Have you met Miss Withers? Miss Hildegarde Withers? A classic traditional schoolteacher, if you will, sharp as a stiletto, always finding herself mixed up in a murder case (to the dismay of her friend, New York City homicide detective Oscar Piper), and generally proving herself able to solve some pretty intriguing puzzles as she helps (or bedevils) Inspector Piper over the course of more than a dozen novels and an even larger number of short stories. Miss Withers was the creation of Stuart Palmer, and her first appearance was in The Penguin Pool Murder (1931). Looking back at my early podcast review of that book, I find that I provided something of a mixed review for The Penguin Pool Murder - it wasn't my favorite of Palmer's books, but it was and is still quite good and worth reading. Here's my original review (as always, updated with minor changes):
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It seemed like a pleasant enough class outing – a day trip to an aquarium in New York City. Unfortunately, the penguins weren’t the only creatures floating in their pool at the aquarium. There was also a dead body. And – to the general delight of the class – their teacher, Hildegarde Withers got caught up in The Penguin Pool Murder, by Stuart Palmer. The book was first published in 1931, but it is set just a few months after the stock market crash that led to the Great Depression. The crash plays a very significant part in the happenings in this book, for the victim is a stockbroker, many of whose clients have lost all their money in the crash.
But when the police arrive at the aquarium, they think they have an open-and-shut case – not anything based on stocks, but rather on a love triangle, involving the self-centered wife of the stockbroker and an old friend of hers who once wanted to marry her. It seems she has had a pretty miserable marriage – but did she decide to get out of that marriage, with her friend’s help, by killing her husband?
Inspector Oscar Piper of the New York City homicide squad thinks that may be exactly what happened. But Miss Withers, the schoolteacher, isn’t at all sure that he’s right. And, curiously enough, Inspector Piper likes her – and thinks enough of her powers of observation and of deduction to listen to her ideas about how to solve the case. Perhaps he’s goaded into it as a reaction to a grandstanding district attorney who is out to steal the limelight by staging a spectacular arrest for the newspapers – a plot which Piper and Withers manage to foil quite neatly.
In any case, Piper listens to Miss Withers, though he still thinks his own conclusions about the case are far more valid. Ultimately, of course, she will prove right in her suspicions – and it will lead to a dramatic courtroom confrontation with the real killer.
If all this sounds as though I’m giving you the plot of an early Hollywood movie, I guess, in a way, that I am – for The Penguin Pool Murder was made into a movie in 1932, starring Edna May Oliver and James Gleason. Author Stuart Palmer said that seeing Edna May Oliver on stage in the musical Showboat gave him part of the inspiration for the character of Hildegarde Withers. The movie was quite successful – one of those light Hollywood comedy-mysteries that were so popular in the 1930s and 40s.
The book reads pretty much as you’d expect this kind of light mystery to read. And if I sound less enthusiastic about it than I might, perhaps that’s the reason. Certainly there wasn’t much of a puzzle – if you eliminate the obviously innocent suspects in your mind, there really is only one likely solution. I must admit I had that pegged – along with the motive – pretty early on in the book.
On the other hand, this is the first appearance of Miss Withers and Inspector Piper, who went on to appear in a great many more such mysteries by Stuart Palmer – several of which were also turned into movies later. So, from the standpoint of classic mysteries, particularly mysteries used as the basis of movies, The Penguin Pool Murder is undoubtedly worth the few hours you’ll spend reading it.
And the characters are quite human. I’m particularly fond of Inspector Piper, who knows his own limitations. Here’s what he says to Miss Withers, fairly early on in their investigations:
“I’m a detective, not a super-sleuth. Sherlock Holmes would know all about this case in no time, what with a magnifying glass and his knowledge of the bone structure of Polynesian aborigines. Philo Vance would solve it between puffs of a Regie cigarette, from simple deductions based on the squawks of those penguins we met up with yesterday. But not me. I don’t know any more than you do. Maybe less, only I know how to act wise. I’m just blundering ahead, trying not to miss any of the more apparent lines of approach. Sooner or later the murderer will leave something open, and I’ll stumble in.”
Earlier in this series, I reviewed Nipped in the Bud, which was another of the books featuring Withers and Piper. I must admit I rather preferred that one – but it was written several years later. By that time, Palmer had refined the character of Miss Withers – whom he referred to as a “meddlesome old battleaxe.” And I found her more human, less two-dimensional in the later books.
But I still recommend The Penguin Pool Murders, by Stuart Palmer - it's worth your while. It's available now as an e-book, and there appear to be any number of out-of-print copies available.
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You can listen to the original podcast review by clicking here.
Next week: Henrietta Who?, by Catherine Aird.
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