Classic Mysteries

"The Mystery of the Peacock's Eye"

Item: a young woman meets a rather dashing gentleman - name unknown - at the glamorous Hunt Ball of Westhampton, where the local near-aristocracy has gathered for what has traditionally been the most socially prominent charity event of the season. She enjoys her dance, but the man won't tell her his name, calling himself only "Mr. X.". At the same time, there are rumors - unconfirmed, to be sure - that some member of European royalty has been enjoying himself - incognito - at the ball.

A few months later, Mr. Anthony Bathurst, private investigator, receives a visitor at his London digs. His guest reveals that he is royalty - Crown Prince Alexis of Clorania. He has come to ask Mr. Bathurst for help uncovering the blackmailer who is threatening the Prince, who is to be married in the near future to the Princess Imogena of Natalia. Or he would be married - unless that pesky blackmailer sends those incriminating photos and letters to the Princess. Mr. Bathurst, in keeping with the traditional role of the gentleman investigator, accepts the commission.

Meanwhile, in the town of Seabourne, a young woman with a severe toothache visits a dentist to have the troublesome tooth extracted.  But while the dentist is out of the room, the young woman is murdered in the dentist’s chair – poisoned by an injection of cyanide. 

Oh - and there is talk of a fabulous jewel, known as the Peacock's Eye, whereabouts uncertain at the moment, which may or may not be involved in the affairs outlined above. You'll find details in The Mystery of the Peacock's Eye, a 1928 Golden Age classic by Brian Flynn. The Mystery of the Peacock's Eye is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to that review by clicking here.

As a result of that murder, Chief Detective-Inspector Richard Bannister is rudely awakened very early one morning. Inspector Bannister is enjoying his vacation at Seabourne when it is interrupted by both the local police and Scotland Yard’s own senior commander: will Inspector. Bannister please cut short his vacation and take over the investigation of this murder, which may have serious international repercussions. Mr. Bannister, closing in on his own retirement from the Yard, reluctantly agrees. And as other crimes are uncovered,  Inspector Bannister will be working very closely with Anthony Bathurst to get to the bottom of a very complicated mystery.

Brian Flynn is the latest hitherto forgotten Golden Age author to be brought back from obscurity through re-publication of many of his mysteries by Dean Street Press. Among the books being re-published you will find The Mystery of the Peacock’s Eye, Flynn’s third mystery to feature his series detective, Anthony Bathurst. Dean Street Press provided me with an electronic copy for this review.

This is a difficult book to talk about because so much of the plot, the characters, the situation – everything, really – is made up of incidents (and people) who will cause most readers to nod knowingly and say, “Of course, I see where this is headed” – and then find out they’ve been expertly misdirected. I admit I’m the kind of reader who delights in being fooled that way, and I found myself forced to kick myself time after time in The Mystery of the Peacock’s Eye, as what had seemed at first like simply another tired cliché situation or character turns out to be something quite unexpected. If you try to imagine a plot concocted by Edgar Wallace, Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie and even Willkie Collins, you might begin to appreciate the mixture awaiting you here.

So if I say that the book reads like a thriller but incorporates a great many classic plot-and-puzzle situations, or I warn against prematurely judging the characters and situations that you will meet in this book, I’ve done about all I can do to protect you from self-inflicted errors without venturing into spoiler territory. This edition also features an informative introduction from mystery historian and blogger Steve Barge. I do think that readers who love the twists and turns of the classic Golden Age mystery will have a very good time with Brian Flynn’s The Mystery of the Peacock’s Eye. 

 

 

"N or M?"

With World War II well under way, and much of England mobilized to defend the homeland, it was perhaps understandable that Tommy and Tuppence Beresford were feeling frustrated over their inability to persuade the Powers That Be to use them for something that could help in the war effort. Quite clearly, they were too old, too unqualified to really be much use to anyone.

And then they are visited by a senior British intelligence officer who wants Tommy to undertake a difficult and quite probably dangerous undercover operation: discover the identities and whereabouts of two senior German spies, known to be operating in Britain. Dangerous? Well, yes; in fact, as the intelligence officer explains, one of the top British counter-agents has just been killed by a hit-and-run driver - and it was, quite clearly, no accident. The only real clue was a message left by the dying officer that seemed to indicate that two senior-level German spies known only as "N" and "M" - one man, one woman - were somehow involved in a mysterious plot centered around an English seaside resort called the Sans Souci. Finding the spies was to be a job only for Tommy; it was deemed too dangerous for Tuppence - or so they thought until Tommy reached the Sans Souci and found Tuppence had beaten him there and was staying there incognito. And, as the pair quickly discover, there is indeed something being plotted at the Sans Souci that could have a critical impact on the war. But who, among the people staying at or living near the Sans Souci are the spies?

