The Tuesday Night Bloggers: Who Wants to Murder a Millionaire

Welcome to this week's mystery game show, "Who Wants to Murder a Millionaire," the show where you can literally get away with murder--I'm your host, Liz Borden. Let's meet our two teams. Team One comes to us from the railroad industry...they are Stranglers on the Train! Say hello to Moira (from Clothes in Books), Steve (from In Search of the Classic Mystery) and Brad (from Ah Sweet Mystery).

Could this be one of our guests at work?

Challenging the Stranglers we have Team Two who hail from the town of Le'bruce...and they are a Case for Three Defectives! Give a warm welcome to Kate (from Cross Examining Crime), Aidan (from Mysteries Ahoy!) and JJ (from The Invisible Event).

Can you see what's wrong here?

For those of you new to our show, let's review. The object of the game is to plan and execute the perfect murder by answering questions and earning points. The point schedule is as follows:

First Question (1 pt): Select your victim

Second Question (2 pt): Select your location

Third Question (4 pt): Select the perfect method

Fourth Question (8 pt): Devise the perfect alibi

Fifth Question (16 pt):  Gather any necessary supplies

Sixth Question (32 pt): Plan complete

Murder Committed

Seventh Question (64 pt): Discovery of the corpse

Eight Question (128 pt): Successfully negotiate questioning by police

Ninth Question (245 pt): Red herrings completely mystify investigators

Tenth Question (500 pt): Police baffled—case unsolved

Perfect Murder = 1000 pts (in case of a tie, there is a Decider/Bonus round)

Highest Score (if not a perfect murder) is the winner. You may not have completely fooled the police, but they couldn’t put together a case that would stand up in court.

Now, as has been pointed out by one of our contestants, it does seem to rate life a bit cheaply to only offer one point for the victim, but after all one must start somewhere. And the points must build.... {Why must they build? Well...that's the way the sponsors wanted it. To build suspense or something. I'm just the pretty face for the camera; I don't get to make those decisions.}


But, seriously (I don't think I could keep that up for the entire post), our little band of Tuesday Night Bloggers decided that we just hadn't had enough of mystery quizzes. I want to thank Brad and Kate for brainstorming clever ideas to keep us busy while doing our part for social distancing. Kate's quiz last week (check out her blog link above if you missed it) inspired me to think up the title for this week's mystery game show and again we played through email. The rules were similar to Kate's--except I am much less industrious and composed only ten questions that each team answered separately. The team members took turns being in the "hot seat" and playing for full points. If that player missed the question, then their teammates had the chance to save that part of the murder plan and earn half credit.

For the questions, I tried very hard to tailor the questions to the particular murder plan step (a question about victims for question one and so on). And, just as on the TV show, the teams had access to four lifelines:

Team Lifelines: one each per team

50:50: Two incorrect answers are eliminated

Double Dip: Allows for a second guess for full credit if first answer is wrong. Contestant must request to use this lifeline before making the initial guess. The lifeline is forfeited even if the first guess is correct.

Phone A Friend: Current contestant may consult one of their team members. Full credit is given if the answer is correct. If the answer is incorrect, then only the remaining team member may have a try for half credit.

Know Your Enemy: This one is a bit of a gamble. If you think one of your opponents has expert knowledge, then you may call on them to give you an answer for full credit. They are on their honor to provide their best answer. BUT if the answer is correct their team will automatically receive full credit as well regardless of whether that contestant was on deck for the question. If the answer is incorrect and that contestant was on deck for the question for their team, they will select one of their remaining teammates to field the question for a chance at full credit (no conferrals); the third player will play for half credit. If they were not on deck, then their team plays following the usual rules with your chosen “enemy” offering a second guess for half credit. You will also be allowed a second guess for half.

And now for a wrap-up on the final round:

After a quick check of the math, the Stranglers decided to put Brad in the hot seat with a host of lifelines at his fingertips. Once he saw the question, he picked up the phone (er...keyboard) and brought Moira into the fray--whereupon they decided upon their choice for full points (they were correct). Kate took the heat for the Defectives and requested the "Double Dip" lifeline before offering up her perfectly correct first answer.

