Rae Foley - Where is Mary Bostwick? (1958)

"What's up?"

"Santa Claus. I have to see him about a dead man."

Like Margaret Erskine, Rae Foley is an writer  who found herself repackaged by publishers during the gothic boom of the sixties and seventies as an author of gothic mysteries. Given, in paperback editions, cover artwork featuring worried-looking women in evening gowns, dark and spooky settings and plot descriptions emphasizing danger and romance, a casual reader might be surprised to find out that Foley's main series character was a male detective who is sometimes compared to Albert Campion. Like Campion, Mr. Potter (first name Hiram)  is wealthy, fair-haired and has a bland unrevealing face, although he is more neurotic and considers himself to be a "catalytic agent". The plot summaries of these gothic paperbacks fail to mention Mr. Potter, instead building up the involvement of supporting female characters (and distorting the plots to make them more appealing to the fan of gothic romances).

In Where is Mary Bostwick?, Mr. Potter has just returned to his native New York City and is surprised to read in a newspaper that, despite not knowing anything about the case, he is involved in the search for a missing heiress. Mary Bostwick was an average university student before being left a fortune by her unscrupulous and estranged father. However, when the will is read, Mary has been missing for months. As his lawyer is involved in the search, Mr. Potter decides to lend his peculiar talents to the investigation, a pressure-filled task as they only have twenty-nine hours to find Mary before the fortune passes to the other heirs. The lawyer, Adam Eden, assures Mr. Potter that the other heirs knew nothing about the will previously and therefore could not have murdered her (although murder will play a part in the case). The further involved he becomes in the search, the more Mr. Potter believes that Mary Bostwick is deliberately hiding, but for what reason?

Where is Mary Bostwick? depends on a number of coincidences to propel the storyline (Mary makes an obvious cameo appearance early on) for which I could forgive the author. However, the "big reveal" about why Mary is hiding is ludicrous and sinks the novel. Still, I like the character sufficiently enough and would read another Mr. Potter mystery (and hope for a better conclusion).

Kathleen Moore Knight - Death Blew Out the Match (1935)

"One moment--brilliant sunshine, shimmering sea, the pipe and whistle of birds, the quiver of a million growing things; the next--death and horror."

The first of the author's Elisha Macomber mysteries, Death Blew Out the Match is set on the Cape Cod island of Penberthy where recently unemployed Anne Waldron and her friend Hazel "Kerch" Kershaw have come to stay at the Waldron cottage. Their plans for an idyllic summer stay are shattered however when they discover the body of caustic playwright Marya Van Wyck who has unflatteringly portrayed several of the locals in a recent stage success. Marya is found in her cottage in front of the fireplace (unlike the dust jacket illustration), a charred match still held between her thumb and forefinger. Kerch, a nurse, thinks the death suspicious and an autopsy establishes Marya's death by cyanide of potassium poisoning. However the autopsy also shows no traces of food in her stomach or mouth . How was the poison introduced into Marya's system? Anne soon turns detective (her efforts describe as "philovancing") with her attention firmly focused on Mr. Hyland, a recent arrival to Penberthy.

I was disappointed with Death Blew Out the Match. While quick-tempered Anne Waldron's narration and investigation are for the most part enjoyable, much of the focus is centred on events that turn out to be unconnected with Marya's murder which is hastily (and rather accidentally) resolved. A paucity of suspects is also a weakness and the method of poisoning is more goofy than clever. Hopefully Elisha Macomber is better served in the next of his mysteries as his character could easily have been written out of this novel without a substantial difference to the plot.

Fans of old time radio can listen to an adaptation of the novel here.

