Elisabeth Sanxay Holding x 2: Widow's Mite and Who's Afraid?

9781944520342
Stark House Press, 2018
263 pp

paperback

As always, I have to begin by thanking the lovely people at Stark House Press for my copy of this book.  The work of Elisabeth Sanxay Holding is not very well known among today's crime/mystery readers, but Stark House has made a great effort to get her work out there, publishing a whopping sixteen of her mystery novels (of which I plan to buy the eleven I don't have) in volumes consisting of two novels each. 

It is genuinely a shame that this author's work has been left to fade into obscurity.  She was championed by the great Raymond Chandler who said, as we learn from The Guardian,  that for his money, "she's the top suspense writer of them all," and that "Her characters are wonderful."   Writing in the introduction to this book, Gregory Shepard notes that Holding is

"the precursor to the entire women's psychological suspense genre, and authors like Patricia Highsmith and Ruth Rendell owe her a very large debt of gratitude."  

And indeed, we do.  I was looking over Amazon reviews of some of Holding's novels, and there was one that complained that Holding should "show, not tell," which sort of threw me for a loop for a minute, since evidently the reader didn't read carefully or just plain missed the point.  Holding shows plenty, but it's what goes on in the minds of her characters that holds the most importance in her stories -- as the intro says, it's the "psychological underpinnings" that "form the basis of the mystery."  I easily figured that out on my own while reading, since I didn't read this book's introduction until I'd turned the last page.  And without getting too deep into either, both novels in this volume center on the old adage of "oh what a tangled web we weave ..." with  the respective main characters hedging about telling the truth about what they know about the crimes.   They each have their own motivations for doing so and their lies send them down a rather slippery slope, but again, while they know that (quoting the introduction again) that " 'There ought to be simply a right thing to do, or a wrong thing,' ..." Holding knows human nature well enough that she also realizes that "this is never the case, that it's never that simple."

from Pop Sensation

In Widow's Mite (originally published 1953),  single mom/widow Tilly MacDonald is at the home of her cousin Sibyl Fleming with her young son Robert.  Sibyl is high strung, she isn't the nicest of people, and Tilly is dreading the thought of being alone with her, especially after Sibyl knocks back a few drinks when she would

"either cry, about the ingratitude, the treachery, the intrigues against her, or she would become arrogant and domineering."

 On the particular day that begins this novel, Sibyl decides she needs a nap, and despite Tilly's warning to the contrary, also decides that she needs to have one of her pills to help her sleep.  There's one left, so Tilly hands it over and Sibyl falls asleep pretty much right away.  Tilly's surprised that it took so little time for the pill to work, but she goes out to be with her son Robert before the arrival of other guests at the house.  But later, in the middle of the party, when someone goes to check on Sibyl who hasn't come downstairs yet, they discover that Sibyl's not asleep, but dead.  When the police arrive, and  Tilly learns that Sibyl's death came about as a result of cyanide poisoning, she's in a quandary -- if she reveals that it was she who gave Sibyl that last pill, the police might believe she had killed her, and then who would be left to take care of her little boy?  It doesn't help that other weirdness is going on all around her, done by someone intent on putting the blame on her shoulders.  And of course, there's much much more in this novel that touches on other issues, with parenting high on the list.

from Pop Sensation

This old cover of Who's Afraid (1940) says without words exactly what's going on this book, expressing what I thought the main character was going through during the course of this story.  Never mind that once again we find ourselves with a woman who has information relevant to a murder and doesn't speak up; in this book, deception is the rule of the game.  Miss Susie Alban,
age twenty-one, hasn't had much luck in finding a job; that all changes when she responds to an advertisement for a "Young lady, with unquestionable social and cultural background."  She is found by her prospective employer, Mr. Chiswick, to be "exactly the type he had had in mind" for the job, which was to sell his correspondence course, which "offered to the Women of America a system for developing the individual charm that lies dormant in each of you."  Gateways is the name of program, and the job requires Susie to travel to different cities and sell the program to the more prominent women of the area.   On her first outing, she is on the train to South Fairfield where she meets four different men who show her attention; she is convinced to change hotel plans and instead stay at a local boarding house.  All seems well, right up until the moment when the group leaves the train, when we read this:

"I'll have to get rid of this girl, one of the four men in the car was thinking."

