Classic Mysteries

From the Vault: "The Big Midget Murders"

The question of the proper place (if any) for humor in a murder mystery is one that I see debated with some regularity in the social media forums where I participate. Many people dislike the idea. Others - and I'm in this group - think that humor, properly sprinkled through a good mystery, can enhance its effectiveness. And while the humor certainly can be grim, it can relieve tension and add immeasurably to my enjoyment of a good author. 

Consider the case of Craig Rice, author of more than a dozen books about Chicago lawyer John J. Malone and his good friends Jake and Helene Justus. Her books, mostly from the 1940s and 50s, are good examples of the kind of books I'm talking about. Consider, for example, The Big Midget Murders, a 1942 mystery with - to be honest - something to offend just about everyone. And yet it's very funny - to me, at any rate. I did an audio review of The Big Midget Murders for the Classic Mysteries podcast some years back, and I offer you the transcript below, which has been slightly edited:

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His name was Jay Otto. He stood not quite three feet tall. He was a professional entertainer, performing under the headline, “The Big Midget.” And he was – to put it politely – not a very nice person at all. His act consisted of imitations, described by one observer as cruel, hateful, even brutal. But audiences loved him. Chicago lawyer John J. Malone did not – in fact, he found himself frightened of the little man. And it turned out that just about anyone who had any dealings with Jay Otto found himself – or especially herself – with very good reason to hate him. So it didn’t come as much of a surprise when Otto was murdered in his dressing room at the casino owned by Malone’s close friends, Jake Justus and his wife Helene. And that was just the beginning of a remarkable – and, for readers, surprisingly funny – chain of events. You’ll find the details in The Big Midget Murders, by Craig Rice.

During the 1940s and 1950s, the screwball comedy-mysteries of Craig Rice were enormously popular with readers. She was the first mystery writer ever to appear on the cover of Time Magazine – that was in 1946. Many of her mysteries featured the antics (and detective work) of Chicago lawyer John J. Malone and his good friends, Jake and Helene Justus. Malone was a defense lawyer who specialized in getting acquittals for generally guilty clients. Jake was a press agent when he married socialite Helene Brand and decided to try his hand at running a casino – which is where we find the trio at the beginning of The Big Midget Murders. Yes, the term “midget” is, of course, not politically correct – but the book was first published in 1942, and, frankly, the titular midget, Jay Otto, had so little to recommend him that few readers are likely to care how he is referenced in the book.

It begins with Malone, Jake and Helene watching Jay Otto’s act in Jake’s casino – and disliking it intensely. But when they go backstage later, they discover that somebody has murdered the midget by hanging him from a most peculiar noose made up of eleven unmatched silk stockings.

Now we all know the first thing one is supposed to do on discovering a murder scene is call the police – and never to touch the body or disturb the crime scene. That rule is pretty well ignored by Malone, Jake and Helene, who don’t want a dead body discovered in their casino. So they put the body into a case designed for a big bass fiddle – I told you this was a screwball comedy mystery – and go outside to discuss what to do next. When they go back inside, they discover that the fiddle case – and the body – have disappeared.

And of course that’s just the beginning. We are going to find ourselves involved with quite a cast of characters, including chorus girls, musicians, gangsters, socialites, singers. There will be more killings. And we will learn more than we really want to know about Jay Otto and his peculiarities. It is fair to say that Otto resented – in fact, hated – just about everyone, and managed to put himself in a position where he could inflict that hatred and pain on just about everyone. As Helene observes, quote, “Even now that he was dead, he seemed to have left some mark on the world, dark, frightening, and curiously evil.”

There’s a great deal that is very funny in The Big Midget Murders but there’s also a serious undercurrent. Rice doesn’t try to soften the impact of the murders. Even Malone feels it. Here’s a description of Malone shortly after the murder of Otto is discovered:

“Perhaps if he kept very still and pretended the tiny corpse of Jay Otto wasn’t concealed in the bass fiddle case, the whole horror would go away of its own accord, as though it had never been there at all. It wasn’t just that a man had been murdered. He’d encountered murders before. Nor that Jake and Helene might be in a devilishly tight spot. They’d get out of it, as they always had in the past…No, it went deeper than any of those things. It was just that the little lawyer felt that all of them were skirting the edge of something strange and dark and terrible, something he couldn’t describe or explain, but that he knew was there.”