After the dust settled (and my Excel spreadsheet did its math thing), we found that the Defectives,while not quite managing a perfect murder (if only that curare bottle hadn't gone missing during the supplies round), pulled off a near-perfect quiz and a score of 992.

The Stranglers put together a really devious plot--scoring 903 over all but not quite devious enough to completely baffle the investigators.

So...Congratulations to this week's winners: Case for Three Defectives--Kate, JJ, and Aidan. And I want to thank each of my Tuesday Night Blogging pals for indulging me in my convoluted quiz game. I had a lot of fun putting it together.


If you would like a chance to build your own perfect murder, then give the quiz a try. I've listed the questions below. For the purposes of this game, all "Golden Age" books follow my Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge guidelines and are published 1960 or earlier. Answers appear in the apparent blank space between questions--just highlight to reveal the answer.

Round #1 Victims in Sayers

All of the following are murder victims in a Dorothy L. Sayers novel except one? Which one?

1. Reuben Levy
2. Denis Cathcart
3. George Harrison
4. Henry Thorpe

Answer: Henry Thorpe died a natural death in The Nine Tailors

Round #2 Death on Deck: Murder on the Water

One of the following mysteries set on a ship or boat, features murders on the yacht of a millionaire. Which one?

1. The Virgin Kills (1932) by Raoul Whitfield
2. Found Floating (1937) by Freeman Wills Crofts
3. Charlie Chan Carries On (1930) by Earl Derr Biggers
4. Murder by Latitude (1930) by Rufus King

Answer: The Virgin Kills by Whitfield

Round #3 Slow Poison: Poison in the 1930s and 40s

Three of these novels contain a significant death by poison. Which is the odd book out?

1. Death at the Bar  (1940) by Ngaio Marsh
2. And Be a Villain (1948) by Rex Stout
3. Death in the Backseat (1936) by Dorothy Cameron Disney
4. Murdered One by One (1937) by Francis Beeding

Answer: Death in the Backseat by Disney (primary victim was shot)

Round #4 Agatha's Alibis

In many cases of "identity theft" in a murder mystery, a culprit impersonates someone else to establish an alibi--for instance, wearing the victim's clothes to make it appear this person was alive after the fact. In at least one of Christie's novels a corpse is not quite what it appears to be (thus making it seem impossible for the villain to have committed this particular crime at the time indicated). Choose the title which is the best example.

1. The 4:50 from Paddington
2. Lord Edgeware Dies/Thirteen at Dinner
3. The Body in the Library
4. The Boomerang Clue/Why Didn't They Ask Evans?

Answer: The Body in the Library (which was actually Pamela, a girl guide, and not Ruby as initially thought)

Round #5 Sinister Supplies: The Equipment of John Dickson Carr/Carter Dickson

Each of the following items is important to particular Carr/Dickson novels, but I have mismatched on of the items and titles. Which match is incorrect?

1. The Problem of the Green Capsule/The Black Spectacles

2. Panic in Box C

3. Death-Watch

4. Till Death Do Us Part

Answer: Till Death Do Us Part (the ace of spades is actually important to The Red Widow Murders)

Round #6 Plans, Designs & Maps: Mapback plans of the murder scene.

Below are four Dell Mapback versions of murder scenes. Please choose the scene that is correctly identified.

1. The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart

2. N or M? by Agatha Christie

3. Duplicate Death by Georgette Heyer

4. Staircase 4 by Helen Reilly

Answer: N or M? by Agatha Christie

Round #7 Victims in Edmund Crispin (1940s-50s)

Out of the four professions listed below, please identify the one that did not fall victim to murder in an Edmund Crispin novel.

1. Postman
2. Policeman
3. Opera Singer
4. Film cameraman

Answer: #1 Postman

Round #8 Police Detectives from the 1940s

Which of these detectives began their career in 1942 (in this context "began" means the first published novel focused on their investigations)?

1. Captain M. L. Hemirich (series by Frances & Richard Lockridge
2. Inspector Thomas Littlejohn (series by George Bellairs)
3. Chief Inspector Julian Rivers (series by Carol Carnac)
4. Inspector Roger West (series by John Creasey)

Answer: Inspector West

Round #9 Red Herrings & Clues in the Golden Age

The following clues all appear in mystery stories, but I have inserted one red herring. One of the clues does not belong to the book it is ascribed to here. Which one?

