When I started looking for a final book for the Criminal Plots III Reading Challenge (Read a novel that's been nominated for and Edgar in the last five years), I was relieved to find In the Shadow of Gotham by Stefanie Pintoff sitting on my shelves since I'm trying really hard to read more from my own stacks. I'm not much for reading more recent books, but I had picked this one up last May while browsing in our Friends of the Library used book store. It was purely a whim--based on the cover, the blurb on the back of the book, and the fact that it's a historical mystery set during one of my favorite time periods--early 20th C. Not only was Shadow nominated for an Edgar, but it was the winner of Award for Best First Novel in 2010.
The book introduces us to Detective Simon Ziele, a man trying to recover from the tragedy of losing his fiancée in a terrible disaster aboard the ferry General Slocum. Ziele has left his position in New York City's police force and is now working as a detective in Dobson, New York. He hopes to escape the brutality of the big city, but just months after he begins his new post, he finds himself faced with the horrific murder of a female mathematics graduate student.
Sarah Wingate had come to her aunt's home hoping for a little tranquility of her own--telling her aunt that she needed somewhere quiet to work on her graduate thesis; somewhere removed from Columbia University. What she found instead was an untimely end. Ziele is called to the wealthy home in the middle of the afternoon to investigate a murder that ranks with some of Jack the Ripper's slightly less gruesome efforts. Sarah's throat has been cut and then the killer beat and slashed her repeatedly while taking one of her golden braids as a souvenir.
It looks like the work of a pyschopath...and Columbine University criminologist Alistair Sinclair believes he knows the identity of the murderer. Sinclair has been studying Michael Fromley, younger son of one of New York City's elite families, in the hopes of rehabilitating the man and curing him of his violent behavior. Michael had fantasized about committing such atrocious acts, but now it looked like he had crossed the line from fantasy to make his violent dreams a reality. Sinclair and his team of researches join forces with Ziele to find Michael and try and prevent further deaths.
The investigation takes Ziele from the gambling dens and brothels of the Tenderloin are of the City to the houses of the elite. The more he learns about Michael, the more confused the case becomes. Ziele begins to doubt that Fromley is behind the crime--or if he is that he has acted alone. And somehow the killer manages to stay one step ahead of Ziele and the researchers all along the way. Does this mean that the culprit is really closer to Ziele than he'd like to believe?
In some ways, this is indeed an impressive first novel. The plotting is well-done for the most part and portions of the research are as well. I really like the character of Ziele--although I must agree with another reviewer on GoodReads that despite many utterances of "I don't trust him," Ziele seems to be a very trusting sort. He has never heard of Alistair Sinclair and his researchers before the murder and yet he's willing to bring them all into the investigation as equals and reveal every bit of evidence to them. I, too, was immediately struck by a certain character's behavior (and others' reaction to him/her) upon introduction and was certain that s/he was involved. Kudos to Pintoff for putting a deft spin on that bit of information so I wound up not being completely right....but still the clues were a bit heavy-handed for that early in the book.
The research allowed Pintoff to give us a flavor of turn-of-the-century New York (last century, that is). But it feels like she did the research rather haphazardly. Others have pointed out historical problems--the naming of one of Columbia's halls, for example--and I noted a few blunders with historical word use. The word "overkill" doesn't come into usage until the 1950s and yet Sinclair tells Ziele that the excessive violence of the murder, may be "what you would call over-kill." Actually, no, Ziele wouldn't. Not in 1905.
Despite the sometimes obvious anachronisms, this is a highly enjoyable first novel. It was a quick read and I regretted each time I had to put it down and do such non-essential tasks, such as working and sleeping. I look forward to reading the next two in the series and hope to find out more about Ziele's past and the death of Sinclair's son. Just over three stars.
Challenges: 150 Plus Reading Challenge, Mount TBR Challenge, Off the Shelf, Outdo Yourself, Criminal Plots, Mystery and Suspense Challenge 2012, Monthly Key Word, Book Bingo, 52 in 52 Weeks, Embarrassment of Riches
BOOK CHICK CITY
Sponsored by Book Chick City, the goal was to read at least 12 mystery/suspense books in 2012. Since mysteries make up a large portion of my reading diet, I knew this one would be one of the early completions. There will be many more mysteries to come this year--but I'll be tracking them over on the 150+ and Mount TBR Challenges. For now...this one is complete!