Craig Rice – and her characters – are aware of the incongruities involved here. And it’s to her credit that she maintains the black comedy while providing an interesting and complex plot and a fair number of memorable characters. The Big Midget Murders appears to be out of print, but it is available now in various e-book formats. I think you would enjoy it.

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

"Death in the Grand Manor"

The name of English author Anne Morice is virtually unknown today. She wrote more than two dozen light, cleverly plotted and downright funny mysteries, beginning in 1970 with Death in the Grand Manor, most of which featured an engaging young heroine, an actress names Tessa Crichton. That date puts Morice outside the Golden Age, but the wit and humor in her books, I think, put her quite firmly in what is frequently called the Silver Age of Detective Fiction. Now, the English publisher Dean Street Press, is bringing back some of Morice's books. In April, they will begin re-publishing her first ten novels, and the publisher has sent me some of these books for this review, including Death in the Grand Manor. That book is the subject of this week's review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you are welcome to listen to that audio review by clicking here.

Most of Ann Morice’s mysteries feature Tessa Crichton, a young actress, as their central character, principal detective and narrator. In Death in the Grand Manor, she is staying at the home where her playwright cousin Toby Crichton, his (mostly) estranged wife, Matilda Spragge and his eleven-year-old daughter, Ellen, all live in a couple of the houses along Roakes Common. There is distinctly a problem in that small enclave. The rather awful couple who live in the local country manor, Douglas and Bronwen Cornford, along with their highly disagreeable children, have managed to alienate just about everyone in town. They are prime suspects, for example, in the death of Ellen’s dog. Both of the Cornfords apparently have hair-trigger tempers and a loathing for the rest of their neighbors that seems both outlandish and dangerous, although quite clearly reciprocated by those neighbors. Oh, and complicating things somewhat for Tessa is the presence of a young man living nearby named Robin Price whom Tessa meets in one of the local pubs – a presence that she finds strongly attractive even after learning that he is a police officer.

If this is all beginning to sound like a very good recipe for murder…why yes, yes it is. As we will see in Death in the Grand Manor, by Anne Morice. This new edition of Morice's books features an introduction and afterword by mystery historian Curtis Evans with more information about her life and her work. 

(Not) Waiting for Lefty

Usually, around this time of year, the Left Coast Crime conference would be meeting, celebrating, and presenting the Lefty Awards to deserving winners. Usually. Things being how they are, a few changes had to be made this year, and the awarding of the 2021 Leftys were presented this evening to a Zoom Webcast broadcast to many of the people who would have been at this year's conference and still managed to nominate and vote for their favorites. And it was quite a group, too. 

So here are the award winners and the runners-up winners of the 2021 Leftys - for it is said with both confidence and truth that anyone nominated for this award is on the list of winners as well. The award winner leads off the list(s) of nominees below. May I have a fanfare or two and a drum roll?

Lefty Award for Best Debut Novel

• ***David Heska Wanbli Weiden, Winter Counts
• Daisy Bateman, Murder Goes to Market
• Mary Kelliikoa, Derailed
• Erica Ruth Neubauer, Murder at the Mena House
• Richard Osman, The Thursday Murder Club
• Halley Sutton, The Lady Upstairs

Lefty Award for Best Humorous Mystery Novel

• ***Ellen Byron, Murder in the Bayou Boneyard
• Jennifer J. Chow, Mimi Lee Gets a Clue
• Carl Hiaasen, Squeeze Me
• Cynthia Kuhn, The Study of Secrets
• J. Michael Orenduff, The Pot Thief Who Studied the Woman at Otowi Crossing
• Sung J. Woo, Skin Deep

Lefty Award for Best Historical Mystery Novel (Bruce Alexander Memorial) for books covering events before 1970

• ***Catriona McPherson, The Turning Tide
• Susanna Calkins, The Fate of a Flapper
• Dianne Freeman, A Lady's Guide to Mischief and Murder
• Laurie R. King, Riviera Gold
• Ann Parker, Mortal Music
• James W. Ziskin, Turn to Stone

