Puzzling on Crime

Apr27

I was sorting through a pile of books on a shelf the other day, when I came across a little book published by the British Library Crime Classics series. It is a stocking filler that I received at the Christmas before last and that has been tucked away under other books for ages, in true Landing Tales tradition. This small tome is The Pocket Detective (2018) compiled by Kate Jackson, which contains more than a hundred crime fiction inspired puzzles. Now, the British Library editions are a bit of an enthusiasm of mine hence the gift of this puzzle book from He Who Put The Shelves Up. Not all of the brain teasers relate directly to titles in the series, some are more generally Golden Age related.

Sad to say, my knowledge of Agatha Christie murder victims, weapons and book titles is already shown to be wanting. My excuse is that it is many years since I read any of the books, though I could have sworn I was a bit of a fan (not in the specialist subject Mastermind kind of a way, but still…) The page I show here of questions on Christie murder victims is a case in point. I did manage to get two correct, but I had cheat and look the other answers up in the back of the book (yes, dear reader, there is instant relief from brain scratching!) But I am enjoying myself enormously despite the limits of my classic crime fiction knowledge.

Book jacket of The Pocket Detective — Puzzling over the answers

Page from The Pocket Detective showing an Agatha Christie quiz — Puzzling over the answers

I have now discovered that Kate Jackson runs a crime fiction book blog called crossexaminingcrime.com that looks well worth a browse and a follow. Not that I need any more books to read, if I am ever to make any further inroads into the Landing Book Shelves backlist. Actually, I wish that I could get hold of some titles in the British Library series in the Playaway format, which is great for commuting. As readers know, I am very fond of a little crime on the bus (so to speak).

Anyway, it seems to me that that my little crime puzzler might be just the thing for some leisurely Bank Holiday activity next weekend. It is just a pity that I didn’t unearth it before Easter when we had a holiday break of solid rain and gardening wasn’t on the agenda. See you when I have run out of puzzles!

Mystery and Beatrix Potter

Mar22

Front cover of The Tale of Oat Cake Crag by Susan Wittig Albert

The Tale of Oatcake Crag (2010) by American mystery writer Susan Wittig Albert is a curiosity that I came across in my ongoing search for detective stories featuring historical figures. Similarly to spotting the Groucho Marx crime series, I was so intrigued by the premiss of Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) as an amateur detective that I searched the online library catalogue to see what I could reserve. As before, I was forced to settle for a large print edition, as there is very little else of this series available nationally. So it is thanks to Cork City Libraries for the loan of this Chivers edition.

I was not sure what to expect from the novel, but I was not really surprised that this turned out to be a very gentle country tale indeed. No bodies in libraries, trains or anywhere else for that matter. It is one of a series, (The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter) imagining children’s writer Beatrix Potter as an amateur detective in her Lake District home and mixing real-life people with fictional characters. The eight-novel series began with The Tale of Hill Top Farm (2004), set around 1905 when the real Beatrix Potter’s fiancé Norman Warne has sadly died aged only thirty-seven. Potter subsequently bought Hill Top Farm in Near Sawrey with the proceeds from a legacy and the proceeds from her Peter Rabbit book, having become very attached to the Lake District over many years of visiting. She spent as much time as she could in this part of the country, when she was able to leave her parents for a while. Locations in the village feature in her books and illustrations.

Now, I have not read the earlier stories for comparison, but as I said, this one is very much in the cosy crime vein as there is indeed no murder (bloody or otherwise). The central mystery in the novel is the authorship of some poison pen letters, sent to the Vicar’s fiancée, Grace Lythecoe, apparently a respectable widow. Who would want to threaten the happiness of the seemingly well-liked couple? Grace asks her friend Beatrix to investigate the matter, which she does with the help of her present (unofficial) fiancé, William Heelis. The village animals also contribute to the investigations, which along with the dragon (yes, I did say dragon) requires a suspension of disbelief on the part of the reader.

The fictional poison pen letter affair is set against action inspired by real-life events; the literal ups and downs of the test flights of a hydroplane and the aggrieved local reaction to this. The test flights took place from 1911-12 and Wittig Albert has used details of the regular test flights over Lake Windermere as part of a sub-plot. The businessman backing the sea plane project has a fall and is seriously injured. An accident? Possibly suspicious, but again, no murder. Some details relating to the sea plane’s history in Windermere have been substantially altered but you will have to read the book to see what I mean (clue: the dragon is involved).

A map of Beatrix Potter's village — Map of the villages of Near & Far Sawrey, taken from the book.

We have gossip galore amongst the villagers of Near Sawrey, on the shores of Lake Windermere (though it has to be said that it is not merely the humans who gossip). However, with the chapters alternating between human and animal protagonists, it can really feel like reading a Peter Rabbit story for grownups. The author uses Potter’s affinity with animals to suggest that she can interpret what they are saying. Overall, this all has its charm but it does make me wonder who exactly is the intended audience for the series. Beatrix Potter solving the poison pen letters mystery is oddly convincing, as she does this by chatting to various people on her village rounds, in a perfectly natural way. She is very much a respected figure in her adopted home and her social class plays its part too. The overriding impression of reading this novel (if you discount the talking animals and a glowing green dragon) is of the dramas of village life as told in Miss Read’s tales of village goings-on in Fairacre and Thrush Green.

