"Corpse Diplomatique"

There are a fair number of married couples who moonlight as sleuth teams in classic mystery novels. There were Nick and Nora Charles, Jeff and Haila Troy, Henry and Emily Bryce, Jake and Helene Justus, to name just a few. And then there were Dagobert and Jane Brown, who brought their own odd brand of detection to mysteries written by Delano Ames in the late 1940s and through the 1950s. Dagobert, a young man who appears to be chronically allergic to any kind of job, spends some of his time investigating murders; his wife Jane, who writes mysteries (which, apparently, bring in enough money for the couple to live on), helps Dagobert and serves as the narrator for these books, which really fall into the category of "screwball comedy-mysteries."

The third book about this rather odd couple is called Corpse Diplomatique, originally published in 1950. It's the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you're invited to listen to the full review by clicking here. Dagobert and Jane find themselves staying at a small hotel in Nice, on the French Riviera. They meet Don Diego Sebastiano, the Vice Consul in Nice for the small Central American republic of Santa Rica, who - not to put too fine a point on it - tries to pick up Jane, but fails. Soon thereafter, as the Vice Consul is walking down the street, someone apparently takes a shot at him - missing him narrowly, but killing another resident of that small hotel, Major Hugh Cartwright. Was Don Diego the intended victim? He certainly thinks so - although Major Cartwright turns out to have been doing quite a lot of blackmailing of just about everyone in the hotel and the surrounding neighborhood - including both Don Diego and Dagobert.

It's all done with a very light touch; there are some very funny scenes and bright exchanges in the dialogue. I can carp over a lot of the details of this book – there are a number of plots and subplots which, in my view, don’t really dovetail into a coherent story. But Dagobert and Jane are a charming couple who manage to get away with a great deal of what in most people would be considered very unusual behavior as they team up to find a killer. If you don’t know the Browns, you would probably enjoy meeting them in Corpse Diplomatique, by Delano Ames.

The 2015 Bingo Challenge

Continuing my participation in the 2015 Vintage Mystery Bingo challenge. under way at the My Reader's Block blog, Corpse Diplomatique is my entry for the square (top row, fifth column) calling for one book with a detective "team."

[Updated 3/29 to correct the title for my Bingo challenge submission. Sorry!]

Comments

[TerryH]

I have several of Ames's Browns books and love them a lot. I think they're hilarious, and the mysteries are fine, but then I've never tried to hold them to a strict Golden-Age Mystery standard. For what they are, they're loads of fun.

[Les Blatt]

They are indeed, Terry. It's true that the reader isn't always given the pertinent clues until late in the game - Dagobert is not always forthcoming with Jane and the readers. But they are funny and the mysteries are well-presented.

[Manor Minor Press]

Wow, we're two days late to the party! Our small press mostly publishes new work, but we love Delano Ames so much we're releasing his books as we're able on Kindle, in affordable annotated editions. We just put Corpse Diplomatique up last nigh), and She Shall Have Murder has been up for a while (I'm not putting links in case you'd like to put your own links up on your blog—but they're easy to search). We've been working on tracking down the harder-to-find out-of-print books in the series (and Ames's Spanish series), and we'll be putting them out as we find time.

Feel free to contact us at [email protected]'re often looking for advance readers to alert us to errors and give new releases a review if they feel so moved!

Miranda
Editor, Manor Minor Press
www.manorminor.com
www.ottewelledit.com

[Les Blatt]

That's great news, Miranda. I'd like to read more of Ames - the Rue Morgue Press stopped after republishing the first three Dagobert and Jane mysteries, and I've never read any of the novels about Juan Llorca. I'm delighted to see more readers have the chance to enjoy these mysteries.

[Bev Hankins]

This was the first Ames book I ever read--from the library about 20 years ago. I've since picked up copies of others, but I have yet to find my own copy of this one. Still looking in used bookshops...(which is the way I prefer to get my vintage fix :-) ). Glad that we have some presses bringing them out for new generations, though.

[Les Blatt]

Bev, I am delighted by the fact that so many small publishers are now appearing, ready to find and acquire the rights for so many fine mysteries that don't deserve what publisher Tom Schantz (I believe) once called "biblioblivion." The more, the merrier.