Classic Mysteries

"Bodies From the Library 2"

How would you like the opportunity to read an early story by Agatha Christie which was only recently rediscovered?

Or a never-before-published novella-length short story by Edmund Crispin, featuring Gervase Fen?

Or how about a previously-unpublished Lord Peter Wimsey "locked room" short story by Dorothy L. Sayers?

And another dozen rarely-if-ever-seen stories and plays by Golden Age authors, mostly British with an American or two thrown into the mix - some written by very well known names indeed, other stories by writers largely (and mostly unjustly) forgotten today?

Congratulations - your wishes can come true very easily, simply by picking up a copy of Bodies From the Library 2, selected and introduced by mystery expert and historian Tony Medawar. It's the subject of my audio review today on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the entire review by clicking here.

This all goes back to another collection from the same source, Bodies from the Library, published last year by the Collins Crime Club and to the annual (at least for the last couple of years) day long gathering at the British Library of the "Bodies From the Library" conference. I reviewed the first of these volumes earlier in 2019, having enjoyed it thoroughly, and I promised at the time to review the second volume once it had been published and made its way across to the U.S.

So let me keep my promise: Bodies From the Library 2 is out, has been out for a few months (sorry!) and is another volume which gets my wholehearted recommendation. In addition to the three stories I mentioned earlier, there's a very respectable list of other writers appearing in this anthology. Among the names are S. S. Van Dine, Clayton Rawson, E. C. R. Lorac, John Rhode, Ethel Lina White and Christianna Brand. It's an impressive list.

I've put some extra information into the podcast this week, so you can learn a little more about the stories by listening to the podcast. You really do want to own this one.

From the Vault: "The Murder at the Vicarage"

As I promised last week, we're going to end the year with another visit to the Classic Mysteries vault to consult Miss Marple, a remarkably astute and intelligent woman with excellent insight into human behavior - and the ability to apply that insight to the most difficult of murders. The Murder at the Vicarage was Christie's first Miss Marple mystery, and though, as I'll explain, it's really not my favorite story to feature Miss Marple, it still has a great deal to offer. I did an audio review of The Murder at the Vicarage in the early days of the Classic Mysteries podcast. Here's a transcript of that review, lightly edited as usual.

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“My dear young man, you underestimate the detective instinct of village life. In St. Mary Mead, everyone knows your most intimate affairs. There is no detective in England equal to a spinster lady of uncertain age with plenty of time on her hands.”

The speaker is the Reverend Leonard Clement, the vicar of the tiny English village of St. Mary Mead – home to a great many of those spinster ladies of uncertain age with plenty of time on their hands. That is certainly true of one lady in particular – a woman named Miss Jane Marple. And when a local man is found murdered in the vicar’s study, it is Miss Marple who will help steer the investigators – including the vicar – past a great many potential missteps and red herrings in the case known as The Murder at the Vicarage – the first Miss Marple mystery by Agatha Christie.

I guess I should say, right at the beginning of this review, that Murder at the Vicarage is not my favorite Agatha Christie novel – not by a long shot. A lot of the book feels rather stilted; many of the social conventions that underlie the events and the attitudes of the characters seem very outdated. There are a great many subplots going on in the book – more so, I think, than in most Christie books – and that requires a fair amount of clean-up work at the end in order to resolve some of the plot threads.

But, that said, Murder at the Vicarage does have a great deal to recommend it – most particularly, Miss Marple, in her first full-length outing – the book originally appeared in 1930. And a great many of the characters in this book are fairly endearing.

The story, which is narrated by the vicar, puts us in the small village of St. Mary Mead. A most unpleasant individual – opinionated, smug, vindictive, nasty; you can fill in all the adjectives – is murdered. He is, in fact, shot to death in the vicar’s study, the vicar having been lured away by a spurious telephone call.  The local police, in the person of the rather odious Inspector Slack, rush in and begin making false assumptions almost immediately. Their theories are complicated when a local artist turns himself in, saying that he committed the murder. Very shortly thereafter, the victim’s wife also turns herself in, saying that SHE committed the murder.