The descriptions of the area around Lake Windermere are beautifully done, as for example here, ‘I think it is fair to say that there is no place on this earth that gives the sun so much pleasure as this lovely green land, with its rambling rock walls, quiet lanes, tranquil waters, and long sweet silences.’ Lake District village life of the 1910s is well recreated, although with an awareness of the increased threat to the landscape from so-called progress. As Potter fans will know, she was instrumental in helping to preserve the landscape that she loved, via the National Trust, for future generations. At the end of the book, Wittig Albert includes some traditional recipes (though sadly without a conversion from cup measurements) as well as a glossary of local expressions, presumably aimed at her American audience.

I am not sure whether I would go out of my way to read another in the series, but this was an amusing and entertaining addition to my list of historical detectives. And all the better for not trying to shoehorn Potter’s fictional persona into a grittier or feistier role. I am still not convinced about the dragon though. Perhaps it deserves its own series.

My Audio Crime Habit

Feb9

I have previously written about my audio crime habit that livens up my rather tedious bus journeys into work. Well, I am here to tell you that both the audio and the crime bit are still going strong as part of my travel routine (that’s just as well as bus travel has been more than woeful in the last couple of weeks). Lately, I have been listening to a mixture of new-to-me authors as well as an old timer. And of course, I continue in my time-honoured habit of beginning any new series in the wrong place (in other words anywhere but at the beginning). My excuse is that I tend to pick up whatever catches my eye in the library, so that I often fail to get the titles in chronological order. Or at least, I don’t often have the patience to make a reservation from an author’s backlist so that I can ‘begin at the very beginning’ as Julie Andrews once so cheerfully sang.

I was particularly pleased finally to get around to Ray Celestin and his City Blues Quartet. Naturally, I inadvertently began at the end; but hey, at least I know who does and who does not end up dead by the final episode (never fear, I won’t plot spoil). The last in the series is called Sunset Swing (2021) and is set in Los Angeles, Christmas 1967. The story features three recuring characters, retired private eye Ida Young; mafia fixer Dante Sanfelippo and the one and only Louis Armstrong. The city itself is a stunning character in its own right. Now I have to go back to the beginning at some point and see how it all began (Chicago, 1919 was the time and place) as I enjoyed this book so much. As always with an audio book, the narration is very important and can make or break an audio version of a novel; Christopher Ragland did a really good job.

Again, true to tradition I picked up Peter May’s The Lewis Man (2011) which is the second in the trilogy set on the Isle of Lewis (though I have spotted that a fourth book came out in 2024, so surely this is now actually a quartet whether originally intended or not). This is a murder mystery which begins with the discovery of a body in a bog where seasonal peat cutting is taking place. For me, the bog body was the hook, having long been fascinated by the discoveries explored in the National Museum of Ireland. Perhaps not surprisingly, in this story the body turns out to be much more modern than that; an Elvis tattoo was a dead giveaway on that score. Reading the (well, listening to) descriptions of the landscape of the Outer Hebridean islands made me really want to visit, despite, or perhaps because of the bleakness. At some point I will probably read the rest of the series, especially as I became quite invested into two of the main characters, Fin Macleod and Marsaili MacDonald.

Then for something completely different, I listened to Why Shoot a Butler? By Georgette Heyer (1933) a blast from my reading past as It has been quite a while since I last read any of GH’s novels, whether historical or detective. I started with her Regency romances as a teenager and then found my way to her contemporary crime novels later. In this novel the butler is the murder victim as opposed to the trope of ‘the butler did it.’ But of course, there had to be a motive for killing an apparently harmless servant. What is it? This is one of those Golden Age of crime plots where gifted amateur detective, barrister Frank Amberley runs rings around the rural police force. This probably isn’t my favourite GH crime novel, but still an entertaining listen with some very funny lines. If you have read her Regency novels you will be able to spot the character types that she has transposed to the contemporary setting.

Sadly, not everything that I want to listen to is available in the Playaway MP3 unit format (see picture) which Is the audio version I favour for being out and about (or should I say, for being confined to public transport on wet mornings). Which, in a way is handy as I am likely to pick up something that I might not otherwise choose, if I find in a catalogue search that my first choice isn’t available in that edition. What I would love is if some of the British Library crime reprints were produced in the MP3 format. Now that woould make me a very happy bus traveller!

It is probably time to browse the library shelves again…

Jane Austen: Private Eye

Jan26

Today’s blog topic is a hangover from last year, when I had the idea of delving into detective novels featuring real historical figures. I had a search around and came up with a few possibilities but only got as far as one blog post. Until now, that is. I have been having a further delve into this type of fan fiction and come up with a few more historical figures to think of as fearless detectives.

