Tag: Golden Age mysteries

Review 2737: Author Unknown

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Horrie Pedlar is the first and only woman publisher in 1930s London, and this novel opens with the announcement of a party she’s giving for the re-emergence from exile of the writer Marmion Poole. His romantic peccadillos years before resulted in his leaving London, but Horrie thinks it’s about time he returned. At the party, he announces he has written his memoirs, always an issue with a mystery novel.

Horrie is pretty much beloved. Although a good businesswoman, she is generous and kind and has collected a lot of grateful and sincere friends and employees. But at the very beginning of the novel, she has a conversation with Gilda Bedenham, a recent employee, to tell her she’s not doing well at her job and she wants to reassign her. Gilda already feels an obligation to her and is prickly about it, so she quits, in fact walks off the job. Horrie then sends her young, bright PR man, Koko Fry, to check on her and maybe get her to come back.

Marmion Poole is attractive and dramatic. He is full of charisma and full of himself. The reaction to his announcement of a memoir upsets a lot of people, especially the husbands of the many women with whom he’s had affairs.

Horrie is thinking of retiring, going out while she’s still doing well. She wants to leave the company to be led by her right-hand man, James Savory, Koko, and Marmion Poole, a fact she tells Savory but not the others.

However, there are problems with Marmion. The office is receiving calls from society people who want to read the manuscript. Horrie has read it, though, and tells Marmion she won’t publish it. She thinks it’s vengeful and says he should take the high road or rewrite it as fiction.

This is an unusual mystery novel. No one is actually killed until almost 200 pages in, for one thing, and then it is Horrie, whom we have come to like. She is found in the courtyard below her apartment, and the inquest decides that she fell from the fire escape late at night coming in through the unlocked door there because she forgot her house key.

Another oddity is the presence of Sir John Saumarez, who solved the previous mystery by Dane and Simpson. He’s at the party and is around at the denoument, but does nothing to solve the crime, if there was one.

So, what is the novel doing in the first 200 pages? It’s taking its time introducing the characters and portraying the London literary scene and doing it masterfully. Dane and Simpson’s characters are complex and believable, and we like almost all of them.

Well, of course, Horrie was murdered, but who killed her? Was it someone who wanted her out of the company immediately? Was it someone she caught destroying Marmion Poole’s manuscript, the ashes of which were found nearby? Was it Gilda, who lost her job and is now engaged in a romance with Koko? Marmion sets a trap to find out.

I am really enjoying these books by Dane and Simpson. They are good writers with a flair for characterization and dialogue. It’s too bad there’s only one more. I hope I can find a copy. (Update: right now, the cheapest copy I can find of the third book is priced at more than $400. Yikes!)

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Review 2732: Tea on Sunday

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Alberta Mansbridge is having a tea party. She’s an elderly woman of fortune who controls a family business and is philanthropic to many causes and people in need. However, she doesn’t suffer fools and abandons anyone who tries to cheat her.

When the guests arrive on this snowy Sunday afternoon, no one answers the door. The guests become alarmed, but the house is secure, so they call the police. Inside, they find Alberta dead, strangled. No one has broken in, so Inspector Corby guesses that one of the guests arrived early and killed her, and we know this is true from the Preface.

What quickly becomes obvious is that none of the guests seem likely to have killed Alberta, and none of them have alibis except the wife of Alberta’s nephew, Anthony Seldon (a most unlikable wife, by the way). Anthony seems to be the one with the biggest motive, since he is likely to inherit much, but he claims not to know that. The two most suspicious characters, Barry Slater, a young ex-con, and Marcello Bartolozzi, an Italian conman, are not likely to have cut off their own income streams, although Barry disappears before the police arrive and remains missing for some time.

The others are Myra Heseltine, an old friend with whom Alberta had fallen out; Ewan Musgrave, her doctor; John Armistead, manager of her company in Yorkshire; and her lawyer, Russell Holdeworth.

This novel spends a lot of time up front with the interviews of the guests. I’ll say up to one third of the book. It’s definitely not an action mystery, but it doesn’t lag, either. I found it interesting that the murderer seemed obvious a good 80 pages before the end, but the evidence was needed. Overall, I found this novel interesting of approach and entertaining.

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Review 2725: The Long Shadow

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I clearly liked Celia Fremlin’s Uncle Paul, but her books get better and better. I bought this book to schedule it around Christmas, because it is a seasonal novel; however, somehow that didn’t happen. It’s marketed as a mystery, but it’s more of thriller that builds slowly but doesn’t seem slow when you read it.