It quickly becomes apparent that both must be lying – which makes Inspector Slack most unhappy, as he had thought he had an open-and-shut case on his hands. But there are too many open questions – too many seemingly obvious clues which turn out to be nothing of the sort. Fortunately, the vicar’s next door neighbor – that marvelous little old lady, Miss Marple – spends a great deal of time in her garden, from which she can quite easily keep an eye on all the village goings-on.

Now Miss Marple may not be a trained detective, and she may have had very little worldly experience, as she rarely leaves her tiny village. But she is a student of human nature – and in her observation of the peculiarities and minor sins of village life, she finds parallels which help her make sense of the much more grievous sin of murder.

As she explains to the vicar:

Living alone, as I do, in a rather out-of-the-way part of the world, one has to have a hobby. There is, of course, woodwork, and Guides, and Welfare, and sketching, but my hobby is – and always has been – Human Nature. So varied – and so very fascinating. And, of course, in a small village, with nothing to distract one, one has such ample opportunity for becoming what I might call proficient in one’s study.

And by the time the book ends, and Miss Marple is able to eliminate all the various red-herrings and false clues, everyone – the vicar, the chief constable, the other little old ladies in the town – everyone is shown the keenness of Miss Marple’s observations.

Murder at the Vicarage is a great deal of fun. It does, somewhat, feel rather dated; the social attitudes prevalent in the England of 1930 now seem to us to be quite formal and quite stilted. But there is a lot of pleasure in seeing Christie’s characters, particularly those little old ladies, deal with the restrictions of conventional behavior – restrictions which, for example, made any discussion of a character’s pregnancy absolutely impossible and quite blush-worthy. Murder at the Vicarage is a good introduction to Miss Marple – who, I think, will bloom in later Agatha Christie books, but who is quite keen and forceful in this book as well. If you haven’t read Murder at the Vicarage to see how she got her start…by all means do so now. As the vicar observes, Miss Marple is not the type of elderly lady who makes mistakes. She has got an uncanny knack of being always right.

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If you want to listen to the original audio version of this review, please click here.

Next: The Best Max Carrados Detective Stories, by Ernest Bramah.

"The Monkey and the Tiger"

A monkey and a tiger. Two quite different animals, each lending their name to a murder investigation in seventh-century China. Solving those mysteries - and, in at least one of those instances, doing so at the risk of his own life, was Judge Dee, the Chinese government official charged (among many other duties) with investigating crime and seeing to it that the perpetrators were properly punished. Judge Dee, in fact, was a real person, living from the year 630 to 700 and serving, for most of his distinguished career, as a government official during the T'ang Dynasty. The Judge Dee who appears in the stories and books written by Robert Van Gulik, is a fictional version of the "real" Judge Dee. This week, let's consider the book called The Monkey and the Tiger, two novella-length mysteries solved by Judge Dee. The book is the subject of my audio review this week on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you may listen to that complete review by clicking here.

The first novella in the book is called “The Morning of the Monkey.” It is set in the fictional lake district called Han-Yuan, where Judge Dee had spent about a year as the magistrate of the district. One morning, the Judge is sitting in the open gallery behind his residence, enjoying a moment off from his official duties. Suddenly, he hears a commotion in the trees as two monkeys – gibbons – swing through the branches. The judge sees that one of the monkeys is holding what appears to be a golden ring with a bright green gemstone. Judge Dee manages to fool the monkey into dropping the ring (he does this by distracting the animal). After the gibbons go on their way (leaving the ring behind), Judge Dee examines the emerald ring and sees what certainly appear to be bloodstains on it. He and one of his key assistants go exploring in a nearby deserted hut and discover the body of a vagrant who has been murdered – and who appears to have four fingers cut off from his left hand. This is the beginning of an adventure for Judge Dee, who will find that the murder apparently ties into a complex smuggling plot aimed at cheating the government out of its road taxes.

The second novella is called “The Night of the Tiger.” It is set a decade after “The Morning of the Monkey,” when Judge Dee – having been named the Lord Chief Justice in the Imperial Capital – is traveling on his way to the capital to take up his duties. He finds himself cut off from his assistants by a powerful flood – and, when he takes refuge in a large country house, he discovers that he has landed in a very dangerous place. The house – which, like Judge Dee, is cut off by the flood waters from possible rescue – is under siege by a dangerous and brutal gang of bandits called the Flying Tigers. They are threatening to kill everyone in that house unless they are paid ransom money – and there appears to be no source for that money, nor much hope of the military at a nearby post finding a way across the flood waters. As Judge Dee tries to find a solution for the problem, he finds himself confronted by the murder of a young woman and what appears to be a ghost that appears and disappears without warning. It’s a powerful, and quite dark, story – much darker, I think, than “The Morning of the Monkey.”