After previously riding along with Ron Goulart’s Groucho Marx on his cross-country crime solving, I have taken a trip back into Georgian England to encounter writer Jane Austen (1775-1817) in hitherto unsuspected detective mode. Austen has obviously struck a chord with some crime writers, as I have come across no less than four attempts to portray her as an amateur detective. In addition, I have discovered that she is apparently something of a time traveller too. There may be more crime, or indeed, time travelling Austen adventures out there that I have not yet discovered. Here are the crime novels that I have found so far:

An Austen crime series by Stephanie Barron, an American writer, originally from New York. The series began with Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargave Manor (1996) and runs to ten books.

Miss Austen Investigates by London born and bred writer Jessica Bull (Michael Joseph, 2024). This is the first in a new series, the second novel being The Hapless Milliner.

Jane Austen Investigations: Death of a Lady by Laura Martin, Sapere Books, 2023. This is the first in a series of five novels by the Cambridgeshire based author.

Jane Austen Investigates: The Abbey Mystery by Julia Golding (for younger readers).

I have dipped into the Austen criminal world with the above-mentioned Stephanie Barron novel and the first of the Jessica Bull novels. Each author depicts Jane at a different stage in her life, Jessica Bull choosing to begin her series in 1795. Here is a youthful Jane, a writer but not yet a published author. She is engaged in a flirtation with Tom Lefroy and hoping that he will propose. As Austen aficionados will know, the desired proposal does not materialise due to family intervention. This Austen persona is lively and feisty, though an infuriatingly immature twenty-year-old. Given that she would be certainly be considered to be at a marriageable age in that era, the characterisation grates somewhat. Actually, the Austen characterisation reminds me of Georgette Heyer’s lively fresh-out-of-the-schoolroom misses who embark on risky escapades at the drop of a hat, but in this case with less charm.

Two book covers featuring the Jane Austen as investigator stories mentioned in the text.

In contrast Barron chose to place her version of Jane Austen in a slightly later period of her life, 1802 to be precise. However, in common with Jessica Bull’s novel, Austen’s romantic life is not going well. She has just accepted and subsequently refused a proposal from wealthy landowner Harris Bigg-Wither on the basis that she did not love him. The story therefore sees Austen on a visit to a newly married friend, the Countess of Scargrave to escape the fallout and find some peace. Unfortunately, she ends up having to deal with the murder of her friend’s husband.

Stephanie Barron introduced her story using the well-worn device of the discovery of long-lost manuscripts and letters that just happened to be penned by you know who (a distant ancestress of some friends). These papers detailed Austen’s experiences with several detective cases and had been preserved for posterity and then forgotten. As we know, Cassandra destroyed much of her sister’s correspondence, so the conceit of the papers being found in an American descendant’s cellar neatly avoids having to explain why they were not destroyed. The book’s preamble has Barron being allowed to read the manuscripts fresh from the hands of conservators and against the background of anxious bidding from august literary institutions for the previously unknown Austen trove. It is a clunky beginning but the story is readable and the Austen persona more likeable than in my other sample of the genre.

Even after having now read a couple of books featuring a version of Austen as a detective, I am still baffled as to why anyone ever hit upon the idea. Perhaps it was simply the unlikeliness of the idea of a gently bred, clergyman’s daughter as a detective. Though come to think of it, that could almost be the fictional Miss Jane Marple, in more modern times. I have tried to work out why the idea of Jane Austen as an intrepid detective does not really work for me and I am still no nearer an answer. Perhaps it is because her real-life literary output, unlike say, Elizabeth MacKintosh (AKA Josephine Tey) has nothing to do with crime so that I am unable to take the idea seriously. Oddly enough, even though the Groucho book was playing the comedic persona to the hilt, the idea of him as a detective seemed plausible enough, as was the idea that he was aquainted with mobsters. Though according to a 2024 Guardian article it was Groucho’s brother Zeppo who was connected with various mobsters and the underworld.

That is only skimming the surface of the considerable amount of Jane Austen focussed crime novels. I may come back to this crowded field again at some point. And reconsider the appeal of Jane as detective perhaps.

Groucho Marx: Detective

Jun9

Front cover of Groucho Marx & the Broadway Murders.

Previously, dear readers, I left you to wonder who was going to be my first example of famous person as crime-solver in my new occasional blog series. I can now reveal that my eye has fallen on none other than erstwhile star of stage and film, Groucho Marx (1890-1977). The famed comedian has featured in a short series of crime novels by the American writer Ron Goulart (1933-2022). The idea of a writer using Marx as a crime buster sounded so bonkers that I just had to get hold of one or two of the novels to satisfy my curiosity. And, I have to say that the story that I did get hold of was an entertaining read and Groucho was a surprisingly plausible character. But that is skipping ahead.

In his sideline as a detective, true to literary tradition Marx has his own Dr Watson figure (who also functions as the ‘straight man’ that all comedy double acts need) in the person of crime reporter turned scriptwriter Frank Denby. Naturally there are wisecracks aplenty despite the grave task of solving murder cases:

‘We’re as good as the Thin Man, Philo Vance and Charlie Chan rolled into one,’ Groucho maintained. ‘Although why anyone would want a five-hundred-pound detective is beyond me.’

