S.S. Van Dine - The Winter Murder Case (1939)

"You live for crime and suffering. And you adore worrying. You'd die of ennui if all were peaceful."

The Winter Murder Case, the last entry in the Philo Vance series, is a much shorter book than the other mysteries of Willard Huntington Wright (alias S.S. Van Dine), running about 160 pages. As an introductory essay explains, Wright developed each of the Philo Vance mysteries in three stages; a long synopsis, the development of the synopsis into an approximately 30,000 word manuscript, and finally a further working of character, dialogue and atmosphere resulting in the finished mystery. Owing to Wright's death on April 11, 1939, The Winter Murder Case never received the final fleshing-out so that some of the trademarks of an S.S. Van Dine title are absent, such as the pseudo literary footnotes and long-winded Vance lectures. This removes some of the insufferability and humanizes Vance (which might be an inducement for some readers, I prefer Vance's full-on conceit), although some of the events of the novel also accomplish this. It's hard to imagine the Philo Vance of the earlier novels acting as the master of ceremonies for an amateur winter carnival variety show, but he does this in The Winter Murder Case--and on ice skates no less!

In The Winter Murder Case, Vance is invited to a house party hosted by wealthy Carrington Rexon who is mistrustful of some of his other guests in proximity to his fabulous emerald collection. His suspicions are given extra weight when one of the estate guards is found dead. This final S.S. Van Dine mystery is an improvement over its predecessor, The Gracie Allen Murder Case which, like that book, was written with a specific movie actress in mind--in this case, Olympic skating champion turned movie star Sonja Henie. While there are many scenes involving skating, the winter theme is merely window dressing and doesn't play an appreciable part to the mystery (it easily could be The Summer Murder Case). Nobody is stabbed or has their throat slit with an ice skate (alas!). In addition to the shortness of the novel, the economy of the mystery itself gives The Winter Murder Case the feel of a short story blown up to novella length. A brisk read but inessential to the S.S. Van Dine canon. (The publication is also padded out with Van Dine's Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories and it's amusing to see how many of his own rules Van Dine transgresses).

I have now finished all the Van Dine novels (and basically in order. I suspect The Greene Murder Case was the only one I read significantly out of sequence) with my favourite being The Kennel Murder Case. Seeing some of the divergent opinions on that title makes me want to reread it as it's at least ten years since I completed it .

Ben Benson - The Affair of the Exotic Dancer (1958)

I've enjoyed Benson's series of mysteries involving Ralph Lindsey which are a combination of police procedural and bildungsroman. Lindsey is a young Massachusetts state trooper who not only makes mistakes at the outset of his career but also pays the price for having made these mistakes. I picked up The Affair of the Exotic Dancer thinking it was a non-series mystery but soon discovered that it features Benson's other series character, Captain Wade Paris of the Massachusetts police; thirty-something, fair, diplomatic, hardened by experience, the type of police veteran into which the callow Ralph Lindsey might develop.

The shooting death of a small business owner is the crime that Paris investigates in The Affair of the Exotic Dancer. However, this novel is not a who-done-it. Rather the story alternates between the police routine work and chapters entitled The Suspect which give the killer's backstory, so that early on the reader knows the identity of the killer and eventually the motive for the crime. It is to Benson's credit that, even knowing this information, the reader's interest is held by this no-frills police story.

Bill. S. Ballinger - Formula for Murder (1958)

While the cover blurb for Formula for Murder promises a "strikingly different kind of sleuth", vanMars (no first name given unless I missed it) is your typical Golden Age amateur; elegant, well-dressed, erudite, a New York City resident with friends in high places. Maybe not typical in all things. I don't recall Philo Vance ever ingesting magic mushrooms to help clarify his thoughts on a case as vanMars does in this novel...

Formula for Murder is a mystery involving suicide. Marcia Graham, a writer for Chic magazine (and presumably vanMars's love interest, although like many detectives he comes across as asexual and the relationship platonic) has been given the unusual assignment of authoring an article dealing with the study of a suicide. Unsure that she can do such a story well Marcia requests vanMars's help feeling that, with his background as a theoretical mathematician, his "scientific, detached attitude" will be a benefit to the writing of the article. Inquiring as to whether a case has been selected, Marcia replies that she'll be guided by circumstance. The next suicide story in the papers will be the one that she'll follow up.