One of the reasons why I enjoy Robert Van Gulik's Judge Dee mysteries so much is that the reader is given a great deal of information in the stories about the regulations and the customs of the Chinese system of justice during the T’ang Dynasty period fourteen centuries ago, and about what everyday life was like back then. Van Gulik was a diplomat but he was also a scholar of traditional Chinese culture and literature, and his books – including The Monkey and the Tiger – reflect his passionate interest in ancient Chinese culture. The stories are powerful – and also a source of considerable enjoyment and entertainment.

From the Vault: "Hercule Poirot's Christmas"

Given the approach of the Christmas season, I've been making a list and checking it twice, trying to find a suggestion for a gift that you might enjoy, whatever holiday you prefer. Back in the prime of Agatha Christie's career, her publisher used to advertise, with some pride, the availability each year of "a Christie for Christmas." So for my gift to you, let me reprint a couple of my reviews of two of Dame Agatha's mysteries - one each for Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple. We'll begin today with Hercule Poirot's Christmas. Since I first wrote this review a decade ago, the book's title has undergone some changes - when I reviewed it, it was better known as Murder for Christmas, but the title under which it is currently being sold is Hercule Poirot's Christmas, and the text of my review, below, has been updated to correct the title wherever it appears. In any case, Merry and Happy to all:

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Well here we are at the Christmas season – traditionally a time of good will. Let’s see, what do we have in the library that will add to our holiday cheer? How about the warmth of an English Christmas house party, in the late 1930s? Plenty of relatives on hand. A blazing fire. Good port wine. A couple of mysterious strangers. Oh yes – and a murder, with lots of blood. Everything Hercule Poirot needs for a satisfying holiday in Hercule Poirot's Christmas by Agatha Christie.

A good place to begin our discussion of the book  is with her dedication. Most of Christie’s novels might belong in the broad category of books that we would define as “cozies” – that is, the violence is usually discreet and well off-stage. Not so with Hercule Poirot's Christmas – and, in fact, that’s perhaps the most noteworthy feature about the murder in this book. When it was published in 1938, Christie dedicated it to her brother-in-law. She wrote:

“You complained that my murders were getting too refined – anaemic, in fact! You yearned for a ‘good violent murder with lots of blood.’ A murder where there was no doubt about its being murder! So this is your special story – written for you. I hope it may please.”

Beyond pointing out that Agatha Christie’s words should rarely be taken at their face value, I will say only that this particular murder is quite violent indeed. It is that wonderful, clichéd, setting, the English country house party. Old Simeon Lee, a very rich, but particularly unpleasant and tyrannical man, has invited his family to a reunion at the family home. His aim, apparently, is to stir up as much animosity among his sons as possible – and, to that end, he has also invited his black-sheep son to return home, as well as a Spanish granddaughter, largely unknown to the other family members. In addition, a stranger turns up at the house and introduces himself as the son of Simeon’s old business partner in South Africa.

It’s a volatile mix, and Simeon knows which buttons to push to get everyone at everyone else’s throat. So it’s not a huge surprise when he is murdered – rather spectacularly. Everyone hears what sounds like a huge fight inside his locked study, followed by a terrible scream. When they break down the study door, they find Simeon with his throat cut, blood everywhere – lots of blood – and nobody else in the room. That’s right, a locked room impossible crime, much to the dismay of the police. Oh, and I almost forgot – thousands of dollars worth of uncut diamonds seem to have disappeared from a safe in the study.

Fortunately, Hercule Poirot, who has been visiting the local chief constable, is on hand to help the police sort everything out.

In terms of plot, this has to be one of Christie’s absolute best. She takes the clichés of the situation and turns them upside down, using them to lure readers into a number of traps along the way – traps which, of course, Poirot is able to avoid. The reader is likely to suspect one person, then another, and another, as secrets are uncovered and revealed. Even after Poirot explains how and why the locked room puzzle was worked, the reader is still unprepared for the ultimate revelation of the murderer. But the clues are there – and have been given to us quite fairly along the way. It’s a dazzling performance.