The series is a rarity in the Irish library system, but I did manage to order one of the titles, albeit in a large print version. I suppose sacrifice in the interests of research has to be made sometime. At least that meant that I didn’t need my glasses to read the book! Groucho Marx and the Broadway Murders (2001, 2002) is the fourth book in a series of six crime adventures staring Julius ‘Groucho’ Marx. At this point the Marx brothers have finished making the movie At the Circus (1939), which included the song ‘Lydia the Tattooed Lady’ performed by Groucho. He quips to Denby that the experience of hearing it might be ‘compared to Caruso in his prime.’

Original poster for the film At the Circus starring the Marx Brothers.

But to the crime details: A murdered mobster named Nick Sanantonio at first seems to have nothing to do with our intrepid duo, but his boss Vince Salermo sees things differently. He wants the guys to investigate, as he does not think that the murder was a gangland killing. This is an enticing assignment that they politely decline due to pressing engagements out of town. Both are due to head to New York, so this is true but also very convenient. Is this crime a red herring or will Sanantonio’s name crop up again?

The plot then sees Marx and Denby discovering the attempted murder of a Hollywood producer on the long-distance sleeper train from Los Angeles to Chicago. Could this be a nod to Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express? Especially as the passenger list contains more than a few members of the entertainment industry who could have a motive. The detectives are keen to investigate despite the victim and his associates not being similarly keen. Inevitably of course a murder does later occur in New York, rather dramatically during a Broadway show first night which Groucho is attending.

On first reading this novel, I did struggle to hear Groucho’s voice, as I remember it from those Saturday afternoon films on the BBC. That of course could be mere passage of time. But perhaps I am forgetting to allow for the fact that Groucho was the name of the stage persona of Julius Marx. So, the figure we are encountering in the books is really Goulart’s representation of the ‘real’ Groucho I suppose (similarly to Elizabeth MacKintosh’s Josephine Tey literary persona as interpreted by Nicola Upson). Or is that getting too confusing? Marx certainly did seem to be fond of those cigars offstage too (assuming that that is a genuine personality trait) judging from this novel. And the Groucho patter and one liners are very well done; I feel that this series must have been great fun for the author to write. But why I wonder, do authors pick unlikely characters to play detective? Is it the sheer unlikeliness that attracts perhaps? A literary challenge to make a credible detective character?

As I said above, this was an enjoyable book, though not particularly taut or thrilling, being played more for laughs. I liked the character of Groucho Marx, sometime detective, and his relationship with Denby and his cartoonist wife Jane. The historical detail is good too. I also learnt, somewhat to my surprise that Marx was a Gilbert and Sullivan fan, with a yen to play in The Mikado. As a humorous, easy read I would certainly choose another one in the series, if I could lay my hands on a library copy.

Now, I just need to come up with a fresh subject for my foray down this avenue of crime fiction. Until next time…

A criminal new blog theme?

Apr28

I have been mulling over a theme for an new occasional series of Landing Tales blog posts. Perhaps not surprisingly, the germ of this new idea lies in my continued pre-occupation with reading detective novels.

Of late, my crime novel reading has branched out to include stories where the crime busting detective is a historical person. I have every now and then dipped into the series featuring Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) by S J Parris. Lots of skulduggery, espionage and hair breadth escapes in Elizabethan England. What’s not to like? Though originally, I came at that series more from my interest in historical novels than crime. The author weaves what is known about Bruno’s life and fits into that his ficticious (or maybe not) assignments for spymaster Walsingham. However, what started me off recently thinking about featuring this sub-genre on the blog was my reading one of Nicola Upson’s detective stories featuring the Scottish writer Josephine Tey as her main character (Dear Little Corpses, 2022).

This is the second Upson novel that I have read, though inevitably not in series order. I have jumped from George V’s coronation in 1937 (London Rain, 2015) straight to the evacuation of children in World War II. I enjoyed the novels that I have read so far; as with the Bruno novels, the period detail is excellent. But I still feel a touch ambivalent about the idea of building a series around real people, albeit those dead and gone. What would they have thought about becoming a character in a novel? Maybe some people would secretly love to have their lives novelised after their death, particularly if they get to be crime solving heroes. Sadly, no royalty payments though. Would Bruno be chagrined that more 21st century readers probably know of him for the novels than for his own philosphical works? It is quite likely however, that Upson’s novels featuring Tey have brought the Scottish writer new readers, eager to find out about her work.

The twist with Nicola Upson’s crime novel characterisation, is that Josephine Tey was not in a sense a real person, but one of the literary personae of Inverness-based writer Elizabeth MacKintosh (1896-1952). Her other nom de plume was Gordon Daviot, used for her plays. Therefore, Nicola Upson’s novels could be said not really to feature a historic figure at all. This perhaps gives Upson writerly licence to take the known facts of MacKintosh’s London literary life (in which she was known as Josephine Tey) and to graft them onto her series character’s life. And of course, to invent a whole different career for her as an amateur detective in various mysteries. I was amused to find that Margery Allingham had a small part to play in Dear Little Corpses and I could not help wondering whether the two writers knew each other in real life. I do hope so as they seemed to get on very well in this novel. Maybe a literary sleuthing partnership in the making?