Two days later Marcia has her story; Julian Hare, a former restaurant owner, has leaped from the Brooklyn Bridge in the early morning with two witnesses to his death. After getting the background of the case, Marcia is puzzled. "He wasn't really sick, he wasn't really broke, he wasn't really in any trouble." Even more puzzling is the link to another death. Julian's wife has been involved with an actor who was found murdered later that evening. How are the two deaths related?

Formula for Murder is a short yet solid mystery. vanMars lacks the obnoxiousness that characterizes many other gentleman detectives and the mystery plot, while obvious in some regards, is handled sufficiently well. The book takes its title from vanMars coming up with a formula for murder while in a trance state which, while novel, is basically nonsense.

Pictured is the author photo from the back cover. It's easy to visualize Bill S. Ballinger as vanMars.

S.S. Van Dine - The Gracie Allen Murder Case (1938)

"So you want to be a detective" he said cheerfully. "I think that's an excellent idea. And I'm going to give you all the help I can. We'll work together; you shall be my assistant, so to speak. But you must keep very busy at it. And you mustn't let anyone suspect that you're doing detective work--that's the first rule."

I love the Philo Vance mysteries. I love Gracie Allen. I love Philo and Gracie together. But I was greatly disappointed with The Gracie Allen Murder Case as the mystery, about the discovery of a body in a restaurant with criminal connections, was so thin and featureless that I kept waiting for something interesting to happen story-wise. One over-the-top chapter involving a gangster's metaphysical ramblings should appeal to Van Dine aficionados but this is easily the least of the Philo Vance titles that I've read (although I've yet to read The Winter Murder Case). Perhaps it worked better as a film.

John Rhode - Hendon's First Case (1935)

"Not content with a case of housebreaking, you want to tack a murder on to it."

Hendon's First Case is the Dr. Priestley novel which introduces Jimmy Waghorn, a Cambridge graduate with an unremarkable academic history and a lack of ambition who, after his father was ruined in a financial crash, decided to enroll in the new police college at Hendon. Eventually coming under the mentorship of series regular Inspector Hanslet, Jimmy is given the opportunity to distinguish himself when Hanslet receives news of a break-in. Upon arriving at the address, Jimmy learns that the break-in occurred at the workspace occupied by two research chemists, Harwood and Threlfall, and that they were dining together at a restaurant when the break-in occurred. Harwood, who returned to the laboratory alone after dinner, speculates that a rival might have entered  the premises to steal or impede their research. But there is a further complication in the investigation. Harwood appears to be suffering from food poisoning and Waghorn later receives the disconcerting news that Threlfall was admitted to a hospital shortly after dinner and died from ptomaine poisoning. The ptomaine is traced to their dinner at the restaurant and, while Hanslet concludes that the meal could not have been deliberately poisoned, Waghorn is not so sure that it is not a case of murder.

The appeal of Hendon's First Case, apart from the introduction of Waghorn, lies in the mystery of how Harwood and Threlfall were poisoned. However, the means is obviously and clumsily introduced in testimony, so I'd characterize this as a lukewarm Dr. Priestley novel. There is an interesting discussion on deciphering codes however.

Anthony Abbot - About the Murder of the Clergyman's Mistress (1931)

"I would like to have impressions taken of the paws of this cat."

The well-dressed and erudite Thatcher Colt has an advantage over other similar detectives of the 1930s. Unlike the amateur criminologists who often had to intrude upon the police investigations and were at the mercy of wrong-headed decisions, Colt is able to avoid these problems. After all, he is the Police Commissioner of New York City.

In About the Murder of the Clergyman's Mistress (who can resist that title?), Colt investigates not only the death of the titular lady but also that of the clergyman himself, both bodies discovered in a row-boat drifting down the East River. His inquiries are hampered by the reticence and hypocrisy of the Reverend Timothy Beazeley's family and congregation as well as the glib explanations of the family's lawyer (in the most entertaining character interactions of the novel).