Recognize the symptoms? We're talking about Agatha Christie's wartime thriller, N or M?, featuring Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, who appear in just four of Christie's novels and a book of short stories. Originally published in 1941, near the low point of the war, it is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. You can listen to the entire review by clicking here. It’s a story line that may sound far-fetched to some – but it is one which, in those dark years when war was spreading over Europe, would certainly resonate with readers. It is written with Christie’s usual style and wit very much in evidence. There is much to enjoy in N or M? and I do recommend it to you.

 

From the Vault: "Night of the Jabberwock"

I'm pretty sure that readers who enjoy some of the great classics of science fiction are already familiar with the name of Fredric Brown. I have particularly fond memories of several of his SF classics, such as Martians, Go Home. But I'm also fond of Brown as a mystery author. And, as a fan of Lewis Carroll, and the Alice in Wonderland books in general, I generally try to re-read one of my favorite Fredric Brown mysteries, Night of the Jabberwock, every few years. It's funny, medium-to-hard-boiled, and I think its plot is both unique and brilliant. It's not always available in the marketplace, but - as of May, 2019 - it looks like it's out there at least as an e-book. So here's what I had to say about Night of the Jabberwock when I reviewed it on the Classic Mysteries podcast several years ago. I've updated the information about the book's availability, but otherwise it's pretty much as I first wrote and recorded it.

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`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

I’m sure you recognize that bit of nonsense verse. It’s the opening of Lewis Carroll’s poem “Jabberwocky,” from the second Alice in Wonderland book, Through the Looking Glass. The poem goes on:

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!"

Inspired nonsense, to be sure, in Carroll’s poem, a kind of nonsense version of a heroic epic, as a young man goes out to conquer the jabberwock, the mythical monster of the poem.

But…what if. What if that wasn’t nonsense at all? What if there was something strange – and definitely monstrous – behind that poem? Suppose somebody offered to show you proof that the nightmare behind the poem was real?

That’s the opening gambit for one of my favorite mysteries, Night of the Jabberwock, by Fredric Brown.

Let me make one important point right at the outset: Night of the Jabberwock is not a fantasy book. Although the author, Fredric Brown, wrote both science fiction and mysteries, this book has no fantasy involved, despite what I said at the beginning of this review. What it DOES have is a marvelous premise – a willingness to lead the reader along and lure him or her into a fantastic plot. And it is a traditional mystery, with plenty of clues for the reader about what is really happening – a book which really ventures into a hard-boiled mystery with some overtones of noir built around what, at its core, is a traditional mystery.

Here’s the setup: the hero of the book is a man named Doc Stoeger, who is the editor of the weekly Carmel Clarion newspaper. On one particular Thursday night – the night when the paper is edited and locked down, to be printed Friday morning, Stoeger is complaining about the fact that there is absolutely no news in the paper. Just once, he says, it would be nice to have some real news to report.

Well, it’s always wise to be careful what you wish for.

Doc Stoeger – who is, by the way, a huge fan of Lewis Carroll (and given to quoting him in bar rooms) – is approached by a mysterious little man, who tells him that fantastic story I outlined at the beginning – saying, in fact, that the fantasies of  Lewis Carroll are not fantasies at all. And the man invites Doc Stoeger to a meeting late that night to demonstrate the truth of the story he’s telling.

That’s the beginning of what will be an incredible night for Doc Stoeger. Before it ends, there will be several murders and a run-in with some particularly brutal killers. And Doc will have more than enough news for his newspaper the next morning – if he can stay alive long enough to write it. Because, his survival is by no means guaranteed.

As I said earlier, this isn’t a fantasy. There is a rational explanation and reason for everything that happens and every complication that draws Doc Stoeger deeper and deeper into the nightmarish plot. And that explanation, those reasons, are well and fairly clued for the reader.

But if you’re at all like me, you’ll find things are happening so fast that it’s almost impossible to figure out the twists in this marvelous plot before they happen. It’s a short book – you can probably read it in one sitting – maybe two, if you can find a place where you’re willing to break off your reading for the night.

[Ed. note: the following information has been updated to reflect availability as of mid-May, 2019.]