Imogen has been a widow for two months after her scholar husband was killed unexpectedly in an automobile accident. Although the charismatic Ivor was revered by many, she knew him for an attention-seeking egotist who treated his family badly. She feels that she would be all right if she could just be left alone, but instead people are giving her the attention they think she needs in her bereavement.

When finally the last person has left, Imogen isn’t alone for more than a few minutes when her stepson Robin arrives planning to stay for a while. Imogen is fond of him, but he is also selfish and hasn’t been able to hold down a job.

Imogen has just had a disturbing experience. Her friend Myrtle talked her into attending a party where she met a student named Teri. Teri accused her of murdering Ivor and said he has proof, even though Imogen was at home when the accident happened 200 miles away. Imogen knows the accusation is nonsense, but she is unnerved.

Could things get worse? They could! Imogen’s stepdaughter Dot arrives with her husband and two boys for the holidays, uninvited, as is Ivor’s second wife Cynthia, who arrives from Bermuda. Imogen hasn’t even met Cynthia, who is clearly hoping for some kind of financial settlement from Ivor’s estate. Finally, Robin brings home a surly girl, a student named Piggy.

Once all these people are assembled in the house, strange things begin happening. First, on Christmas Day one of the boys claims to have seen grandfather dressed as Father Christmas in Ivor’s study. Then one of the boys dreams of a face hovering over his. Papers are disturbed, messages appear from the grave, and Teri is hanging around trying to blackmail Imogen. Imogen never seriously considers a haunting, but something is clearly going on.

I could have wished for Imogen to be a little less polite and passive, but if she hadn’t been, we wouldn’t have such a good story. She is too empathetic, feeling sorry for people who are taking advantage of her.

There’s no way for the reader to figure out what’s going on, but getting to the solution is lots of fun. The writing is witty, especially the observations Imogen makes to herself about other characters’ behavior.

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Review 2721: Beggar’s Choice

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I had difficulty reading this book after the first few pages, because it was so obvious that someone was trying to frame the main character, without him realizing it, that it was painful to read.

Car Fairfax is down and almost out. First, his father lost the family fortune, and then Car took a job with a man who mishandled other people’s money. Since then, every time he’s landed a job, he’s been let go.

He is out walking after losing his latest job when someone puts a leaflet in his hand about an opportunity to earn £500. He notices right away that the boy is handing out leaflets for something entirely different, so he figures he was purposefully given the one he got. Shortly afterward, he gets two requests for £500. His friend Peter’s wife Fay asks him for it and his cousin Anne, whom he distrusts, tells him she has forged a check for that amount and wants him to go to jail for her. He says no to both women but responds to the job. He has also run into Isobel, with whom he is hopelessly in love.

The writer of the ad, calling himself Z10, sets an assignation, which Car keeps. He is driven out to his uncle’s neighborhood, where someone shines a light in his face just as the doctor drives past to see his uncle, and later Anna shows the doctor apparent evidence that there’s been a break-in at her house.

Car hasn’t met Z10 on the rendezvous, but he thinks he has until he actually meets him and Z10 apologizes for missing the meeting. Z10 puts him on retainer and gives him money to buy new clothes and socialize.

Although it was clear to me that Anna is trying to set Car up and Fay seems to be in on it, I wasn’t sure of Z10. I was still dreading what was coming until a new character appears—an American friend of Peter’s named Corinna. She is a breath of fresh air. She immediately begins wondering why Car keeps losing jobs. The only problem with Corinna is that she is a much more interesting character than Car’s love interest, Isobel.

This novel becomes a complex adventure story as someone is clearly out to get Car and he remains mostly oblivious for a while. Once I got over my initial dread, I enjoyed it a lot.

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Review 2717: Death in Ambush

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I think I intended to review this book at Christmastime, but somehow it got lost in the pile.

Death in Ambush is particularly enjoyable, because it is narrated by Lee Crauford with a particularly light touch. She has apparently been a major character in at least one other mystery by Gilruth at the start of this novel.