While clearly Van Dine inspired, Thatcher Colt is less insufferable than Philo Vance (which perhaps takes some of the humour out of the novel through a lack of over-the-top personality and conflict between a snooty detective and the police), although he does engage in the same Philo Vancian mystification of his chronicler. Unsurprisingly, with a lead character who heads the police department, there's a greater emphasis on police procedure than in the Van Dine novels.

Henry Bellamann - The Gray Man Walks (1936)

"What are you looking for?"

"His head, man, his head. It's gone. His head isn't here."

Which of the following is the best indicator of the quality of this mystery? (a) The Gray Man, a legendary spectre whose appearance on an eerie island foretells misfortune (b) Miss Euphemia Clay, an acerbic spinster detective or (c) Kizzah the conjure man?

If you guessed (c) then give yourself a gold star! I had reservations about buying The Gray Man Walks after reading a plot summary which mentions Kizzah the local conjure man. Warning bells went off that the book would probably contain some nasty stereotypes and tedious-to-read "coloured" dialect but I bought TGMW hoping that the supernatural element and the presence of a Hildegarde Withers type detective would counter the unpleasant aspects. I found, however, that the legend and appearance of the Gray Man didn't provide much atmosphere and that Euphemia Clay didn't get enough book time, leaving the reader with a sheriff  who uses the n-word far too many times in the course of the book and non-white characters who are at best devious, suspicious and superstitious and at worst murderers, drug dealers and wife beaters. Yecccch!

Mystery-wise, the plot centres around the appearance of the Gray Man, the beheading of one of the island's residents and the investigation into  his murder by the man's sister, Euphemia Clay. But the mystery is fair and doesn't have any momentum to it. A hard-to-find title and deserving of its obscurity.

Milton Propper - The Divorce Court Murder (1934)

Milton Propper is an author whom I find especially troubling. I thought that the first book of his that I read was "okay". "Meh" was how I felt about the second. However I rather enjoyed my third and fourth encounters with his Tommy Rankin series (even the one with the railway time-table...shudder!) which raises the question: were these Proppers better than the earlier ones I read or had my critical faculties (providing I had any to begin with) taken a long vacation? Contrary to his meagre critical reception, I think that his mysteries do have some merit.

The Divorce Court Murder provides an interesting look into the mores of 1930s Philadelphia. Surprisingly, the setting is not a law court but rather the offices of a legal firm where the socially prominent Adele Rowland is suing her husband for divorce, bringing evidence against him that he has been carrying on an extramarital affair with her secretary, Jill Edmond. It is this accusation of adultery that results in the case being heard in a private law office:

"Rankin was sufficiently familiar with the peculiar divorce law of his state...In Pennsylvania , the proceedings were generally private, instead of being held in open court before a judge and jury. Some member of the bar, called a 'master', was assigned by a justice to listen to the facts of the complaint, and present his findings to him; the court usually followed his recommendation, whether for or against the divorce...With one exception this system did not preclude jury trials where both parties preferred one. There could be no public hearing, if the grounds involved such details of immorality, profligacy or unchastity as to make their disclosure prejudicial to public morals."

Initially, Allan Rowland made no attempt to contest Adele's suit but, as the story opens, he is now attempting to take advantage of another peculiarity of the divorce law; if both parties have been unfaithful, the divorce will not be granted (the reasoning being that divorce is a privilege and will only be granted when the parties deserve one) and he has brought a witness with him to testify that his wife has also been involved in an adulterous relationship. When his lawyer attempts to bring her from another room where she has been waiting, the witness, the equally socially prominent Barbara Keith, is discovered chloroformed to death. Suspicion is then divided among Adele, her lawyer, her alleged lover and Keith's husband who is also discovered to have been in the law offices that day.