Books arranged on a desk in The French Powder Mystery by Ellery Queen

A discarded peach pit in Red Threads by Rex Stout

A missing tube of paint in Artists in Crime by Ngaio Marsh

Missing pearls in The Case of Colonel Marchand by E. C. R. Lorac

Answer: A missing tube of paint--even though Marsh's book is about artists.

Round #10

I have grouped several GAD novels under various subgenre headings. Those of you who have participated in my Vintage Mystery Reading Challenges over the years will recognize some of these subgenres. Only one grouping is absolutely correct with ALL four correct titles. Please identify the correct group For the purposes of this quiz in order to qualify for the subgenre, the element must be a major factor in the mystery itself. For instance, Death at the President's Lodging by Michael Innes (with its college setting and college president as victim) would qualify, but a story that has an academic who isn't a victim, major suspect/culprit, or amateur detective as a guest at a country house weekend murder fest would not

1. Academic Mysteries: The Mourning After Death by Nicholas Blake; Death at Half-Term by Josephine Bell; Bats in the Belfry by E. C. R. Lorac; The Case Is Closed by Patricia Wentworth
2. Medical Mysteries: Shadow on the Wall by H. C. Bailey; Miss Pinkerton by Mary Roberts Rinehart; A Silent Witness by R. Austin Freeman; Tragedy at the Unicorn by John Rhodes
3. All Aboard! Train Mysteries: Night Train to Paris by Manning Coles; The Two Tickets Puzzle by J. J. Connington; Dread Journey by Dorothy B. Hughes; Death Treads Softly by George Bellairs
4. Country House Murders: The Santa Klaus Murders by Mavis Doriel Hay; The Hanging Captain by Henry Wade; The House of Sudden Sleep by John Hawk; The Z Murders by J. Jefferson Farjeon

Answer: Medical Mysteries

So, how did you do? Did you plan a perfect murder? Did you gather more points than our two murderous teams and escape justice anyway?

TNB: The Great Detectives (Scholarly Sleuths)

As I noted in my last enstallment, when The Tuesday Night Bloggers heard that a book called The 100 Greatest Literary Detectives, edited by Eric Sandberg and including contributions from various writers – including our own Kate Jackson was coming out to educate the unsuspecting about some of the best detectives in the business, we were excited. But then as we sat and munched on toasted crumpets and sipped our tea, we decided to revive our weekly meetings and discuss the detectives we think ought to be included in any list of the "Greatest" detectives. Because no matter how good Eric Sandberg is, he's bound to miss somebody worthwhile. We also wanted to include some of the really good detectives who don't get as much press as say a Sherlock Holmes or a Miss Jane Marple or (ahem) Hercule Poirot [many press clippings for our Belgian sleuth may found over at Brad's place Ah Sweet Mystery Blog aka "The Shrine To Agatha Christie"].

As Moira mentioned in her first post over at Clothes in Books, some of us have decided to divide our detectives up into categories--including yours truly. I've had quite a month and haven't been able to devote quite the attention to the task that I would have liked. In fact, I managed to miss last week's meeting altogether. So, this week I'm going to squeeze in a quick look at last week's focus: Scholarly Sleuths.

Anyone who has paid much attention to what happens here at The Block, knows that I have quite an affinity for mysteries with an academic bent. I work in the English Department of a university, so I feel quite at home in the halls of academe. And, truth be told, it's sometimes quite satisfying to read about academic types getting their comeuppance. There are a number of academics who have taken up their magnifhying glasses and gone hunting for clues. From an early amateur detective in The Professor's Mystery (1911) who finds himself wrapped up in a more romantic mystery than a true murder to the more modern Kate Fansler who stars in books by Amanda Cross. But the two I want to promote are Adam Ludlow in a series of five books by Simon Nash and Stuart Palmer's schoolteacher -turned-detective, Hildegarde Withers.