Night of the Jabberwock is available currently in e-book format - at least as a .MOBI file for the Kindle. There appear to be at least a few copies of various paperback editions, for those who might prefer a hard copy of the book. Is it a traditional mystery? A hard-boiled one? Noir? It really defies easy definition. What you’ll find, I think, is that Fredric Brown’s Night of the Jabberwock is an absolutely first-rate mystery – and one that will stay in your memory long after you finish reading it.

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

Next: The Clocks, by Agatha Christie.

From the Vault: "The Man in the Brown Suit"

When we think of Agatha Christie, we usually think first of her whodunits - especially those with one of her two primary detective characters, Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple. While these books are usually quite well written, with excellent puzzles to be solved, Christie also wrote a pretty good number of "stand-alone" crime stories in a variety of styles. Some were pretty dark, such as And Then There Were None. And some were straightforward adventure stories - fast-moving thrillers, which we can read just for fun. Thrillers such as The Man in the Brown Suit. It should be read with a sort of guilty pleasure at enjoying a really entertaining tale that keeps delivering surprises and pleasure all the way to the end. It was the subject of one of my audio reviews for the Classic Mysteries podcast about eight years ago. Here (somewhat edited) is what I had to say about it:

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It is generally wise to be careful what you wish for. A young Englishwoman, Anne Beddingfield, always wished for a bit more adventure in her life. Then one day, in a London underground station, she sees a man fall to his death on the tracks. And she sees something else: a rather suspicious man, claiming to be a doctor, who examines the victim’s body and then disappears. And that’s just the beginning of the events which are about to sweep her into what is nearly too much adventure. Somehow, it all seems to involve that mysterious doctor…whom Anne can only describe as…The Man in the Brown Suit…the name of the book by Agatha Christie which we’ll discuss today.

The Man in the Brown Suit is very early Agatha Christie – only her fifth book, published in 1924. It’s not a series book – it was written as a stand-alone thriller. And it is one of the most good-natured, enjoyable thrillers you’re ever likely to read.

The heroine is a young woman, Anne Beddingfield, recently orphaned and close enough to penniless as makes no difference. She is trying to figure out what to do with her life, chafing at the likelihood of having to take up some form of drudge-work to pay the bills. If only there were some kind of adventure in the offing – something like those Perils-of-Pauline type thrillers she sees in the movies.

Well, Anne gets her excitement, all right.

First, she happens to witness that death in the London underground. Then she becomes aware of a peculiar murder that may have been tied to that death – tied through the appearance of that mysterious “man in the brown suit.”

Anne winds up on a ship headed for South Africa…only to find that her cabin has been ransacked. There is a determined effort made to throw her overboard. And she finds herself falling in love with a mysterious stranger – who wanders into her cabin after having been stabbed, but who quickly disappears again. And behind it all, apparently, is a mysterious master-criminal called simply “The Colonel.” Oh, and did I mention some missing diamonds? Or arms smuggling to some rebels in South Africa? Or the kidnapping…more than once…of our heroine?

Confused yet? It requires all of Agatha Christie’s considerable skill to keep the different story threads separate and distinct in our minds, but she does so with the usual doses of Christie wit and good humor. There are plots and counter-plots galore. The story is told by two narrators – one of them is Anne herself, the other narrative is taken from the diary of one of Anne’s fellow travelers, Sir Eustace Pedler, who finds himself drawn into Anne’s stories and travails for a variety of reasons. And while it’s certainly written as a thriller, don’t forget that it’s also a murder mystery. And, as usual, Christie provides clues for the alert reader, though you’ll probably be too busy trying to keep up with Anne’s adventures to realize when the author drops her hints. And the characters are memorable – and varied. In addition to Anne, and Sir Eustace, and that mysterious young man, there’s a Colonel Race, who may be on some obscure mission of his own. There’s a wealthy society woman who befriends Anne. There’s a rather unusual clergyman who may not be a clergyman at all. There are Sir Eustace’s two secretaries (soon to be joined by a third). And there’s a nice assortment of secondary villains, all of them controlled by the mysterious and elusive master-villain known as “The Colonel.”

It’s quite a collection, and the pace of the story never slows. It’s a virtuoso performance from a still very-young Agatha Christie who displays really breathtaking skills in weaving all of this together into a coherent (if, frankly, somewhat incredible) story. And, as I observed earlier, it manages to maintain an atmosphere that is bright and cheerful, for all the evil deeds being carried out in the plot. Anne Beddingfield is a delightful heroine, and if she does get a bit more adventure than perhaps is good for her, she certainly triumphs in the end. As for the other characters…well, you’ll just have to read it to find out for yourself. The last time I checked, The Man in the Brown Suit was available in several editions, including print, e-book and audio formats.  I’m sure that both your favorite mystery bookseller and Amazon will have no difficulty finding it for you. It’s great fun and really shouldn’t be missed.