Mabel Seeley - The Crying Sisters (1939)

Janet Ruell is bored. A small town librarian whose only suitor is a dull bank teller, Janet vows that she'll take any chance for excitement that comes her way on her vacation. Stopping at a Minnesota tourist camp, she meets Steve Corbett and takes him up on an unusual proposition: to accompany him, a stranger, to the Crying Sisters Lodge, stay with him in a cabin and look after his son Cottie. While the offer seems innocent enough, Janet suspects that Steve has a different motive for visiting the resort other than relaxation and the gun that he gives her for protection makes her even more uneasy and puzzled. The first night in their cabin, Janet is awakened by a woman's scream and finds Steve's cot empty and the cabin locked from the outside. Could her new employer be a murderer?

The Crying Sisters, Mabel Seeley's second mystery, contains many of the trademarks of woman-in-peril novels; a sullen romantic interest who may be up to something sinister, a heroine who ignores common sense by putting herself in danger and who, despite collecting many clues, can't quite piece them together to solve the mystery, and a final attempt on the heroine's life. However, Seeley does play with some of the conventions and Janet proves to be tough and capable in a dangerous situation, lifting this mystery a notch above other similar novels.

This title and several of Seeley's other mysteries are readily available in new editions.

M.V Heberden - Murder Follows Desmond Shannon (1942)

"...it looked somewhat as if murder investigations in St. Callista conducted themselves. And, he thought grimly, conduct itself it could. He was on vacation."

After several years of tiring private eye work, Desmond Shannon finally takes a vacation to the island of St. Callista in the British West Indies but his vacation proves to be anything but restful when he unwillingly heads the investigation into the poisoning of one of the island's few white residents.

Although Shannon is a private eye, the background and cast of characters of the book make it similar to a British village mystery. In St. Callista Shannon undertakes the murder investigation among the vicar, his sister, several estate owners, a spinster and various other residents who congregate nightly at the local club and, who for the most part, are a prejudicial and insular bunch. They are most vocal in their enmity toward Jack Howell, a pacifist and plantation owner, and Shannon allows himself to be drawn into the case to avoid the crime being conveniently pinned on Howell. While Shannon defends Howell's right of conscience against the colony's bias, the same consideration does not extend to the island's non-white residents with Shannon's attitude varying from the condescending to the outright threatening (suggesting that an island bully needs a whipping) which makes for some uneasy reading.

While the choice of victim is surprising, the mystery is rather thin and the Desmond Shannon series is much better served with a New York setting.

Pictured is the author who used her initials when writing the series, as Mary Violet isn't the best name under which  to be writing a hard-boiled mystery.

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)

Kathleen Moore Knight - Exit a Star (1941)

"I don't like detective work...I don't like prying into other people's affairs. I don't like playing tricks and telling white lies and sitting in judgment on my fellow humans."

"I'm not gonna try it--you try it!" Television viewers of a certain age might remember the seventies "Mikey" commercial in which two boys look suspiciously at a bowl of Life cereal refusing to have a taste of it and finally giving the bowl to a third child to sample, which is how I felt about the mystery novels of Kathleen Moore Knight. Not difficult to find, inexpensive, plenty of titles to choose from but no one ever seemed to read them or blog about them. I was always waiting for "someone else" to review them so that I could decide whether they were worth reading or not. Finally, tired of playing the waiting game, I have read my first Knight title and you know what? I liked it! Hey, Mikey!

Exit a Star is the second title in the Margot Blair series. Blair, a principal in the public relations firm of Norman and Blair, has taken on a new client, Susan Holland, an up-and-coming theatre ingenue who has just landed her first role in a "Lynn Speakman" play. Giving Susan publicity as the best-dressed-girl-of-the-moment and spotlighting her fabulous Mlle Denise gowns should be easy enough except for one thing or perhaps I should say one person, Speakman's frequent and nasty star, Lucia Dracott. Somehow Dracott has obtained copies of Susan's "exclusive" gowns and is wearing them to the same functions that Susan is to attend, insinuating and trying to give Susan bad publicity as a silly copy-cat. While practicing the play at a rural theatre and following another humiliation of Susan, the atmosphere is tense. Speakman seems tired of Lucia, she is antagonistic towards the other cast members and it is not long before someone decides to promote Lucia as the fading-star-most-likely-to-be-found-murdered with Susan set to be the scapegoat. Reluctantly, Margot sets out to clear her client, a task made all the more difficult since Susan has disappeared.

