Classic Mysteries

It's a crime - and I'm proud of it!

OK, Les, you got some 'splainin' to do...

I've been away for nine days, and I haven't kept up here (or elsewhere) as I should. And I've got some exciting news to share about my participation in Left Coast Crime 2016, which begins February 25, 2016 at the Hyatt Regency in Phoenix, AZ.

The organizers have invited me to moderate one of the many panels at the conference. We'll be talking about Murder on the Books, a great topic. My panelists include Kristin Eckhardt, R. Franklin James, Mary Jane Maffini (half of "Victoria Abbott") and Erika Chase (Linda Wiken). The topic? Hey, we all enjoy mysteries in books - what could be better than books in mysteries? Our authors write about book clubs and groups that get involved in mysteries - and we'll certainly be talking about mysteries in which books (and manuscripts) themselves are featured. Our pahen will be in the Phoenix Ballroom on the first day of the conference - Thursday, February 25, from noon to 1 PM. Hope to see you there!

As for me, I got some readin' to do...

"Not Quite Dead Enough"

During the darkest days of World War II, the United States Army wanted Nero Wolfe to apply his genius to problems of military intelligence. (They already had enlisted Major Archie Goodwin in the cause.) But all Wolfe wanted was to be a foot soldier - to go out and shoot the enemy. All he and his chef/major-domo Fritz Brenner would do was walk outdoors in an effort to lose weight and get the army to let him enlist. Not likely, right? So the army sent Major Goodwin to try and talk some sense into Wolfe's head. What happened is told in the two novellas that make up Not Quite Dead Enough, by Rex Stout, first published in 1944. The book is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the entire review by clicking here.

In "Not Quite Dead Enough," the first of the two novellas in this volume, Archie Goodwin comes home to the brownstone where Wolfe lives to find his civilian boss trying to lose weight in an effort – one Archie cheerfully calls “pathetic” – to get the army to let him go to Europe and shoot enemy soldiers. Wolfe, because he is stubborn and – let’s be charitable – his mind is somewhat clouded by a radical diet consisting primarily of lettuce and prunes, won’t respond to the army’s efforts to enlist his brain for the war effort. That’s why Archie’s military superiors send him home – to try to talk some sense into Nero Wolfe. Archie is smart enough to consider that a lost cause, so instead he must find a way to reawaken Wolfe’s brain – and the way he does so will probably delight you. It's outrageous enough to make readers sympathize, for once, with Wolfe's long-time nemesis, Lieutenant Cramer of homicide.

 The second novella, “Booby Trap,” has Wolfe working with the army in an effort to determine whether the death of an Army officer, blown up with a new type of hand grenade, is murder – and, if so, to solve the case. Of course, Wolfe has Archie back as his right-hand man, even though Archie technically is still reporting through the military chain of command. It’s a very good puzzle. I might add that the concluding confrontation scene is a bit unusual in this one – unusual in a good way, too, with more tension than usual. 

These two stories make a fine addition to the corpus, the collective stories about Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. Both regular readers and newcomers to Wolfe and Goodwin will find these stories a delight.

Schedule Change

Publishing the podcast and linked post early this week. I'm away, meaning I'm catching my computing when/where I can. Probably nobody will notice...but if you do, well...you do.

Edgar Calling

The Mystery Writers of America, the professional organization for crime writers and their readers and viewers, whose motto is "Crime Doesn't Pay...Enough," has announced the slates of nominees for this year's Edgar Awards. There are nominees for awards in at least nine categories, as well as special awards - including a Grand Master award for Walter Mosley's long and prolific career.

For a complete list of the categories and the nominees, click here for the MWA's announcements page. The award. of course, is named in honor of Edgar Allan Poe. The winners will be announced and will receive their awards at the MWA's annual banquet on April 28th in New York City.

Congratulations to all the nominees!

"Case in the Clinic"

Here's a book that wastes no time getting right to the heart of the matter - in the opening paragraph:

"A most extaordinary thing, Falkland. He went down as though he'd been pole-axed. Never a cry or a struggle, just dropped down dead."

The speaker, an old retired soldier named Major Grendon, is describing a scene he had witnessed quite recently: the death of an elderly retired vicar. The official cause of death was "heart failure," a convenient way of describing death but not a very illuminating one. Major Grendon, among others, is suspicious - especially since there is someone in the neighborhood who may have gotten away with murder before that. Several murders, in fact. And that will form the basis for Case in the Clinic, a 1941 late-Golden-Age classic novel by E.C.R. Lorac, an author remarkable both for having written over seventy novels in her lifetime and for the remarkable way that her books and her fame disappeared very quickly after her death. It's the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the complete review by clicking here.

The author's name was Edith Caroline Rivett, who wrote both as "E.C.R. Lorac" and as "Carol Carnac." Many of her books featured the detective work of Chief-Inspector Macdonald of Scotland Yard. In Case in the Clinic, he is called in as the death toll appears to have been mounting - the death of the elderly vicar apparently being the latest in a string of rather suspicious deaths that might or might not be murder. As Inspector Macdonald's superior at the Yard observes, grumbling, "They've waited until everything has happened that could happen - deaths, funerals, and disappearance of probable delinquent. Then they ask us to come in and tidy the mess up."

