I'm about to make a flagrant overstatement about the (professional) detectives to be found as protagonists in many (if not most) Golden Age mysteries, whether in the U. K. or elsewhere: as a general rule, I think you'll find that most are pleasant individuals, not overly troubled by the kinds of devils that haunt many of today's (very) flawed heroes and heroines. They don't seem as troubled by alcoholism, for example, or other addictions, and their significant relationships with others, while they may occasionally trade verbal barbs with a spouse, are generally mutually supportive. Please note that I DID say this was a flagrant overstatement, and I'm well aware of a million or so exceptions. (Please don't bother reminding me of Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe!) But I mention this because it's one of the reasons why I enjoy reading and rereading these books. All of which is by way of saying, if you haven't met Chief Inspector Henry Tibbett of Scotland Yard and his delightful wife, Emmy, then you have a treat in store for you. Patricia Moyes wrote nineteen mysteries featuring the Tibbetts. The first of them was called Dead Men Don't Ski, and I recorded an audio review some years ago on the Classic Mysteries podcast. Here's a transcript of that review, edited (as usual) to keep it more or less current:
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Among journalists, it is considered a compliment to say of someone, he or she has a nose for news. We mean by that, that the person has the ability to sniff out a news story, to determine intuitively that a given story contained in a news release or an odd occurrence will actually be important enough to warrant becoming a news story. It is a compliment usually applied to editors and investigative reporters. That intuitive ability, of course, is important in other fields – not least among them, law enforcement and crime prevention and detective work. So when we hear that a particular fictional detective – Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Henry Tibbett – has a “nose” that often gives him some intuitive insight into difficult and dangerous murder cases, we are talking about a talent for detection that can be extremely useful. Tibbett’s nose is very much on display in a fine mystery called Dead Men Don’t Ski, by Patricia Moyes.
Dead Men Don’t Ski, published in 1959, was the first in a series of nineteen books to feature Scotland Yard detective Henry Tibbett – a series that continued into the early 1990s. Moyes was out of print for a long time, and I’m glad to see that Felony & Mayhem Press has been reprinting her books and making them available to a new audience.
Henry Tibbett is a police officer who is most conscientious about following police procedure – and I suppose that to some extent some of these novels can be considered police procedurals. But they are also quite traditional mysteries, usually – but not always - providing clues to the reader as Tibbett himself gets them. That “nose” Tibbett talks about is generally triggered by small, sometimes obscure clues – yet that nose almost invariably leads him to solve correctly some very difficult puzzles.
In Dead Men Don’t Ski, Tibbett and his wife Emmy – who often plays a significant part in these stories – have gone to the Italian Alps for a skiing holiday. At least, it is supposed to be a holiday, but it will be a working vacation. International police believe that the resort where the Tibbetts are staying – a ski lodge accessible only by what is called the longest chair lift in Europe - is involved in a drug smuggling ring. Tibbett quickly finds that to be true – but things become deadly when a man who was alive when he boarded that chair lift coming down from the resort arrives at the bottom of the lift – shot to death. The victim – an unpleasant little man who visits the resort frequently although he does not ski – is revealed to be, in the words of one of the characters, the most hated man in Europe, a man involved both in the drug trade and in blackmail.
The local police chief is most grateful for Tibbett’s presence on the scene. And when that police officer becomes convinced of the guilt of one of his suspects – a suspect with whom he is falling in love – it is Tibbett who must investigate further – with some help from his wife Emmy – and come up with an action-packed ending that wraps the case up quite neatly.
I have always enjoyed Patricia Moyes’s mysteries. She is very adept at creating characters and surprising her readers. Very often her characters seem to fall into stereotypical predictable characters – the retired British army officer, his constantly complaining wife, another woman unhappily married to a strict and rather terrifying German nobleman – you think you recognize these and many other characters. But you will be surprised by their behavior – and, I suspect, quite pleased to find that that predictability has been used quite neatly to fool you.
Another important point: I am not a skier, but Moyes manages to make this sport sound absolutely fascinating and fun. Tibbett and Emmy are learning to ski, and their lessons become an integral part of the story and the setting. And so do the expert skiing abilities of several other characters.
In an introduction written for an earlier edition of this book, mystery writer Katherine Hall Page notes that the Chicago Review called Patricia Moyes “the writer who put the ‘who’ back in the whodunit.” I agree completely. I think Chief Inspector Henry Tibbett and his delightful wife Emmy are one of the most thoroughly enjoyable couples in mystery fiction, and I invite you to meet them in Dead Men Don’t Ski.
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You can listen to the complete original audio review by clicking here.
Next: Sealed Room Murder, by Rupert Penny.
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