So, at this season of good will, if you’re in the mood for an impossible murder, let me recommend – strongly – Hercule Poirot's Christmas. I should note that it has also been published as Murder for Christmas, and it has also been published as “A Holiday for Murder,” but I think that currently it’s most easily found in the United States as Hercule Poirot's Christmas. It’s in print, and should be readily available. Savor it over the holiday.

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If you'd like to listen to the original audio version of the review, please click here.

Next week, we'll be joined by Miss Marple as she tackles tne problem of Murder at the Vicarage.

"Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry"

With less than a week to go before the eight-day Jewish festival of Chanukah begins, I thought that this might be a good time to talk about one of Harry Kemelman's delightful books that features Rabbi David Small as the protagonist. Rabbi Small is the leader of a small congregation of Conservative Jews in the fictional Massachusetts town of Barnard's Crossing. Having enjoyed and reviewed the first mystery in the series several years ago, I decided to concentrate on the second book in the series, written in 1966, called Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry. It is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the full review by clicking here.

Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry begins with Rabbi Small and his very pregnant wife, Miriam, preparing to go to the synagogue to lead the congregation in the special prayers which begin the Jewish fast day of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. This year (in the book), Yom Kippur falls on a Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, and the rabbi (and most other observant Jews) will be fasting for more than 24 hours – which explains why, as the book’s title says, the rabbi went hungry on Saturday.

But the rabbi will soon have other things on his mind. Isaac Hirsh, a researcher at a science lab, is an alcoholic. On the night before the holiday, Hirsh gets hold of a bottle of liquor and proceeds to drink himself nearly to the point of passing out. As the police put the story together, it appears that Hirsh managed to drive himself home, pulled his car all the way into his garage, closed the garage door – and did pass out. The result, of course, was that Hirsh’s body was found in the car and in the garage.

To the police, it is clearly an accidental death. Or is it? Hirsh’s widow comes to Rabbi Small seeking permission to have him buried in his congregation’s small cemetery – permission needed because Hirsh was not a member of the congregation. Rabbi Small must investigate further. And the more he does, the more doubtful he becomes about whether Hirsh’s death really was an accident…or, as the insurance company which had insured Hirsh’s life was ready to claim, could it have been suicide? And, for that matter – as the rabbi’s wife, Miriam, argued – could it also have been murder?

Ultimately, it will be Rabbi Small who notices the small clues which may lead to the very large crime of murder.

It’s a strong and compelling book. The author, Harry Kemelman, gives us, in Rabbi David Small, an intelligent and appealing young man, as his protagonist and investigator. His characters ring true and I suspect many readers will find his explanations of Jewish rituals and beliefs – as they were in the mid-1960s, when Kemelman began writing the books – both believable and understandable. I think you’ll enjoy Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry.

From the Vault: "Uncle Abner: Master of Mysteries"

I suspect that there may be a goodly number of fans who read short crime stories by American authors who are not yet acquainted with Uncle Abner. This character, created by Melville Davisson Post, appears in 18 short stories, first published more than a century ago, in 1918. But these short stories are uniquely powerful, powerful in the stories they tell, powerful in the writing. And if the stories sometimes reflect the realities and prejudices of American frontier society (and they do), Uncle Abner is generally to be found on the side of the angels. I reviewed the collection of Uncle Abner stories, called Uncle Abner: Master of Mysteries, several years ago, in an audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. Here's a transcript, somewhat edited, of that review:

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Among the many wonderful characters who appear in American detective stories, one of the most memorable among them is a man known as Uncle Abner. In a series of stories set along the American frontier in the mountainous regions of western Virginia – the area which later became West Virginia – Uncle Abner represents the voice of morality in a rugged nation that sometimes had difficulty determining good from evil. Uncle Abner was the creation of Melville Davisson Post – and his 1918 collection is called Uncle Abner, Master of Mysteries.

The back-cover blurb to my own copy of the book nails these stories pretty well, I think, saying,

“If you look at any critical list of the ten most important books of detective stories published in the United States, the chances are great that you will find in it Uncle Abner.