And oh, did I ever perk up here.  Note -- there's no name, no description except for "one of the four men in the car," so we have our first mystery. Who is speaking, and why does he feel a need to "get rid of this girl?"  But wait, there's more.  The first appointment scheduled for Susie is at the home of a Mrs. Person, who along with her husband Mr. Person, doesn't seem too put out to see her, that is, right up until she mentions the name of her employer, Mr. Chiswick.  At that moment, Mr. Person screams at her to get out, threatening to kill Mr. Chiswick before he slams the door. Walking home in the dark, Susie meets up with one of the men she'd met earlier on the train but only after she stumbles upon a body lying near the trees on the side of the road, whom, it turns out, is the same Mr. Person that had so rudely thrown her out.  While the landlord of Susie's boarding house gets pinned for the crime, Susie holds information that she decides against giving to the police, and makes her way to the next town on her schedule, where once again her prospective client goes crazy with the mention of Mr. Chiswick, and once again she meets up with the men she'd met on the train.  But which of them is the killer? Why is he following her?  Why will she not believe that she is in some sort of danger even though she is told more than once?  And what's up with the mysterious Mr. Chiswick?   The answers to these questions will absolutely not be divulged until the very end.

Who's Afraid? is my favorite of the two, although both seriously and most intensely held me until the last pages.  I'll admit that in the cases of both women, I found myself almost yelling at the pages because I was so completely frustrated at times, thinking "why don't you just listen?" or "just tell and get it over with."  But Sanxay Holding's not going to let us off so easily here and that's the key to reading her work -- it's all about what's in our characters' heads and all about how their decisions take them nearly to the point of no return, usually at some sort of personal peril or some sort of consequence to the people in their immediate orbit.   Quite honestly, I love her books so far -- they may seem somewhat tame in comparison of those of Highsmith or Rendell, but then again, it's very easy to see how she laid the foundations for their work with her own. And now that Stark House Press has made her books once more available, serious crime readers are fortunate to have easy access to them.  This woman's legacy and her books deserve much more than to remain  sadly forgotten and unread.

Highly recommended.

Crooked House, by Agatha Christie

9780553350548
Bantam, 1999
originally published 1949
215 pp

hardcover

"I think people more often kill those they love than those they hate. Possibly because only the people you love really can make life unendurable to you." 

As much as I value these beautiful leatherette editions of Christie's work, mainly because my husband bought them for me some time ago, the covers have absolutely no soul.  I have a deep love for vintage cover art, and the original cover of Crooked House really can't be beat: just looking at that picture conjures up something sinister and sort of whets the appetite for what

might be found between the covers, and since the bulk of the action takes place within the walls of this house, Three Gables, its distorted appearance here is beyond appropriate.

Crooked House is, according to Christie herself in An Autobiography (1977), one of two of her favorite books, the other being Ordeal by Innocence.  As she says, those two are the ones "that satisfy me best."  While maybe I wasn't as satisfied by Crooked House as Christie was, it was still a good read.  Last week I rented the recent film based on this novel but realized I hadn't read Crooked House in eons, and had quite forgotten the plot, so it seemed like a good time to refresh my memory.

I think more than in any other Christie crime novel, Dame Agatha takes us right to the heart of the matter from the very outset.  It seems that wealthy tycoon Aristides Leonides has died, and the doctor has refused to sign a death certificate until there is a post mortem.  His granddaughter Sophia pays a visit to her fiancé Charles Hayward, and tells him that she believes that his death was no accident -- that he may have been killed.  The need for a post mortem makes Sophia think that "It's quite clear that they suspect something is wrong," and that their plans for marriage have to put on hold since they "can't settle anything until this is cleared up."  She would like Charles to help her and to come to the house and to see her family "from an unbiased point of view," giving him access to everyone in the house.    She also reveals that even if her grandfather's death turns out to have been murder and not an accident, "it won't matter -- so long as the right person killed him."