The “clinic” of the book’s title is run by Max Brook, who is an osteopath – a practitioner of so-called "alternative treatment." Many of the people we will meet in the story are patients at the clinic, or have some other association with it which draws them into the action. The book begins with Major Grendon’s description of the vicar’s death. He is speaking to another patient, Robert Falkland who is highly skeptical. But Falkland and others have to admit that foul play might have been involved – although nobody can say how such a murder might have been committed, or why. But when other deaths come to light – old ones as well as new ones – it becomes very clear that somebody appears to be getting away with murder. That’s when Chief Inspector Macdonald gets assigned to the case – and we’re off on another romp through a fairly typical Golden Age English scene. And I must say that in this case, where both the “how” and the “why” seem very difficult to explain rationally, there is a temptation to find a supernatural element at work – a possibility Inspector Macdonald (to say nothing of the reader) is not about to accept.

This new edition of a long-lost classic comes from a division of Ramble House called the Surinam Turtle Press, whose publisher, Richard A. Lupoff, has provided an introduction. He writes, 

The author stirs ingredients into Case in the Clinic with consummate skill. A major portion of traditional murder mystery, a hint of the supernatural, a mix of characters, some likeable, some unpleasant, some quite puzzling, some slight [sic] of hand involving a too-obvious suspect (or several such), to produce a delicious stew. This is an author unjustly forgotten. 

I quite agree.

Help the Seattle Mystery Bookshop

I don't get out to Seattle very often - it's a long way from New Jersey - but when I have visited Seattle, I've always made it a point to stop by (and buy from) the Seattle Mystery Bookshop. It's a fine indy bookstore specializing, as you might expect, in mysteries of every genre and sub-genre, both the latest titles and the long-out-of-print classics.

Now the bookstore is in financial trouble, as so many indy bookdealers are these days. But they've come up with an interesting idea that could save them - and be good for us readers and writers as well. They have set up a page on GoFundMe, trying to raise a considerable amount of money, which they can use to help solidify the store's finances, help them build out their collection of both new and used books, and get their business back on a solid footing. As incentives, they are offering some interesting premium items, which they will send to people who donate - and there's something for every donor, even at the five-dollar level. Click here for a fuller explanation and a list of those premiums. You don't have to give a lot - every little bit helps (and in just a week, it appears they've collected about 20% of their total goal, which is fantastic news).

Although it's been a while since I was in Seattle, I have fond memories of visits to the Seattle Mystery Bookshop. I'm contributing. I hope that if you believe in the importance to our community of independent mystery book stores, you'll consider making a contribution of your own. (And if you have another indy mystery bookstore that you do business with, isn't it time you ordered something from them too?)

Hat tip: J. Kingston Pierce and the Rap Sheet blog.

"Lefty" Nominees

With little more than a month to go before this year's Left Coast Crime convention gets under way, organizers of the conference have unveiled a slate of nominees for the four major "Lefty" awards to be determined by conference attendees. The categories and nominations are:

Lefty for Best Humorous Mystery Novel 
• Donna Andrews, Lord of the Wings (Minotaur Books)
• Ellen Byron, Plantation Shudders (Crooked Lane Books)
• Jess Lourey, February Fever (Midnight Ink)
• Cindy Sample, Dying for a Donut (Cindy Sample Books)
• Diane Vallere, Crushed Velvet (Berkley Prime Crime)

Lefty for Best Historical Mystery Novel (Bruce Alexander Memorial) for books covering events before 1960
• Rhys Bowen, Malice at the Palace (Berkley Prime Crime)
• Susanna Calkins, The Masque of a Murderer (Minotaur Books)
• Heather Haven, The Chocolate Kiss-Off (Wives of Bath Press)
• Jennifer Kincheloe, The Secret Life of Anna Blanc (Seventh Street Books)
• Laurie R. King, Dreaming Spies (Bantam Books)
• Susan Elia MacNeal, Mrs. Roosevelt’s Confidante (Bantam Books)

Lefty for Best LCC Regional Mystery Novel, set in the LCC Geographic Region (Mountain Time Zone and all time zones westward to Hawaii)
• Michael Connelly, The Crossing (Little, Brown and Company)
• Matt Coyle, Night Tremors (Oceanview Publishing)
• Robert Crais, The Promise (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
• Gigi Pandian, The Accidental Alchemist (Midnight Ink)
• Josh Stallings, Young Americans (Heist Publishing)

Lefty for Best World Mystery Novel (set outside LCC Geographic Region)
• Lou Berney, The Long and Faraway Gone (William Morrow)
• Lisa Brackmann, Dragon Day (Soho Crime)
• Chris Holm, The Killing Kind (Mulholland Books)
• Louise Penny, The Nature of the Beast (Minotaur Books)
• James W. Ziskin, Stone Cold Dead (Seventh Street Books)

The winners will be announced at the Left Coast Crime Awards banquet on May 27th. This year, the convention (dubbed "The Great Cactus Caper") is being held in Phoenix from February 25 through February 28. There's still time to register, and I hope to see a lot of my friends (that means you) there.

