Suppose for a moment that you were in your own room, alone, getting ready for bed one night and suddenly heard a voice saying "There will be murder."
Now suppose that the voice you heard saying that was your own voice?
Frightening?
Suppose this was happening to you at a private sanatorium - a privately owned asylum? An asylum where you had checked in voluntarily as a patient a few weeks earlier, trying to recover from acute alcoholism?
That's what was happening to Peter Duluth, a New York City theatrical producer. The horrifying accident that had claimed his wife's life had driven him to alcohol. Checking himself into Dr. Lenz's private asylum was his last attempt to dry out and save himself from his demons.
And then he heard that voice - his voice - predicting murder. And, soon enough, there would be murder indeed - brutal, violent, ugly murder. You'll find the whole story in A Puzzle for Fools, a 1936 novel by Patrick Quentin. It's the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. You can listen to the entire review by clicking here.
When Peter Duluth takes his story – and his fears – about hearing his own voice prophesying murder to Dr. Lenz, the man in charge of the sanatorium, he is surprised by the psychiatrist’s reaction – which is to believe him. Dr. Lenz tells Duluth that he, Duluth, would not imagine things of that sort – if he thought he heard something, there was probably something to hear. For that matter, Dr. Lenz tells him, there are other inexplicable things that have been happening in the asylum. Would Duluth help investigate? After all, Dr. Lenz says, Duluth is one of the few patients in the sanatorium whose mind is basically healthy, and quietly investigating these odd events might give him a new interest in life.
And so Duluth agrees to help – and finds that Dr. Lenz is right about a change in his own mood, that the absence of the alcohol which has nearly destroyed him becomes something he can handle.
But then there is murder – seemingly impossible murder in an establishment where the patients suffer from mental illness and the staff is focused more on psychiatry than criminality. And Duluth finds himself becoming increasingly interested in one of the female patients whom police consider to be a prime suspect.
A Puzzle for Fools is written under the name of “Patrick Quentin,” which was a pen name used by several authors writing singly or with each other. The story of "Patrick Quentin" is complicated, and if you're interested in the history of the name and its use (primarily by Hugh Wheeler and Richard Webb), I'd refer you to the excellent article in the Golden Age of Detection wiki. A Puzzle for Fools introduced Peter Duluth, who went on to appear in several more books. He’s an interesting protagonist indeed, and the readers will find themselves rooting for him. The plot is quite complex and the suspects, especially among the patients, have fascinating (and, occasionally, wildly inappropriate) reactions to the events going on around them. Patrick Quentin’s A Puzzle for Fools has now been reprinted as part of Otto Penzler’s American Mystery Classics series, and it should be readily available.
Comments