Zadok's Treasure: Review

When Sir Toby Glendower's long-time colleague and friend disappears from his archaeological dig near Jerusalem, Toby is persuaded by Bill Pearson's wife Valerie to travel to Israel and track down the missing archaeologist. He is especially intrigued when he learns that Bill was on the trail of the legendary treasure of Zadok, high priest to Solomon. The historical stakes are high--but the monetary stakes are even higher and there are rumors that a high-rolling collector may have been dogging Bill's heels. Toby is a prominent archaeologist himself and more than capable of following up any clues his friend might have left behind.

Toby convinces his partner in crime-solving, American anthropologist Penny Spring, to join him on his quest. Her job will be to conduct inquiries in Jerusalem and keep tabs on Valerie--who seems more interested in various other men connected to the dig than she does in her husband's fate. When Toby discovers the tortured and mutilated body of his friend hidden a cave far from camp, he also uncovers a cleverly concealed document that, if authentic, may be an even more valuable historic find than any legendary treasure. Penny's researches in Jerusalem mirror Toby's discoveries and she finds that this new artifact may have placed Toby in extreme danger. The normal course of their investigations generally find Penny in danger with Toby snatching her from a villain's clutches just in time. This time, the tables are turned, and it's up to Penny to race against time to save Toby from a murderer who has no problem killing anyone who stands between them and archaeological riches.

Zadok's Treasure (1979) provides the reader with a nearly complete package--high adventure and narrow escapes in the desert, a closed set of suspects, a classic investigation with our two amateur detectives following up clues to discover the culprit, and a dramatic wrap-up scene with Toby confronting the killer from his hospital bed. Arnold does a fair job of producing a fair play mystery although Toby does hold a couple of clues close to his chest in Holmesian fashion. For the most part, however, Arnold gives us an enjoyable academic cozy with well-developed characters--particularly her detectives Toby and Penny. For those of us who are well-acquainted with the pair, it was fun to see Penny riding to the rescue for once. ★★★★


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With the water from a cistern on the cover, this fulfills the "Body of Water" category on the Silver Vintage Scavenger Hunt card.

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A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion: Review

The 1927 trial of Ruth Snyder and her lover Judd Gray was a sensational story smack dab in the middle of the Jazz Age--the era of flappers, Prohibition, speakeasies, hot jazz, fast dancing, and fast-talkers. Ruth Snyder was a blue-eyed, blonde coquette who was married to a man she claimed was emotionally cruel to her and her daughter. Judd was a mild-mannered man who taught Sunday School and was (up till then) devoted to his rather plain and unexciting wife. Judd was also a salesman who dealt in ladies unmentionables who met Ruth through a mutual friend. He sold her one corset...for her mother (so she said) and before he knew it he had been swept up into a wild love affair. 

Ruth became determined to be free from her emotionally remote, hyper critical husband and insured his life with a double indemnity policy. She and Judd then murdered her husband--staging a break-in and having her lover leave her tied up for the police to find. These two amateurs did a spectacularly poor job of it and it didn't take the officials long to trace the crime to its source. The newspapers had a field day covering their trial and splashing lurid details of their affair across the front page. It was one of the biggest crimes of the early twentieth century. 

Hansen finds the historical details from the newspaper accounts, notes of the trial, memoirs by both Judd Gray and Ruth Snyder, and several historical books on the trial. He takes these materials and weaves a fictional backstory--fleshing out the disenchantment at home which drove Ruth and Judd into one another's arms and ultimately culminated in murder. He does a good job giving us a well-rounded look at our two lovers--though I was still left with a bit of a puzzle at the end. Why did such a nice guy as Judd allow himself to be maneuvered into a capitol crime? It also would have been nice if Hansen had been able to give the same attention to the victim as he did the lovers. We get a brief view of his sarcastic nature with Ruth--but we don't get a complete picture of him. It's difficult to tell if Ruth has built up the cruelty (to make Judd more willing to do the deed) or if her life really is as unbearable as she says. Having taken the poetic license as far as he did, it would not have been a stretch to give a bit more life to the husband. The other disappointment is that once the arrests have been made and the trial begins the story loses its fictional feel--becoming more of a factual account than fictional peek at how these two might have dealt with their plight.

