People who work in the theater have a reputation for being a superstitious lot. From the stars of a long-running play down to the stagehands who work behind the scenes, it's easy to find people who live by a set of theatrical superstitions about good - and bad - luck. Some examples: never wish a performer "good luck" - instead, invite him or her to "break a leg." Never refer to Shakespeare's Macbeth by its title - call it "The Scottish Play" instead. Several Broadway theaters are said to be haunted; Wikipedia cites several people who claim to have seen ghosts in those theaters.
These real-world superstitions and many others may be found as well in the world of mystery fiction set in theaters, where superstitions can have dangerous, even disastrous outcomes. Sometimes, they can even lead to murder. It certainly appears as if that's what's going on in Patrick Quentin's Puzzle for Players. That 1938 mystery is the subject of my audio review this week on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you are welcome to listen to the complete review by clicking here.
Puzzle for Players follows Peter Duluth, a New York City theater producer and recovering alcoholic, only recently discharged from the private psychiatric hospital where he was being treated for his addiction. He has gathered a cast of actors and actresses to prepare and open a new play called Troubled Waters, a production he is convinced will be the smash hit of the current Broadway season. Unfortunately for several members of the cast and crew – including Peter Duluth himself – he finds that the theater he thought was going to be home to the play is not, in fact, the theater he will be using. Instead, he finds himself stuck with a rundown New York theater named the Dagonet. Duluth and the cast are very reluctant to rehearse in, and eventually open in, the Dagonet. It’s an old theater, in pretty bad condition, with plenty of rats apparently living in the cellar under the stage. The cast have barely begun rehearsing there when someone is, quite literally, frightened to death. But it isn’t until there is another death (in what looks like a peculiar production accident) that Peter Duluth realizes that someone appears to be trying to block his show from opening. More unpleasant and unexplained events begin to happen; there are deaths which are quite clearly murders. And with each incident, Duluth finds it getting harder and harder to un-scramble the pieces of this Puzzle for Players.
“Patrick Quentin” was a pen name shared by several mystery writers, usually working in collaboration with one or more members of the same group. The mysteries featuring Peter Duluth were written by Hugh C. Wheeler and Richard Wilson Webb, using the name “Patrick Quentin.” I think you'll really enjoy Puzzle for Players.
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