Even his father, the Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard, echoes this sentiment, and Charles will hear it more than once from several Leonides family members as he enters Three Gables to hopefully get to the bottom of what's going on.  Most everyone already thinks they know who killed Aristides, and considering the obvious suspect(s), that statement seems like an obvious case of upper-class snobbery.  But wait.   Charles isn't so sure that he agrees with their idea of the murderer.   He can see both sides of the issue, but even more importantly, as he says, he can see the "human side of things," which the family could not.  He puzzles over the

"two sides of the question -- different angles of vision -- which was the true angle ... the true angle..."

because in a "little crooked house," one that "had a strange air of being distorted," Charles realizes that  trying to come up with the right perspective from "the true angle" will be difficult.  At the same time, he has to contend with the idea that if the murderer is one of the members of the family, as Sophia realizes, it would reveal a "crookedness" or distortion among one of their number.

from Deep Work

In a big way, this book is less about plot or solving the crime than it is about delving into human nature; because of Charles' relationship with Sophia, he is made privy to each person's particulars so we get to see each and every member of this household as an individual rather than just as a potential suspect.  We are also let into this three-generation family dynamic, which adds another dimension to this story. Normally this sort of "closed circle" form of mystery allows for the culprit to be caught and order to be restored, but then again, this is no ordinary mystery story.  Sure, there are more deaths, some strange goings on with Aristides' will, and other normal trappings but this one brings us right into the heart of human nature territory, and will lead to a most startling conclusion that was completely unexpected.

After giving it some thought, I've decided that I actually enjoyed this novel mainly because it is so very different from most of Christie's other work; it becomes much more of a personal story in the long run rather than just another detective tale and I think that's what sets it apart. And here, plot is much less important than the examination into human nature, although I have to admit that while it was a quick read, it moved rather slowly until we come to those last few eye-opening pages.

I enjoyed seeing this book come to life in movie form; it wasn't great, but it was definitely fun.

The Iron Gates, by Margaret Millar

0380000156
Avon, 1974
originally published 1945
191 pp

paperback

It was like Christmas here a few days ago when I moved some stuff out of the closet space under the stairs and discovered boxes and boxes and boxes of old mass market paperback mystery novels that I'd forgotten I owned.  I opened one, and this book was staring at me -- so naturally, I had to read it.   Whoa! I had forgotten just how much I like Margaret Millar's work, but reading this novel brought it all back in a hurry.

The draw for me is that Millar doesn't present the usual crime-investigation-solution type plot. Her books, like all of my favorites in suspense/crime/mystery, look deep into the human mind.  As this article from a Canadian writer notes,

"she was far more concerned with the psychological ramifications of relationships, especially the toxicity that builds up and destroys marriages." 

Kathleen Sharp, writing for the Los Angeles Review of Books,  notes another quality that keeps me glued to Millar's novels when she says that the author

"explored female characters as they battled the daily accretions of frustrated ambition and blocked power, often while trying to keep a grip on their own sanity."

While I won't go into detail as to how The Iron Gates embodies the psychology that both of these writers have described, and more,  it was a book I couldn't put down.   As a sidebar note, I do have to mention here that Sharp's description of The Iron Gates in that article as a "gothic novel about abortion" is incorrect, but the article itself is still worth reading.