Once I started doing a bit of idle Googling and jotting down the names that I came across, I realised that crime stories starring real historical figures as the detective form quite a significant part of the crime novel scene. A deep rabbit hole awaited me. As a result of my online research, I came across a wide range of series and one-off outings featuring literary luminaries as well as other historical figures. These came from different walks of life and spanned several centuries. This produced quite a list to work through. But where to start with my reading? I decided first to see what the library catalogue had to offer to my latest crime fancy. I had come across some unlikely-seeming detective figures in my online trawling, so I decided to plump for one of the unlikeliest but the one that seemed to promise the most entertainment value. I do enjoy a touch of humour with my crime solving.

So, what amateur tec am I talking about? Well, you will just have to wait and see! I will let you know what I have been reading in a future blog post.

Books on the Bus

Feb28

Cover of Anthony Horow.itz novel The Word is Murder — *Crime on the commute*

I noted in the last blog post that I was listening to The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz (ably read by Rory Kinnear) on my commute. My daily dose of audio book listening has become a travel fixture since December, after I followed a colleague’s suggestion to give them a try. As I said before, I have been using the handy little mp3 editions from the library. The audio book listening has been a useful tool in adapting to an unaccustomed bus/train commute; one that started in the unforgiving winter months, which certainly didn’t add a cheer factor to the tedious bus wrangling. I may have mentioned once or twice here, my penchant for crime fiction, so I keep an eye out for new (or indeed, old) ideas that appear in audio format. It is entirely possible, that having discovered the joys of audio books, I will increase my intake of crime novels considerably. Would that be such a bad thing? Don’t answer that one.

Crime has certainly become the genre of choice for my travelling books over the last couple of months. I have however, tried a couple of other ideas. For instance, I have long taken an interest in Bertie Pollock’s daily trials in Alexander McCall Smith’s Scotland Street books, so I tried one out as a commuting book. Alas, it was too easy going, calm and philosphical to suit my journey to work. Maybe it would have suited my homeward trip better? Perhaps I should try a touch of crime in the morning and catch up on Scotland Street on the homeward ride. Having said that, the rush hour frustrations of the evening commute might be better suited to the distractions of a juicy crime novel… It’s a work in progress, as they say. I also ventured to listen to Helen MacDonald’s Vesper Flights a few weeks ago, but for me it didn’t work as a bus book. That is a book that I will return to in print form as I think it is really one to be savoured at leisure, making notes of anything I want to follow up on.

Cover of the Christopher Fowler Bryant & May story, The Burning Man. — *London crime*

Of course, maybe the detective audio fiction urge will prove to be just a winter thing. Fragrant spring mornings and sultry summer evenings may well encourage quite different listening habits. Let’s wait and see, shall we? For now, I am generally pursuing a criminal course each morning and evening, which has led to my introduction to some new crime writers. One of those is the above-mentioned Anthony Horowitz, who has long been a name that I passed while shelving adult fiction A-M. I always meant at some point to give his adult fiction a go but I never got around to him. I’m not that sure that he’d appreciate that my impetus for doing so was that I needed something lively to distract me from interminable road works.

I have also discovered Christopher Fowler’s detectives Arthur Bryant and John May from The Peculiar Crimes Unit in the adventure, The Burning Man (read by Tim Goodman). Not for the first time in lighting on a new discovery, I have begun well into the series so at some point I need to back track to the earlier books. I really enjoyed this story, both the main characters being agreeably quirky in the chalk and cheese vein. The wealth of historical detail about London’s layers of history is woven into the detective action in a way that brings London vividly to life, as Bryant is a veritable fount of information about the city he loves. I will certainly read more of this series (not necessarily in order of course!)

Now all I need is a steady supply of AAA batteries to fuel my travelling crime fest. And maybe I should treat myself to some decent headphones. Does anyone else relish a good audio book on the bus?

A Victorian Crime Wave

Dec6

For the last few weeks, I have been indulging in my own mini crime wave, wallowing in two collections of short stories. The first anthology, The Oxford Book of English Detective Stories, which I brought back from a visit to mum in October, I don’t think I have ever read before. Once finished with that crime spree, I felt compelled to re-read my Victorian Tales of Mystery and Detection (OUP, 1992) bought and read in the year of publication but not looked at since. In addition to these short stories, I have been reading a couple of Maigret novels belonging to He Who Put The Shelves Up, but I will concentrate on the Victorian Tales anthology for this post.

Where do I begin the conversation about my rather guilty pleasure of detective over-indulgence? There is indeed a sense of a shameful, but delicious pleasure in reading just one more story, and then maybe one more very short one. Like eating one more chocolate from the selection box, you know you probably shouldn’t do it, but you do it anyway. I roved amongst the stories picking titles that grabbed my attention or choosing unfamiliar authors. I deliberately didn’t read the book cover to cover, but dipped in and out, reading whatever story my fancy lighted upon. Clearly, this upset the chronological structure of the book, designed to demonstrate the development of features in the detective story. I also kept popping back to read snippets of Michael Cox’s excellent introduction. However, finally the sad realisation dawned that I had finished the last story, no more left. On a more cheerful note, I have re-discovered stories and authors and created a few leads to follow up on (see the end of this piece).