Here are the entries:
1. The Problem of the Green Capsule by John Dickson Carr (1/7/12)
2. The Black Seven by Carol Kendall (1/29/12)
3. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (2/5/12)
4. The Red Lamp by Mary Roberts Rinehart (2/7/12)
5. Nothing Can Rescue Me by Elizabeth Daly (2/18/12)
6. A Spark of Death by Bernadette Pajer (2/19/12)
7. The Yellow Room by Mary Roberts Rinehart (2/27/12)
8. The Greenwell Mystery by E. C. R. Lorac (3/3/12)
9. Champagne for One by Rex Stout (3/5/12)
10. Dead as a Dinosaur by Frances & Richard Lockridge (3/8/12)
11. Hare Sitting Up by Michael Innes (3/9/12)
12. The Murder at the Stork Club by Vera Caspary (3/10/12)
Vera Caspary wrote the short novel The Murder in the Stork Club as a result of an idea by Herbert Mayes, editor of Good Housekeeping. During a nine-week stop in New York City--waiting for a passport so she could go to England to write the screenplay for a British production of her novel Bedelia--Good Housekeeping paid all her expenses and for her dinners at the Stork Club so she could soak up the atmosphere for the story. And it shows...luminaries such as Walter Winchell, Dorothy Lamour, Tallulah Bankhead and Frank Sinatra (among others) all make cameo appearances in Caspary's story of a murder that seems to take place right in front of everyone who was anyone in the 1940s.
The victim is a man named Henry Thoreau Pendleton-- a rich man who loves women and wine and when full of the latter will gladly tell stories of the ladies he had loved and lost. As the novel says: "He was [only] thirty-nine but age could not wither, nor custom stale, the infinite variety of his love affairs." And he didn't mind who knew about them. In fact, he had recently revealed to Walter Winchell that he intended to publish a book made up entirely of the love letters he had received over the course of his romantic exploits. Hot stuff and steamy reading...or so he claimed.
Pendleton had arrived at the Stork Club to have dinner with a mysterious lady in mink. Everyone knew that he just recently been thrown over and they all were curious who this latest conquest was. But nobody recognized her. Which in the Stork Club was odd. But odder still was the fact that after dining alone with her, Pendleton went home and promptly died from nicotine poisoning. Did the woman in fur doctor his coffee before leaving his table for the night? Or perhaps it was his ex-wife who stopped by for a friendly chat before his date arrived? Maybe Winchell had a secret axe to grind? Sherman Billingsley, owner of the club, has also stopped by the table that night.
Unfortunately, since Pendleton waited to pass on until he was out of the club, there is no real evidence of how the poison was delivered. And the police are left wondering while they search for the unknown woman. Which suits Joe Collins, private detective, just fine. He knows who the mysterious lady is and he's determined to find out who the real killer is before the police discover that it was is wife who shared Pendleton's table that night. [That's no spoiler, by the way. We know who the mystery lady is in chapter two.]
The story is a three-way game of cat-and-mouse with Collins and his wife trying to stay off the official radar while the murderer tries to hide from both parties. It is fairly clued and a nice little view of life in New York during the war years. As has been true with both Laura and Evvie (top-notch full-length mysteries), the characters are well-drawn and I enjoyed Joe and his wife Sara very much. A delightful entry for both my Dangerous Beasts Theme for the Vintage Challenge and for the What an Animal Challenge (among others). Four stars.
*One of three short novels in a 3-in-1 Detective Book Club edition.
"You yourself, don't you find it a beautiful clean thought, a world empty of people, just uninterrupted grass, and a hare sitting up?" (Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence)
In Hare Sitting Up, Michael Innes gives the old "which twin is which" plot a nifty little twist. He has created the Junipers...who first started their joke of taking each other's place back in school--with one twin playing Rugger in his brother's place and not in just any old game, but an international Rugger match. And all kinds of larks of that sort.
Fast forward to the present day. Brother Howard, now an eminent scientist with loads of knowledge about biological warfare, has gone missing. Possibly with a pocketful of poisonous petri dishes. Has he just gone off his head with a nervous breakdown? Has he been kidnapped by enemy forces? Or has he, like the character in Lawrence's Women in Love, tired of the human race and decided to use his knowledge to wipe everyone out?
It will take Sir John Appleby time to pick up the trail of the missing scientist. Time he buys by having Howard's brother Miles (currently a prep school headmaster) do one more brotherly impersonation. And it will take all of Appleby's wits to sort out the clues that must be picked up at the prep school, at the decaying estate of an eccentric bird-hoarding peer of the realm, and at a secret military base off the coast of Scotland.
But, with honest-to-goodness crooks and a certifiable crazy man dogging their heels, have the brothers switched places one too many times? Appleby finds himself in a race to save lives--maybe the brothers, maybe everyone in England.
As always with Innes, there's a bit of the bizarre going on here. The surreal conversation that Appleby has with Lord Ailsworth (the eccentric bird man) is quite enough to warrant that comment. But Innes does a superb job of combining the standard manor house mystery with a bit of the espionage thriller. And it's worth the price of admission just to watch Appleby's wife Judith infiltrate the prep school on a hunt for Howard (alive or dead...). Anyone for a game of Chinese Torturers? It was also charming (to me, anyway) to discover that this book fits my loosely defined "academic mystery" sub-genre. I'm such a sucker for books with an academic connection. Three and a half stars.
The action in Dead as a Dinosaur by Frances & Richard Lockridge starts out as "one of those things." As it seems to Detective Vern Anstey in the opening paragraph, he "realized that what he was up against was one of those things. New York was full of those things, and always had been and always would be. You jammed too many people too closely together, so that they could not move without pushing and shoving one another, and you got those things. Detective Anstey was always running into them; to run into them was, he sometimes thought, the purpose for which he had been created. He took a dim view of this, which did not in any way affect his attitude, which at the moment was one of efficient attention."