Lefty Award for Best Mystery Novel

• ***Louise Penny, All the Devils Are Here
• Tracy Clark, What You Don't See
• S. A. Cosby, Blacktop Wasteland
• Matt Coyle, Blind Vigil
• Rachel Howzell Hall, And Now She's Gone

As LCC explains it, "The 2021 Lefty Award Nominees have been selected by registrants for the last in-person convention in San Diego and the next one scheduled for Albuquerque in April 2022."The awards were voted on virtually and presented April 10."

From the Vault: "The Blind Barber"

The mystery which I want to share with you today on our "From the Vault" feature reminds me of a very old but still appropriate nursery rhyme:

There was a little girl and she had a little curl

right in the middle of her forehead.

When she was good, she was very very good,

And when she was bad she was horrid - but remarkably interesting, all the same.

Which is my way of inviting you to read, or re-read, one of my favorite impossible crime detective stories by the great John Dickson Carr. The key words there are "impossible" and "detective." "Impossible," by the nature of the crime (murder on a luxury ocean liner - but the victim disappears and nobody is missing). "detective," because Carr's detective, Dr. Gideon Fell, sits in his living room in London, is told everything (and only things shared with the reader) about the crime - and solves the mystery without even leaving his armchair.

Yes, it's also "horrid" - but only if you believe that a great mystery cannot also be a hilariously funny farce. Murder is a terrible crime, but I suspect very few crimes of this nature happen in real life. And I'll stand by my diagnosis of "remarkably interesting." I'll explain more in this (lightly edited) transcript below of my Classic Mysteries audio review of Carr's 1934 classic, The Blind Barber. You have been warned...

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It was most certainly a memorable voyage. The commander of that noble passenger liner, the S. S. Queen Victoria, is highly unlikely to forget that particular Atlantic crossing. In fairness, Captain Sir Hector Whistler probably would prefer to forget it completely. For the high jinks aboard his great luxury liner were unlike any before or since. There was a fair amount of mayhem involved, and a lot of drinking…and also the theft of a fabulous jewel. And there was a bloody murder followed by an impossible disappearance. And the solution would come from a detective who wasn’t even on board the Queen Victoria (though he bitterly regretted having missed all the fun) – Dr. Gideon Fell. It all happens in The Blind Barber, by John Dickson Carr.

John Dickson Carr was – and remains, I think – the undisputed 20th century master of the impossible crime and locked room mystery genre – the crime that couldn’t have happened, yet did. In The Blind Barber, we have what I think is one of his most ingenious plots.

But...

The Blind Barber – first published in 1934, 87 years ago – is showing its age, frankly. It shows it mostly in a matter of attitude, but it’s hard to bring a 2021 point-of-view to that kind of 87-year-old humor.

So before we go any farther, let me list some of the things I really really like about The Blind Barber and also some of the things I don’t like as much.

I like the plot – a plot that is so complex that it’s hard to summarize here without totally confusing you – or confusing me, for that matter. Among its elements, it has to do with some stolen movie film that could prove very embarrassing to people in very high places, a stolen emerald elephant, and a bloody shipboard murder with a victim who vanishes.

I like the fact that it is a pure armchair detective story. Carr’s detective, Dr. Gideon Fell, quite literally sits in his armchair in his London rooms and is told the story of what happened on board the ship by one of the participants – and Dr. Fell solves the mystery without ever setting foot out of his rooms.

I like the fact that it is a comedy. In fact, it is a farce. As critic Anthony Boucher observed in his introduction to the 1962 Collier paperback edition sitting on my bookshelf, "this book is a farce about murder."

I like the four main characters involved in the strange events on board the S. S. Victoria – the people who are responsible for so much of the slapstick that surrounds this mystery and who somehow manage repeatedly to assault the dignified captain of the ship with everything from fists to bug spray.

What I do NOT like is some of the attitude.

Given the rather brutal nature of the murder in the book – and of the murderer, for that matter – some of the laughter rings kind of hollow to me.