As in the other Propper titles, the investigation is carried out by the youthful looking Tommy Rankin who, lacking the brilliance and insouciance of other detectives of his era, relies on perseverance and thoroughness to solve his cases. While Propper is often maligned for his lack of characterization, Rankin and the other characters who populate The Divorce Court Murder are no worse than many British "Inspector Mundane of the Yard" mysteries although his prose will never be considered stylish or witty. While Propper is occasionally praised for his plotting (Francis M. Nevins contends that "his best books hold some of the intellectual excitement of the early novels of Ellery Queen"), I'm not sure that I found all the twists and motives of TDCM entirely credible but the mystery was a fairly engaging puzzle for the most part.

Reading Challenge Progress

I recently completed the "cherchez le homme" theme in the 2012 vintage mystery reading challenge. I'll continue to add books to the list but will probably add a new "customized" theme to the challenge.

It's also easy to guess which decade I favour...


Cherchez le homme

Sherwood King - Between Murders (1935)
Victor MacClure - Hi-Spy-Kick-the-Can (1936)
Stuart Palmer-The Puzzle of the Pepper Tree (1933)
C. St. John Sprigg - The Six Queer Things (1937)
Eugene Jones - Who Killed Gregory (1928)
Francis Beeding - The Norwich Victims (1935)
Stanley Hart Page-The Tragic Curtain (1935)
Frederick C. Davis - He Wouldn't Stay Dead (1939)
Christopher Bush - The Death of Cosmo Revere (1930)


Golden Age Girls

Virginia Perdue - The Case of the Grieving Monkey (1941)
Kathleen Moore Knight - Exit a Star (1941)
Carol Carnac - Death in the Diving-Pool (1940)
M.V. Heberden - Murder Follows Desmond Shannon (1942)

Christopher Bush - The Death of Cosmo Revere (1930)

At first glance it appears that head of the magnificent Fenwold estate died as a result of a tree felling accident but one of the first persons on the scene (with some knowledge of tree felling technique) recognizes the "accident" as a put-up job and soon Ludovic Travers and John Franklin are covertly investigating the death of Cosmo Revere. Travers adopts the guise of a representative of the law firm which is to make preparations for the new heir while Franklin masquerades as Ludovic's personal servant which results in a two-tier investigation. Travers investigates the "upstairs" contingent of the Hall--Revere's niece and the habituès of the estate--while Franklin focuses his attention on the servants and residents of the village.

The focus of the detection is not so much "who done it" but rather "what are they up to" and while at first the set-up and the novelty of the complementary investigation (a refreshing change from the usual genius detective and his none-too-bright sidekick) holds one attention, I felt my interest wane with the slow pacing of the middle section. The novel does pick up in the last third with Travers and Franklin again acting in a complementary manner (with one discovering the identity of the murderer and the other the reason for the suspicious behaviour at the Hall) and one surprise revelation.

Best recommended for those readers who are willing to be patient with the slow progress of the novel although willing readers will find it a challenge to find an affordable copy. Scarce in the Doubleday printing and under the original British title of Murder at Fenwold.

Frederick C. Davis - He Wouldn't Stay Dead (1939)

"...I can't help feeling that you're getting off on the wrong foot by calling this a case of murder and body snatching."

He Wouldn't Stay Dead is the second mystery to feature Cy Hatch, a criminology professor who also happens to be the police commissioner's son and who, in his father's opinion, has a bad habit of becoming involved in the police department's cases. Aiding Hatch is Danny Delevan, a retired welterweight who is employed as Hatch's bodyguard to prevent any of the police commissioner's enemies from taking revenge against the father through the son (although Delevan is largely ineffectual in the role and functions primarily in the story as comic relief).

At the beginning of HWSD Hatch is visited in quick succession by two persons requesting his help in locating Sylvia Gregg, a witness in a car theft ring and murder investigation who disappeared shortly after being subpoenaed. One is a stripper named Dorelle who claims that her husband has helped Sylvia to disappear, the other Roy Foster, a fellow college instructor of Hatch's who has become lovestruck with Sylvia. Sensing that Dorelle is lying about her interest in the Sylvia Gregg disappearance and out of sympathy for Foster who's a nervous wreck, Hatch decides to take a hand in the case.