And what exactly is this particular "one of those things"? Well, someone seems to be having a great deal of fun at Dr. Orpheus Preson's expense. Putting out personal ads in the good doctor's name and asking for all sorts of interesting items and services--everything from tree surgeons to ponies and masons to midgets. Dr. Preson, an eminent mammologist and curator of the Broadly Institute, believes that someone is persecuting him to prevent him from finishing his latest book--a sequel to the ever-popular The Days Before Man. If so, then it's working. He hasn't been able to concentrate on his book at all.
But as the policeman points out, it's hard for them to really do anything. The doctor could change his phone number. He could contact all the papers and insist that they require identification before printing any more ads in his name. But as far as actually catching the crackpot behind the pranks...probably not going to happen.
Then things get a little more interesting. Someone puts phenobarbital in the doctor's milk and his sister who happens to stop by for a visit gets a nice healthy dose. Not enough to kill her, but enough to get a little more attention from the police. No sooner is she out of the hospital and recovered then the doctor gets a dose of the stuff himself...but he's not so lucky. Evidence comes to light that makes it seem like the doctor may have been planting the seeds of persecution himself and then misjudged the dose or committed suicide.
But, of course, things are screwier (to quote Sergeant Mullins) than that. Because the doctor's publisher was none other than North Books and so Pam & Jerry North get involved in the case. Pretty soon Pam is following up her belief that "the little man" wasn't crazy and that something just isn't right somewhere. It all ends in a giant game of hide-and-seek in the labyrinthine corridors of the Broadly Institute and Pam on display in a diorama from the prehistory of the world.
Once again, the Lockridges provide great fun in the 1940/50s era New York City. The mystery is not incredibly intricate...and the wrap up is a bit unbelievable, but it just doesn't matter. It's a fun ride and a nice escape. I always enjoy sharing the adventures of Pamela North. Four stars.
Rex Stout's Champagne for One comes garnished with an unhealthy dose of cyanide.
This outing for Nero Wolfe and his leg man Archie Goodwin doesn't begin with a client. No. It begins when Archie does one of his good deeds and acts as a stand-in dinner guest for an acquaintance, "Dinky" Austin Byne. Byne claims to have a cold and wants Archie to attend a black tie function at his aunt's house in his stead. Archie knows full well that Byne's cold is non-existent, but is curious enough about the dinner to agree--as long as auntie is willing to invite him. You see, Wolfe & Goodwin had been hired by Mrs. Robilotti in the past to recover some missing jewelry and she had taken exception to some of Archie's remarks. He just wants to be sure that she'll let bygones be bygones.
Apparently she will. She calls and invites Archie to attend the affair--an anniversary dinner held in honor of her deceased husband and featuring an night out for "lucky" young women from the husband's pet charity: Grantham House, a shelter and place of "improvement" for unwed mothers. The idea is to give the women suitable male companionship and entertainment (conversation, dinner, and dancing) for an evening. Oooh. Lucky ladies.
All goes well until Mrs. Robilotti breaks out the champagne. Faith Usher, one of the women, has advertised that she keeps a vial of cyanide in her purse--just in case she should decide to end it all. She accepts her champagne from Mrs. Robilotti's son, takes a drink, and promptly dies...an apparent suicide. Everyone there agrees that she must have decided that now was the time. The police think that suicide would be a nice tidy solution to the case. There's just one problem. When Goodwin was informed by another of the women of the cyanide-toting habits of Faith, he spent the rest of his evening watching Faith and her purse. And he's willing to swear that she absolutely did not dump anything into her drink before partaking of it. Inspector Cramer can't shake him. The Assistant Commissioner can't either. He saw what he saw...and he didn't see what he needed to have seen for it to be suicide.
Of course, calling it murder isn't an easy solution either. Because from all appearances, there's no way anyone could have put the poison in that particular glass and have been sure that Faith would have gotten it. So, was Faith the target? Did the murderer not care who died? Did Faith really manage to perform a sleight of hand trick that fooled even Archie? Or is everybody, including Archie, missing something?
This is Rex Stout at his best. Talk about sleigh-of-hand...nothing up my sleeve and hey, presto, here's a clue you missed! Goodwin is at his wise-cracking best. Wolfe is his grumpy, genius self. Cramer huffs and puffs and blows nobody's house down. The interviews are spectacular and I thoroughly enjoyed the play between Archie and Saul Panzer late in the book. Four stars.
