Classic Mysteries

"The Puzzle of the Red Stallion"

It was a beautiful morning for a horseback ride through New York City's Central Park. Too bad it ended in sudden - and most unnatural - death for the rider. As a result, the very considerable talents of schoolteacher Hildegarde Withers and her good friend, Inspector Oscar Piper proved to be essential in solving The Puzzle of the Red Stallion, by Stuart Palmer. It's the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the entire review by clicking here.

Stuart Palmer wrote more than a dozen novels and a fair number of short stories about schoolteacher Hildegarde Withers, whom he referred to as "that meddlesome old battleaxe." Hildy generally teamed up with her friend (and more than occasional rival), New York City Police Inspector Oscar Piper to solve mysteries which very often appeared impossible at first viewing.

The Puzzle of the Red Stallion, which was first published in 1935, was the sixth book to feature Hildy and Piper. It begins with a murder – a murder in which Miss Withers quickly becomes involved. The victim, a glamorous fashion model, had been riding her horse, a beautiful red stallion and former racing horse named Siwash. At first, there appears to be no good way to explain her death, as there is no evident wound on the body, though there is blood in Siwash. Miss Withers helps Piper solve that problem only to discover that, while there are plenty of suspects who might have had good reason to want the victim dead, none appeared to have had an opportunity to commit the murder. There is a great deal about horse racing in this book, and the sport does play a very important part in the solution of the mystery. There is more than one murder – and, I would have to say, a really nasty method for committing murder that almost evades detection.

While The Puzzle of the Red Stallion is not the strongest entry in the series, there are a couple of murders and some interesting characters. It was made into a movie called "Murder on a Bridle Path," but I don't think it's available for viewing at the moment. The book is a fairly quick, enjoyable read. There are used copies available from the usual sources, but it's also been published as a low-cost e-book from the Mysterious Press and Open Road Integrated Media.

This book is another entry for this year's Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge at the My Reader's Block blog. The challenge this year is to fill our "Bingo" - type cards with vintage mysteries (Gold = pre-1960 or Silver = 1961-1980) mysteries. On my Gold card, this book counts os "one book with an animal in the title.

 

Dracula Meets Charlie Chan

In addition to being a first-rate mystery novel, and, I think, one of the best of Earl Derr Biggers' books featuring Charlie Chan, the movie version of The Black Camel is the oldest surviving movie about Charlie Chan. I haven't seen it, but I believe there are copies available on DVD (used, alas!) and it does turn up on oldies channels occasionally.

The movie features Warner Oland as Charlie Chan. It also features actor Bela Lugosi as Tarneverro, the mysterious and sinister fortune-teller who plays a critical role in the story. The Black Camel was made and released in 1931 - the same year that Lugosi had starred in the title role of the movie of Dracula. His name was certainly known to movie audiences, and it appears he brought that air of mystery and terror to the role of Tarneverro. If you are reading the original book of The Black Camel, try to keep Lugosi's face and powerful personality in mind as you read about the character and imagine his interaction with Warner Oland's Charlie Chan. Looking back over the distance of 82 years, it would seem to have been a brilliant casting choice.

Withers on the Vine

Some very good news today from Open Road Media, a company which has been making a significant number of Golden Age mysteries, both from the US and from England, available in electronic editions. The latest author to benefit from this treatment is Stuart Palmer, whose series detective, Hildegarde Withers, is one of my perennial favorites. Palmer frequently referred to her more-or-less affectionately as "that meddlesome old battleaxe," but Hildy Withers is nobody's fool, and she makes an interesting team with New York City Inspector Oscar Piper, with whom she maintains a rather prickly friendship.

Palmer created the character of Hildegarde Withers with actress Edna May Oliver in mind, In fact, Oliver did star as Hildy in several popular movies in the mid-1930s, opposite James Gleason as Inspector Piper.

As a general rule, the stories are well-plotted and told with some nice humorous touches. I've already reviewed nine of Palmer's books on this blog, and you can find a full list on the backlist page - just scroll down (the authors are listed alphabetically). I'll be reviewing more books from the series, now that Open Road is making them available. If you haven't met Hildegarde Withers...now is the time! I should mention that Open Road is also publishing some additional Stuart Palmer titles that do not have Hildy - I'll be looking forward to trying them as well.

Of Gladys Mitchell and the Saint

Exciting news for lovers of classic mysteries: Amazon will be republishing all 49 of Leslie Charteris's books featuring the character Simon Templar, known as "The Saint," as well as all 65 of the Mrs. Bradley books by Gladys Mitchell along with six of her other books that do not feature Mrs. Bradley.

Although I don't think I have ever read any of the original books, I remember The Saint from the series of "B" movies which were always on television when I was growing up, often featuring George Sanders in the title role. And I've written here - frequently - about some of the Mrs. Bradley mysteries, many of which have never been published in the U. S.

Apparently these will start appearing sometime later this year, under Amazon's Thomas & Mercer imprint.

S. T. Karnick has more details at his blog, The American Culture.

Frightfully Good

While this blog generally sticks to discussion of mysteries, I want to broaden it just a bit today, less than a week away from Halloween, to talk about some frightfully good ghost stories.

At this time of year, we often see "top ten" lists of horror and ghost stories. Frankly, I rarely find myself agreeing with them, preferring (as I do) classic ghost stories to much of today's very graphic horror output. That's not the case this year with a list of "the top ten ghost stories of all time," as chosen by the readers of SFX Magazine. (And a hat tip to J. Kingston Pierce at The Rap Sheet for pointing it out to me.)