Adam Ludlow is my favorite type of academic sleuth. He is scholarly and erudite without being pompous. He is full of apt quotations and specialized knowledge that help to solve the mystery, but his knowledge isn't anything that would be outside the grasp of someone with a well-rounded education. He is also human enough to make mistakes and encourage the reader to think that they might have every bit as good a chance of solving the mystery as Ludlow. The other strong feature in his favor is that his final outing (Unhallowed Murder) serves up a mystery that is just as strong as the previous stories. Nash (aka Raymond Chapman, Emeritus Professor of English at London University and an Anglican priest) provides consistently intriguing plots for Ludlow to unravel and interesting characters for him to interact with. I have not yet read the fourth in the series, but I have every reason to believe that Adam Ludlow will provide an entertaining academic sleuthing adventure equal to his others.

Palmer's scholarly sleuth, Hildegarde Withers is what Miss Marple might have been if she had been born in America and taken up teaching as an occupation. Like Miss Marple who uses her knowledge of personality and character types from village life to inform her observations in questions of murder, Miss Withers uses her experience as teacher to aid her efforts at investigation. After all, “[She's] taught school long enough to know when anybody is telling the truth or not.” Her sharp eyes and inquisitive intellect are often a help to Inspector Oscar Piper. And, like her pupils, she holds Piper to a higher standard--not allowing him to settle for the easiest, most convenient, or most politic answer when it's obvious it's not the correct one.  
 
Miss Wither's mysteries are a little more action-oriented than Miss Marple's (or even Adam Ludlow's) and they are filled with Palmer's characteristic humor. Her stubborn commonsense approach very often comes into humorous opposition to the gruff police detective Piper. But they play well off of one another and Piper calls her "God's horse gift to all dumb cops." 


I intended to to a round of Dynamic Duos--featuring Colonel Primrose/Grace Lathem [Leslie Ford]; Jeff & Haila Troy [Kelley Roos]; and Lord Peter Wimsey & Bunter [Dorothy L Sayers]. After all, I did tell my fellow Tuesday Night Bloggers that I would cage fight them for Lord Peter--but, alas, April has proved to be a cruel month for blogging (I am SO behind on my reviews!) and I'm just not going to be able to do justice to the last group. Perhaps a future post on these detective twosomes may materialize....
 

TNB: The Great Detectives (Professionals on the Prowl)

As I noted last week, when The Tuesday Night Bloggers heard that a book called The 100 Greatest Literary Detectives, edited by Eric Sandberg and including contributions from various writers – including our own Kate Jackson was coming out to educate the unsuspecting about some of the best detectives in the business, we were excited. But then as we sat and munched on toasted crumpets and sipped our tea, we decided to revive our weekly meetings and discuss the detectives we think ought to be included in any list of the "Greatest" detectives. Because no matter how good Eric Sandberg is, he's bound to miss somebody worthwhile. We also wanted to include some of the really good detectives who don't get as much press as say a Sherlock Holmes or a Miss Jane Marple or (ahem) Hercule Poirot [many press clippings for our Belgian sleuth may found over at Brad's place Ah Sweet Mystery Blog aka "The Shrine To Agatha Christie"].

As Moira mentions over at Clothes in Books, some of us have decided to divide our detectives up into categories--including yours truly. This week on the Block I am turning the spotlight on some outstanding professional detectives who may not be as familiar to detective fiction fans. Up first is Inspector Napoleon "Bony" Bonaparte, featured in the novels of Arthur W. Upfield. Bony is an unorthodox, half-Aboriginal, half-white detective who works out of the Queensland police force, although his investigations take him to various places in Australia. He is particularly self-assured for a man who might well have found his mixed heritage to be a burden rather than an asset. He states in The Bachelors of Broken Hill: "I always finish a race, always finalise the case I consent to take up."And it is often mentioned that he has an unblemished record when it comes to solving the cases to which he is assigned. 

image credit

 
His spotless record is good for keeping him employed--because sometimes his self-assurance gets him into trouble with his superiors. He has a habit of going his own way and often finds himself sacked for disobeying orders. But that never last long, because his commanding officers know that his is intelligent, has the patience to unravel the most snarled case, and has charm enough to get evidence from those who don't want to give it. His mixed heritage allows him to work equally well in the outback as well as in more suburban areas and his pride and stubbornness keep him on the case until the culprit his brought to justice because he doesn't want to lose that perfect record.