I do NOT like the fact that so much of the humor is based on the idea that drinking to excess is inherently funny.

I do NOT like the fact that some of the humor is based on ethnic stereotyping. Note that this is ethnic, not racial, but – in 2021 – it feels more than a little awkward.

And now that I’ve listed all that for you, let me say only that I still think the plot of the book is brilliant and a lot of the humor really is funny, in a “three stooges” kind of way.

Oh – you want to know what happens? Well, as I said, the plot involves all sorts of complications. To repeat, paraphrasing the blurb of that 1962 Collier edition, there’s a reel of compromising film, an emerald elephant, and a lethal razor for props, murder as the evil deed, and unmitigated mayhem as the comedy relief. And there’s also the question of how to arrange for a disappearance at sea – when nobody is missing from the ship. When the ship reaches London, one of our central characters goes to visit Dr. Fell and lays the case out before him – and Dr. Fell is able to explain what really happened. And, in that Collier edition – I don’t know if it’s available in the newer e-book version – when Dr. Fell offers his explanation at the end of the book, the reader is given footnotes which contain the number of the page on which that clue had been given to you. Enjoy a good game of matching wits with the author and his detective? The Blind Barber is a great choice for you.

To quote Anthony Boucher again, he wrote in his introduction:

“Unlike almost all other comedies of terrors, The Blind Barber is a detective story, in the strictest sense. But never was a reader more bedeviled with distractions from detection. Who observes clues while he’s wiping his laughter-streaming eyes? I hope you enjoy the challenge…and the fun.

And I think that pretty well sums up The Blind Barber, by John Dickson Carr. And I really do hope I haven’t dissuaded you from giving the book a try. It’s available now in an e-book edition from Open Road Media. If you can overlook its flaws – mostly, as I say, the result of 1930s attitudes being viewed through 21^st century eyes – I really do think you’ll enjoy the mystery – and you’ll be astounded by the solution.

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

Next: Look to the Lady, by Margery Allingham.

"Some Die Eloquent"

"And what, exactly," enquired Sloan as he walked into the mortuary proper with the pathologist, "did Beatrice Gwendoline Wansdyke die from?"

Diabetes," said Dr. Dabbe. "Or so I am told."

"And?"

"And nothing," said Dr. Dabbe blandly, "unless I find something else as well."

"So what's the problem?"

"The problem," said Dr. Dabbe,"is not so much what she died from as what she died with, if you see what I mean."

"No," said Sloan uncompromisingly, "I don't see what you mean. What did she die with?"

"A quarter of a million pounds," said the doctor.

Oh my. Let me explain. Miss Beatrice Gwendoline Wansdyke, a 59-year-old woman, taught chemistry at the local girls' school. She had suffered for many years with diabetes - then (perhaps even more than now) a huge health problem. Her death from diabetes surely was natural. Or it would have seemed so before the county pathologist, Dr. Dabbe, tipped off by a gossiping bank clerk, found a quarter of a million British pounds in Miss Wansdyke's bank account - about one-and-a-half million dollars today. And that put the whole matter of the inheritance - and Miss Wansdyke's death - under a considerable cloud which, of course, ended up in murder.

The story is told in Catherine Aird's 1979 novel, Some Die Eloquent, one of Aird's mischievous, light, but carefully plotted and wittily written mysteries. It's the subject of this week's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you are welcome to listen to the complete audio review by clicking here.

For a long time now, I’ve been convinced that the contemporary British author Catherine Aird, and her traditional, puzzle-plot mysteries, are sadly undervalued in the United States. Beginning in 1966 and continuing – so far – at least through 2019, Aird - now recently turned 90 - has written a long series of fairly light mysteries which are known collectively as “The Calleshire Chronicles.” The mysteries, with their emphasis on clever plotting and witty dialogue, could easily have been written by a Golden Age author. Some Die Eloquent is the eighth book in the series.

