Buzzword Reading Challenge Prompts
January "Truth & Lies" (a book with "truth/true" or "lies, liar, lying"): The Deadly Truth by Helen McCloy; My True Love Lies by Lenore Glen Offord
February Water Related Words: Death in Shallow Water by Miles Burton; Death of a Lake by Arthur W. Upfield
March "Thing" (includes "something/nothing/everything/etc"): Nothing Is the Number When You Die by Joan Fleming; Evidence of Things Seen by Elizabeth Daily; One of Those Things by Peter Cheyney
April Animals: Beagle Scented Murder by Frank Gruber; Curiosity Didn't Kill the Cat by M. K. Wren; Mystery of the Green Cat by Phyllis A. Whitney; The Cat Wears a Noose by D. B. Olsen
May "To" and "Too": Warped Factors: A Neurotic's Guide to the Universe by Walter Koenig
June Memory Related Words: Where Memories Lie by Deborah Crombie; Murders & Other Acts of Literature: Twenty-Four Unforgettable & Chilling Stories by Some of the World's Best-Loved, Most Celebrated Writers by Michele Slung, ed
July Features Punctuation: Murder's Little Helper by George Bagby; Who Benefits? by Lee Thayer
August "With": The Door With Seven Locks by Edgar Wallace; Gently With the Innocents by Alan Hunter; Interred With Their Bones by Jennifer Lee Carrell
September Events (party/vacation/reunion/etc): Death of the Party by Leela Cutter; The Mardi Gras Murders by Gwen Bristow & Bruce Manning; Reunion with Murder by Timothy Fuller
October Violent Words (kill/death/attack/murder/etc): 'Til Death by Ed McBain; It's Raining Violence by Theodora Du Bois
November "Never": He Never Came Back by Helen McCloy; Old Students Never Die by Ivan T. Ross; They Never Looked Inside by Michael Gilbert
December Alliteration: Mystery Mile by Margery Allingham; Panic in Paradise by Alan Amos
Buzzword Cover Reading Challenge Prompts
January Features a Pattern: Poison for Teacher by Nancy Spain (stripes on the cover)
February Features a Skyline: Verses for the Dead by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child; The Mystery of Cloomber by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
March Features Books: Bodies from the Library 5 by Tony Medawar, ed; Ginny Gordon & the Lending Library by Julie Campbell
April Features an Animal: The Cat Wears a Noose by D. B. Olsen
May Features Eyes: The Black Eye by Constance & Gwenyth Little
June Features Celestial Objects: The Hijacked Moon by Thomas Brace Haughey; Goodnight, Irene by Jan Burke (moon); So Pretty a Problem by Frances Duncan (moon)
July Features Technology: The Mystery of the Screaming Clock by Robert Arthur; A Dying Fall by June Thomson; Murder Strikes an Atomic Unit by Theodora Du Bois
August Features Transportation: Death on a Summer's Day by Benedict Brown; Long Spoon Lane by Anne Perry; Drilling for Death by John Wolfe; Death at Deepwood Grange by Michael Underwood
September Features Foliage: The Missing Link by Katharine Farrer; That Affair Next Door by Anna Katharine Green
October Features a Weapon: Death in the Past by Richard A. Moore; Shear the Black Seep by David Dodge; The Juda Pair by Jonathan Gash
November Features Food &/Or Drink: The Killings at Badger's Drift by Caroline Graham (tea); The Final Ring by Marcia Blair (wine); The Black Coat by Constance & Gwenyth Little (martini)
December Features Monochromatic Color Scheme: one of the Masterpieces of Mystery set edited by Ellery Queen (all red covers)
This week's choice for the 2024 ROY Awards Ceremony is McKee of Centre Street (1933) by Helen Reilly. It stands as one of the earliest police procedurals written by a woman and this provides a strong reason for its award nomination. It gives us an up close look at the NYPD of the 1930s--from the radio room, the morgue, the mysterious depths of the fingerprint department--all the varied activities of one of the biggest police departments in the world. She introduces us to Inspector McKee, described in my edition's blurb as a "tight-lipped, cold-eyed, a hunter of men and the most absorbing sleuth since Lieutenant Valcour." And we're with him from the first telephone call summoning him to a high-tone speakeasy.