Save for the final chapters, Hansen provides an interesting fictional account of what might have happened. The Roaring Twenties come alive and, like the period, the story moves at a fast, almost Charleston-type speed. Good solid story-telling. ★★★

[Finished on 2/18/17]

Episode of the Wandering Knife

Episode of the Wandering Knife (1950) contains three stories--two novellas and a short story--by Mary Roberts Rinehart--the titular "Episode of the Wandering Knife" (1943), "The Man Who Hid His Breakfast" (1949), and "The Secret" (1950). Even though the last two were published later, they both have a war-era feel to them and, in fact, Nurse Adams is turned down in her effort to join the nursing staff for the armed forces at the beginning of "The Secret"--leading many to believe that the story was written earlier, but Rinehart was unable to place it for publication.

In the "Episode of the Wandering Knife" Mrs. Shepard throws one final champagne party before handing her palatial home over to the Government as a convalescent home. Over two hundred people are wandering round the grounds, but, since the Mayor has been invited, there are also policemen at every gate and doorway so no one can get in or out without being seen. When the party comes to an end, her son Larry goes home to the smaller house on the grounds to find his wife (who had pleaded illnesses to avoid the party) stabbed to death. Of course, Mrs. Shepard flies to his side and, not believing her son capable of murder, hides the distinctive hunting knife (his) which has been used to do the deed. As the title might suggest, the knife then plays a merry game of hide and seek--disappearing from Mrs. Shepard's hiding place and popping up here and there until its final appearance in the back of victim number four. Larry's sister Judy and a reporter by the name of Tony try their hand at amateur detecting in an effort to clear him of his wife's murder.

"The Man Who Hid His Breakfast" features Inspector Tom Brent who is looking forward to retirement, but who is assigned to one last case before hanging up his badge--he must solve the case quickly or face demotion. On the face of it, it should be pretty easy. A woman has been found strangled in her own home where the doors and windows were all locked up tight. The only other person in the house is her daughter. It seems it was mighty convenient that mother has died since Joy wanted to marry a man that her mother didn't approve of. But Brent is convinced that the girl and beau are innocent. But how can he prove it and who else could have wanted the women dead? When he hears about the odd action of the man who hid his breakfast before checking out of his hotel room, he plays a hunch and finds the answer.

"The Secret" is the last of five stories featuring Rinehart's recurring character, Nurse Hilda Adams. The story begins with Nurse Adams being turned down by the armed services for having an irregular heartbeat. When Inspector Brent learns that his favorite amateur sleuth will be staying on the homefront, he calls upon her to take up the case of Tony Rowland--a beautiful young woman who has been behaving erratically and...somewhat dangerously. She broke off her engagement--to a man she was obviously in love with and has since tried to shoot her mother and was behind the wheel when she and her mother had an automobile accident. Then her aunt, with whom the two are staying, tumbles down the stairs. The inquisitive nurse soon finds that Tony won't speak to anyone except a mysterious man she meets outside after dark, the mother is kept locked in her bedroom, and she (Nurse Adams) is not allowed to tend to anyone but the aunt. But the aunt apparently knows too much because she is killed--right under the nurse's nose. Nurse Adams finally unearths the secret hanging over the household and saves Tony from an uncertain fate. 

My previous experience with Rinehart has been with full novels. So it was interesting to see what she could do in the abbreviated format. Rinehart does a great job of setting the stage, creating suspense, and giving attention to character in the shortened space of the novella and short story. The titular story is especially good--providing a fair number of twists and turns given the format. Very enjoyable.  ★★★ and 1/2

Just as an aside...I did wonder if the toilet tank was the binding theme of these stories. Mrs. Shepherd hides the knife in the tank of her bathroom toilet. The breakfast was hidden in the toilet tank of a hotel room. So, I kind of expected the "secret" to be found hidden in the toilet tank in the last story. I'm afraid not...no thematic connections of that sort.

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This counts for "Knife" on the Golden Vintage Scavenger Hunt card.