from Women Crime Writers of the 1940s & 50s

The first thing worth mentioning here is that this book is structured in three parts that reflect the inner workings of the novel itself.   In Part One, "The Hunt," we meet Lucille Morrow, wife of physician Andrew Morrow, stepmother to Martin and Polly Morrow (both in their 20s) and sister-in-law to Edith.  Martin and Polly have never fully accepted her marriage to their father after the death of their mother Mildred some sixteen years earlier, which sets up major domestic tension especially between Lucille and Polly.   And while Lucille has been aware of the Morrow siblings' feelings about her over the years, she also realizes that in the long run, she has everything she wants, and as she says in her mind, "neither of you can take anything away from me."  There's only one thing really wrong as far as Lucille goes, and that is her jealousy toward the long-dead Mildred, but somehow she manages to keep her feelings to herself so as not to cause even more problems in the house.  Life, in short, is good and quite comfortable for Lucille, but things take a bizarre turn on the day after the arrival of Polly's fiancé Giles. While Edith, Polly and Giles are out shopping and Martin and Andrew are at work, the doorbell rings and a shabbily-dressed man hands one of the maids a parcel which is dutifully delivered to Lucille, resting upstairs. Shortly afterwards Andrew phones, and the maids notice that Lucille is nowhere to be found --  she's simply disappeared,  taking nothing with her but one of the maid's coats.  The police, of course, get involved, and the fact that it's the Morrow family draws the attention of Inspector Sands, who has been

"interested in the Morrow family for a long time...For about sixteen years." 

In Part Two, "The Fox," Lucille resurfaces in a place where

"She felt safe again. Behind her there was an iron gate and a hundred doors that locked with big key."

Sands wants to know what drove Lucille to take refuge in an asylum, and beyond that, why so many deaths have occurred since her disappearance.   It's not just Sands, either -- it's at this point that the reader also begins to wonder what's up with Lucille as we are made privy to the stream-of-consciousness musings reflecting her inner turmoil, and quite a different woman emerges miles apart from the cool, composed lady of the Morrow house from Part One.  The inspector's investigation leads him to, in Part Three "The Hounds,"  a shocker of a revelation that frankly, I didn't see coming, although I had great fun playing armchair detective in this one.

One of the excellent things about The Iron Gates is that Millar goes well beyond just the crimes in this novel, and she takes the time to psychologically flesh out most all of the players involved in her story -- the family, the side characters who will play a role in this story, the police, the other women in the asylum, and she does so without detracting one whit from the suspense.  She has an excellent sense of balance here -- while  there's a detective involved,  the focus stays on the characters so that The Iron Gates never becomes his story or hinges on his investigation, and  Millar never takes her eyes off of the psychological aspects of the characters for which she is so famous and which really sets her work apart from many suspense/crime writers of the same period, both male and female. Vintage crime readers ought not to miss this one, and anyone interested in the work of women crime writers might wish to consider this book, or for that matter, any novel written by Margaret Millar.  Don't plan on getting anything done once you start reading, because this book hooks you at the start and doesn't let up.

Recommended, absolutely!!!

*" I was born lonely, I guess" -- Dark Passage, by David Goodis

 9781853753091

Prion Books, 1999 (part of the Film Ink series)

(originally published 1946)

244 pp

paperback

"There's no such thing as courage... There's only fear. A fear of getting hurt and a fear of dying." 

David Goodis has been called "the poet of the losers," and after having read two of his novels now, it seems an appropriate moniker.  Dark Passage is his second novel, after Retreat From Oblivion (1939), followed by another sixteen before his death in 1967.  Sadly, by then, his novels (according to Andrew Nette at the LA Review of Books,)  were out of print in the US, and he had been "almost completely forgotten" among American readers.  Luckily,  sometime back in the 1980s, Vintage Black Lizard Crime started republishing his work, making his books widely available once more to the American reading public.  

The novel begins with one of the best opening paragraphs ever:

"It was a tough break. Parry was innocent. On top of that he was a decent sort of guy who never bothered people and wanted to lead a quiet life. But there was too much on the other side and on his side of it there was practically nothing. The jury decided he was guilty. The judge handed him a life sentence and he was taken to San Quentin."