Quotes:
If your ego is in good shape you will pretend you're surprised if a National Chairman calls you to tell you his party wants to nominate you for President of the United States, but you're not really surprised. (p. 3)
...if he had married Mrs. Albert Grantham for her money I freely admit that no man marries without a reason and with her it would have been next to impossible to think up another one.... (p. 14)
You can't dance cheerfully. Dancing is too important. It can be wild or solemn or gay or lewd or art for art's sake, but it can't be cheerful. (p. 21)
Yeah. I'm the fly in the soup. I don't like it any better than you do. Flies don't like being swamped in soup, especially when it's hot. (Archie Goodwin, p. 35)
In a world that operates largely at random, coincidences are to be expected, but any one of them must always be mistrusted. (Wolfe, p. 53)
It is always a temptation to monkey with locks, and one of the best ways to test your ears is to enter someone's castle uninvited and, while you are looking here and there for something interesting, listen for footsteps on the stairs or the sound of an elevator. If you don't hear them in time your hearing is defective, and you should try some other line of work when you are out and around again. (p. 116)
Do you know what a genius is? A genius is a guy who makes things happen without any idea that they are going to happen. It's quite a trick. (Goodwin, p. 120)
"Mine's Bond--James Bond."
Casino Royale by Ian Fleming. Where it all began--the first book in the 007 legacy. This book introduced the world to what has become the most well-known British Intelligence agent in fiction.
I first read this one back in the mists of time when I was about 14 or so. There seemed to be endless rounds of James Bond Marathons with Sean Connery running on the television (that my Mom and Dad never wanted me to watch)....so I decided to take a look at the books--reading Casino and then Dr. No. My parents never monitored my reading the way they did the television-viewing. Perhaps they thought the visuals were more likely to warp me. Either that or, not being the heavy-duty readers that I am, they didn't realize the effect the written word might have. Not that reading about gambling, drinking martinis, and wild nights of passion, set me on the road to ruin...pretty boring Mid-Western life going on here. :-)
When Man of la Book posted his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Challenge and included "read any James Bond novel" as one of the criteria, I wasn't sure which Bond book I wanted to try. I was tempted to reread Casino simply because I was curious whether I would still like it after almost 30 years. But I also thought I might want to try reading one that I hadn't read before. So...I asked one of our resident Bond experts in the English Department which book he would suggest if I were only going to read one Bond book and he narrowed it down to either From Russia With Love or Casino Royale. And when the Friends of the Library offered up the pictured copy for sale, my decision was made.
In 007's first written mission, Bond has been commissioned to out-gamble a deadly, high-rolling Russian operative known as "Le Chiffre." or the cipher. Le Chiffre has been playing games with Soviet funds and stands to be permanently relieved of his spying status if he doesn't have a run of luck at the Baccarat table to replenish his bankroll. Bond's goal is to bankrupt Le Chiffre so the Soviet organization SMERSH will punish their own. But even when it looks like Bond has gambled on a sure winner, he finds that the odds can quickly change--especially when some people just won't play by the rules. Add a beautiful female agent to the mix and the stakes become even higher. We're all set for an exciting finish...including a surprise assist from an unexpected quarter.
I have to admit that I still think Ian Fleming writes one heck of a spy thriller. Not my usual thing--but when I read them, I want my spy novels to be exciting. And Bond definitely delivers. You can't beat James Bond for smooth and debonair with all the glitz and glamor of the gaming world. An excellent story as long as you're prepared for the world you step into. I gave this story four stars on my first read and we're almost there this time. My only major problem with it on this go-round is with Bond's attitude towards women. I realize that he's a product of his time--but his views on romance (making love to Vesper will always "have the sweet tang of rape"?? Um. yeah. That goes over big in 2012.) and women's proper place ("These blithering women who thought they could do a man's work. Why the hell couldn't they stay at home and mind their pots and pans and stick to their frocks and gossip and leave men's work to the men.")...well, his views just don't go down well for me at this point. So, we'll deduct a bit for that. Three and a half stars for the latest reading.
Quotes:
Above all, he liked it that everything was one's own fault. There was only oneself to praise or blame. Luck was a servant and not a master. Luck had to be accepted with a shrug or taken advantage of up to the hilt. But it had to be understood and recognized for what it was and not confused with a faulty appreciation of the odds, for, at gambling, the deadly sin is to mistake bad play for bad luck. And luck in all its moods had to be loved and not feared. (p. 42)
Luck in all its moods had to be loved and not feared Bond saw luck as a woman, to be softly wooed or brutally ravaged, never pandered to or pursued. But he was honest enough to admit that he had never yet been made to suffer by cards or by women. One day, and he accepted the fact he would be brought to his knees by love or by luck. (p. 42)
Bond didn't defend the practice. He simply maintained that the more effort and ingenuity you put into gambling, the more you took out. (p. 43)
History is moving pretty quickly these days, and the heroes and villains keep on changing parts. (Bond, p. 135)
Englishmen are so odd. They are like a nest of Chinese boxes. It takes a very long time to get to the centre of them. When one gets there the result is unrewarding, but the process is instructive and entertaining. (Mathis, p. 136)
First published in 1932, The Greenwell Mystery is E. C. R. Lorac's third novel starring Inspector Robert MacDonald. Lorac is one of two pen names for Edith Caroline Rivett, a British mystery writer and member of the Detection Club. Rivett wrote a total of 71 detective novels--48 under the Lorac moniker and another 23 under the name Carol Carnac. Her novels are primarily police procedurals following the investigations of Chief Inspector MacDonald (or Inspectors Ryvet and Rivers in the Carnac books).