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Deal Me In Week #7: "The Blue Sequin"

This is my first year participating in Jay's Deal Me In Challenge . In a nutshell--we line up 52 short stories for the year, we match those stories up to a card in a regular deck of card, and each week we shuffle our deck (of real cards) and draw a card from whatever remains in the deck. Week #7 gives me the five of clubs (seeing lots of clubs early...) and "The Blue Sequin" by R. Austin Freeman found in The World's Best One Hundred Detective Stories Vol. 7 edited by Eugene Thwing.

image credit

This story features Freeman's usual detective, Dr. Thorndyke. Thorndyke is called in when a beautiful young woman is found dead in a railway carriage. She has an odd combination of head injuries--including scratches to the face and a penetrating wound which was inflicted with great force with a sharp, round object. The police immediately suspect and arrest her former lover who had traveled by the same train and with whom she was seen quarreling. He is the last person known to have been with her and is found to be in possession of her locket (with broken chain--as if pulled off by force) and a sturdy umbrella with a sharply pointed end. His brother believes fervently in his innocence and seeks Thorndyke's help in finding another solution. The solution is, quite honestly, fairly outrageous, but Freeman manages to make it believable within the story's framework and it answers all the questions quite nicely.

TNB Love (& Murder!) in Bloom: Mysterious Wisdom on Love & Marriage & Other Related Subjects

February is the month of love--what with Valentine's Day on the 14th and all. So, it's no surprise that the Tuesday Night Bloggers have decided to focus on Love (& Murder) and whatever comes to mind when we think of those things during this shortest of months. Brad over at Ah Sweet Mystery Blog is our host this month and I'm quite sure I saw him go by with a bouquet of sweetheart roses with a tag that said "To My Dearest Agatha" on it. I'm also fairly certain that malteds (with straws for two) and heart-shaped sugar cookies are replacing our usual tea and scones as we gather round the table. So...if you've got a mystery with romance (or a romance with mystery) that you'd like to share or some thoughts on the evil that men and women do in the name of love, then pull up chair, grab a sugar cookie, and tell us all about it.

You know what they say about the best-laid plans of mice and men...and bloggers. Well, my plans for this week's TNB post have gone awry. So...in honor of Valentine's Day, I give you tidbits on love and marriage that I have picked up from authors in the mystery field and their characters.

You know what we say about marriage.  We say it’s like the kitchen clock.  If it goes better lying on its side or even standing on its head, leave it alone.  As long as it ticks and keeps time, keep your hands out of the works.

                                                Chief Inspector Luke

                                                The Estate of the Beckoning Lady

                                                —Margery Allingham

I envy those women who just love normally and nobly with their bodies. Then they’re only engulfed by a sort of lovely high tragedy. The hero persists. That’s at least decent. Once you cultivate your mind you lay yourself open to low tragedy, the mingy, dirty little tragedy of making an ass of yourself over an ordinary poor little bloke.

Valentine

The Fashion in Shrouds

— Allingham

Oh, Albert, my dear good ape, do try and understand.  You’re a sensible, reasonable, masculine soul.  If you fell in love and something went wrong you’d think it all out like a little gent and think it all quietly away, taking the conventional view and the intelligent path and saving yourself no end of bother because your head plus your training is much stronger than all your emotions put together.  You’re a civilised masculine product. 

Valentine to Campion

The Fashion in Shrouds

— Allingham

 

Mr. Suzman had been a notable womanizer in his time, and his time was not yet up.

                                                A Hovering of Vultures

                                                —Robert Barnard

Her glass was empty again, and it needed refilling, as did her heart.  She knew he could refill her glass, but in the matter of the heart, his credentials were questionable.

                                                The Bette Davis Murder Case

                                                —George Baxt

“Men are so odd when they’re in love,” she reflected.  “They seem to think that the very act of being in love gives them certain proprietary rights; certainly the right to be jealous.  At least they don’t actually think it, because they can’t think at all when they’re in that state, poor dears.”

                                                Jean Norwood

                                                Trial and Error

                                                —Anthony Berkley

He was the sort of person who makes you supremely interesting to yourself—only a great man can do that, or your lover….

                                                Georgia Cavendish

                                                Thou Shell of Death

                                                —Nicholas Blake

This woman has lived with Angus Campbell for forty years.  She knows him inside out.  She sees through him with that almost morbid clarity that our womenfolk exhibit in dealing with our vagaries and our stupidities.  It doesn’t take her long to understand where the hanky-panky lies.