Let me tell you a little more about the character of Uncle Abner. The stories are seen through the eyes of his nephew, Martin, who tells us this about his uncle:

He was one of those austere, deeply religious men who were the product of the Reformation. He always carried a Bible in his pocket and he read it where he pleased. Once the crowd at Roy’s Tavern tried to make sport of him when he got his book out by the fire; but they never tried it again. When the fight was over Abner paid Roy eighteen silver dollars for the broken chairs and the table – and he was the only man in the tavern who could ride a horse. Abner belonged to the church militant, and his God was a war lord.

I think that pretty well sums up Uncle Abner and his outlook on the world. In these eighteen short stories, Uncle Abner represents the moral power of good which has been lost by some of the others in the stories. Most of these stories about crime – mostly murder – are not really “fair-play” stories. Instead, we observe Abner as he talks to people and examines facts and frequently reveals a crime where none had been suspected – and solves it as well.

Some of the stories ARE closer to the conventions of the detective story.  The first story in the book, called “The Doomdorf Mystery,” is a marvelous locked-room puzzle: a man is shot to death inside a locked room. Two people confess to the murder, but it becomes clear on talking to them that neither could have done it and escaped from that locked room. It is Uncle Abner whose observations will explain the seemingly impossible crime.

Uncle Abner is not always concerned with the letter of the law. He is more concerned with what, to him, is divinely inspired justice. And by his focus on that, prompted by his own deeply religious beliefs, he acts as a champion of the wrongfully accused and explains mysteries as he uncovers them.

There are so many gems among the eighteen stories here that it is impossible to do them all justice. There is “Naboth’s Vineyard,” in which – again – two people confess to a murder, but Uncle Abner finds a deeper truth. In “The Concealed Path,” he delays a forced wedding long enough to uncover a grisly crime. In “A Twilight Adventure” he manages to stop the lynching of a couple of suspected cattle thieves. In all the stories, it is Uncle Abner’s vision, guided by his beliefs, that smooth some of the edges of rough frontier justice.

I should insert a short warning here to the politically correct: the stories were published in 1918, and they are set in a time and place where slavery was practiced. What we now politely refer to as the “n” word comes up occasionally – particularly in one story, “The Devil’s Tools,” where it is used frequently by a Black servant referring to others. If that sort of thing makes the entire book unpalatable to you – well, it’s your choice.

Personally, I think the stories in Uncle Abner, Master of Mysteries, by Melville Davisson Post, are remarkable examples of the storyteller’s art. Uncle Abner is a unique character, brilliantly drawn, standing out in the rough frontier atmosphere of these stories. Once again, let me quote the narrator, young Martin:

“for all his iron ways, Abner was a man who saw justice in its large and human aspect, and he stood for the spirit, above the letter, of the truth.”

I see that, on Amazon.com, one reader writes, in a review of the book,

“If you are a fan of mystery stories and you have not read Uncle Abner, your education is incomplete.”

I couldn’t agree more.

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You can listen to the complete audio review by clicking here.

Next: Murder for Christmas, by Agatha Christie.

"A Six-Letter Word for Death"

Now here's a book that really fulfills the need of a reader who loves Golden Age-style puzzle plots - even though it was written in 1983, much later than the Golden Age, which is generally defined as the years between the two World Wars. It manages to combine:

• A real puzzle - in fact, one of those marvelous English cryptic crosswords - which hides a disturbing message;
• An English country-house setting, on the Isle of Wight;
• A group of characters -all mystery authors, in fact - who share a number of habits and secrets;
• And, to be sure, some secrets that - in at least one character's mind - are worth killing for.

The book is called A Six-Letter Word for Death, by Patricia Moyes, first published in 1983. It's the subject of this week's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you may listen to a more complete version of this review by clicking here.

The book begins on a hot summer day, when someone anonymously sends a home-made cryptic crossword to Chief Superintendent Henry Tibbett of Scotland Yard. If you're not familiar with the rather fiendish brain-teasers involved in such puzzles, let me explain: in an American puzzle, you generally get a short, one or two word clue to fill a given number of blank spaces in the crossword diagram. You get that in a British puzzle too – but you also get a different way to find the solution which involves both a definition of the answer and some kind of wordplay – puns, for example, or anagrams, or obscure quotes. I haven't done one for too many years, but they were (and, I believe, still are) wonderful exercise for tired minds.