The Greenwell Mystery takes the reader into the realm of the scientific thriller. Ian Campbell, a brilliant young research chemist employed by Science Incoporated (in Greenwell), was on the brink of revealing the secrets of a valuable oil hydrogenization process to his employer and mentor, Sir Samuel Blakely, when he disappears. Has he, as circumstances seem to suggest, faked his disappearance and taken his process to a higher bidder? Or has he really been kidnapped by one of Blakely's competitors--hoping to steal the process and make millions? Blakely has complete confidence in his protege's innocence and loyalty and he asks Scotland Yard to allow Chief Detective Inspector MacDonald to investigate for him. The hunt will take MacDonald to a deserted house (and an interesting meeting with a black cat), on a wild plane ride, and a hunt through the foggy country side before making the final capture.
This story is a little more high-speed than previous Lorac books that I have read, but still thoroughly enjoyable. MacDonald is pain-staking in his investigations--but never plodding--and a very likeable detective. But the best part of the story? A very intelligent young woman. Miss Lois Brendon is the daughter of Campbell's landlady and very fond of Campbell. When a young man approaches her, wearing the appropriate school tie, claiming to have been at university with Campbell and telling her that the young scientist has stumbled to his doorstep--and is even now laying hurt and wanting to see her, she--unlike so many of her kind in early thrillers--does not go rushing off with him to an unknown destination. No. She manages to make the first capture of the whole show. (You've got to read it--it's a delightful passage).
There are plenty of adventures to suit the fan of the thriller. Rivet had a real gift for dialogue and her characterization is very solid. I lean more towards classic mysteries rather than espionage, but this one is a winner. Three and a half stars--verging on four.
Favorite quote (right after the above-mentioned episode with Miss Brendon):
"That's the beauty of it," replied Worsley happily. "Life's usually all humdrum, trivial round and common task, you know, but it doesn't furnish all I've got to ask, by a long chalk. The only thing I'm sorry about is that you should have been worried by this tripe merchant, otherwise, I've enjoyed it all no end. If you only knew how I've been thanking my lucky stars that I decided to cut Metallurgy today, so that we all synchronized on the bridge."
*This also counts for the A-Z Book Challenge--not enough room in the label area for all the challenges.
Mary Roberts Rinehart does it again in The Yellow Room. Billed on my edition as a more Gothic, Had-I-But-Known story, it's really more of a twisty-turny mystery (and she delivers on the twisty-turny solution!). Shoot, if you read the blurb on the book I have here beside me, you'd think that some evil terror hangs out in the Yellow Room of Carol Spencer's family home in the country and that she goes in mortal fear of her elder brother.
See?:
As a child, Carol Spencer had always thought of Crestview as a place of light and laughter. But Carol was a young woman now, a lovely young woman, and a badly frightened one. The old mansion on the hill was no longer a refuge from the world. It was a prison from which even the man she loved could not rescue her...a nightmare from which she could not awaken...where every heart beat brought her closer to the strange menace of--The Yellow Room
And:
Brother and Stranger It had been years since Carol Spencer had seen her brother Greg. Time and war had separated them, but Carol still could vividly remember his flashing smile, his easy grace, in the days when he had been a kind of a god to his younger sister. Now they were together again at Crestview--and it was as if Carol were facing a stranger...a stranger whom she knew she should help but could only fear...a stranger with bitterness curling his mouth...hate in his eyes...and blood on his hands....
Can we say melodramatic and over-the-top? Just a little bit.
Seriously, there are some mysterious goings-on at Crestview but not quite on this scale. Carol and her help (a housekeeper/cook and two maids) arrive at the family home to open it in time to receive her elder brother Greg who is home on leave from service in WWII. He's come back from the Pacific theater to receive a Medal of Honor and their mother wants him to have a chance to relax in the cool country air before returning to "that awful tropical heat." When the women reach the train station, there is no taxi to meet them as expected. When they reach the house, there is no caretaker to greet them with breakfast and a warm fire as expected. The gardener/handyman has disappeared. And what exactly is that odd smell?
Before the morning is over, they discover that the handyman is in the hospital with appendicitis and the caretaker has fallen down the stairs the previous Friday and is in the hospital with a broken leg. Oh, and there's a dead body in the linen closet. That somebody tried to burn to prevent identification. By then end of the book, there is another murder and a shooting. The local chief of police goes from having the usual respect (of the period) for the uppercrust, to an all-out effort to make one of the Spencer family out as the guilty party. He finally settles for the war hero. ***Spoiler Alert*****
Because after all, the war hero was tricked into a marriage with a "little tramp" who seemed to have come East specifically to blackmail somebody. (The "little tramp" would be the body in the closet.) And said hero was planning on marrying a society lady--who probably wouldn't be too happy to hear that her hubby-to-be had gotten himself entangled.