Helen Reilly's Inspector Christopher McKee is on the other side of the world, heading up the Manhattan Murder Squad in New York City. In the early novels, he is an efficient leader of men with a strong personality, a vast storehouse of facts in his memory, and who strikes an imposing figure when confronting suspects. He figures in one of the earliest police procedural series by a female author and his stories feature the line-up, the radio room, the morgue, the mysterious depths of the fingerprint department--all the varied and exciting activities of one of the greatest police departments in the world on full view in mysteries of the 1930s. This is especially true of the case related in McKee of Centre Street.



In [this novel] you will meet Inspector McKee, tight-lipped, cold-eyed, a hunter of men and the most absorbing sleuth since Lieutenant Valcour; listen with him as the telephone call that is the first information in the case of the murdered dancer comes into Spring 7-3100; watch as he throws out swiftly the far-flung net for a subtle and brilliant killer. [from my copy of the book] 
The story revolves around the murder of Rita Rodriguez, a beautiful dancer in a high-tone speakeasy. 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 have 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.

My last professional detective is most certainly the least well-known and will probably be completely unknown to many. His author, Harold Kemp certainly is: According to Classic Crime Fiction, Death of a Dwarf (1955) is the fifth in a mystery series by Harold Kemp and features Detective Inspector Jimmy Brent and his team of sleuths. Like me, the folks at CCF have found very little information about Kemp out on the interwebs. If anyone has any information beyond his birth year (1896) and short bibliography (seven titles in all), I'd love to hear about it. 
 
Detective Inspector Jimmy Brent was first introduced to me when I discovered the near-pristine, dust-jacketed Death of a Dwarf sitting on the shelf of Half Price Books. I mean, who could resist a vintage mystery with a title like that?  But I wasn't sure whether I should be glad to have brought it home or not. 

The story is quite good with a standard motive given a nice little twist. Fairly clued--it's certainly not Kemp's fault that I completely forgot a little tidbit that he prominently displayed for me back in the early chapters. Likeable characters--the interactions between Jimmy Brent and his superiors, colleagues, and underlings are delightful and supporting characters from the village are just as good (save for a few suspects...but then we're not supposed to like them). There's even a knowing little old lady calmly knitting in her little apartment--but none appear to be stock characters used purely for effect. Finely drawn surroundings--nice country village and there's even (see the cover) a menacing castle with ruins. My uncertainty lay in the fact that I was quite sure that future installments of Brent and company are going to be rather difficult to come by (unless I want to break down and search for him through internet sellers). I did manage (through the generosity of my boss--who doesn't mind using the internet to buy books and who got it for me as a present) to get hold of a second Jimmy Brent novel--Red for Murder.

Brent is an educated man, having been at York, St. Peter's and Cambridge, where he had taken his B.A. He is still in his thirties, but has risen rapidly through the ranks due to his native wit, determination, and integrity. He has a quirky sense of humor and an easy relationship with both his superiors and his assistants Gregg and Lewis. He brings a fresh point of view to a division that is made up of policeman who have less imagination and no eye for the unusual. Brent certainly isn't one to accept an easy answer just to close a case quickly and if he has to sort out vicars who hide under hedges and tell unnecessary lies as well as doctors who feign hearing loss to avoid answering questions, then he's perfectly willing to do so to ensure that justice will be served. His investigations are straight-forward, though the circumstances surrounding them rarely are and the clues are readily available to the reader which makes for interesting reading. Brent is another detective whose greatness lies in the fact that I have been left wanting more of his adventures and may have to resort to internet treasure hunting to fill that need.
 

TNB: The Great Detectives (Medical Mayhem)

Word has passed among The Tuesday Night Bloggers that a book called The 100 Greatest Literary Detectives, edited by Eric Sandberg and including contributions from various writers – including our own Kate Jackson is coming out to educate the unsuspecting about some of the best detectives in the business. As we sat and munched on toasted crumpets and sipped our tea, we decided to revive our weekly meetings and discuss the detectives we think ought to be included in any list of the "Greatest" detectives. We also wanted to include some of the really good detectives who don't get as much press as say a Sherlock Holmes or a Miss Jane Marple or (ahem) Hercule Poirot [more press clippings for our Belgian sleuth may found over at Brad's place Ah Sweet Mystery Blog aka "The Shrine To Agatha Christie"].