I want to pick out a few female crime writers and detectives to talk about, continuing a theme that I have written about before, when I wrote about women crime writers of the Golden Age of Crime. To begin with, in Victorian Tales, I re-discovered a Baroness Orczy story that featured her ‘man in the corner’ amateur detective, solving a seemingly impossible crime. When I first came across ‘The Fenchurch Street Mystery’ back in 1992, I had only known Emmuska Orczy (1865-1947) for her Scarlet Pimpernel romps of which I was a great fan. Twenty-odd years later and I still haven’t read any more of the crime stories. The one in this anthology was originally published as part of a series called ‘London Mysteries’ (I assume this was a magazine series, but there is no more information in the sources section) and later reprinted in The Old Man in the Corner (1909). This was the un-named character’s first appearance in print. Here, the thin, quiet man presents a solution to a case that has apparently baffled the police. The entire story takes place in the corner of a bar, as the old man drinks his milk and knots and unknots a piece of string, while he unravels the seemingly baffling crime.

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As the old man declares, ‘There is no such thing as a mystery, in connection with any crime, provided intelligence is brought to bear upon its investigation’. When his companion dares to suggest that many crimes baffle the police at present, the old man damningly comments, ‘I never ventured to suggest that there were no mysteries to the police’. As you can tell, he is no great fan of the police and he only appears to take an interest in crime as an intellectual puzzle. He declares that ‘As often as not my sympathies go to the criminal who is clever and astute enough to lead our entire police force by the nose’.

In two other stories in this collection, lady detectives take control of the crime solving. One of the detectives, created by Catherine Louisa Pirkis (1839-1910) goes by the rather un-detective sounding name of Loveday Brooke (clearly, her parents did not envisage her future career). In ‘Drawn Daggers’ (1893) Miss Brooke tackles a case of a valuable missing necklace, the loss of which appears to be connected to anonymous threatening missives containing sketches of daggers. She deals with the case with admirable efficiency. This story was originally published in a magazine called Ludgate Monthly and later reprinted in The Experiences of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective (1894).

Unlike our previous detective, Loveday Brooke is a professional private detective. The plot introduces Miss Brooke and her colleague Mr Dyer as they disagree about elements of the case before them. Mr Dyer irritably declares that ‘When a young lady loses a valuable article of jewellery and wishes to hush the matter up the explanation is obvious’. In return, Miss Brooke explains to her sceptical colleague, ‘Sometimes the explanation that is obvious is the one to be rejected, not accepted’. Perhaps not surprisingly the outcome of the case proves her correct, as Loveday painstakingly examines the drawings, interviews household staff and then pre-empts the next move by the crime’s conspirators to conclude the case.

Our second lady detective is equally efficient. In ‘The Arrest of Captain Vandaleur’ (1894) Florence Cusack does the crime solving honours in a gambling themed case. This is a collaborative piece by Lillie Thomasina Meade (1854-1914) and Robert Eustace (1868-1943). Michael Cox’s introduction describes Mrs Meade as ‘formidably prolific’ but it is not clear from the bibliography whether any more stories featured Miss Cusack. From the context of this story, I am unsure if Miss Cusack acts in a professional capacity or as an amateur lady detective. She seems comfortably off, as we meet her in the well-stocked library of her house in Kensington Park Gardens. In the course of the story, it is clear that she has informants and ‘channels I need not detail’ as she phrases it so we can assume that she is an experienced detective, even if an amateur one.

However, we do know that the Criminal Investigation Department called has called her in to assist in solving a horserace betting fraud. This fraud case has a connection to a friend’s husband who has developed a gambling mania. The story particularly intrigued me because of the subject of the crime. Gambling and horseracing do not immediately spring to mind as familiar subjects to Victorian spinster ladies. Nevertheless, Miss Cusack is obviously quite au fait with various confidence tricks and shady characters. Even so, even she is stumped at the meaning of the only real clue and cannot see how the betting fraud is perpetrated. She admits that ‘For five continuous hours I have worked at those few words, applying to them what I already know of this matter. It has been of no good.’ Naturally all ends well, but I won’t reveal the who and the how of it. Miss Cusack did the brainwork backed up by the brawn of Scotland Yard.

To finish my crime spree I will mention my recent discoveries of follow–up reading material, thanks to a quick search on ABE Books. You can buy reprinted editions of Loveday Brooke’s Experiences from the very reasonably priced (Dover Publications, 1986) to the eye wateringly expensive (first edition from Hutchinson, 1894 at £2,675.66). I am sure that you can guess where my inclination lies but I will have to make do with cheap and cheerful. I have also found The Old Man in the Corner: Twelve Mysteries, published by Dover Publications (1980). It is worth mentioning here that Orczy also wrote detective stories featuring Lady Molly of Scotland Yard, found on ABE in various editions (maybe a future blog post). Lastly, Lillie Thomasina Meade was indeed a prolific author and many early editions of her books (she also wrote school stories for girls) are still available, some as print on demand books. I spotted one POD title, which appears to be a collection of her mystery stories written in collaboration with Robert Eustace. Whether these feature Miss Cusack is not clear from the seller’s notes.