The central character in Aird’s books is Detective Inspector C. D. Sloan – known (most probably behind his back) as “Seedy.” Readers will get to know other members of the fairly tiny Calleshire police force, many of whom reappear in several of the novels. There is also Margaret Sloan, the inspector’s wife, who is very pregnant indeed in this book. That pregnancy, in fact, is one of the two main story lines, as Sloan finds himself torn between his responsibilities to his wife and their child and his need to solve the mysteries of how and why an elderly chemistry teacher should have been murdered – if indeed she was murdered. You'll have a good time trying to figure it out.

From the Vault: "They Found Him Dead"

One of my favorite Golden Age authors really isn't that well known for her mysteries. Georgette Heyer (pronounced "hair") has a solid and well-deserved reputation as an author of historical romance novels. But she also wrote a dozen or so mysteries that are very enjoyable Golden Age mysteries, including They Found Him Dead, originally published in 1937. I reviewed it several years ago for the Classic Mysteries podcast. Here's a transcript of that audio review, lightly edited as usual.

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“Found dead.”

That was pretty much the official verdict in the case of the death of Silas Kane. He had celebrated his sixtieth birthday at his English country home with his relatives. But, late at night, in the mist and fog, he had gone out for a walk and – apparently – had gotten disoriented on a cliff path, slipped and fell to his death. There was no question of foul play, even though there was plenty of sniping and bickering among those relatives. No, it was clearly death by misadventure. Or at least that was the verdict until Silas’s heir also died – by a gunshot wound. Perhaps it was time for a closer look…

It happens in They Found Him Dead, a Golden Age English country house mystery written in 1937 by Georgette Heyer.

Georgette Heyer wrote more than fifty books in the course of her career. Most are romance novels, some with historical backgrounds. But among her books, she also wrote a dozen classic mysteries that are as thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining as you could wish for in an English country home mystery. You know the type: they are set in and around the country estate of some local landowner, usually the patriarch of a mostly dysfunctional family. There is sure to be a murder. There may be an amateur detective or – more likely, with Heyer – a clever professional. There may or may not be some romance. The better ones will also have a touch of humor. And the best of them will cleverly misdirect the reader into jumping to all the wrong conclusions.

Georgette Heyer excelled in all these areas. Having read several of her books, I must say that They Found Him Dead is one of the best that I have read by her.

The book begins with that birthday celebration for Silas Kane at his country estate. His relatives are gathered around. There are plenty of family disagreements – mostly over matters of business – but certainly nothing that would suggest dark deeds lurking around the fringes of the estate.

But then Silas goes out after the party for a walk along the cliff – and never returns. There was a good deal of fog, after all, and death by misadventure seems a perfectly reasonable verdict.

But then Silas’s heir – who has also been involved in those disagreeable business discussions – is shot to death. And although plenty of people heard the shot, nobody appears to have seen anything – or anyone – useful in the area.

And then a third man – Jim Kane – who turns out to be the heir of the heir, so to speak – finds himself on the receiving end of a number of murderous attacks. It begins to seem that his death may be just a matter of time.

Into the midst of all this, Georgette Heyer brings her detectives, Superintendent Hannasyde and his assistant, Sergeant Hemingway. As they sift through the evidence, it tends to point to one particular member of the family. But Hannasyde isn’t satisfied…and, the more he looks into the mystery, the more he is puzzled by this jigsaw puzzle of a case in which no two pieces really seem to fit together.

Through all this, Heyer manages to maintain our interest in the members of Kane’s family and his business partners. She comes up with quite an assortment of memorable characters. Dorothy L. Sayers is quoted as saying of Georgette Heyer, “her characters and dialogue are an abiding delight to me…I have seldom met people to whom I have taken so violent a fancy from the word ‘Go’.” I agree. Heyer writes about her characters with wit, humor and charm, and she has put them into a fine mystery with more than a few surprises in store for her readers. I would recommend They Found Him Dead very highly.

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You can listen to the original recorded audio review by clicking here.

Next: A Case of Spirits, by Peter Lovesey.

