Out of the collection of earlier reviews which we revisit for these "From the Vault" reports, we have a return visit this week from another of my favorite authors, Elizabeth Daly. Various reports suggest that I'm in good company on that, as Daly was said to be among Agatha Christie's favorites too. Her stories are set in the New York City of the 1940s and feature the detective work of Henry Gamadge, a bibliophile and an expert on books and printed art - which is the way Gamadge got involved in this story. You'll understand when you read this lightly-edited transcript of my original audio review of The Wrong Way Down. Enjoy:
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There was something wrong with the picture. It was an engraving, really, and according to the lettering on the picture, it was an engraved eighteenth century portrait of the Lady Audley, copied and etched from the original by Hans Holbein. It hung on the wall of a house in New York City. It was not particularly valuable. But there was something wrong with it – the lettering on the engraving had never been there before during all the years it had hung on the wall. The lettering had only appeared some 24 hours ago. And – perhaps not surprisingly – the woman living in the house was a bit frightened by it. Not that it was likely to be supernatural…but what could it mean? So she showed it to a visiting friend, book expert Henry Gamadge, who was able to explain the lettering – and how it apparently materialized overnight on the engraving. What Gamadge couldn’t foresee, however, was the way that oddity turned into a murder. It happens in The Wrong Way Down, by Elizabeth Daly.
There is something particularly pleasant about reading one of Elizabeth Daly’s mysteries featuring Henry Gamadge. Among the advantages is the pleasure of walking with Gamadge through the streets of New York City in the 1940s, visiting the still-occupied city houses of the middle-to-upper class, many of them just east of Central Park – and a surprising number of them hiding possibly deadly secrets. Gamadge is a bibliophile and an expert in analyzing old documents and detecting forgeries.
In “The Wrong Way Down,” Gamadge is visiting a row house on Park Avenue, currently inhabited by an elderly woman, a friend of Gamadge’s wife. She is trying to close up and clean out that house, on behalf of relatives who live on the west coast. It is she who has discovered that peculiar appearance of writing on that etching, a transformation which seems to have occurred shortly after having received a visit from a self-styled spiritualistic medium. Could that transformation have been the result of some supernatural intervention? No, says Gamadge. Through his expertise, he is able to explain pretty well what must have occurred – and why.
But he is totally unprepared for the next development: a brutal murder. And Gamadge himself becomes the target (and, very nearly, the victim) of a dangerous killer with a very good reason to kill – and to kill more than once.
The Wrong Way Down is a fairly typical Elizabeth Daly mystery. Gamadge himself, as always, manages to seem imperturbable, even when he finds himself alone in the house with a suspected killer. There are clues planted quite cleverly throughout that will help lead to the killer, although I must admit I was quite surprised when the solution was revealed. Daly was said to be Agatha Christie’s favorite American author, and, in truth, Daly’s ability to misdirect the reader’s attention and drag truly amazing red herrings across the trail rivaled Christie’s skill at misdirection. I must admit that I prefer some of Daly’s other books – there are several which deal with seemingly impossible crimes and a couple with even more startling climaxes than you’ll find in The Wrong Way Down. But this book has some excellent characters, and, as I said, the New York City setting evokes a city that probably appears to be more gentle than it actually was. The Felony and Mayhem Press has been republishing Daly’s complete series of sixteen books featuring Henry Gamadge, and I do hope that you will read and enjoy them all. After all, you really should meet Henry Gamadge.
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You can listen to the original audio review by clicking here.
Next: Whose Body?, by Dorothy L. Sayers
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