As Moira mentions over at Clothes in Books, some of us have decided to divide our detectives up into categories. This week's feature here at the Block is on Medical Mayhem with the spotlight focused on Mignon G. Eberhart's Nurse Sarah Keate and Dr. Hugh Westlake in a series by Jonathan Stagge
(aka Richard Webb & Hugh Wheeler). Sarah Keate was most likely the very first nurse I was introduced to in detective fiction. The book was The Mystery of Hunting's End and it was also my first taste of a locked room/impossible crime.

It is a mystery that revolves around a weekend party at Hunting’s End, a lodge owned by the rich Kingery family. Matil Kingery has invited a strange collection of guests to join her on the outing—the same people who were at the lodge when her father died of “heart failure” exactly five years ago. She knows that her father was murdered and intends to find out which of the guests is the guilty party.  She has to find out....she's in love with one of the young men and wants his name cleared.

Added to the guest list is the dapper young detective Lance O’Leary who is posing as an

acquaintance of Matil's and O'Leary has, as he often does, requested Keate to use her position as a nurse to help him sort out a mystery. In this case, he wants to know who was responsible for the death of Matil Kingery's father at the lodge some five years ago. If one of the requirements for detective greatness is the impact the character has on the reader, then Nurse Keate definitely qualifies. I reread Hunting's End countless times when I was young and every time I enjoyed watching Nurse Keate take on the assignment of the care of Aunt Lucy at the hunting lodge featured in the title. The nurse's eagle eyes, strong nerves, and knowledge of human nature all serve her well in spotting the clues that lead O'Leary to the solution of the murder. Without her assistance, Matil would never know which of the "friends" gathered at the hunting lodge had killed her father...and would be responsible for another death as well.
Such was Nurse Keate's personality and impact in the story, that I could relate whole scenes of the book which featured her for years after reading it--even during the years when the book was lost (see my review linked above) and I had no access to it. Given my sieve-like memory for books read pre-blogging, that's saying something. I could tell you about Sarah and her knitting needles and Sarah's descriptions of Aunt Lucy as a huge spider, for example.


Dr. Hugh Westlake is a more recent acquaintance. I discovered him in 2010--just as I was launching my blogging career--in Death's Sweet Song. Westlake is a small town practitioner and a widower with a precocious daughter. He often finds his medical practice leading him into situations where he feels impelled to act as an amateur detective. He's not a brilliant amateur à la Philo Vance, but his medical acumen gives him insights that allow him to spot clues not obvious to others. He's not infallible by any means, but the way he works his way through the twists and turns of the mysteries he becomes involved in is very realistic. I find him to be a very relatable character. 

Westlake leaves an impression on me because he represents the kind of every day individual who might get involved in mysteries and behaves in ways that real people might. The books I've read so far feature nicely-plotted mysteries with enough intricacy to please and puzzle. There is also a bit of the macabre and odd throughout the series that might titillate. I think it adds to the oddness to have such an ordinary amateur detective working his way through the clues. 

His investigation into fear and how it is used in the persecution of an actress is the foundation of the mystery in The Three Fears and uses the oddness of the human mind as the backdrop. Westlake is invited by his wartime friend, Dr. Macdonald "Don" Lockwood, and his wife Tansy to spend a month at their home in the Massachusetts resort of Bittern Bay. There will even be entertainment on hand in the form of two rival  acresses--Daphne Winters, with her "five sweet symphonies", budding actresses to whom she gives summer tutelage, and Lucy Millken, ""America's Most Beloved Actress"", one time understudy to the Divine Daphne, now her bitter rival. They expect fireworks and maybe even a cat fight or two, but no one expects murderous attempts to made on Daphne. 

Someone very clever is using the atmosphere to make attempt after attempt on Daphne's life and sanity--using knowledge of her three fears: fear of poison, fear of being closed in, and fear of fire against her. The culprit is relentless and doesn't even seem to mind that innocent victims are collected along the way. Two of Daphne's Symphonies are caught in the killer's web. The first intercepts a poisoned capsule meant for Daphne while they are at tea at the Milliken's house and the second dies in a fire in the summerhouse. Westlake, having previous experience with murders, joins the police in the search for the murderer, but they run into blank wall after blank wall. It isn't until one of the Symphonies makes an urgent phone call to Westlake that he begins to see the intricate plot behind it all. 