Carol doesn't know what to think. Did Greg do it? Did her sister Elinor, who has always been devoted to Greg, do it? Or is she just covering up for him? Or maybe it's somebody else altogether. She turns to her neighbor, Major Dane, for help. He just happens to be a recovering Army Intelligence officer of some sort...and soon he's uncovering all the evidence that the local police miss.
But Rinehart has plenty of tricks up her sleeve and she uses the Major's investigation to provide all the surprises. Just when you think he's collected the final clue, along comes another to make you rethink the solution. Of course, with Rinehart, there is the standard romance and there are a few loose ends that don't quite get tied up in this one (not to mention a few vital clues that are kept just a little too ambigious), but over all a fun outing--I read this one in just one day! Four stars.
Nothing Can Rescue Me by Elizabeth Daly....the title is oh so right. Nothing can rescue Sylvanus Hutter from the brutal blow dealt to him by an unseen hand wielding a Chinese bronze statue. Nothing can rescue his sister Florence Hutter Mason from the poison planted in her iron pills. Not even having Henry Gamadge on the spot and prepared for something malicious to happen.....
Sylvanus approaches Gamadge at their club and asks him to come with him to Underhill, the Hutter family's country estate for the weekend. Florence has gathered her friends and family there in an effort to get away from the pressures of World War II--which seem so much more evident in New York City than in the country. She thinks she's surrounded by friendly souls, but after trying to contact the spirits using a Ouija board, she's not so sure. Someone has been typing ominous messages in the manuscript of the novel she has been working on. It begins with a mischievous message, but they gradually become more threatening. Gamadge is quite sure that there is more than spooky fun and games going on.
He is very quickly proved right when Sylvanus is found bludgeoned by the the proverbial blunt instrument. One of the guests still points to a spectral hand--after all Sylvanus was killed in a dark room while playing at Ouija himself. Gamadge is on the look-out for a human agent with a perhaps more mercenary motive, and he makes every effort to protect Florence from harm. The killer is very cunning, though and, despite Gamadge's attempt to prevent another murder, Florence falls victim as well.
But who could have wished Sylvanus and Florence dead? Of course, there is the Hutter family fortune and the inheritance of Underhill at stake....but with Florence changing her will on a regular basis, could anyone have been sure that the inheritance would fall where they wanted it to? Did Tim Mason, Florence's philandering husband, believe that he stood to inherit? Or perhaps Susie Burt, his current interest, counted on him inheriting and helped things along? Then there's Florence's secretary, Evelyn Wing, who, unlike her predecessors, has managed to stay in the position for four years. Did she hope that her devotion would be sufficiently compensated for in the most recent will? And what about Sally Deedes--did she hope for an inheritance big enough to bring her former husband back? There are too many possible motives with not enough certainty for Gamadge's taste. It will take another attempt at murder before he can give the police enough evidence to arrest the culprit.
Daly, who is 
said to be Agatha Christie's favorite mystery writer, weaves an interesting mystery with plenty of suspicion to go around. There are several false clues and it a good, solid, workable mystery. Not her most outstanding work, but certainly no dud. And Henry Gamadge, her dashing bibliophile amateur detective is always a treat. Three and a half stars.
If you read the back of the book, you would suspect that The Red Lamp by Mary Roberts Rinehart is a bit gothic in nature. Perhaps a young woman in danger or Had-I-But-Known book. See for yourself:
Jane wanted to leave Twin Towers the moment she arrived. She had a strange feeling about the old mansion, a chilling apprehension of doom that followed her through the creaking halls like a death shadow. The others thought her fears were groundless--until they felt the evil iridescence of the Red Lamp, and realized how terrifyingly right she was.
But then you read the book and you find out this isn't a woman-in-danger book. The story isn't really about Jane at all. It's a man in danger. And, as a matter of fact, it's a Professor in danger. Which anyone who knows me would think would immediately make my interest in the book go up dramatically. It did. For about twenty pages. Maybe. The trouble is Professor William Porter does so much of the damage himself. As the detective Greenough tells him, "you'll have to admit that you've seemed to go out of your way all summer to get into trouble!" So, what is the trouble, you ask?
Well...Professor William Porter has inherited Twin Towers from his Uncle Horace. Uncle Horace died from what was declared natural causes--a simple heart attack. Or was it? Was he literally scared to death by earthly agents or...perhaps by supernatural forces? Twin Towers had been rumored to be haunted. There are tales of a red lamp that glows in its windows at night. And when the red lamp glows, things happen. Things that no one can explain.
Jane is Professor Porter's wife. She comes into the story only peripherally. Jane, it seems, has a bit of the mediumistic quality about her. She had a "vision" the night Uncle Horace died and warned Porter that she had seen his uncle dead on the library floor of Twin Towers--before the phone call came confirming her premonition. Throughout the book, she has these little moments of supernatural vision...just enough to give the story a shove when it's lagging a bit. As the blurb mentions, when the idea of going to Twin Towers for their summer holiday is broached, Jane doesn't want to go. She won't give a solid reason...but she refuses to stay in the house. So she and Porter along with their niece Edith and her beau go to the grounds of Twin Towers, but stay in the Lodge (Jane, Porter & Edith) and Halliday (the beau) in the boathouse.