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

Next: The Penguin Book of Victorian Women in Crime, edited by Michael Sims

From the Vault: "More Work for the Undertaker"

I've spent some time i the past few weeks talking with friends about one of the great "crime queens" of the Golden Age, Margery Allingham. One of the reasons why I enjoy so many of her books is that - when you read one for the first time - you can never be quite sure what kind of book you're reading, as Allingham wrote crime fiction ranging from "pure" detective stories to thrillers to "psychological" dramas, and she tackled all the genres extremely well. Her detective, Albert Campion, who appears in most of her books, is a delight to know. I realize that I haven't featured very many of Allingham's books on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and I hope to work some of the novels which I haven't reviewed here yet into our schedule as we go along. For today, I'd like to share with you an engaging combination of traditional puzzle-plot mystery and thriller called More Work for the Undertaker, which I reviewed here about eight years ago. Here's the text of that review, edited somewhat, mostly to update with information about the book's availability.

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Interesting people, the Palinode family. Eccentric, to be sure – what’s a good British family in a mystery without some eccentricities? Very poor, too – in fact, they were reduced to living as boarders in the house they used to own. But they still were interesting and engaging people. So why has someone been poisoning them? Unless Albert Campion can come up with an answer, there’s likely to be More Work for the Undertaker – the title of Margery Allingham’s book which we’ll be discussing today.

Margery Allingham is still regarded today as one of the so-called “crime queens” of Britain’s Golden Age of Detection. More Work for the Undertaker originally appeared in 1949, putting it just after that Golden Age, but it remains one of Allingham’s most interesting and enjoyable books.

At the heart of the book is the Palinode family, five elderly siblings and a young niece who have come down in the world. They used to own their house, in the days when their father, a professor, and his wife, a poetess, used to host literary gatherings. The house has been taken over now by an elderly variety actress, Renee Roper, who has allowed the Palinodes to stay on as more-or-less paying boarders.

When two of the Palinodes die suddenly, of course, Renee is horrified, particularly when poison is suspected. She ultimately persuades an old acquaintance – Allingham’s detective, Albert Campion – to move into the house as a boarder, the better to investigate. This comes as a huge relief to the police as well, who have been unable to make sense out of the case.

What Campion quickly discovers is that there is something very peculiar going on in the neighborhood of the Palinode’s house – a quiet little street called Apron Street. The police do not understand it, but quite a number of London’s professional gangsters and thieves appear to have developed a powerful fear of something in the neighborhood, expressed as a warning not to go up Apron Street. And it will only be by uncovering that mystery that Campion will be able to solve the riddle of why someone should want to kill members of the seemingly harmless Palinode family.

There are murderous attacks and a strange suicide, not to mention the occasional poisoning. But while there is a great deal of action in this book, it is the characters who make it one of Allingham’s best. Not only Campion himself, and his friend, Renee Roper, and the fascinating Palinodes. Campion’s valet-and-factotum-and-general aide, named Magersfontein Lugg, also plays a central role here. And there is a local undertaker with the unfortunate name of James Bowels, who seems to have stepped out of the pages of a Dickens novel. There’s a local doctor, henpecked by his wife, and the local druggist, who plays another key part here. Police detective inspector Charlie Luke – who will appear in many of the later Campion books – makes his first appearance here. In addition, there is a coffin which rather unnervingly appears and disappears at odd times. And there is a final, fantastic chase – up Apron Street, if you will – with police pursuing a horse-drawn coffin brake, a cart designed to carry a coffin. All of this is told with quiet humor – but with a serious undercurrent, a sense of something not quite right and very dangerous.

It is all fantastic, to be sure, but Allingham, as always, carries it off with aplomb. I find her writing here has the ability to take my breath away; she catches moments and pins them in a few words that make unforgettable portraits.

Let me give you a few examples:

Here’s Charlie Luke, describing the street to Campion:

The district’s gone down like a drunk in thirty years, and the Palinodes with it.

Here’s Campion, in the midst of a very peculiar conversation with one of the elderly Palinodes:

He felt that, intellectually speaking, he was having a conversation with someone at the other end of a circular tunnel, and was in fact standing directly back to back with her. On the other hand, of course, it was possible that he had become Alice in Wonderland.

And how about this description, again of an older woman:

She laughed at him and another few years slid off her age.

Or this one:

She was very small and the rags of attractiveness hung round her like dead petals.