Looking at this list of ten - part of a list of the top fifty, which is available only to readers of the magazine - I am amazed at how many of them I know and really really like. There are a couple of M. R. James stories, and he is still my favorite author of classic ghost stories. There's Dickens. And Poe. The list includes movies, such as "The Shining," which is another great fright story.

But my heart is won over by their number one choice - "The Haunting." They like it both as the original book, Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House," and for the marvelous movie made in 1963 by director Robert Wise.

"The Haunting," to use the abbreviated title used in the movie, is exactly what I think a truly frightening book and/or movie needs: you never really see anything. The horror is in your own imagination. It is as true of the movie as it is of the novel; it has been decades since I saw the Robert Wise film, which starred Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson and Russ Tamblyn, but I still remember vividly some of the magnificently-acted scenes. The Shirley Jackson book is beautifully written, the characters memorable, and Hill House itself - "not sane," as the story says, "and whatever walked there, walked alone" - is truly terrifying.

Anyway. Read over the SFX list of frights and see what you think - do you agree with the rankings? What would you have included in the top ten - and what woud you have omitted?

Watching Nero Wolfe

I must confess that I watch next to no television. I may watch a little news here and there, but, on the whole, I'd rather be reading. I particularly dislike most TV adaptations of classic mysteries, especially the ones which feel they have to "update" or "modernize" the stories.

But then along comes Nero Wolfe. Or, to be more accurate, along came Timothy Hutton and Maury Chaykin and a superb troupe of regular players to bring Nero Wolfe and his stories to the home screen via A&E TV. I've actually sat down and watched some of them. They are good. And - miracle of miracles - they are quite faithful to the original stories. The writers and producers had the sense to take Rex Stout's carefully written stories, which are first-person narratives for Archie Goodwin, and simply put the words into Archie's off-camera voice. It's like having Archie on hand to tell you the story himself.

With the holidays coming up, I want to call your attention to an Amazon deal: they are offering the whole series on DVD for a remarkably low price - it's only about a third of the original list price. You get all 20 episodes that were produced for the two seasons of the television show, including the original two-hour pilot based on "The Golden Spiders." There are assorted other extras in the package as well. Frankly, I think it's a present Wolfe fans ought to be giving themselves. (Yes, if you click through on my link above and order the package, I get a remarkably small cut. Full disclosure.)

Most of the earlier Wolfes and Goodwins on TV and in the movies ranged from awful to embarrassing, but the Chaykin-Hutton shows are really worth watching. Do yourself a favor and get them.

The Movie Hunt

Looking for movies to enjoy - for the holiday or any time? Hunting for videos to give as gifts? Amazon.com has a lot of interesting and inexpensive deals to offer. Please check them out at the link (and, if you do buy, you'll be helping me to keep this site going). Harry Potter? Wizard of Oz? King's Speech? These and a lot more - and the prices are pretty good, too.

Thank you.

Miss Withers on Screen

Stuart Palmer's delightful schoolteacher sleuth, Hildegarde Withers, made quite a name for herself in the movies. As mentioned in some of the comments on my post about "Murder on the Blackboard," a number of movies were made from Palmer's books, starring Edna May Oliver as Hildy and James Gleason as her friend and foil, Inspector Oscar Piper.

I haven't seen any of the movies lately, but Oliver is said to have been perfect in the role. That's not surprising, as she was one of Palmer's inspirations for the character, after he saw Oliver on stage in the first run of the Kern/Hammerstein/Ferber musical "Showboat" (according to Tom and Enid Schantz's introduction to "Murder on the Blackboard").

As best as I can tell, the movie version of "Murder on the Blackboard" isn't easily available, although TCM, Turner Classic Movies, apparently runs it from time to time. Here's a link to the TCM page describing the movie; I'd warn against reading the full synopsis there, however, as it gives away the entire plot. If you want more information about the movie, here's its page from the International Movie Database.

The Lady On Film

Raymond Chandler's "The Lady in the Lake" is a fine novel. It also was made into a really interesting film.

The 1946 movie version, directed by and starring Robert Montgomery, was an interesting experiment: the film was shot from the narrator's point of view - that is, the camera itself played the role of detective Philip Marlowe; it was only when "he" looked into a mirror that you would see Montgomery's face. Audrey Totter played the female lead, and there were a lot of familiar faces in the cast - people like Lloyd Nolan, Tom Tully, Leon Ames and Jayne Meadows.

I haven't seen the movie in years, but I checked other reviews online and they assure me that my memory is correct: a lot of the dialogue is taken directly from the book, the cast is very good and the first person point-of-view really does work pretty well. If you like late-40s noir movies, you might want to try to get hold of a copy.

Trailer-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?

OK, not exactly. But there is a new trailer out (from YouTube via Mashable) for the seventh (and next-to-last) Harry Potter movie, based on the first half of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and there is a great deal of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named in this one. Not surprising, given the events that make up the plot of this book.

Oh - and, yes, Harry Potter belongs on this website. Taken in their entirety, the seven Harry Potter novels make up a brilliant mystery, complete with clues carefully planted in all the books leading up to the conclusion. There's a lot of warfare and action in "Deathly Hallows"; I hope the movie won't get so carried away with the action that it leaves out any of the critical and sometimes even heartbreaking plot twists and turns. The Harry Potter novels are classics - classic mysteries, really.

One word of advice: if you're new to the Potter saga, you should read the books in order FROM THE BEGINNING - or at least watch the movies in order FROM THE BEGINNING, or the later books/movies may make little sense to you. I find them tremendously entertaining.