Lee’s friend Betty Sandys invites her and her husband Bob for Christmas, but Bob can’t leave work until Christmas Eve, so Lee goes on ahead. On her first evening at Staple Green, Lee meets several people at a cocktail party. They are Betty’s good friend Lady Metcalfe, Diana, whom everyone likes, and her much older husband Judge Metcalfe, whom everyone dislikes for his general rudeness and cruelty to Diana. There is Judge Metcalfe’s son Michael, who wants to be an actor against his father’s will, and his fiancée, Ann Quathough, who is an actress and has an unguarded and sometimes nasty tongue. Ann’s father Lewis Quathough, an eccentric art dealer, is there, as well as John Wickham, the Metcalfe’s agent, whom everyone knows adores Diana. Finally, Sonia Phillips, a new arrival in town and a quite glamorous woman, appears late and comes in through the surgery, as Howard Sandys is a doctor. There is a lot of wandering around that evening, and sure enough, Judge Metcalfe becomes ill of an apparent stroke and dies a few days later. But Howard has his doubts, and it turns out Metcalfe was poisoned with morphine, apparently at the party.

Soon Lee’s friend Detective-Inspector Hugh Gordon is on the case. Things begin looking bad for Diana even though everyone who knows her insists she couldn’t have done it.

I was fairly sure I knew who did, although I couldn’t puzzle out the alibi issue, and I was right. But I think it was more of an instinctual than reasoning guess, and once one character was ruled out, I knew I was right. But this is a mystery with a really light touch and mostly likeable characters. I enjoyed it very much. Interestingly, Lee’s husband Bob doesn’t even appear in the book, and there are some hints that the detective is in love with her. I would quite like to see where this goes, if anywhere, but I understand that Gilruth’s books are hard to find. And indeed, Abebooks only has this edition.

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Review 2703: The Chuckling Fingers

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Ann Gay’s cousin Jacqueline is a young widow with a child when she marries Bill Heaton, a well-off and respected older businessman. They have not been married long when Ann receives a note from Jean Nobbelin, Bill’s business partner, saying it might be best if Ann comes for a visit.

When Ann arrives, she finds the atmosphere strained and Jacqui unwilling to talk to her. Eventually, she learns that some destructive tricks are being played that make it look as if Jacqui is responsible. The incidents began with ruined shoes and a coat burned by acid while they were on their honeymoon with no one else from the household there. Bill has begun to worry about Jacqui’s sanity.

Most of the large Heaton household on the north bank of Lake Superior is distrustful of Jacqui. Some of the family and friends are even offensive, especially Bill’s sulky son Freddie and Phillips Heaton, who has been leeching off the family for years.

The tricks continue, still pointing toward Jacqui, but then Freddie’s body is found out by the Fingers, an outcrop of rocks that looks like a hand, underneath which an underground river creates a perpetual chuckling sound. Freddie has been shot to death with a gun, and Bill’s gun is missing. Soon, someone tries to kill Bill.

With Sheriff Aakonen being forced to suspect Jacqui, Ann begins trying to investigate the crimes herself. She is soon being helped by Jean Hobbelin.

This is a fairly mystifying situation, and Seeley does a good job of laying false trails. A fair amount of action is salted with an unstressed romance. Although I guessed the murderer, it was mostly by instinct. I didn’t figure out the motive before it was revealed. I found this to be a fairly entertaining mystery, published in 1941, and hope to find more by Seeley. I also found it struck some chords with me because I lived for a year in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, not far from Lake Superior, and some of the aspects of the Minnesota setting on the lake remind me of that life.

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Review 2699: The Art School Murders

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In Morosini’s floundering art school, the body of a model, Althea Greville, is found behind the dressing screen. She was apparently murdered just after the life class in which she modeled. Inspector Hugh Collier, brought into the case early on, finds that she had worked for the school the year before, causing some havoc in the hearts of men because of her attractiveness, even though not young. However, now she seemed a little desperate.

Leaving school the day of the murder are two first-year students, Betty and Cherry. Betty runs back to get her scarf and later teases Cherry about something she’s seen but won’t tell her. The next day, Betty skips school to go to the cinema and is found murdered in the balcony.

Finally, after Cherry tells Mr. Kent that Betty may have confided in Emma, her aunt’s servant, Emma is found badly injured. Collier ends up with five suspects, including Mr. Kent, Kent’s sulky nephew Arnold, and Morosini himself.

This book is entertaining and moves along quickly. It isn’t exactly fair to the readers, because there is almost no hint of the motive before the end. However, I still found it fun to read.

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Review 2695: Enter Sir John

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To be frank, I bought this book because on Amazon it looked like it was part of the British Library Crime Classics series, so I thought it was. It turned out to be bare-bones, print-on-demand—but actually quite a surprise.

The amateur sleuth is Sir John Saumarez, a famous actor-manager. But he doesn’t get actively involved until after the trial.

A second- or perhaps third-rate acting company is putting on a play in a town in Wales when Magda Druce, an actress and wife of the manager, is found dead, her head bashed in by a poker. With her and holding the poker is another actress, Martella Baring, who invited Magda for a late supper. She must have murdered Magda, but she seems confused and keeps asking what happened.