I realize that these are all out of context and probably don’t mean much on first hearing. What matters is that they are quite typical of the kind of fine writing and really amazing descriptions you’ll find on nearly every page of More Work for the Undertaker. It’s a wonderful story, and the secret of Apron Street is quite likely to elude you until the final explanation is given. Campion, Luke and Lugg are all at their finest here, and Allingham’s other characters will charm you, horrify you, sometimes both. She’s a fine writer, and More Work for the Undertaker is Allingham at her best. [Updated: Agora Books has re-released paperback and e-book versions, and there's also an audio version readily available.]

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You can listen to the complete original podcast version of the review by clicking here.

Next: The Man in the Brown Suit, by Agatha Christie.

From the Vault: "The Riddle of the Sands"

This is one of the books that helped define the genre of the espionage/spy thriller. Written more than a century ago (it first appeared in 1903), The Riddle of the Sands, by Erskine Childers, remains, in the words of one great master of the genre, John LeCarré, "one of the great foundation stones of the contemporary novel of espionage and adventure with political teeth." As such, I think it's worth calling your attention to a book which is still very much in print 116 years after its first appearance. Here's the text of my audio review from the Classic Mysteries podcast several years ago, slightly edited (mostly to update information about availability):

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It sounded like a pleasant vacation, to the young man from the British foreign office. Why not join an acquaintance for a cruise aboard his yacht in the Baltic? There might even be some good duck shooting. Great idea! Only it didn’t quite work out that way. And, in fact, it’s a good thing it didn’t – otherwise there might have been a war that could have led to the conquest of England. It happens in The Riddle of the Sands, by Erskine Childers.

We are going way back this week – back to what was really the first real political spy thriller. It was in 1903 that Erskine Childers wrote The Riddle of the Sands: a Record of Secret Service. The book is recognized today as one of the primary ancestors of the great spy novels – a tradition that includes such authors as Ian Fleming, John le Carré and Len Deighton. Look at any of today’s best-seller lists, and you are sure to find any number of spy thrillers – and most of them follow the formula first laid out in The Riddle of the Sands – a struggle between a good individual or small group and a much larger force for evil.

In the Europe of 1903, that boiled down to a couple of young Englishmen who uncover and foil a plot that could have put Germany in an unassailable position to dominate all of Europe, including England.

The story begins with a rather foppish young functionary in the British foreign office, a man named Carruthers, looking for some way to spend his vacation time. His usual round of house-parties with rather vapid friends is unavailable. So he accepts a chance invitation from an old school acquaintance, Davies, who invites him to join him in cruising the Baltic Sea in a small yacht.

Carruthers goes to meet Davies – and is horrified to discover that the "small yacht" is really a rather rough sailing boat named the Dulcibella. No luxury cruises here; Carruthers must get his hands – and the rest of him – dirty in helping to sail the boat. Fortunately, Davies is an accomplished sailor, and Carruthers quickly learns the ropes – quite literally, in this case.

But it doesn’t take long before the two young Englishmen find there is something very peculiar going on among the islands and the treacherous shifting sands of the North Sea, part of the coast of Holland and Germany. Without knowing exactly what or why, it appears that they have stumbled on some kind of plot – something big enough so that there has already been a serious attempt to kill Davies.

The two begin to explore the coastal waters, under the pretext of a pleasure cruise and duck hunting expedition. And their situation becomes more precarious as the novel progresses. Ultimately, they will uncover a daring and dangerous plot – and how they discover it and what they do about it will be at the heart of the book.

One of the innovations in this novel, something which has become a convention in the genre, is that the whole thing is based on some degree of fact. In the case of The Riddle of the Sands, that reality is grounded in the geography of the North Sea’s coastline and the large and dangerous sandbanks – a place where sailing at the wrong time and the wrong tide can lead to the grounding or even the breakup of a ship. The story was also grounded on the relationship between England and Germany during the first decade of the twentieth century.

It is entertaining to watch the development of Carruthers during the course of the novel, as he learns some basic seamanship from Davies and develops from a superficial and rather disagreeable young man into a rugged sailor and patriot. Some of the exploits in the book are fairly awe-inspiring. One of the central incidents, for example, finds Carruthers and Davies rowing a small dinghy – a rowboat, really – for a distance of 14 nautical miles, in a dense fog, over the treacherous waters and dangerous sands, calculating their way, fighting the tides and the bad weather, hoping to reach their destination in time to spy on a secret meeting of their enemies. It is exhausting just to read about it – and it is not the only heroic effort in the book.