                                                Dr. Gideon Fell

                                                The Case of the Constant Suicides

                                                —John Dickson Carr

…he realized that the very sight of this girl had made him want to reach for a cocktail; some women have that effect.  Such glamour must have attended all the great sirens of the ages.  In its absence there are unfulfilled romances. If, when Dante met Beatrice that famous time on what’s-its-name bridge, Beatrice had smiled at him and whispered, “Look here, I could do with a slug of Chianti,” then the poor sap would have tried to find out her address and telephone number instead of merely going home and grousing about it in an epic.

                                                The Eight of Swords

                                                —Carr   

Never confide in a woman. If she lo—likes you, she’ll never give you away. But she’ll do some tomfool thing trying to help. Then you’re for it.

                                                Larry Hurst

                                                The Nine Wrong Answers

                                                —Carr

…it is one of the great consolations of nature that a man, however unattractive, will find that he is attractive—even what appears to be madly attractive—to some woman.

                                                Hercule Poirot

                                                Hallowe’en Party

                                                —Agatha Christie

And after all, Edward had never told her that he loved her.  Affection, kindliness, he had never pretended to more than that.  She had accepted the limitation, and not until she had realized what it would mean to live at close quarters with an Edward whose mind and heart had Henrietta as a permanent quest, did she know that for her Edward’s affection was not enough.

                                                The Hollow

                                                —Christie

Let Edward love Henrietta as an intangible and unpossessable dream.  It was warmth, permanence, stability that was his real need.  It was daily companionship and love and laughter at Ainswick.

   She thought, “What Edward needs is someone to light a fire on his hearth—and I am the person to do that.

                                                Ibid.

I wonder if husbands know as much about their wives as they think they do.  If I had a husband, I should hate him to bring home orphans without consulting me first.

                                                The Man in the Brown Suit

                                                --Christie

…men never understood how difficult it was to resist a flirtation at times, especially with an old flame, although it meant absolutely nothing at all.

                                                Dancing with Death

                                                —Joan Coggin

But, you know, quite a lot of people are happily married, only you don’t hear so much about them as you do about the unhappy ones. They don’t put it in the papers when people are happy together, only when they are not.

                                                Lady Lupin

                                                —Coggin

Apart from anything else, a little enforced abstinence makes the eventual impact much more violent and exciting…

                                                The Headmaster

                                                Love Lies Bleeding

                                                —Edmund Crispin

H: As I said before, you must not make assignations with young women.

JHW: No, sir.

H: Nor must you, on leaving this room, go round complaining about obscurantist repression of wholesale desires….God forbid that you should be permanently celibate.  But the term lasts only twelve weeks, and if you can’t abstain from the opposite sex for that length of time without suffering psychological damage, then your brain is an altogether feebler instrument than I’ve hitherto believed.

                                                The Headmaster, J. H. Williams

                                                —Crispin

     “You’d like some beer,” she [Daphne Savage] stated unarguably, and Fen at once conceived a high opinion of her intelligence….

     “There are few young women,” he observed dreamily, “who know that one wants beer, and that one wants good beer, and that one wants it in a pint glass.  I envy the man who marries you.”

                                                —Crispin

PR: …I wish you felt the way I do about Peter.

MD [GF]: For the way you feel about him there’s a sound biological reason from which I’m luckily exempt.

                                                Penelope Rolt, Mr. Datcherly [Gervase Fen]

                                                The Long Divorce

                                                —Crispin

Thin and dark, with that certain indefinable air of bookishness that she had always found appealing….

                                                Dreaming of the Bones (146)

                                                —Deborah Crombie

 

[about relationships]

Men aren’t very good at working things out for themselves, you know.  Sometimes you have to give them a prod.

                                                Rosemary Kincaid

                                                —Crombie (252)

…suddenly Kate felt a surge of love for him [Reed], his honesty, his reasonableness: the fact that he cared rather than wanted to argue about it.

                                                An Imperfect Spy

                                                —Amanda Cross

You want adventure.  I want it too….But the truth is, my dear Kate, marrying you and living with you was, or so it seemed to me, all the adventure that I needed.

                                                Reed

                                                Ibid.