From the Vault: "And So to Murder"

I could not begin to tell you how often, in this space, I have declared my enjoyment of the mysteries by John Dickson Carr, both the ones he wrote under his own name and the ones he wrote as "Carter Dickson." For our regular visit to the Classic Mysteries vault this week, I'd like to call your attention to one, first published in 1941, called And So to Murder. It's one of the Carter Dickson books, starring Sir Henry Merrivale, in a somewhat more subdued role than fans of these books might expect. It's also a light romp through some of the unexpected hazards of both moviemaking and romance. It was the subject several years ago of my audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and I offer you the transcript of that review for what I hope will be your enjoyment. As usual, it has been slightly updated, primarily to add information about the book's availability:

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For Monica Stanton, the new job seemed at first like a dream come true. The young woman, who had written a sizzling best-selling romance novel, found herself hired as a screenwriter by an English movie company. She was eager to get started. But then she found out that she wasn’t going to rewrite her own book for the movies. No, the all-powerful producers wanted her to rewrite a best-selling mystery instead – and Bill Cartwright, the author of that best-selling mystery, would rewrite Monica’s own novel. Oh, and he’d also teach her something about the craft of screenwriting. It didn’t take long before Monica was furious with the movie executives…and she hated Bill Cartwright. And all that happened before somebody attacked Monica and nearly killed her. Things were certainly getting out of hand in And So to Murder, by John Dickson Carr writing as Carter Dickson.

It is a matter of record that John Dickson Carr went to work for a British movie company, London Films, a subsidiary of Korda Films, in 1938 – and that he did not have a good time. Carr’s biographer, Douglas G. Greene, quotes Carr’s wife as saying that John hated “with complete loathing” the time he spent at the studio. And Carr himself described the whole project as “thrice-accursed.”

It’s impossible not to draw some conclusions from that fact when we read And So to Murder, which was published in 1941, not that long after Carr’s unhappy experience with the movies. He certainly skewers the industry and many of its executives. But the story really centers on Monica Stanton, her relationship with Bill Cartwright and the other people with whom she works at the studio.

Shortly after coming to the studio, Monica is lured to a movie set, in a room with a speaking tube that connects the upper and lower floors of the set. Somebody whistles down the tube, Monica answers it…and narrowly escapes when somebody pours oil of vitriol…sulfuric acid…down the tube. That turns out to be the first in a series of attacks, accompanied by frightening anonymous letters.

Fortunately for Monica, Bill Cartwright is nearby (and, yes, she manages to overcome her initial loathing of him) – and he is able to bring the attacks to the attention of the police and also to Sir Henry Merrivale, whom readers will recognize as the undisputed star of the Carter Dickson novels.

Now this all happens just after the start of World War II. There is still a great deal of talk about spies who may be lurking on the movie set. Sir Henry – who is more sedate in this novel than he is in many of the other books by Carter Dickson – apparently is in charge of British intelligence, and he has had his eye on that movie studio for a while. And he will eventually unravel the mysterious events and attacks that have taken place. Sir Henry doesn’t appear until about halfway through the novel, and he’s offstage – or, I suppose, off-screen – for most of the case. There’s humor in his irascibility, but little of the buffoonish behavior which lessens my enjoyment of some of these books.

There’s also humor in some of the trappings of movie-making – not surprising, perhaps, given Carr’s own unhappy movie-making experiences. There is, for example, a Mr. Aaronson, a short, fat producer who is producing a movie biography of that great British war hero, the Duke of Wellington. Mr. Aaronson is making what he considers improvements in the movie’s script, such as adding a couple of songs the night before the battle, or arranging it so that the Duke can’t get to the battle but instead imagines his troops are fighting it. All intended to make it the movie more popular, of course; as Bill Cartwright points out, if that movie ever does get produced, it’s going to be a joy and a delight...

But the murderous attacks are at the center of the plot, together with suspicions of espionage. And I do have a complaint that I suspect you may share if you read the book. John Dickson Carr was the master of the impossible crime and also of playing what he called the grandest game with the reader. He sets up certain rules for himself and expects the reader to play by those same rules. All I can say – without spoilers – is that I think he violates one of those cardinal rules at a critical point in the book. There’s a great deal of entertainment here, and a good solid mystery – but something also happens which I think violates that understanding between the author and the reader.

Still, for the characters, for the film industry byplay, and for the plot, you will most likely enjoy And So to Murder, written by John Dickson Carr as Carter Dickson. At the moment, I think, it’s out of print, but there is an e-book edition available and I recommend it to you.