Visiting his father, Mark Hatch, at police headquarters for background on the case, Cy discovers that the case involves several missing persons. In addition to Sylvia, Sylvia's roommate Ruth Grayson, who has come into a million dollar inheritance and moved out of the apartment, also can't be traced and may be sheltering Sylvia. The police would also like to locate Phil Doyle, a disreputable private investigator who was seen at the Gregg apartment before she disappeared. Fortuitously, as Cy questions his father, a telephone call from Sylvia's landlady informs them that Phil Doyle is back at the Gregg apartment. As Cy. Mark and Danny arrive at the apartment, they hear a shot. Entering the apartment they discover Phil Doyle's body in the bedroom. No pulse and surprisingly, two gunshot holes in his shirt front. But the shooting gets even stranger. As the two Hatches search the apartment, Danny cries out in the bedroom. Finding the bedroom door now closed and locked, the father and son break down the door to discover Doyle's body no longer in the room and Delevan groggy on his hands and knees claiming that the corpse slugged him on the head with a gun. While Mark Hatch decides that Danny is mistaken and that someone else slugged Delevan and absconded with the body through the window, Cy is insistent that the shooting and Sylvia's disappearance are much more complex than they first appeared.


He Wouldn't Stay Dead is a winning mystery (and probably the most affordable and easiest to find of the early Cy Hatch cases). Briskly paced, humorous and fleshed out with characters who complicate the investigation--the secretary who's a little too willing to aid in the investigation, a deputy commissioner who indulges in a little eavesdropping and political backstabbing, and two hissably sadistic thugs. Hatch engages in some scientific detection and the usual rounding-up-of-the-suspects conclusion (although the astute reader will figure out what happened to Sylvia Gregg before he does). The only part that seemed underdone was an attraction between Hatch and one of the principals in the case.

Overall, a "fun" read and I look forward to the other Cy Hatch novels.

Stanley Hart Page - The Tragic Curtain (1935)

"My policy is to construct as many [theories] as possible and balance them against each other amassing every atom of evidence in support or derogation  of them all, until the correct one achieves such conspicuity that the minimum possibility of error exists."

One can tell from the preceding quote that we've entered Philo Vanceland and I'll readily admit two things. Firstly, that Philo Vance is one of my favourite detectives and, secondly, that I'm a sucker for all the second and third-rate Philo Vance wannabes that came along in the twenties and thirties.

The Tragic Curtain is the last title in Stanley Hart Page's "Christopher Hand" series and is somewhat of an improvement over the preceding title Murder Flies the Atlantic. (I was surprised to find that MFTA wasn't the last title as with it's sloppy plotting it bore the hallmarks of the "last gasp" of a series). The Tragic Curtain relies on the well-worn plot of the disposal of the heirs of an aged patriarch (in this case, business magnate Leander Holloway). First of the heirs to die is Holloway's nephew, Robert Bradshaw, who is disposed of while sitting in front of a window (thus giving the book its title). Hand, a crankier version of Philo Vance, attempts to discover the guilty before any of the other heirs are murdered, a task made more immediate when his "Watson", Ralph Clark, falls in love with Holloway's great-niece.

There's enough plotting in The Tragic Curtain to lift it over the dry spots but Page ultimately falters with a groan-inducing motive for the killer (who's rather obvious as the misdirection in the book doesn't work well). Before the ending the book was a passable time-filler. With it, it's only suitable for faux-Vance diehards like me.

Francis Beeding - The Norwich Victims (1935)

For the most part, The Norwich Victims is an agreeable "inverted mystery". Miss Haslett, a matron at an English preparatory school, is in possession of a winning ticket in the French lottery and makes plans to travel to Paris to claim the prize money. Unfortunately for her, she also makes plans to visit John Throgmorton, an unscrupulous bucket shop investor who plans to murder Miss Haslett and have his female secretary assume Miss Haslett's identity in order to cash the ticket and obfuscate the time of Miss Haslett's death. An entertaining but somewhat undistinguished storyline at least until the ending. I felt that there must be something more to the story but dismissed one possibility as being too outlandish until I realized that it was the conclusion to which the authors (as Francis Beeding is a pseudonym for two male writers) were leading so that the book manages to be both benign and audacious. I'll let the two aspects cancel each other out and call the book "pleasant". (The plot summary at the beginning of the book hints broadly at the ending but fortunately I didn't read it until after I'd completed the book).