There is one way in which The Riddle of the Sands does show its age: it is certainly more slowly paced than today’s thrillers. Readers who expect excitement on every page may be disappointed, although there is plenty going on. Readers will also have to use the maps and charts provided in the book in order to understand the geography and the movements of the different characters.

But the book remains an exciting, interesting and witty novel of espionage, not to mention one of the best books ever written about this kind of seafaring. There are now several new editions of The Riddle of the Sands, readily available, in paper, ebook and audio versions; the edition on my own bookshelves is from Penguin Classics and appears to be available as an e-book - it has a new introduction by the author’s great-grandson, Erskine C. Childers, who provides considerable insight into the historical, political and geographical background of the novel – and biographical information about his great-grandfather. The Riddle of the Sands: A Record of Secret Service is more than just an interesting oddity of literary history – it is still, more than a century later, a very entertaining read.

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

Next: Frequent Hearses, also known as Sudden Vengeance, by Edmund Crispin.

From the Vault: "Arrow Pointing Nowhere"

It's time for another trip into the Classic Mysteries vault for a repeat look at another book from one of my favorite American authors. In Elizabeth Daly's best books, her use of misdirection and carefully planted but misleading clues is truly superb - and Arrow Pointing Nowhere, her seventh book starring biblio expert Henry Gamadge,  is, I think, one of her best and most powerful books. Here's the text of my audio review from about eight years ago, edited as usual for clarity:

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As an expert in working with documents, letters and rare books, Henry Gamadge is used to deciphering cryptic messages. But he is taken aback when he receives a strange letter from an unknown person apparently living – and possibly held prisoner – inside the New York City mansion of an old and respected family. And deciphering THIS message will prove to be difficult, dangerous – and deadly. It happens in Arrow Pointing Nowhere, by Elizabeth Daly.

Between 1940 and 1951, Elizabeth Daly wrote sixteen mysteries, all featuring Henry Gamadge as their central character. Gamadge is frequently consulted by people who need to authenticate manuscripts or detect forgeries. But surprisingly few of the Gamadge novels center on that kind of work. More often, Gamadge finds himself pulled into the case because someone – he doesn’t always know exactly who – has heard that he has a history as an excellent and discreet investigator.

That seems to be what happens to Gamadge in Arrow Pointing Nowhere, which first appeared in 1944. It is, I think, one of the most powerful of all of Daly’s books.

It begins with a friend bringing Gamadge a letter than seems to have been intended for him. Actually, it is a scrawled note saying – "recommend early visit to inspect interesting curiosa. Discretion." The note has been crumpled and put inside an old envelope from a book dealer addressed to Mr. Blake Fenway, the head of an old and respected family living in a mansion in New York City – yes, in the 1940s there still were such families and such mansions. Apparently, the crumpled envelope was found outside the Fenway house by a postman, who noticed that the envelope had been redirected to Henry Gamadge.

And so Gamadge must determine what, if anything, to do with this strange note. He finds someone to introduce him to the Fenways and contrives an excuse to get inside the house.

What he finds there is a very odd family. In addition to Blake Fenway, and his daughter Caroline, there is Fenway’s elderly bachelor cousin, Mott. There is the widow of Fenway’s brother, Mrs. Belle Fenway, injured escaping from Europe and currently unable to walk. There is Mrs. Fenway’s son, Alden, a young man with severe mental disability – he has the mental facility of a four or five year old. There is a man named Craddock, who helps care for Alden. And there is Mrs. Grove, an old friend of Mrs. Fenway, now hired as a companion for the disabled woman.

And there is, of course, no indication of who may have written the note to Gamadge. What he finds instead is another crumpled ball of paper, tossed into a waste basket for him to discover. It is a timetable, with an arrow drawn on it, pointing to a rail station near the Fenway’s country home. And it is clear to him – and to the reader – that something is very wrong in the Fenway house – and that the person who is trying to send him messages must be very careful not to be discovered.

And we are off and running. Before we are finished, there will be murder. There will be a search for an illustration carefully cut out of a valuable old book. There will be a truly horrifying murder trap. There will be twists and turns galore, in a brilliantly laid-out plot. And Gamadge will have to consider the significance of another message from his unknown correspondent – an arrow pointing nowhere.

Agatha Christie was counted among Elizabeth Daly’s most devoted fans. Arrow Pointing Nowhere may give us a strong indication why that should be so. The plot twists are worthy of Christie at her best, yet the reader is given well-planted clues. Henry Gamadge is one of my favorite American detectives from that period. Gamadge’s love for, and knowledge of, books should endear him to readers who enjoy bibliomysteries. He has a group of supporting players in this book – his wife, his assistant and his assistant’s soon-to-be wife, not to mention a New York City police lieutenant who is guided to the correct solution by Gamadge. Elizabeth Daly is not at all well known today, which I think is a pity, and her books are all well worth your reading – but I must say, Arrow Pointing Nowhere is, I think, one of the best.