Although I have less of an acquaintance with Westlake (than with Keate), I can definitely say that he is a detective that I'm eager to read more of and hope to find more of the novels featuring him. So--if another feature of a great detective is to make readers want more of him, then Westlake definitely has that going for him.

Tuesday Night Bloggers: A is for April...and the April Robin Murders

This month at the Tuesday Night Bloggers we decided to shake things up a bit. Rather than feature a specific topic or author, we chose the letter A for April...and Anything goes. As long as what you have to write about deals with mysteries and starts with the letter "A," it's fair game. Everything from Adultery to Arson AND Arsenic to Antimony. Give us your take on writers such as Agatha (Christie) and (Margery) Allingham or detectives like Inspector Alleyn or Arsène Lupin. Moira over at Clothes in Books is collection our posts this month, so stop by, pull up a chair, and tell us what's on your mind.

It's a bit hectic round my parts, so I'm not entirely certain that I'll be coming up with anything indepth such as you'll find Brad or Kate submitting. For my first submission, I'm going to give you the run-down on the book featured in this month's logo: The April Robin Murders by Craig Rice and Ed McBain. I read this last year and here's what I thought at the time. 

As he stared at her, the only thought that flashed through Bingo's mind was that only that afternoon he'd promised Handsome that they were never going to be involved in any more murders in the future!  

The April Robin Murders (1958) by Craig Rice [Georgiana Ann Randolph] & Ed McBain is a screwball mystery starring Rice's photographers with a penchant for landing in the middle of murder, Bingo Riggs and Handsome Kuzak. Bingo and Handsome, late of New York, have decided to head west to seek fortune and fame in Hollywood. Handsome has the added talent of being able to remember everything he has ever read (especially in newspapers). 

The first thing they do is buy a house. Bingo is determined to own a mansion previously owned by a movie star and they manage to luck into an option on the moldering, monstrous mansion which once belonged to the legendary silent screen star April Robin. Winds up that they get much more than they bargained for--all kinds of mystery surrounds the house and its owners. First, there's April. Everybody remembers her. Everybody says she was gorgeous. Nobody knows what happened to her. She just disappeared. Drove off in her car one day and was gone. And Handsome is worried that he's losing his memory because he can't remember anything about her. 

After April disappeared, the next owners were Julien and Lois Lattimer. They've both disappeared too--as well as a bundle of money. Everybody believes that Lois killed her husband and ran off with the dough. Except there's no body. The police have searched high and low--for the body, for the money, for Lois. Nothing. Then along come our boys from New York. A con man posing as a real estate agent sells them the house--with an apparently genuine Julien Lattimer signature on the paperwork.

 "According to our top handwriting expert, he did," Perroni [a police detective] said. "And when Clark Sellers says a signature is genuine, the signature is genuine." 

The night Handsome and Bingo move in a body is found. But not Julien's. The caretaker/housekeeper--who dies from inhaling the poisonous fumes of dry cleaning fluid. Perroni and his partner Hendenfleder kind of wonder about that. They wonder about a lot of things. Who is this guy Courtney Budlong who sold the house to the boys? Why are there so many guys running around with the initials C. B.? Why does one of them (Chester Baxter) wind up dead in an alley with his throat cut? And how much do Handsome and Bingo know about it all? 

But don't get me wrong. I don't disbelieve you. I don't disbelieve anybody. It don't pay. Especially here in Hollywood. 

This is a fun read. A definite screwball comedy/mystery that I could see as a movie starring Martin & Lewis or Abbott & Costello. You've got con men running in and out the picture, gorgeous dames, possibly shady lawyers, the good cop/bad cop pair, the nosy neighbor, and our slightly dim but likable protagonists who manage to bumble their way into a solution to all the mysteries as well as landing a motion picture deal that will make them that fortune they were seeking. Slow-moving for the first half or so, but it picks up speed as it hurtles to the finish. Not an incredibly clever solution, but it works and makes for an enjoyable and solid read.

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