In short, I have plenty of ideas for future forays into female Victorian crime writers. Now, I think I will just go and write out my Christmas wish list…

Picture credits: Wikipedia (except for the image of my own copy of Victorian Tales)

Trinity Book Sale Buy: The Tiger in the Smoke

May2

The Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham (originally Chatto and Windus, 1952) is yet another of my Trinity Book Sale purchases (TBS Purchases). As you might have gathered, my TBS purchases forms its own TBR pile within the main TBR Pile (phew!). This edition of The Tiger in the Smoke is a 1953 hardback edition, which was part of a monthly series called World Books, published by The Reprint Society at 4/6 (for members only apparently). I note from the back cover that postage and packing cost 9d extra, (you could also buy Gone with the Wind at 8/- for the same postage price which was certainly a bargain). I love the cover design with the signs of the Zodiac on them, but the publisher doesn’t credit a cover artist which is a pity.

I haven’t read an Allingham crime novel for years so it was a nice indulgence to head back into the Golden Age of Crime. Margery Allingham (1904-1966) penned her first Albert Campion novel, The Crime at Black Dudley in 1929. He proved to be such a popular creation that he appeared in a total of eighteen novels and around twenty short stories. I was intrigued to discover that Allingham originally invented Albert Campion to be a spoof on Dorothy L Sayers’ character Lord Peter Wimsey. Over the course of time however, he became much more substantial than a mere jest and matured into a more complex character. Campion has an aristocratic background and his real name is as much a secret as were his missions during the war. Undoubtedly, my affection for Campion is influenced by the stylish BBC series from 1989/90 starring Peter Davison and Brian Glover. This comprised versions of eight of the novels, but not the first one, or indeed The Tiger in the Smoke. I can feel a DVD hunt at the local library coming on!

My last Landing TBR report was full of Elizabethan crimes, or at least political shenanigans and courtly dramas. This time, although we are still in the realms of dark doings, the century and location has shifted to post World War II London. The shady happenings take place in a particularly mysterious and gloomy setting here, as much of the book’s activity occurs in the midst of the worst pea souper in living memory. In fact, the atmosphere is quite Dickensian, there is a sense that Bill Sykes could swagger round a corner any minute. A motley crew of street musicians, threading its way around the alleyways, led by an albino called Tiddy Doll is suitably sinister.

The plot of The Tiger in the Smoke centres on an escaped criminal and former soldier, Jack Havoc who is trying to locate what he believes to be a treasure hoard, a secret he learned of during a wartime raid in France:

He was a man who must have been a pretty boy, yet his face could never have been pleasant to look at. Its ruin lay in something quite peculiar, not in an expression only but something integral to the very structure. The man looked like a design for tragedy. Grief and torture and the furies were all there naked, and the eye was repelled even while it was violently attracted. He looked exactly what he was, unsafe.

Havoc’s commanding officer Martin Elginbrodde, who had hidden the treasure, was later killed in action. Elginbrodde had left coded instructions for his widow Meg to retrieve it in such an eventuality. The story opens five years after a Elginbrodde’s death, when photographs supposedly depicting Meg’s late husband alive and well, have appeared in her post after the announcement of her engagement to Geoffrey Levett. Meg is Campion’s cousin hence, his being called in to assist in unravelling the mystery of whether her husband is still alive or someone wants her to think that he is.

In this case, Allingham’s deceptively affable amateur detective makes a late-career appearance in a supporting role, alongside his ever-reliable criminal turned sidekick Magersfontein Lugg. The hunt for Havoc is largely in the hands of the Scotland Yard, in the person of the charismatic and forceful Charlie Luke. I remember Campion novels as being quite light-hearted, but this one is much darker in atmosphere. Perhaps this is because I read previously, novels that were set much earlier in Campion’s sleuthing career. Here he is middle-aged, with a wife (Lady Amanda Fitton) and young son (Rupert) and he is very much aware of what he has to lose at the hands of the psychopathic Jack Havoc, on the loose in the obscuring fog. Campion’s son is blithely unaware of any danger, as his father decides to send him to safety with Lugg as a bodyguard:

Mr Campion looked down at him. He was shocked at the intensity of his own emotion, and more afraid of it than of anything he had ever known. One half of his life, more than half, four foot tall and as gaily confident as if the world were made of apple pie.

As I said above, Campion does not have a starring role in this one, but (without giving too much away) he assists in the capture of the Elginbrodde impersonator and his intuition gets Geoffrey Levett out of a potentially fatal situation. The twin pillars taking the weight of the story are the opposing moral forces of Jack Havoc and Meg’s father, Canon Avril. The Canon is a gentle, unworldly man whose faith in God causes him to confront the murderer, because he knows it is something he must do. I won’t tell you how it turns out, but Havoc’s life philosophy, The Science of Luck, which Avril calls The Pursuit of Death is challenged by the one person able to understand.