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

Next: The Riddle of the Sands, by Erskine Childers.

From the Vault: "The Circular Staircase"

Among the various genres and sub-genres of traditional mysteries, I suspect that few are as easily recognizable, for better or worse, than the Had I But Known mystery - HIBK, as it's generally abbreviated. Too often, the term is used as a disparaging assessment of a particular author's style. But when it is done properly, that type of mystery, in which a narrator reminds us repeatedly that if he or she had only been able to foresee these terrible events, he or she surely could have avoided some calamity, it can be extremely effective. Consider, for example, the book and the author generally credited with having invented the genre - The Circular Staircase, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, first published in 1908, 111 years ago. It's available these days in a wide variety of formats (now being out of copyright protection); I gave it an audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast about eight years ago. In the context of my review, below, you may want to know that the edition I re-read was the one published by Dover Publications with an excellent introduction by mystery historian Douglas G. Greene. This edition appears to be back in print. At any rate, here's my review, edited a bit (as always):

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“This is the story of how a middle-aged spinster lost her mind, deserted her domestic gods in the city, took a furnished house for the summer out of town, and found herself involved in one of those mysterious crimes that keep our newspapers and detective agencies happy and prosperous.”

That’s the opening sentence of a book which defined a mystery genre, written by a woman who went on to become quite possibly the most popular woman writer in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century. It is the opening of The Circular Staircase, by Mary Roberts Rinehart. It first appeared in 1908, and it was Mary Roberts Rinehart’s first book. An elderly woman, along with her niece and nephew and some devoted servants, leases a summer house in the country. The house is anything but peaceful: there are nighttime intruders, murders, rumors of hidden rooms and a bank failure before the mystery is eventually solved. But what makes The Circular Staircase memorable and worth reading more than a century after it was written, is summed up in the phrase “Had I But Known.”

That’s the phrase that defines this kind of thriller-mystery genre, which really was created in this one book. Here’s an example of how it works: Our narrator and central character, Rachel Innes, is running down a long list of questions she cannot answer – something she does with considerable regularity every couple of chapters, mostly for the reader’s benefit in keeping the rather complicated story straight. But even in her questions, she cannot avoid the “Had I But Known” tag – as, for example, when she ponders a mysterious hole in the wall which appeared in one room of the house overnight. She muses:

If I had only known how to read the purpose of that gaping aperture what I might have saved in anxiety and mental strain!

Here’s another quote, a couple of chapters later:

As I look back, so many things are plain to me that I wonder I could not see at the time. It is all known now, and yet the whole thing was so remarkable that perhaps my stupidity was excusable.

Or this example, from quite early in the book, as our narrator ponders leaving this mysterious house and returning to the city:

if we had only stuck to that decision and gone back before it was too late!

In the hands of a lesser writer, that kind of thing quickly becomes irritating. But remember, please, that The Circular Staircase, Rinehart’s first published novel*, is generally considered to be the first book to use this technique, and it did so quite effectively. The technique is useful in opening up Rachel’s character to us, and making us care about the other characters as well. And by showing us the workings of our narrator’s mind, we learn other facts that both move the story forward and help to develop the characters who populate it. Writing about The Circular Staircase, crime fiction historian Douglas G. Greene notes that "Rinehart was the mistress of the eerie event, the unknown figure peering through a door, the creaking staircase, the horrors almost but not quite foreseen."

She is also a writer with a real knack for defining memorable characters. One striking example occurs as Rachel is looking at her nephew, Halsey, and she thinks:

there are few young fellows like Halsey – straightforward, honest and willing to sacrifice everything for the one woman. I knew one once, more than thirty years ago, who was like that: he died a long time ago. And sometimes I take out his picture, with its cane and its queer silk hat and look at it. But of late years it has grown too painful: he is always a boy – and I am an old woman. I would not bring him back if I could.

That’s a totally unexpected passage. It tells us volumes about Rachel Innes’s character – and it is, I think, quite beautifully done.

I do have to warn readers that this mystery was written in 1908, and they are going to find some antiquated racial attitudes and language that we find quite offensive today – particularly a patronizing attitude towards a couple of the old servants. Making allowances for the era in which it was written, the references really should not detract from the story.