The story revolves around the murder of dancer Rita Rodriguez, the beautiful main attraction. The murderer takes advantage of the dim lighting, the audience's attention to the silver-clad beauty dancing on the stage, and the spotlight which oh-so-conveniently brings his target into sharp outline. Although the police are called in immediately by the ultra-alert spotlight handler, there are still fish which escape the net and it is McKee's job not only to sift through the statements of everyone still within the establishment, but also to try and discover who is missing.
When he is finished he's left with a small group of suspects. There is the missing waiter; the rich playboy, his wife, and step-son; the wife's very attentive friend, the colonel; the young woman found hiding in the phone booth; and the couple who can't quite decide where they were when the dancer fell to the floor. As he follows up their stories (and amended stories), he soon discovers that there are connections between the characters that lead back to the past....with blackmail and stolen emeralds lurking in the shadows.
What follows is a detailed account of how the police department of the 1930s operated. The reader follows closely on McKee's heels and is given what is described as "real inside information, high-pressure thrills, suspense." Reilly manages to deliver without boring the reader with those details. I had read other (later) mysteries by Reilly and was a bit disconcerted by the description of McKee as a tight-lipped, cold-eyed hunter of men. This didn't really connect with the McKee I had met in these later novels. Granted, this earlier version of McKee is a bit more steely and there is far more procedural detail given, but in the end he is the same detective I recall...showing a good deal of compassion and humanity in the closing scenes. Not quite the cold hunter of men that the blurb served up.
Reilly has constructed a mystery that kept me guessing. I didn't guess the solution, even though there was fair play with the clues. I should have known who the culprit was. But Reilly did a fine job distracting me with several details. Anyone who enjoys a good police procedural and wants to take a look at an early specimen should give Reilly's book a try.
First line: The weather prediction for May twenty-first was "clear and cooler."
Last line: At the moment he had other, pleasanter things to do.
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It's the holiday season and folks are busy shopping, putting up Christmas trees, and planning parties. Some are humming songs like "Jingle Bells" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." And one dark soul is humming their own song to "The Twelve Days of Christmas." A string of nasty murders breaks in London during the Christmas rush and though the press hasn't yet made any connections Detective Superintendent Knowles is certain that they have a most dangerous killer on their hands. Someone who looks and behaves normally--who may not even realize what they have done--until something triggers them.
The killings are opportunistic. The murderer uses everyday items as their instruments of death--from a heavy ink stand to an aerosol can of fake snow to a sharpened pop top. No planning needed, no weapons to trace to their rightful owner. It isn't until the killer sets a fire ablaze in a house near their own rooming house that the police have a real clue to follow up. A set of oil-soaked rags were used to start the fire and if the lab boys have enough left in the remains to examine, they'll be able to tell what kind of oil it was. But will they get the report in time to prevent the twelfth death of Christmas?
Babson does so many things well with this story. She sets up the tension and builds the suspense and balances that against the holiday background. She introduces the boarders in the rooming house and manages to make each of them seem just odd enough that they might be killer. She alternates chapters where we see into the killer's thoughts (without revealing enough to let us know whose thoughts they are) with chapters that provide an outsider's view of each character--and several of them seem to act upon thoughts that we've just had shared by the killer. For example, our villain suffers from excruciating headaches and we get their thoughts about that and the need to take aspirin. Then in the next chapter, we see several characters taking aspirin or mentioning how rotten their head feels. Occasionally Babson takes us to see what the police are up to as well. But the main action is inside the killer's head and inside the boarding house. It makes for a claustrophobic atmosphere--very representative of the net that is slowly closing around our culprit as the police begin to zero in on the area of London where the killer must be. Overall, a very interesting twist on the inverted mystery. In this case, we share the thoughts of the killer and see through their eyes, but we aren't told whose eyes we've been gazing through until the very end. And a nice suspenseful plot. ★★★★
However, as a participant in the Medical Examiners Reading Challenge I do have a bone to pick with Ms. Babson. There are eleven murders that I can't claim for the challenge because she couldn't be bothered to tell us the names of the victims. We have an unnamed newsagent, an unnamed attorney, two unnamed children, an unnamed shop assistant, an unnamed mother out shopping, an unnamed young man who plays his music too loud, and four unnamed people in a burned house. So who do I get to count? Relatives of folks who live in the rooming house where the killer lives whose deaths are mentioned--and the killer who dies on the operating table at the end of the book. Really, Marian, were you just not feeling creative in the name department in 1979?