My dear, I don’t want to be taken care of, and I can’t say that your angelic qualities are the ones which, above all others, have overwhelmed me.  Couldn’t we share a world and a certain amount of time?

                                                Reed Amhearst

                                                The James Joyce Murder

                                                —Cross

I had other things on my mind on the hills, as I have now.  England was chiefly notable for the fact that you were not there.

                                                Ibid.

KF: Do you think the sign of a happy marriage is the knowledge of when the other is ready to talk?

RA: I think it’s more the sign of friendship, to be honest.  Occasionally, married people are friends.

                                                Kate Fansler, Reed Amhearst

                                                 No Word from Winifred

                                                —Cross

I don’t believe any relationship can succeed that doesn’t offer both partners solitude and independence as a matter of course.

                                                Sweet Death, Kind Death (61)

                                                —Cross (63)

“Oh, go along home with you!  There’s a beautiful girl waiting for you with dinner, and a few other things, I imagine.  And don’t look so shocked.  I’ve heard of sex.  Ask Alan.”

   I was able to get out the door on the strength of that astounding idea.  I don’t know why the young always think they invented it.  Where did they think they came from?

                                                Dorothy Martin

                                                The Victim in Victoria Station (75)

                                                —Jeanne M. Dams

There's a light in a woman's eyes that speaks louder than words.

                                                The Hound of the Baskervilles

                                                —Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Evil indeed is the man who has not one woman to mourn him.

                                                —Doyle

Woman’s heart and mind are insoluble puzzles to the male.

                                                Sherlock Holmes

                                                “The Illustrious Client”

                                                —Doyle

How she got anyone to marry her—let alone an earl—beats me.  She had all the sex appeal of golf clubs.

                                                Baroness “Jack” Troutbeck

                                                Carnage on the Committee

                                                —Ruth Dudley Edwards

Maybe you new men are immune to this, but in my day, someone telling you you were God and could do anything went a long way.

                                                Ralph Babcock

                                                —Edwards

I shouldn’t have thought Henry could do the necessary. However, there’s no doubt that sex is a department that is always full of surprises.  The most unlikely people are at it, at the most unlikely ages, in the most unlikely condition….

                                                Robert Amiss

                                                Publish & Be Murdered

                                                —Edwards

RW: I’ve always found him very pleasant and considerate.

IW: So are a lot of con men, aren’t they?  I believe they make excellent husbands.

                                                Ruth Winter, Ingrid Winter

                                                The Pretty Pink Shroud (25)

                                                —E. X. Ferrars

MB: Those were the days of courtship. Everything he did was nice.

PM: Go on.

MB: I don’t know how to describe it. You get starry-eyed and every minute that you’re with a man is just like heaven. Then you marry him, and in place of being happy you find that you’re terribly fed up with the whole thing. The glamour vanishes, and you see the man as a very ordinary individual.

                                                Mrs. Blevins; Perry Mason

                                                The Case of the Grinning Gorilla (173)

                                                —Erle Stanley Gardner

But no dispute now ensued.  As with many happy married couples, neither probably paid much attention to what the other said.

                                                Death by Water

                                                —Michael Innes

…certainly falling in love is irrational, and love itself is impersonal—impersonal even though in no other human relationship is it so certain that one particular individual is utterly indispensable and another just as utterly out of court.

                                                What Happened at Hazelwood?

                                                —Innes

Lovers give themselves away.  Even if they are sitting across a room from each other.

                                                The Tenth Life (61)

                                                —R Lockridge

Humanity was frequently exasperating; particularly humanity in love.

                                                Death of a Tall Man

                                                —Frances & Richard Lockridge

Darling.  Is it all right if I love you very much?

                                                Susan Heimrich

                                                With One Stone

                                                —F & R Lockridge

Isn’t he ever going to learn?  Learn that if there isn’t enough me to take care of myself, there isn’t enough me to matter—not enough me to love, to be loved?  That it takes two for this—not one and a fraction; not one and something that breaks if you drop it?

                                                Ibid.

He stooped, took her face between his hands, and kissed her hard on the mouth.  He felt her come to life beneath his lips.  Then he let her go.