The Circular Staircase was an enormous success at the time, and it has remained popular over the years. Douglas Greene notes that Rinehart and Avery Hopwood turned it into a play, called The Bat, and it has been made into three feature films, not to mention a 1960 television adaptation. It’s a fine thriller with a great deal of action – and, of course, all those eerie noises and inexplicable events that keep us turning the pages long past our bedtime. It’s available in a number of editions, including a few for eBooks – and it’s worth reading.

* [Actually, her first novel-length book, in 1906, The Man in Lower Ten, might count, but that was first serialized in pulp magazines; The Circular Staircase (which had been written earlier) really was her first, again according to Greene's introduction.]

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You can listen to the original audio review by clicking here. Also, that Dover edition with the introduction by Douglas G. Greene is back in print and, I would argue, very much worth your while.

Next: Arrow Pointing Nowhere, by Elizabeth Daly.

"The Colour of Murder"

Julian Symons is remembered today primarily for his work as a critic of mysteries and for his classic book about the form, Bloody Murder, known as Mortal Consequences in the United States. He did write some traditional, Golden Age mysteries early in his career, but he changed course and became a leading proponent of the psychological mystery. The Colour of Murder, written by Symons in 1957, is an excellent example of that kind of mystery, but with enough puzzle elements to satisfy those of us who value good plotting. It's the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the complete review by clicking here. The book is being re-published in February as part of the British Library Crime Classics series, and it will be published in the United States by Poisoned Pen Press, which provided me with an advance reading copy for this review. 

The Colour of Murder is the story of a man named John Wilkins. When we meet him, he is working at a fairly unimportant job, and he is more or less trapped in an unhappy marriage as well. One day, however, he meets a young woman, a librarian, who seems to him to have everything his wife does not, neither physically nor in terms of her personality. But John Wilkins has another problem: he has been having blackouts – periods of several hours at a time, usually triggered by having a drink or two, in which he wakes up some time later and cannot remember what he may have done. 

And, eventually, there will be a murder. And an arrest and a trial as well. And more than a few surprises await you along the way.

The story is told in two parts. The first half of the book, we see mostly through John Wilkins's eyes, in a psychiatric assessment. His insights, as expressed to a psychiatrist, are more than a little disturbing, as we watch him mis-interpret events happening around him and to him. The second half of the book presents his trial, as seen from a number of viewpoints.

And that's all I really can tell you without spoiling it for you. Mystery historian Martin Edwards provides an insightful introduction, pointing out the ways in which Julian Symons’s The Colour of Murder differs from the more traditional, puzzle-plot mysteries we usually associate with the Golden Age. It’s also worth noting that The Colour of Murder was chosen as the 1957 book of the year by the British Crime Writers Association - the award now known as the CWA Gold Dagger. The honor seems well-deserved. I think you’ll enjoy the book.

"The Dark Garden"

"Motive generally gives a lead...but here there are half a dozen different people with half a dozen different motives, and nothing to suggest which one was operative - revenge, greed, hate, love, jealousy, they all come into it."

Inspector Bobby Owen of the Wychshire County police was summing up the problem which faced him as he tried to discover the murderer of a prominent local lawyer. What he found was an excessive number of potential (and credible) suspects, all of whom had what might be considered very valid reasons to commit murder.

All this, it should be noted, was happening as the storm clouds of World War II were preparing to break over England, leaving Bobby Owen extremely short-handed for the manpower to handle the basics of a criminal investigation. And, it should be noted, he had little idea of the nightmare that awaited him in a small, dark and remote garden. You'll find the full story in The Dark Garden, by E. R. Punshon, first published in 1941. It's the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. You can listen to the complete review by clicking here.

A local farmer, Osman Ford, had come to Bobby's office to ask for police help in forcing high-powered lawyer Nathaniel Anderson to turn over money he was holding for Ford's wife. Bobby Owen didn't see where that would be police business, especially at a time when so many men were being called up for military duty. So when  Anderson was found dead soon afterwards with a bullet in his back, Bobby Owen had to determine whether Osman Ford had decided to take some action on his own behalf. It soon became clear that there were a number of other people who might have had a grudge against Anderson, with several different possible motives. Inspector Owen was going to have to explore a fair number of those motives – and a fair number of suspects – in his search for a killer - and for evidence that would stand up in court.

More thriller than puzzle, The Dark Garden provides plenty of surprises, as Bobby Owen uncovers secret after secret and motive after motive, all culminating in a powerfully dramatic confrontation in the blacked-out garden of a deserted cottage. Mystery historian Curtis Evans provides an introduction to this new Dean Street Press edition.