It is decided that they will rent the main house out and they do so--to an elderly, infirm gentleman and his secretary. In the meantime, a madman seems to be on the loose. First sheep are killed--their throats expertly cut--and then a young deputy is killed and a young woman disappears. The locals seem to believe that the red lamp has called up some kind of demon that is terrorizing the countryside. Greenough is brought in to get to the bottom of things and Porter becomes convinced that he is the main suspect. He then sets out to do just about every suspicious thing he can in order to ensure that he is the main suspect. He begins to think that everyone (bar his little entourage) is against him and he and Halliday start detecting on their own in an attempt to find the real culprit. It all comes together in a spooky grand finale in the haunted house--complete with seance and red lamp.
This is the Mary Robert Rinehart story that tried to be supernatural and failed. It never did get the right creepy-crawly atmosphere. And I didn't really sympathize with poor, persecuted Professor Porter. I just wanted him to sit still for a few moments and let some things happen when he had a roomful of witnesses so he could be sure that nobody suspected him. After all, if you don't want your neighbors to think you're the sheep-killer, then don't go skulking around countryside at night. It really shouldn't take a PhD to think that one out (and it didn't...).
I also had difficulty with the journal entry style of writing. There are times when this works, but this isn't one of them. Porter's journal entries seem to ramble and there were many instances where I had to thumb back a couple of pages and sort myself out. It made it difficult to settle down to the story.
What saves this book is Rinehart. Even when the style isn't quite right; even when the supernatural setting doesn't quite come off--she can still write and there are some mighty good portions that help keep The Red Lamp from being a total loss. If I can find some choice quotes (as you can see below I did), then a book can't be all bad. I enjoyed the characters of Edith and Halliday very much. I think perhaps if this had been written with more of a focus on them--with straightforward story-telling rather than the journal entries--then we might have had a much better book. Two and a half stars.
Quotes:
...a man may shout the eternal virtues and be unheard forever, but if he babble nonsense in a wilderness it will travel around the world. (p. 41)
It is only in his head that man is heroic; in the pit of his stomach he is always a coward. (p. 43)
In the pursuit of English literature the wear and tear is on the trouser seats rather than the muscles....I could no more strangle a man than I could bulldog a steer. (p. 93)
"There is no such thing as a perfect crime," he [Halliday] said, "and of course the general idea that clue is some mysterious phenomenon which it requires superhuman powers to understand, is all bosh. Clues are practically always trivial, because it is only the trivial things the criminal overlooks. He takes care of the big ones." (p. 119)
It is characteristic of the average mind often to question what it hears but to believe wholeheartedly what it reads. (p. 151)
"Well, professor," he [Greenough] said, "it's a darned queer world, there's no denying it."
"The world's all right. It's the people in it who mess things up." [Willaim Porter] (p. 224)
Since I've been struggling with my reading (and as a by-product, my blogging) lately, I decided to go back to something tried and true--Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and The Hound of the Baskervilles. Sherlock Holmes never lets me down. Give me a good old Victorian mystery set on the moors of England and watch the reading doldrums fade away.
This is the classic story of Sir Henry Baskerville and the legend of the giant hound that haunts his family. Is it really true that a spectral dog hunts down all the Baskerville men as retribution for Sir Hugo's dastardly deeds in the 18th Century? Sherlock Holmes is unwilling to believe it until he can rule out all possibility of human involvement, but recent events have Dr. Mortimer, a man of science, thinking it may be true.
The tale really starts with Sir Charles Baskerville, Henry's uncle. Sir Charles had returned to Baskerville Hall only two years ago having made his fortune abroad. He settled down to the life of country squire and was spreading his wealth amongst the less-fortunate around him. There seemed to be no reason for anyone to wish him harm. Then the rumors start flying that a giant hound has been seen and heard on the moor. Sir Charles, who has a weak heart, becomes anxious and dies one night near the moor--of "natural causes." Dr. Mortimer, the attending physician, is uneasy. There are no marks of violence on the body, but there is every reason to believe that Sir Charles was literally scared to death. He approaches Holmes with the legend of hound, the facts as he knows them of Sir Charles's death, and asks his advice about what to do with Sir Henry--the new baronet.
Holmes is quite sure that there is, indeed, evil abroad and sends Watson to Baskerville Hall to guard the new baronet and send reports about all that happens and all who are interested in Sir Charles. Watson gathers clues while Holmes works mysteriously in the background until the story reaches a climax on the foggy, lonely moor. A night when Sir Henry, Holmes and Watson will see the Hound of the Baskervilles for themselves....
It was nice to breeze through a book again--and not just because I've read it before. But because Doyle writes so darn well. There are plenty of Victorian-era descriptions, but not so much that the reader gets bogged down. And there's plenty of action to keep the story moving--with mysterious strangers following Sir Henry through London, the mystery of the disappearing boots, the escaped criminal out on the moors, the tall man who watches from the craggy heights, and what in the world is Barrymore, the Baskerville butler, up to at night? Great fun! And reading Holmes was like coming home. Five stars.