   “And don’t think I shall ask you to forgive me,” he said.  “…I’m your man and you know it….When I kissed you just then you seemed to meet me like a flame.  Could I have imagined it?”

   “No.”

   “It was as if you shouted with your whole body that you loved me.  How can I not be arrogant?”

   “How can I not be shaken?”

                                                Roderick Alleyn, Agatha Troy

                                                Death in a White Tie

                                                —Ngaio Marsh

It is a neo-Freudian myth that the best way to learn a foreign language is in bed. Whatever the origin of human speech, it was not sexual, for making love is one of the few social situations where words are totally unnecessary.

A Question of Time

—Helen McCloy

He felt very talkative, as most older men do when a young girl looks as delightfully listenable as Titania.

                                                The Haunted Bookshop 

                                                —Christopher Morley

After a certain number of years I doubt if many men do notice their wives’ appearance very often, unless someone else draws their attention to it.

                                                Tessa Crichton

                                                Dead on Cue

                                                —Anne Morice  

She thought, I’m a fool, but Daniel hurt, in trouble, touches my heart and always will. You couldn’t get over the tenderness you had for someone you had loved deeply, even if the love itself was gone.

                                                Compartment K

                                                —Helen Reilly

A man who marries again doesn’t deserve to lose his first wife.

                                                A Guilty Thing Surprised

                                                —Ruth Rendell

Wexford was a modest man with a humble idea of his own attractions in so far as he ever thought about them.  To his own wife he seemed to be unfailingly attractive after 30 years of marriage, but this was something to be thankful for and dismissed rather than speculated about.

                                                Speaker of Mandarin

                                                —Ruth Rendell

Dora was there to meet him on the platform at Kowbon Station.  She had missed her husband and guessed he had missed her but they had been married, after all, for more than 30 years and so she was a little surprised by the ardour of his embrace.

                                                Ibid.

           

Bad enough to make mistakes, without going ahead and marrying them.

                                                Dennis Dennis

                                                My Kingdom for a Hearse

                                                —Craig Rice

           

            Almost all women, I have found, although not overconscious themselves of the charm and attraction of their husbands, are of the conviction that these husbands exert a dangerous fascination over other women, and that this charm, which does not reveal itself in the home circle, is used abroad with occasionally disastrous effects.

                                                “Sight Unseen” in

                                                The Confession and Sight Unseen

                                                —Mary Roberts Rinehart

           

           

H:  All my life I have been wandering in the dark—but now I have found your

     heart—and am satisfied.

P:  And what do all the great words come to in the end, but that?—I love you—I

     am at rest with you—I have come home.

                                                Harriet and Peter Wimsey

                                                Busman’s Honeymoon

                                                —Dorothy L Sayers

HV: I suppose one oughtn’t to marry anybody, unless one’s prepared to make him a full-time job.

MdV: I suppose not; though there are a few rare people, I believe, who don’t look on themselves as jobs but as fellow-creatures.

                                                Harriet Vane, Miss de Vine

                                                Gaudy Night

                                                —Dorothy L Sayers

You have had the luck to come up against a very unselfish and very honest man.  He has done what you asked him without caring what it cost him and without shirking the issue.

                                                Miss de Vine

                                                Gaudy Night

      —Sayers

But when you have come to a conclusion about all this, will you remember that it was I who asked you to take a dispassionate view, and I who told you that of all the devils let loose in the world there was no devil like devoted love….I don’t mean passion.  Passion is a good stupid brute that will pull the plough six days a week if you give him the run of his heels on Sundays.  But love’s a nervous, over-mastering brute, if you can’t rein him, it’s best to have no truck with him.

                                                Lord Peter Wimsey to Harriet Vane

                                                Ibid.

                                                                       

I do know that the worst sin—perhaps the only sin—passion can commit is to be joyless.  It must lie down with laughter or make its bed in hell—there is no middle way.  Don’t, for God’s sake, ever think you owe me anything.  If I can’t have the real thing, I can make do with imitation.  But I will not have surrenders or crucifixions….If you have come to feel any kindness for me at all, tell me you would never make me that offer again.

                                                Peter

                                                Ibid.

P: Harriet, you know that I love you: will you marry me?

H: Tell me one thing, Peter, will it make you desperately unhappy if I say no?