Extra: "Death at Dovecote Hatch" and Dorothy Cannell

Here's an extra for readers who enjoy Golden Age mysteries: a story, set in an English village around 1930, with a cast of standard British stock players: a young English lord, some other upper-class types, some well-trained English servants, a number of colorful village residents, all caught up in a mystery and a probable murder. Sounds like standard Golden Age fare? It's not. It's a brand new mystery, first published in 2015 by Dorothy Cannell, honored last year with a Lifetime Achievement Award by Malice Domestic. In fact, you'd have to call it a historical mystery, as it is set 85 years in the past.

Death at Dovecote Hatch is the second book in Cannell's new series from Severn House publishers featuring Florence Norris, housekeeper at the mansion known as Mullings, who becomes involved in two tragedies. A local gentleman named Kenneth Tenneson takes a fatal tumble down a flight of stairs at his home - an accident, according to the coroner, but perhaps not so, according to Scotland Yard Inspector LeCrane. And Mrs. Norris is deeply disturbed when a woman who is a fellow passenger aboard her train apparently commits suicide. From those beginnings, Cannell weaves a tale involving a mysterious will that contains some unpleasant surprises for several of Dovecote Hatch's residents, both upstairs and downstairs. And, of course, there is always murder.

The first book in the series, Murder at Mullings, was published two years ago, and I posted a brief review of it here. These books certainly qualify as "cozy" in nature and in style - violence is off-screen and sex is virtually non-existent (there are a couple of significant romances, but for the most part they're kept remarkably chaste, even for 1930). I would suggest reading the books in order, as there are references back to developments in Murder at Mullings which will make more sense if you read that one before Death at Dovecote Hatch. They're both quite enjoyable, and they provide a useful demonstration that the old complaint, "They don't write them like that any more," is not necessarily valid. Dorothy Cannell's books prove that point quite nicely.

"The Cask"

The cask, which had been shipped from the French city of Rouen to London, was not part of the shipment of wines which the young man from the shipping line had come to inspect. It wasn't immediately clear what the cargo was supposed to be - certainly not the wine that was expected at the port that morning. But when the cask was damaged in a slight accident, it turned out to be carrying something quite different: the body of a murdered woman - packed along with a number of gold coins. It would be up to Inspector Burnley of Scotland Yard, with the assistance of Monsieur Lefarge of the Sûreté to investigate the murder and, with the help of a talented private investigator, to solve the mystery of The Cask, the first mystery written by Freeman Wills Crofts and often regarded as one of the pillars of Golden Age detective fiction. The Cask, first published in 1920, is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the entire review by clicking here.

During the 1920s and beyond, Freeman Wills Crofts was recognized as the master of the timetable mystery. This early form of the police procedural usually relies on a clever detective studying the alibis of the principal suspects in a given case and breaking down one or more of those alibis. This often is the result of studying, for example, a railroad timetable to discover that on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the 12:10 train from Waterloo made a separate stop where the culprit was able to connect to another fast train across the country to commit a crime that would have been impossible on another weekday without that connection – you get the idea. Crofts turned this kind of plot device into an art form.

In The Cask, the investigation of the murder is in the hands of Inspector Burnley. He travels immediately to Paris to enlist the help of Monsieur Lefarge from the Surêté. Between them they attempt to run down the movement of that cask between Paris and London, seeking to determine when and where the victim was murdered, and by whom, and how the body got into the cask.

About halfway through the book, it begins to become evident which of the suspects might have had both the motive and the opportunity to commit the murder, but it will take independent investigation by a private investigator (working on behalf of the defense attorneys for an accused suspect) to determine how a diabolically clever alibi could be broken. There is a chilling climax to the action of the novel as well.

There are times when all the fussing over train and shipping schedules (and understanding a timetable of the movements of the cask itself plays a key role in the solution) may become a bit tiresome to the modern reader looking for more action. On the other hand, I think The Cask was one of Freeman Wills Crofts’s best books. Crofts’s regular series detective, Inspector French of Scotland Yard, didn’t appear in the author’s books until several years after the publication of The Cask, but readers who enjoy those later novels about French will see clear similarities between French and Inspector Burnley. The Cask is available now in e-book formats - paper editions may be harder to find - and it remains an entertaining read.

Looking Back: "The Studio Crime"

Ianthe Jerrold wrote just four mysteries - two (including Let Him Lie) using the pen name "Geraldine Bridgman," and, before them, two under the name of Ianthe Jerrold. Her first mystery, published in 1929, was The Studio Crime, and I wrote about it several months ago, suggesting it to my visitors here as an "extra" which remains very entertaining and readable. As with her later mysteries, The Studio Crime has been republished (for the first time in more than 80 years) by the Dean Street Press, which provided me with a copy for that review. It's a very good Golden Age mystery featuring a seemingly impossible murder, there's an excellent introduction by mystery scholar Curtis Evans,  it's available both as an ebook and in print, and I recommend it to you again.