Thanks to John at Pretty Sinister Books for awarding me this book in his trivia challenge!

Eugene Jones - Who Killed Gregory? (1928)

"...this fear of ghosts is nothing more than a phobia. Utterly a Preposterous Theory!"

I bought Who Killed Gregory? a few years ago and was pleasantly surprised when the book arrived with a dust jacket that wasn't mentioned in the listing. Three dollars (plus shipping) well spent! But was it time well spent to have read this obscure mystery? For the most part, yes.

The story is narrated by James Stanley, a doctor in a small Long Island town. Like many of the other residents, his curiosity is piqued with the news that an empty estate, the Grange, is to have a new owner. Curiosity, however, turns to bewilderment when, before the arrival of the new resident, bars are placed across all the windows. Upon taking the new owner, Wilton Gregory, as a patient Stanley discovers that Gregory fears an enemy from his past and despite learning that this enemy has recently died, Gregory believes that this man can still take vengeance from beyond the grave. "Crazy as a loon" is Stanley's diagnosis. At least until strange happenings begin to occur at  the Grange; prowlers, thumping noises coming from the basement, the ghostly appearance of a luminous dagger in the attic, sightings of a ghost which can disappear before walls, and finally, the death of Wilton Gregory in a locked room.

Gregory is discovered dead in his upper bedroom by the servants and his nephew Paul. There are no marks of violence on his body, no sign of footprints or a ladder in the ground beneath the window (although Gregory has apparently fired a gun at someone or something) and no evidence of poisoning. Suspicion falls upon Paul Gregory and Dr. Stanley advises the help of Byron Hughes, a newspaperman, to solve the mystery of Wilton Gregory's death.

Who Killed Gregory? reminds me of the works of Mary Roberts Rinehart and her imitators. A large mansion, mysterious goings on in the dark, the possibility of something hidden in the house, frightened servants and a story recorded by a nervous narrator. Indeed, Dr. Stanley seems to be the male version of all those Rinehartian spinsters (unsurprisingly he is middle aged and unmarried). There is much entertainment to be found and Dr. Stanley makes for a humorous narrator, especially when facetiously casting his housekeeper in the role of least likely suspect. The story only falters with the explanation of the locked room mystery. It relies on a great coincidence and, while I'm not certain, it seems that the means of death should have been more apparent to the people who discovered and examined Gregory's body. Still, I'm favourably disposed towards the book.

C. St. John Sprigg - The Six Queer Things (1937)

"...there was nothing desperately odd about any of them taken alone, but taken together, as found in a carefully locked drawer which someone had attempted to force open, in a house where murder had been committed, they were mysterious and challenging. They were facts, cold, solid facts, which one could handle and touch, and yet for the first time the inspector had an unpleasant feeling that facts were not enough, that just because they were facts it would need some wild and extravagant theory to fit them all within the boundaries of one coherent story."

Sprigg's final mystery novel, published after his death during the Spanish Civil War, is darker in tone than the previous mysteries I've read of his although there are similarities between them. Like The Corpse with the Sunburned Face, The Six Queer Things has a hybrid quality to it but whereas TCWTSF moves from mystery to an African adventure thriller, TSQT takes the reverse route and uses an occult thriller beginning to set up the mystery elements.