Quotes:
It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but that you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it. (p. 8)
The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes. (p. 31)
The devil’s agents may be of flesh and blood, may they not? (p. 32)
The setting is a worthy one, if the devil did desire to have a hand in the affairs of men. (p. 32)
There's a light in a woman's eyes that speaks louder than words. (p. 94)
Evil indeed is the man who has not one woman to mourn him. (p. 143)
John Dickson Carr is one of the grand masters of the locked room and the [apparently] impossible crime. And, of course, The Problem of the Green Capsule is another such specimen. It begins with Dr. Marcus Chesney lecturing his household and associates on the fact that eyewitnesses are unreliable--that, as has often been said, if ten people observe the same incident then ten different versions will be told. And, as he later writes in a letter to Dr. Gideon Fell, "Show them a black-and-white record of it aferwards, and they will believe you; but even then they will be unable to interpret correctly what they see."
This subject has long been a hobby-horse of his, but the latest lecture has been brought on by an incidence of poisoning his home village. One child was killed and several others became deathly ill when someone slipped strychnine-laden candies into the stock of a local merchant. The police are at a loss to find evidence enough to capture the culprit and suspicion falls upon Chesney's niece and heir Marjorie.
In order to prove his point and, as we later find out, to show how Chesney believes the poisoning to have been accomplished, the doctor arranges for a demonstration to be performed in his own home. He has three in his audience--his niece, her fiance, and a friend who is a psychologist. Harding, the fiance, is set to film the entire show. Chesney and an unknown player go through a scene in his darkened library. The doctor sits at a desk with various objects on it, pretends to write some sort of note, and then a man in coat and silk hat, muffled to his nose and wearing dark glasses and gloves, comes into the room. The mysterious figure forces a green capsule into the doctor's mouth and then leaves. When the show is over and the lights go up, the doctor dies of cyanide poisoning before he can find out how his audience has fared in their observations. Once the three observers realize what has happened, they rush outside to see if they can catch the mysterious visitor. They find his costume in a pile outside the french doors and the handyman lying prone under a tree--a victim of the proverbial blunt instrument.
The police begin investigating, but it seems that everyone who is a viable suspect has an alibi. And, as Chesney predicted, each of the observers saw things just a little bit differently. It is going to be difficult to bring the murder (and the poisonings) home to anyone. But then the inspector on the case brings in Dr. Fell who has a way of making the most mysterious plain and unraveling the most impossible conundrums.
This is another excellent example of Carr's taking a seemingly impossible situation and giving it enough twists and turns to make it come out right..and quite simply too. As always, the clues are all there and as soon as Fell dangled them under my nose, I was all "of course! I should have seen that." I had a fine time with my first installment in the Colorful Crime portion of my Vintage Mystery Challenge reads. Four stars.
*Oh, and this counts for several other challenges too.
BOOK CHICK CITY
I didn't catch this one in time in 2011, but I read more than enough mysteries and suspense to add this one to my challenge addiction...er...list. Yea, that's the word...list. The rules are pretty simple...you have to read at least 12 mystery/suspense books in 2012. You have to post about your challenge, and you have to post the button on your blog (the button will go up as soon as I clean house at the end of 2011--replacing all current challenges with the buttons for 2012). That's the basics. For full details hop over to Book Chick City using the link above. I'll add my books as I go (or perhaps in the next day or two when I have more time to sit down and look at what I've got planned for 2012).
1. The Problem of the Green Capsule by John Dickson Carr (1/7/12)
2. The Black Seven by Carol Kendall (1/29/12)
3. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (2/5/12)
4. The Red Lamp by Mary Roberts Rinehart (2/7/12)
5. Nothing Can Rescue Me by Elizabeth Daly (2/18/12)
6. A Spark of Death by Bernadette Pajer (2/19/12)
7. The Yellow Room by Mary Roberts Rinehart (2/27/12)
8. The Greenwell Mystery by E. C. R. Lorac (3/3/12)
9. Champagne for One by Rex Stout (3/5/12)
10. Dead as a Dinosaur by Frances & Richard Lockridge (3/8/12)
11. Hare Sitting Up by Michael Innes (3/9/12)
12. The Murder at the Stork Club by Vera Caspary (3/10/12)
When I started looking for a final book for the Criminal Plots III Reading Challenge (Read a novel that's been nominated for and Edgar in the last five years), I was relieved to find In the Shadow of Gotham by Stefanie Pintoff sitting on my shelves since I'm trying really hard to read more from my own stacks. I'm not much for reading more recent books, but I had picked this one up last May while browsing in our Friends of the Library used book store. It was purely a whim--based on the cover, the blurb on the back of the book, and the fact that it's a historical mystery set during one of my favorite time periods--early 20th C. Not only was Shadow nominated for an Edgar, but it was the winner of Award for Best First Novel in 2010.