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

Next: They Found Him Dead, by Georgette Heyer.

"It Might Lead Anywhere"

There's no question about it: the murder of a seemingly inoffensive little man named Alf Brown was going to be a headache for Bobby Owen. I beg your pardon: Deputy Chief Constable, Acting Chief Constable, Wychshire County Police Robert Owen. A title which, according to author E.R. Punshon, made him "too dignified now to be referred to as Bobby, except when he wasn't there or by a wife little impressed by high-sounding titles bestowed on one who to her still seemed most of the time a rather troublesome charge and responsibility".

Which leads us to the quandary facing Bobby Owen – there are a lot of suspects in the murder of Brown, but each time a new fact is uncovered by the investigators, it seems that the new information merely broadens the scope of the puzzle. As Bobby says, it’s a case that might lead anywhere. And It Might Lead Anywhere is a very apt title for the 1946 book which is the subject of this week's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. You can listen to the complete review by clicking here.

The British publisher Dean Street Press recently sent invitations to its readers to download (for free) several of E. R. Punshon’s Bobby Owens mysteries. I enjoy Punshon's mysteries - I've reviewed several of his books already - but some of the ones sent out by the publisher were new to me. Among the ones I hadn’t read yet, It Might Lead Anywhere was the first on my list.

It was only after Bobby Owen began working on the case that he began to discover some very interesting facts about Alf Brown. The trouble was, none of the facts seemed to fit properly with each other. They seemed to take the investigation into different directions. And even when Bobby had become certain that he knew who committed the murder – and could answer that all-important question of “why” – it certainly looked as if it was going to be very difficult to get enough proof to convince a British jury.

For the reader, it all adds up to an enjoyable search for that information, complete with some thriller overtones. The complex plot and quiet humor make E.R. Punshon's It Might Lead Anywhere a pleasant and often pointed read. Mystery historian Curtis Evans has contributed an excellent introduction to this edition with more information about Punshon and about his books.

"The Glimpses of the Moon"

"Edmund Crispin" was the pen name used by Robert Bruce Montgomery to write a series of mysteries featuring Gervase Fen, an Oxford University professor. The first nine of the books were written between 1944 and 1951, and for more than a quarter-century after that - nothing until 1977, when Fen (and Crispin) returned in The Glimpses of the Moon, the ninth and last novel in the series.

Was it worth the wait?

I think most of Crispin's fans - myself included - would say "yes," though it's longer and more convoluted than the earlier novels. It’s a little wilder, a little coarser, a little funnier, with a little more convoluted plot and a little more in the way of horrifying scenes than the earlier books – and it is a book that will be savored by any Crispin fan who may not have come across it before. It's the subject of my audio review today on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the complete review by clicking here.

The Glimpses of the Moon begins eight weeks after a horrendous murder. A truly awful person named Routh was murdered, apparently by a completely insane man named Hagberd who objected to Routh’s habits, which included torturing animals. When Hagberd had found that out about Routh, he proceeded to beat the living daylights out of Routh. It was only a short time afterwards that Routh was murdered, the body dismembered and artfully rearranged (though the head was missing). Nobody seemed to mind Routh’s death very much, and Hagberd was duly arrested and put into a mental institution.

All this had happened before the opening of the book, which finds Professor Gervase Fen on a sabbatical leave from Oxford and working on a book of criticism of the post-war British novel, a topic he appears to be coming to loathe. By the end of the first chapter, it becomes quite clear that while what I called the "artful rearrangement" of Routh's body after his death might well have been committed by Hagberd, the latter could not have committed the murder, having been elsewhere and talking with other people at the time the crime must have happened.

And we’re off. I’m not going to try to follow the story line for you because the action (and the characters) are quite mad. But then, as one of Fen’s friends, says,

“everyone who lives in the countryside’s a bit touched, one way or another. If we all started trying to have each other certified there’d be nobody left.”