But going to San Quentin wasn't Vincent Parry's only tough break in life.  He had been an orphan, and having been rejected by his only relative in Arizona, his hunger finally led him to rob a general store. By fifteen he was doing time at a reform school where he'd been beaten by a guard; after trying to defend himself, Parry found himself doing a stint in solitary.  His marriage to his wife Gert was also less than perfect, starting with his honeymoon and growing worse over the sixteen months they'd been together.  Now she's dead, he's been wrongfully convicted of her murder, and yet even as he went through the prison gates he was thinking that

 "he might be able to extract some ounce of happiness out of prison. He had always wanted happiness, the simple and ordinary kind. He had never wanted trouble."

But the meager amount of happiness he's managed to carve out for himself in prison is wrecked when history repeats itself and he's once again beaten by a brutal guard and must defend himself.  Facing the fact that prison "was going to be a horrible life," Parry plans and executes a daring escape, and it's at this juncture where the story really begins -- as fate intervenes in the form of young Irene Janney, who, for her own reasons,  had followed his trial and is now willing to go to great risk helping him out after his escape.  What follows is some of the darkest noir ever written, where despite Parry's chance at a new life, the tough breaks continue to follow him.

Parry wants very much to clear his name, and in his isolated and lonely life he has a sincere and desperate need to find someone in whom he can trust. But Parry's world is one where betrayal has become part and parcel of who he is, and Goodis brings this out so beautifully when he's inside of Parry's head, revealing the paranoia that threatens to consume him. Dark Passage is a masterful and solid piece of writing, a book where plot is definitely secondary to Goodis' skill as an author. I could go on and on and on about this book but well, on to the next.

So, now to the film, and I have to say that this is one of the few adaptations of a novel I've read that I actually enjoyed. It's done so skillfully and so very cleverly from the beginning, where we don't see Vincent Parry's face but rather only the faces of the people talking to him, so it's all from his perspective, a technique I've learned since that is known as a subjective point of view.  This approach only changes after Vincent has plastic surgery; one of the masterstrokes of this film are the occasional  glimpses we get of Vince Parry's face in the newspaper which, of course, is not Humphrey Bogart's. While some people have criticized this approach, personally, I thought it was a good way to do it; I found it quite innovative. Then again, I knew the story so I totally understood the decision to it that way. Someone walking into it without knowing what's coming might feel differently, but hey - to each his/her own. I will say that it threw me off for about thirty seconds before I did the inner "ah."  With a few differences, the movie adheres to the novel quite nicely for the most part, although for sure it lacks Goodis' great touch of Parry's inner monologues brought on by his paranoia, something that would definitely be tough to get across on a screen.  It also doesn't really get into the backstory of Madge (played by Agnes Moorehead), who is a very important character here and whose part in Parry's story should have got more airtime.  But overall, I was pretty much glued to the movie. Anyone reading any of my previous *-marked page-to-screen posts will know that most adaptations I've watched just haven't gone over well for me, but this one certainly did.  It also reminded me of how much I love watching Lauren Bacall.

Bottom line: both book and movie are definite don't-miss material. Loved the novel, liked the movie and would seriously recommend both.

*Phantom Lady, by Cornell Woolrich

0743423739
iBooks/Simon and Schuster, 2001
originally published 1942
(written as William Irish)
291 pp

paperback

"What is there to say, when they tell you you have committed a crime, and you and you alone know you haven't? Who is there to hear you, and who is there to believe you?" 

Cornell Woolrich wastes absolutely no time in throwing out a conundrum and starting this novel on the right foot: the first chapter heading states "The Hundred and Fiftieth Day Before the Execution," and in doing so sets up the first question. Who are we talking about here, and why is he/she on his/her way to the chair? By chapter five and the Ninety-First day before the execution (and we're still not too far into the novel),  it becomes very obvious that what we are looking at here is a virtual race against time -- only some few pages earlier, we were still reading about the "One Hundred and Forty-ninth Day Before the Execution."  The tension is set -- time moves faster as the story moves forward, although for the players, things are moving excruciatingly slowly.