First line: It was a gratuitous insult on his part to introduce the subject of Broadmoor into what had hitherto been a perfectly amicable conversation.
Last line: "Happy New Year!"
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Deaths = 4 (one natural; two auto accident; one died during an operation)
Kate at Cross Examining Crime hosts a fun mystery cover game on Instagram called Murder Every Monday. Our assignment, should we choose to accept it, is to display book covers and titles from books you own that meet prompts which she posts well in advance (see link).
My first choice for the 2024 ROY Awards Ceremony is The Desert Moon Mystery (1927) by Kay Cleaver Strahan. I first read this in 2013 thanks to John over at Pretty Sinister Books. He not only brought it to my attention by featuring it on his blog, but also very generously loaned his copy to me. I had long wanted to read a book by Strahan and I hadn't managed to track down one of her novels for my very own--so borrowing from a good friend was the next best thing. Since 2013, I did find a vintage copy of my very own and the reprint by Coachwhip this year gives me the perfect chance to revisit it and give it a plug in the ROY nominations.
The scene of the crime in Strahan's novel is the Desert Moon Ranch--home to the wealthy Sam Stanley, his housekeeper Mary Magin, his adopted son and daughter, John and Martha, Martha's caregiver Mrs. Ricker, and hangers-on Chadwick Caufield and Hubert Hand. Sam just seems to collect folks for his ranch like some people take in stray cats. The story is told by Mary Magin and the action begins when the twin daughters of Sam's ex-wife show up looking for a place of "rest and relaxation."
Except they're not really getting any of that....Mrs. Magin notices that the girls, Danielle and Gabrielle, are constantly busy searching everything from the attic to the outlying buildings. They're certainly up to something, but what? Before Mrs. Magin can discover what the object of this scavenger hunt is, Gabrielle is found strangled on the attic steps and this first shocking death is followed by the suicide of Chad Caufield. Caufield believed himself in love with Gabrielle--a vain, mean-spirited girl who wouldn't even give him the time of day. Has he killed himself out of desperation because the girl he loves is dead...or out of remorse because he killed her after being rejected one too many times?
Sam Stanley firmly believes Caulfield to be innocent and is determined to get to the bottom of things. Mrs. Magin is also taking notes and keeping an eye on everyone. It doesn't help that the girls' father, a ne'er do well who has just been released from prison shows up. Stanley gathers everyone together for a session of coerced confessions, but before that little task can be completed Martha is dead. Grief-stricken and out of options, he decides to hire Lynn MacDonald, a private detective of great repute, who also happens to be a woman. There will be one more death and a great many clues to be gathered before Miss MacDonald--with the help of Mrs. Magin--can track down the culprit.
As John mentions in his review, this mystery uses one of the moth-eaten tricks of detective fiction, but the story is so well-told and has enough interesting features that the modern reader really doesn't mind. I actually enjoyed reading one of the early instances of the trick. Lynn MacDonald is a nice take on the female Holmes, keeping facts and observations to herself until Mary can prove to her that she has quite the keen eye for observation herself. The two make a very good team at the end.
It was also quite interesting to read a vintage mystery with a very country house set-up that takes place in a very western atmosphere. There's a down-home feel to the story that runs under the build-up of suspense and confusion--made the most real to us through Mary's difficulties in arranging what she knows and what she's heard from various characters.