This is not so much a who-dunnit as a mystery novel that also explores a London still getting back on its feet after the war. The Tiger in the Smoke deals with damaged humanity, not only the prowling Jack Havoc, but also the band of misfits in Tiddy Doll’s gang. In the end, when the mystery is solved and the treasure is finally discovered by Meg Elginbrodde, it seems that peace will finally arrive.

Additional picture credit: Wikipedia (with thanks)

Gladys Mitchell Crime Capers

Nov5

I’m afraid that today’s post about Gladys Mitchell (1901-1983) is going to be another digression from my mammoth Landing Book Shelves task. It is I admit a direct result of wandering into a charity shop for a casual browse. I know that I should avoid these temptations, but it truly is nigh on impossible to pass up the chance to poke around on a bookshelf. I had just popped into Oxfam to scan the paperbacks on my way home from shopping and, lo and behold, a crime novel caught my eye almost straightaway. My searching gaze lighted on The Longer Bodies, one of Gladys Mitchell’s early crime novels. Victor Gollancz originally published the novel in 1930 and it has been through several reprints from different publishers over the years. The Longer Bodies (2014) is one of a recent series of Vintage reprints and the stylish theme to the jacket seems entirely appropriate to their glittering heyday.

After enjoying the twists and turns of the plot in The Longer Bodies, I am baffled as to why it has taken me until now to get around to reading Gladys Mitchell. I had heard of her before, in connection with other ‘Golden Age’ women crime writers such as Dorothy L Sayers and Agatha Christie, but serendipity has never thrust one of Mitchell’s books into my hands until now. It won’t be plot spoiling to mention that the title refers to bodies located in the village of Longer, and not bodies stretched on a torture frame to extreme length (I’ve clearly read too many historical novels). Although as vigorous training for a field athletics event features in the plot, perhaps the title was intended to have a second meaning.

The Longer Bodies provides the third case for Mitchell’s unusual private detective Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley. Mrs Bradley is a ‘small, thin, unattractive, and intrepid’ woman, a ‘psychoanalyst with a flair for sleuthing’. She also appears to have a flair for extraordinary combinations of colour and design in her attire, but I suppose that doesn’t make her either more or less of a detective. She wouldn’t have been able to work undercover though, judging by this description of her while on the Longer case:

The only remarkable thing about her was the almost indecent hue of the mustard-coloured sports coat which she was wearing, with terrible effect, on top of a tomato-red dress. The costume was set off…by a small cloche hat which boasted a single, straight aggressive feather. The feather shot insolently into the air for a matter of twenty inches or so…

The other aspect to Mrs Bradley’s personal appearance is the oft remarked upon resemblance to a predatory reptile. Gladys Mitchell created a female sleuth as unlike Miss Marple or Miss Silver as it was possible to be, as may be judged by this none too fluffy description of her social manner,

With what was intended to be a whimsical smile, but which approached more nearly to the kind of grin with which an alligator on the banks of the Nile might view the coming of a chubby but careless baby.

Presumably, a wise criminal would steer well clear of that reptilian smile of Beatrice Bradley’s, as I’m sure it boded no good. Mitchell also gave her detective ‘yellow claw like fingers’, which is rather disconcerting as I keep thinking of chicken’s claws whenever her hands are mentioned. To complete the picture, Mrs Bradley was prone to fiendish cackles or screeches of laughter, but in complete contrast had a surprisingly mellifluous speaking voice, ‘which gave the lie to her whole appearance’.

Mrs Bradley is in a very literal sense a rather uncomfortable person to have around as she has a penchant for poking her companions in the ribs with her umbrella. This piece of equipment is the weapon of choice of another of my favourite female detectives, Amelia Peabody, but Mrs Bradley appears to be much more ruthless in making her point (sorry!) with her ferule. It has to be noted that it is her young male sidekicks who often suffer the rib poking, in the course of their duties on the case.

I have since had a minor binge on Mrs Bradley, having obtained a couple more of her cases, When Last I Died (1941) and The Saltmarsh Murders (1932) from the library. Though I’ve not yet managed to get hold of Mrs Bradley’s first outing (Speedy Death). All have been very enjoyable, and I think that overall Gladys Mitchell plays reasonably fairly with the reader’s chances of solving the crime. In other words, I guessed the culprit in The Longer Bodies and I should really have spotted the criminal in The Saltmarsh Murders, because the clues were there. Having re-read the last section of When Last I Died more carefully, I can see the groundwork being laid, so again I would have to admit that I didn’t work hard enough on my detecting.

Mrs Bradley is such as fascinating character, that I would love to come back to her as a future blog post topic. She is not a particularly endearing person, but she is highly intelligent, determined and deliciously eccentric. I think I was particularly touched by her compassion and search for justice for the murder victims in When Last I Died (I won’t plot spoil, but if you read it you will see what I mean). If you want to learn more about Gladys Mitchell and Beatrice Bradley, there is a well researched tribute site that is worth checking out: http://www.gladysmitchell.com by American writer Jason Half.

If you read the clues correctly, you will reason that I will be borrowing/buying another Mrs Bradley case as soon as possible…

Picture Credits: All taken from Amazon this time, including the book jackets as I didn’t get around to scanning them from my own copies.