Knight packs a lot into 300 pages. Backbiting, secret relationships, blackmail, betrayal and a murderer who, of course, just can't stop with one death. Add a dash of humour ("I see cactus is being worn this season") and a killer whose identity is well-hidden and you have a winning mystery. Now I just have to ask myself why I didn't take the Kathleen Moore Knight plunge earlier.

Carol Carnac - Death in the Diving Pool (1940)

"How could you make a man drown without a struggle, without a bruise to tell the tale?...A blow, a shot, poison, gaseous or otherwise, a net or sheet thrown over the pool--nothing would work in the light of the evidence."

Walter Landon and Anthony Baird, two friends in their fifties, both veterans of the Forces and each having worked in the East, are now proprietors of Clerewater House, a small hotel in the Cotswolds which they have endeavoured to turn into a first-rate country house complete with well-tended grounds, a tennis court and a diving-pool for the guests, the current crop of whom includes "bright young things", city dwellers on vacation, a spinster author and, of course, suspicious characters who are either having vague ominous conversations or snooping around the house. In addition to the tennis, the swimming and the fine food, the residents enjoy discussing the current news sensation, a daring and unsolved jewel robbery and Landon hints that he has an idea about the business. No surprise then, when the next morning, during an early diving session, he is found drowned in the pool. Although he had previously complained of cramp, the investigating Superintendent can't allay his suspicion that there was some "hokey pokey" about the drowning, especially when other residents are targeted for accidents of their own.

Unsurprisingly, the best part of Death in the Diving-Pool is the mystery of how Landon's death was contrived and Carnac (aka Edith Caroline Rivett aka E.C.R. Lorac) presents a straightforward solution of how the crime was carried out. However, there isn't much in the way of humour and Carnac's series detective, Inspector Ryvet, is bland. Readers looking for sparkling conversation will be disappointed but those seeking a competent puzzle (like myself) will enjoy the book.

Good luck trying to find a copy of the book for sale. Like the other early Carnac titles it is absurdly hard to find. I guess not enough readers  responded to the encouragement to buy their own copies as the lending library stamp urged them to do.

Virginia Perdue - The Case of the Grieving Monkey (1941)

"On Monday night at eleven o'clock the monkey died."

Virginia Perdue has written two mysteries featuring Eleanora Burke, a five foot eleven, two hundred pound investigator for the district attorney's office whose size makes her a worthy adversary but who is not without a trace of insecurity and sentimentality. The first of the two, The Case of the Grieving Monkey, involves Burke in a case of attempted murder by poison. Marian Gantley, a wealthy explorer with a home in the Hollywood hills, is convinced that on two occasions someone has tried to poison her and the second attempt would have been successful had not a glass of cyanide laced milk been drunk by her pet marmoset. Adopting the guise of being an old friend of Marian's, Burke sets out to discover which member of the household could be the culprit with a penchant for poison; Julian, Mrs. Gantley's much younger, philandering husband; her secretary and Julian's mistress; her seemingly neurotic sister-in-law and her estranged husband; or Gretel, her German cousin who seems a little too admiring of Hitler. And what about Thompson, the chauffeur, who seems to be doing a little investigating of his own? It's not long before murder pays a visit to the estate's monkey house.

The Case of the Grieving Monkey features a likable heroine (whom the author thankfully did not make into a Bertha Cool-like caricature), and a brisk pace. Not a great mystery, as there's no real surprises or twists, but a quickly read, entertaining story. This was followed the following year by The Case of the Foster Father.

Incidentally the titular monkey doesn't have much importance to the story, grieving or otherwise.

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).