At any rate, the puzzle (along with a few of the answers) received by Tibbett prove to be only the first clues to what appears to be a tantalizing mystery. He discovers that most of the answers resolve themselves into names – and a little research finds that most of the names belong to people who have been involved in cases where someone has died under what might be called suspicious circumstances. When Henry manages to trace the letter – and the puzzle which accompanies it – back to its source, he will find that it came to him from a group of very successful mystery writers who call themselves “the Guess Who Club.” All of them jealously guard the secret of their pen names and clearly value that secrecy. Henry is invited to a weekend with the club’s members and discovers there are a great many more secrets involved here than just the real names of the authors – including some deadly ones.

If you enjoy mysteries where the plot is full of twists and surprises and the character list full of interesting suspects, you really need to meet Superintendent Tibbett (and his wife, Emmy) and their creator, Patricia Moyes. A Six-Letter Word for Death is a very good way to meet them.

Black Orchids 2019 , plus a Nero and a BONA

The Wolfe Pack, the society of fans of Rex Stout's mysteries featuring Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, held their 42nd annual Black Orchid Weekend this past weekend. One highlight of the event was the presentation of the Nero Award at the banquet, presented each year to the Best American Mystery. This year's winner was Walter Mosley for Down the River Unto the Sea. 

It's the second Nero Award for Walter Mosley, who also received the award in 2004 for Fear Itself. He accepted the award from Stephannie Culbertson, the Chair of the Nero Award Committee.

Also at the banquet, the Black Orchid Novella Award - known generally as the BONA - went to author Ted Burge for his novella, "The Red Taxi."

The award is presented jointly by The Wolfe Pack and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. It is designed to encourage writers to create a new and hitherto unpublished mystery story at novella length, the length and format which Rex Stout so often used for his shorter stories. Among other honors, the winning novella will be published next summer in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.

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The keynote speaker at the banquet was Dr. Amanda Belarmino, who has spent some time with the Wolfe Pack and summarized her findings for us in "The Roaming Wolfe Pack: Seeking Our Favorite Detective Outside the Brownstone."

In addition to the awards and speeches, there were the usual extras - quizzes, toasts to the principal characters in the Nero Wolfe books, song parodies, the presence and participation of Rex Stout's daughter...it's quite an event. Next year's banquet will be on December 5, 2020. Why not join us in New York City next time?

From the Vault: "The Castleford Conundrum"

Over the past several years, those of us who are fans of the Golden Age have been very fortunate. Publishers have discovered that there is a market for Golden Age mysteries, and they have been bringing back the authors, both the famous and the obscure. One of those authors, who was in his time a major player in the field, was Alfred Walter Stewart, who wrote under the pen name "J. J. Connington." I've reviewed a half dozen or so books by Connington, including 1932's The Castleford Conundrum, a book which I think is well worth your attention. Here's a transcript of my original audio review which I posted nearly a decade ago on the Classic Mysteries podcast, edited slightly to update outdated information:

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According to the definitions in Wikipedia, a “conundrum,” in logic, refers to a particularly intricate difficult problem that evades solution. That doesn’t sound like a bad definition for the problems at the heart of many mystery stories. For that matter, I suppose, if the problem were NOT intricate and difficult, it would hardly keep our interest throughout the course of the book. So let me present you with just such a conundrum today. It involves the murder of a really unpleasant – and very rich – woman who lives with an ill-assorted (and largely ill-tempered) group of relatives in an English country house. It is The Castleford Conundrum, by J. J. Connington, a fine example of the kind of mystery that comes to mind when we think of the Golden Age of Detection – particularly in Britain. Written in 1932, it is set in an English country house. And the plot itself is a puzzle, with the pieces scrambled and provided to the reader, who is challenged to follow and assemble the clues and come up with the correct solution.