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When Greg Rillston's partner Trevis Sutton at the Blue Diamond roadhouse is shot and killed. Rillston becomes the prime suspect. After all, he and Rillston were the only ones on the premises. And the police don't quite buy that a man could be shot in the same building and Ralliston wouldn't hear it. Sure, a window was open that shouldn't have been and there's no weapon to be found. And they can't really find a motive--Sutton's secretary inherits his share of the roadhouse--but surely there's one around here somewhere.
Vicky McBain is a private eye. He's pals with Rillston...well, friends. Sortof. Actually, I don't quite understand his attachment to the man. When they both were in London, McBain would get drinks at Rillston's place, but they didn't exactly seem to be bosom buddies. But here's McBain with a detecting license and he decides to clear Rillston's name. The further he digs the deeper the mystery grows and the trail leads him from the roadhouse to London to Paris and Nice. It also seems to have ties to the last days of the war in Germany. Rillston is getting mysterious messages telling him he best be jumping on a plane to Paris if he knows what's good for him. And there's a nasty-looking bloke with a scar who's hanging around the roadhouse. McBain thinks scarface could shed some light on things if only he could catch him. But the detective gets threatened and beaten up and doused in a pool along the way--and the whole time his secretary is telling him he shouldn't go detecting if there's no client to pay the bills. And maybe she's right.
This was a pretty middling kind of semi-hardboiled mystery (with private eye and random beatings going on). I don't think much of McBain's detective skills nor his ability to read people. He gets things wrong about several of the characters involved--except scarface, but then it'd be hard to miss that he's one of the bad guys in one way or another. As I mention above, his attachment to Rillston is a mystery to me. I can't figure out why he goes to all that trouble for the man--they're definitely not besties and the man isn't paying him a dime. And, honestly, it's not like Rillston is already in jail and ready to go on trial. The police haven't even got enough evidence to take him in to "assist them with their enquiries."
The back story to what it's all about is interesting and I would have liked this a lot better if more had been made of it. But that all comes out rather late in the game and just gets explained in a hurry as we're wrapping things up. It was a nice, quick read and I don't regret having read it. But I also can't say I'm on fire to find more of the Vicky McBain series (there are apparently at least seven more of them...). ★★★
First line: I went along to the Blue Diamond roadhouse that night mainly because I was at a loose end.
Last line: Well, you know how I feel about Kay.
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Deaths = 2 (one shot; one hit on head)
Lawson's funny, honest, and sometimes painfully funny and painfully honest memoir gives the reader an up close and personal look at how life works (and sometimes doesn't) in the life of someone who battles anxiety and severe depression. She manages to examine herself, her feelings, and her reactions to this existence with openness and a sense of humor. She's often over-the-top, but as she explains:
I've often thought that people with severe depression have developed such a well for experiencing extreme emotion that they might be able to experience extreme joy in a way that "normal" people also might never understand, and that's what FURIOUSLY HAPPY is all about. It's about taking those moments that are fine and making them amazing, because those moments are what make us who we are, and they're the same moments we take into battle with us when our brains declare war on our very existence.
She has decided to "seize the day" and live life to the fullest when her depression and anxiety will allow her to do so. To go out on limbs and push herself to her limits and squeeze every bit of joy out every moment that she can. Finding extreme happiness whenever possible helps her to live through the days where nothing seems to be right in her world. And that isn't such a bad philosophy for those of us who don't experience the difficulties she and her "tribe" (as she calls all those who can relate to her journey through life) do. We all should get the most out of our good times, not only to help carry us through the times that aren't so good but also so we can experience life to the fullest. ★★★★
First lines: "You're not crazy. STOP CALLING YOURSELF CRAZY," my mom says for the eleventy billionth time.
Last line: And sometimes...
...sometimes we fly.
Kate at Cross Examining Crime hosts a fun mystery cover game on Instagram called Murder Every Monday. Our assignment, should we choose to accept it, is to display book covers and titles from books you own that meet prompts which she posts well in advance (see link).