At her trial, both the prosecutor and the defense assume Martella did it, but the defense posits that she was in a fugue state. John Saumarez, who vaguely recognizes her name from an interview in which he encouraged her to get more experience, has attended the entire trial. He wonders what emptied the brandy flask, since Martell testifies that neither she nor Magda had any brandy. She is found guilty, but to Sir John, it doesn’t add up.

Sir John summons Novello Markham, the production’s stage manager, to his office, because Markham was one of the first on the scene. Soon, he, Markham, and Markham’s wife, Doucebell Dearing, are on their way back to Wales to investigate. Sir John thinks someone else may have come into the room from the back window. It seems clear that person must be one of two young men in the company—Ion Marion or Handele Fane.

I found this novel surprisingly good. It’s not extremely complicated, as many mysteries written in 1928 seem to be, yet it’s not easy to know who the killer is. The characters are interesting, and the authors seem to know quite a bit about the theatre.

It turns out that Clemence Dane was a successful novelist and screenwriter, an Oscar winner, whereas Helen Simpson won the James Tait Black Prize for fiction in 1932. The two wrote three mysteries, and this is the first. It was made into the movie Murder! by Alfred Hitchcock.

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Review 2668: The Pale Horse

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When an elderly priest is summoned to a woman’s deathbed, she tells him about some wickedness. We readers aren’t told what it is but that she has a list of names. When the priest leaves the deathbed to walk home, he is attacked and killed and his pockets rifled. But because he has a hole in his pocket, he put the list of names in his shoe, so it ends up in the hands of Inspector Lejeune.

Mark Easterbrooke is out one night when he witnesses an altercation between two women, one of them Tommy Tuckerton. A few days later he sees an announcement of her death. Later, a girl he knows makes a strange reference to a place called The Pale Horse, and when he visits a friend, he learns it is the name of the home of two old ladies, supposedly witches. One of them claims the other can predict who is going to die.

Mark begins to put together some odd ideas, which he discusses with Inspector Lejeune, and there he learns of the list. He can identify three names on it, all of whom are of dead people, including Tommy Tuckerton, who had been an heiress, and Lady Hesketh-Dubois, his own godmother. He begins to believe that a murder-for-hire scheme is afoot, and he enlists a friend, Ginger Corrigan, to pretend to be his ex-wife, who wishes he was dead.

This is a pretty far-fetched but entertaining story—and it was perfect for the season when I read it in October. Christie fooled me completely on the identity of the mastermind behind the plot.

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Review 2665: Dean Street December! The Coldstone

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Here’s an old-fashioned mystery/suspense novel that has everything—an ancient secret, rumors of buried treasure, a curse, a possible ghost, and a romance. What more could you want?

When Anthony Colstone unexpectedly inherits Stonegate, he is asked to promise never to move or disturb a ring of standing stones (well, just two of them) in one of his fields. But offered no explanation, Anthony refuses to promise, and of course this request makes him curious about the stones.

One of the first things he does when he arrives is to go look at the stones, about which everyone in the village is suspiciously close-mouthed. He has to plunge through a hedge to see them, and while he is there, he notices a stranger staring at him with a hostile expression.

Anthony is referred for information to his benefactor’s elderly daughters, Miss Agatha and Miss Arabel, but they simply hint at dreadful things and refer him to Susan Bowyer, at more than one hundred, the oldest resident of the village. He doesn’t learn much from her, but he meets her great-granddaughter, Susan, down from London for a visit, and is much struck. We like both Susans immediately but know the younger one has some kind of relationship with the strange man Anthony saw in the field.

Anthony’s first night in the house is disturbed by a feeling that someone else besides the servants is in the house, too. He goes down to the library and is knocked over the head but not before he sees what appears to be the portrait of one of his female ancestors moving her arm. We learn that he saw Susan, and her gasp prevented two housebreakers from breaking his leg.

Anthony awakens in a different room with his head in a woman’s lap, but when he regains consciousness, she runs away. He knows it was Susan, though, because he has noticed her resemblance to the portrait. From her, he learns of a secret passageway between Susan Bowyer’s house and his. He also hears confusing rumors of fire and devils under the altar stone of the standing stones.

What is going on? Certainly, a man named Garry has copied a key to the house and is breaking in. But isn’t the secret hidden out in the field?

This novel turns out to be lots of fun, and it doesn’t fall into the cliché of having Anthony doubt Susan when he realizes she knows Garry.

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