So you may expect thoroughly eccentric characters, more murders (and more missing heads), police officers pursuing their own theories about those murders, a certain amount of nymphomania, thankfully also offstage, stray herds of cows, a rather disastrous fox hunt, a couple of car chases, a composer of music for horror films, an English Church fair, a writing style that glories in the use of obscure phrases and words that may send you to the dictionary…well, you’re extremely unlikely to be bored. Veteran fans of Gervase Fen will undoubtedly find it delightful. It’s The Glimpses of the Moon, by Edmund Crispin.

From the Vault: "The Corpse Steps Out"

From time to time, I find myself reading a deeply-serious mystery book and wishing that I could find something a little lighter in tone, something which uses humor to tell a serious story and to relieve some of the tension we find in a great mystery classic. That's when I'm likely to go back to my bookshelves and grab a book by Craig Rice. And to those who say "murder can never be funny!" I would recommend just about any of Rice's books to prove that they are mistaken. For example, take The Corpse Steps Out, first published in 1940. I recorded an audio review of The Corpse Steps Out for the Classic Mysteries podcast several years ago, and this edited transcript may help explain my fascination with Craig Rice's novels and her sense of humor:

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Nelle Brown has a problem. Living in Chicago, she’s the successful star of a weekly radio broadcast (which, in the late 1930s, meant she was being heard in living rooms all across the country – and getting paid a lot of money for it, too). She’s married to an older man, called “Tootz,” who is insane but whom she loves, and she is also having a quiet affair with a younger man, called “Baby,” whom she really doesn’t love. She’s also being blackmailed by another former lover. But that’s not her real problem. No, the real problem confronting Nelle Brown is that she goes to visit the blackmailer to try to get back some incriminating love letters – and finds him shot to death. And then the corpse disappears. And that’s just the beginning of the high-spirited 1940 mystery-comedy, The Corpse Steps Out, by Craig Rice.

Nelle Brown’s predicament in The Corpse Steps Out is quite serious. In that era, any hint of scandal would be enough to end her career instantly – not to mention that the police would be certain to consider her their prime suspect. Fortunately for Nelle, she has a number of willing helpers eager to get her out of this mess. There’s her press agent and manager, Jake Justus, who is the guy who discovers that the victim’s body has disappeared. There’s socialite Helene Brand, whose primary interests are drinking, driving and trying to get married to Jake, a project of which he wholeheartedly approves. And there’s Jake and Helene’s good friend, John J. Malone, a short, balding, usually-inebriated and rather shady Chicago lawyer who specializes in winning acquittals for a variety of mostly-guilty clients. Jake, Helene and Malone volunteer to do what they can to protect Nelle Brown, even if it means that Jake and Helene have to postpone their wedding a bit. And the three of them are not above moving a body or two themselves – and in fact they will have several opportunities to do so in the course of this adventure, as the number of dead bodies continues to increase.

That all probably sounds very complicated. Okay, it IS very complicated, but it’s also hilariously funny and a very good, sufficiently-clued traditional mystery as well.

This is a dangerous book to read in, say, a crowded waiting room or on a busy commuter bus, as you will find yourself snorting and laughing out loud at some of the events and the dialogue. Craig Rice once wrote, “Murder is not mirthful and there is nothing comic about a corpse,”  but fortunately she rarely followed her own advice.

A couple of examples: At one point, when another body is discovered, Nelle Brown insists that it must be a mistake or that the person who shot the victim isn’t in the radio business, because “no one in radio would shoot a prospective sponsor.” At another point, Helene, who is searching Chicago trying to remember where she parked her car while she was very drunk, suddenly remembers where she left it.

“I left it by the NO PARKING sign in front of the Chicago Avenue Police Station,” she said happily. “I remember thinking at the time, it would be such a good safe place for it.”

Craig Rice wrote about a dozen books starring Jake, Helene and Malone, and they all contain this kind of offbeat and sometimes darkly colored humor blended into a good and solid, well-plotted mystery. The dialogue sparkles; the situations are mostly incredible but very funny (once you can accept the idea of a murder being funny). If you enjoy quirky humor and tight (if offbeat) plotting, you’ll enjoy The Corpse Steps Out.

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You can listen to the original recording from the Classic Mysteries podcast by clicking here.

Next: Hamlet, Revenge! by Michael Innes.