P: Desperately?…My dear, I will not insult either you or myself with a word like that.  I can only tell you that if you will marry me it will give me very great happiness.

                                                Peter, Harriet

                                                Ibid.

(On why he would want to marry Harriet)

Why? Oh well—I thought you’d be rather an attractive person to marry.  That’s all.  I mean, I sort of took a fancy to you.  I can’t tell you why.  There’s no rule about it, you know.

                                                Lord Peter Wimsey

                                                Strong Poison

                                                —Sayers

H: …by the way, you’re bearing in mind, aren’t you, that I’ve had a lover?

P: Oh, yes.  So have I, if it comes to that.  In fact, several.  It’s the sort of thing that might happen to anybody.  I can produce quite good testimonials.  I’m told that I make love rather nicely—only I’m at a disadvantage at the moment.  One can’t be very convincing at the other end of a table with a bloke looking in at the door.           

                                                Harriet, Peter

                                                Ibid.

Women do want romance in their lives, and there is so little of it about.

                                                The Documents in the Case

                                                —Dorothy L. Sayers & Robert Eustace

Dearest, do you really want to be married to the sort of unsatisfactory bloke I am?  It is extraordinarily brave and dear of you.  You will have a devil of a time.  I want to warn you now that when I say I want you to keep your independence and exquisite detachment, I don’t mean it.  I shall try to mould you into a mirror of myself, fatally and inevitably.  When I say I am not jealous either of your work or your friends, I am lying.  When I promise to look at things from your point of view, I am promising what I cannot perform.  When I declare myself ready to discuss everything fully and freely and have a situation mette, I am pretending to be more honest than a man ever is or can be.  I shall be reticent, inconsistent, selfish, and jealous.  I shall put my interests before yours, and the slightest suggestion that I should put myself out to give you peace and quietness to work in will wound my self-importance.  I know it.  I shall pretend to give you your freedom, and make such an unholy martyr of myself that you will take up your chains for the sake of a quiet life.  You will end by hating me, and leave me for some scamp of a fellow who knows how to handle women.  And you will be quite right from your point of view.  I have been trying to look honestly into the thing, and I want to warn you.  You think I am “different,” but I am not.

                                                Munting

                                                Ibid.

To keep a husband you have to let him be a little wild sometimes.

                                                Emily Bryce

                                                Glass on the Stairs

                                                —Margaret Scherf

           

Most of the joy of being in love with a pretty woman is the envy we arouse in all our intimates.

                                                Finbow

                                                Death Under Sail

                                                —C. P. Snow 

           

…for almost anybody it is just the most difficult thing in the world to realize that someone you love is not in love with you.  With the most honest of people, the feats of self-deception that can be performed are quite amazing.

                                                Finbow

                                                —Snow

           

…Sam never got over loving Margarita. I don’t hold that to his credit. I see no more virtue in keeping on loving a person who has proved unworthy than I see in hating a person who has turned out to be blameless, or in continuing to do any other unreasonable thing.

                                                The Desert Moon Mystery

                                                —Kay Cleaver Strahan

           

If there is anything that will make two people duller to all other people than being engaged to each other, I am sure I don’t know what it is.

                                                —Strahan 

Love, though, mercy knows, I know little enough about it, can’t be measured with a pint cup like flour.

                                                Mrs. Magin

                                                —Strahan

Ever notice how it’s all the time the best-lookin’ an’ the ugliest that cause the most trouble.  Give me a medium good-looker any day.  They don’t go around confusin’ things.

                                                Asey Mayo

                                                Death Lights a Candle

                                                —Phoebe Atwood Taylor

They stood still for a moment. There was at once too much and too little to say, and none of it could be said within earshot of half the village streaming home.

                                                The Key

                                                —Patricia Wentworth

If men knew how very foolish they appear when they allow a silly young woman to twist them round her little finger, it would at any rate preserve them from exposing themselves to ridicule in company.

                                                Miss Doncaster

                                                —Wentworth

Eliza, ejecting a queen wasp from a honey pot, remarked with a rasp in her voice that, insects or men, it was all one when there was honey about, they were bound to trap themselves no matter what came of it.

                                                Through the Wall (59)

                                                —Wentworth