipps. There is no clue to his identity.

Across the River Thames, along fashionable Park Lane, meanwhile, Sir Reuben Levy, a British financier, has disappeared from his home without a trace.

A known man, missing. An unknown man, found. Is there a connection?

That is the situation at the beginning of Whose Body?, by Dorothy L. Sayers. Originally published in 1923, it is the book which introduced Lord Peter Wimsey, the character whom many consider to have been the ultimate aristocratic amateur crime-solver, to an audience which even today, more than 90 years after that first appearance, still reads and enjoys these first-rate mysteries. Whose Body? is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the entire review by clicking here.

Is there some connection between the disappearance of Sir Reuben Levy and the mysterious appearance of that corpse in the bathtub? We are told right from the start that the dead man is clearly not Sir Reuben – there are superficial resemblances, but the unknown man is just that – unknown and most certainly not an aristocratic financier. But despite the lack of any evidence in either problem, Lord Peter becomes convinced that the two cases must be linked.

Dorothy L. Sayers is rightly considered one of the great British Crime Queens of the Golden Age of English Detective Fiction, writing during the years between the two world wars. While plot was always important, and her books contain some clever plots indeed (including the plot of Whose Body?), we continue to read these books primarily for their characters and settings, as well as for Sayers’ literate and witty writing style. In fact, this book really is more of a "howdunit" or "whydunit" than a classic "whodunit," for the identity of the murderer is revealed about two-thirds of the way into the book. 

Whose Body? is not my favorite Sayers, but it is quite good, even if some of Wimsey’s upper-class mannerisms (oh, those dropped “g”s!) can be annoyin’. The story is fascinating and occasionally quite horrifying, the characters are memorable, and the writing is both careful and beautiful. If you enjoy the traditional British mystery, you will enjoy this one.

Whose Body is another of my entries for the My Reader's Block blog Vintage Mystery Bingo reading challenge, fulfilling the scorecard requirement for "One Book with an Amateur Detective." Once again, I invite my readers to follow that link to find a great many classic mysteries being reviewed and discussed. I also thank Sally Powers, who has allowed me to re-work my review of Whose Body, done originally for the I Love a Mystery Newsletter, into the version you see here.

Extra: "Candle-Flame"

Here's another newly-written book that should gladden the hearts of classic mystery lovers: I've recently finished reading a  new mystery by historian, English school headmaster, and amazingly prolific writer Paul C. Doherty. Candle Flame is the thirteenth addition to his series of historical mysteries set in London during the reign of King Richard II. The books are known collectively as "The Sorrowful Mysteries of Brother Athelstan."

In Candle-Flame, Brother Athelstan, who is the assistant to the royal coroner, Sir John Cranston, is called upon by a furious and frightened Regent, John of Gaunt, to solve a series of bloody murders - including the massacre of nine people in and around a sealed and bolted tower that could not possibly have been entered or exited. As the dead include Gaunt's tax collectors - and their collections are missing - Gaunt wants Athelstan and Sir John to find the killer and the treasure. It is possible that the killings were the work of a shadowy killer known only as "Beowulf," a sworn enemy to Gaunt.

All this is set against the sights and sounds - and, most definitely, the smells of London. And it is very much in the classic tradition of puzzle mysteries, with memorable characters, set in a London in deep turmoil, where the downtrodden population appears to be on the verge of bloody revolt against the crown. All that - and a great impossible crime mystery as well!

The official publication date for Candle-Flame is July 1 of this year, and the publisher, Severn House, kindly provided me with an advanced e-book version for this review. It's an excellent read. There's more blood and violence than I'm usually comfortable with - but, in fairness to Doherty, there are excellent reasons for his presenting the murders and executions in the way he does present them. I think anyone who enjoys a fine traditional locked-room mystery - particularly a historical one set in a very turbulent time in English history - will enjoy this one,