The central figure in The Six Queer Things is Marjorie Easton, one of those improbably naive women found in detective fiction. Working at an ill-paying job and living with her miserly uncle, Marjorie is desperate to change her situation and a job offer from the strange Michael Crispin and his sister gives Marjorie that opportunity although not without a feeling of unease. Although the job promises to be remunerative, Marjorie has no idea what it entails other than the vague description of "research" and that it requires Marjorie to move in with the Crispins. On her first day of work, Marjorie is surprised to learn that Michaels' research is simply a euphemism for spiritualism. Crispin regularly holds seances at which he is the medium and at first Marjorie is simply required to record what happens at these seances but eventually she is encouraged to develop her own psychic gifts. Developing those gifts comes at a cost. She becomes more isolated, experiences terrible nightmares and is soon on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Marjorie's physician then enlists the help of her estranged boyfriend Ted to infiltrate the seances and to discover why Michael brought Marjorie to the Crispin house in the first place. This proves to be much more riskier than Ted foresaw, especially when a poisoning occurs at one of the seances and Ted is accused of being the culprit.

Enter Detective-Inspector Charles Morgan. Usually not an imaginative detective, he is given the task not only of discovering the poisoner and how the poison was administered but also the significance of the "six queer things" found in a locked drawer in the Crispin residence (some of which are obvious to the reader). While at this point the book has moved from the occult set-up to the mystery storyline, the novel changes direction again, adding scenes of gothic romance and a criminal conspiracy storyline. I was a bit disappointed when the mystery investigation gave way to these elements and the shift in focus rendered The Six Queer Things not entirely satisfying (although the shift wasn't as abrupt as the switch from England to Africa in TCWTSF). Although I've seen the novel described as humourless as compared to Sprigg's previous work, there still is some humour to be occasionally found in the novel (although sparingly and sometimes very black). As well there were some plot and character similarities to his earlier work (specifically Pass the Body). However, the mystery still manages a few surprises.

Overall, I would rate The Six Queer Things more highly than The Corpse with the Sunburned Face and Death of an Airman, but my favourite Sprigg still remains Pass the Body (with the delightful Charles Venables). Unfortunately, like much of Sprigg's output, The Six Queer Things is quite pricey on the used market.

Stuart Palmer - The Puzzle of the Pepper Tree (1933)

"Perhaps that poor fellow over there looks like just another case of heart failure to you, but I'm getting so I can detect the very smell of murder."

At the end of a short seaplane trip to Catalina Island, a passenger whom everyone suspected of simply being airsick is discovered dead in his seat. The chief of police would like to close the case as soon as possible but unfortunately for him Miss Hildegarde Withers is vacationing on the island and she suspects something much more devious than a simple case of heart failure. Especially when she discovers that the dead man was an unwilling witness in a corruption trial with a 15,000 bounty on his head. But which passenger was looking to make some extra cash...the movie director, the ambitious blonde, the simpering newlyweds, the pottery salesman, the Norwegian ship captain or perhaps even one of the pilots? And no murder investigation is helped by the disappearance of the corpse.

The Puzzle of the Pepper Tree is one of the better entries in the humorous Hildegarde Withers series. While her usual sidekick, New York City police detective Oscar Piper, is absent for much of the book, Hildegarde teams up Phyllis La Fond, the ambitious blonde, and they make an amusing detective pair. Hildegarde is aided by one wildly propitious clue and the death of the passenger is revealed to rely on a dexterousness which seems improbable, but on the whole, if you're a fan of the series, you'll enjoy this one too.

The Puzzle of the Pepper Tree is readily available from the Rue Morgue Press and was filmed in 1935 under the title Murder on a Honeymoon.

Victor MacClure - Hi-Spy-Kick-the-Can (1936)

"Those bloody awful books of his were enough to provoke a desire to murder in anybody with a sense of decency."

In Murder Ink, a collection of essays edited by Dilys Winn, there's a humorous feature entitled The Don't List, things to avoid if you don't want to become the next victim with such entire as "Don't go for lonely walks with those you've just disinherited" and "Don't sample the chocolates that arrived by post, anonymously, on your birthday". I can add one that's missing from the list. Don't, at a gathering of bright young things, join in any games that involve turning off the house lights or running around in the yard in the dark. Invariably a sharp dagger will be introduced into the fun and festivities. Such is the background for Hi-Spy-Kick-the-Can. During a glorified game of hide-and-seek in which the partygoers are divided into two teams of hiders and searchers, the lifeless body of children's novelist and full-time sleaze Roger Ward, author of such classics as Mau'wiss the Mouse and Dinkery-donk, is discovered in the dark beneath a yew tree.