The book presents us with an alarmingly dysfunctional family of unusually unattractive people, all gathered together at Carron Hill, the home of Winifred Castleford, the entirely self-centered widow of a very rich man. Winifred’s second husband, Phillip Castleford, and her stepdaughter, Hillary, have developed a distinctly mutual dislike and contempt for Winifred, who is in the process of making a new will that will disinherit them both when and if she dies – I’m sure mystery readers will recognize this as a very unwise thing to do in a mystery. Also living at Carron Hill is Winifred’s half-sister, Constance, who pretty much runs the house for Winifred and hates Phillip and Hillary. Visiting are the Glencaples – Laurence, a doctor, and Kenneth, a businessman, the two brothers of Winifred’s first husband – and Francis, the 14-year-old son of Kenneth. None of the Glencaples is particularly appealing, all hate the Castlefords, and Francis is a miserable excuse for a teen-aged child, a constant liar who delights in torturing small animals. Also in the neighborhood is a local man, Dick Stevenage, who appears to be having affairs with most of the female characters in the book.

A truly delightful assortment of suspects, indeed, once the inevitable murder occurs. This brings the local police investigator, Inspector Westerham, to the scene. He is a fairly astute detective who quickly sees through what appears to have been an effort to disguise the murder as a suicide. And he is adept at following the clues which seem to be pointing towards a specific individual as the culprit.

It is at this point, however – about two-thirds of the way through the book – that the author brings in his series detective, Sir Clinton Driffield, and Driffield’s Watson-like friend, Squire Wendover. It is Driffield, who, as Chief Constable, has the authority to intervene in the case, who continues to unearth additional clues and who eventually resolves the mystery. He does so in a way that gives the reader a fair chance at solving the puzzle: he sends a letter to Squire Wendover laying out nine significant clues whose pursuit, the letter says, will lead to the criminal. Is the reader going to be able to solve the case? We’ll find out when  Sir Clinton presents his findings to the traditional gathering-of-the-suspects in the Carron Hill Drawing Room.

All in all, it is a fine example of this kind of mystery. If you’re not the type of person who wants to try to figure out the answer to the Castleford Conundrum by yourself, that’s perfectly OK – Sir Clinton will lay it out for you in that drawing room confrontation as well.

The author, J. J. Connington, was a major figure in Golden Age detective literature, and it’s good to see some of his books coming back into print. This new edition of “The Castleford Conundrum” features an introduction by mystery scholar Curtis Evans, who provides some fascinating background on Connington and his mysteries. I would highly recommend “The Castleford Conundrum” for anyone who enjoys the traditional mystery.

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You can listen to the complete recorded review by clicking here.

Next: Uncle Abner: Master of Mysteries, by Melville Davisson Post.

 

 

"Fer-de-Lance"

The first appearance of an American genius, as seen through the eyes of his right-hand assistant, Archie Goodwin:

Wolfe lifted his head. I mention that, because his head was so big that lifting it struck you as being quite a job. It was probably really bigger than it looked, for the rest of him was so huge that any head on top of it but his own would have escaped your notice entirely.

Wise observation and, beginning at the very beginning, typical wisecracking remark from Archie Goodwin, who - in addition to his role as principal aide to his gargantuan, seventh-of-a-ton boss, Nero Wolfe - acts as our narrator for the more than six dozen Nero Wolfe stories by Rex Stout. That quote comes from Fer-de-Lance, and that book, first published in 1934, is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. You can listen to the complete review by clicking here.

Over the past dozen years or so, I've reviewed a number of the Nero Wolfe mysteries both on this blog and on the Classic Mysteries podcast, but I have never written about the book that started it all: Fer-de-Lance. To be honest, it's not really my favorite of the Wolfe and Goodwin novels - both Nero Wolfe and Archie seem to have rough corners which disappear by some of the later books in the series. But it's an interesting story all the same and undoubtedly worth your reading time.

The plot of Fer-de-Lance is pretty much straightforward – Wolfe is hired to find out what happened to a missing man, an immigrant who has disappeared. Not surprisingly, that man turns up dead, quite possibly the victim of a robbery. What is surprising is that Wolfe sees a link between that murder and the death of a college president – a death which the family, the doctor, and the police all insist was natural, the result of a stroke suffered by the victim on the golf course. Wolfe insists that it isn’t natural at all, and he forces authorities to perform an autopsy which reveals that the man was indeed murdered and, in fact, that he died from the deadly venom of a snake, a pit viper known as the fer-de-lance. And as Wolfe and Archie investigate further, they will find their own lives threatened as they match wits with a murderer.

Wolfe certainly does some fine detective work in Fer-de-Lance, making logical deductions from scraps of information as he figures out what has been going on – and what to do about it. Go ahead. Give it a try.