The investigation of the "murder in the shrubbery" is headed by Chief Detective-Inspector Archie Burford and the majority of the novel is set in the hours immediately following the discovery of Ward's body. Like the only other MacClure mystery I've read, The Clue of the Dead Goldfish, much of the investigation centres on tracking the movements of people at the crime scene through the use of footprints and other physical clues. These clues, along with re-enactment of the game of hi-spy-kick-the-can, soon prove that not everyone in the game has been forthright about their movements that night and it's up to Burford, who strives to be genial, fair and not given to premature theorizing, to discover what really went on during the game.

This is the type of mystery that I'd call hum-drum and I found my interest waning as I read it. I couldn't muster much enthusiasm for an investigation that centred mainly around footprints and tracking and was in desperate need of a change of scenery. Competent but not exciting, the most memorable part of the book is the ambiguous ending.

Sherwood King - Between Murders (1935)

"I see the murderer as a man of inordinate coldness, with a mind that moves with the rapidity of lightning, taking in every possible contingency and planning how it might be turned to his advantage all in the same split second. We have to deal here with no ordinary criminal, but with a genius."

I finally finished my first book for the "cherchez le homme" portion of my reading challenge--a book which I chose rather capriciously from the depths of my overstuffed bookshelves. "Sherwood King" meant nothing to me, until doing a search on the web, I discovered that one of his novels was the basis for the classic Orson Welles film The Lady from Shanghai.

James Durstine, a retired defence lawyer from Chicago, has just received a note from Faye Brett, a friend and glamorous singing star, warning him that his life is in danger and that he must meet her at her hotel room that night. No sooner does he leave to met her than he narrowly misses being killed in a storefront bombing. A case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time or is Faye's warning all too prescient? At the hotel, Durstine meets up with Thomas Webley Wilberforce, an investigator from the State's Attorney's office and, close to one in the morning, they are surprised to see Faye enter the hotel with Warren Faggity, a notorious blackmailer. She greets Durstine, seemingly under a nervous strain, tells him to come up to her room in ten or fifteen minutes and then departs with Faggity. While waiting, Tom becomes uneasy and they go to Faye's room only to discover her dead and a man scrambling down the fireplace. Has Faye been killed to stop her from talking with Durstine and has it anything to do with the newly formed Crime Committee, a group dedicated to solving crimes without the interference of political red tape or a bumbling State's Attorney. Durstine has been asked to join the group and a number of Faye's acquaintances are also members. After Faye's death, Durstine reluctantly joins and the committee embarks on solving the Faye Brett case especially when doubt is cast upon Faggity being the murderer.

Firstly, Between Murders is decidedly not a fair play mystery and it is difficult to critique the book without giving away major spoilers. I will merely mention that it not so much that the mystery is not fair play, but rather the manner in which it is not fair play that gives the book its distinction. There is also a fair bit of pulp thriller style plotting; a crime fighting group which includes a member who can decide whether an individual is guilty of a crime after a brief five minute conversation, a mausoleum with a glass coffin, a secret room, a kidnapping, and dramatic entrances and exits. All of which hold one's attention but give the book a somewhat choppy, episodic feel. I also thought Between Murders to be a bland title choice until I read the memorable closing line of the book.

Overall, I found the book to be average with the explanation of how the mystery was not fair play to be the most interesting thing about it. Normally I dislike non-fair play mysteries but I'm willing to give this one a pass.

Pictured is the circa 1970 Curtis Books printing of Between Murders which seems to be the only one currently available for sale online (and, surprisingly, only one copy of that edition is available). However, King's If I Die Before I Wake (the basis of the aforementioned The Lady from Shanghai) is still in print from Penguin Books.

A New Reading Year: Golden Age Guys and Gals

In celebration of the new year I decided to join the mystery-themed reading challenge at "My Reader's Block" blogspot, signing up for two categories: "Golden Age Girls" (8 books by female authors or 8 books with female detectives) and "Cherchez le Homme" (8 books by male authors or 8 books with male detectives).