 On a May night, at "the get-together hour," a young man is walking the city streets with no destination in mind, "striding along with that chip-on-your-shoulder look." A flash of a neon sign decides the place for him and he ends up at a bar called Anselmo's. It's there he meets the woman with the unusual hat, "a flaming orange, so vivid it almost hurt the eyes." He doesn't know it at the time, but this woman will ultimately become his only alibi when he is accused of his wife's murder.  Unfortunately for Scott Henderson, the woman vanishes, and everyone with whom the two had come into contact on their evening out to dinner and then to the theater swears that Henderson was on his own -- that there was no woman with him at all. She has become to everyone but Henderson a veritable phantom.    As things go from bad to worse, Henderson is arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced for his wife's murder, and ends up in prison awaiting his execution. As the clock tick tick ticks away toward the execution date, ironically, Burgess, the cop who arrested him,  reveals to Henderson that he believes in his innocence. Two others join with Burgess in believing Scott -- a girl named Carol that he'd been seeing and Henderson's best friend, Jack Lombard, who  arrives in town only eighteen days before the execution and offers his help. Together, the three set out to prove Henderson's innocence; the question is, will they be able to find this phantom lady before it's too late?

Phantom Lady is an interesting and very good read from start to finish. It's much more than the usual "wrong man" scenario -- what really sticks out here are the dangling but slowly-diminishing hopes of not only the main character, but of those involved in trying to save him.   Every time there seems to be a breakthough, things go terribly wrong until Henderson is at "the last of anything," trying to convince the prison chaplain that he's not afraid.  It is definitely a book where the reader can't help but to get caught up in the ongoing tension; it is a novel where anguish is split between what's happening in the novel and what's happening in the reader's head. And trust me,  it doesn't stop until the very end.

So now briefly to the film, which frankly, I didn't enjoy nearly as much as the novel, and which I didn't enjoy as much I have many other noir films. To be fair, the movie did convey that sense of being alone  that runs throughout the novel, and it did have its moments of greatness:  the use of light/shadow play that screams noir, the scenes with Ella Raines as Carol alone with the bartender of Anselmo's and then tailing him, working on his mind until the pressure becomes unbearable; the show-stealing drummer played by Elisha Cook Jr. ("do you like jive?") who relays a kind of ecstasy on steroids with only hopped-up body language and freakoutworthy eyes.  That phrase "the whole is better than the sum of its parts" seems appropriate here in describing how I feel about this movie -- that was pretty much it for what I saw as its best points.  I seriously found the actor who played Scott Henderson to be sort of blah -- one would think that in portraying a guy who is about to be executed, he'd give the role so much more, but in my opinion, he was just sort of flat.

Not a huge fan of the adaptation either; say what you will, but to me this is a case where book beats movie by a landslide. The movie, to me, didn't have that same sort of  tied-up-in-knots, watching-hope-fade-slowly effect as the book. However, the worst, absolute worst thing here is that  someone decided to reveal the book's big secret way before Woolrich did in the novel -- oh, what a major, crushing disappointment -- I wanted to stop the movie and walk away right then and there.  Yeah, I know...go to any movie review site and this film gets top ratings.  Well, I'm accustomed to swimming upstream.

The movie is beside the point here in a reading journal though, and Phantom Lady is a novel I would certainly recommend.  A lot of people have called it Woolrich's best work, but I can't speak to that since I haven't read much of his stuff; all I know is that I really, really enjoyed this book.

back to the past #17: Death in the Cards, by Ann T. Smith

9781434407382
Wildside books, 2010
originally published 1945, Phoenix Press
256 pp

paperback

I love these Wildside editions -- I have several in my shelves spreading across genres.  They're great facsimile editions which offer readers like myself the opportunity to rediscover old book without having to go into debt buying them.  Sadly, the author remains a mystery to me, since I could find absolutely nothing outside of this book to her credit; I couldn't find any personal information either.  I went through several sources I have at home, including Hubin's great reference work which would normally list a pseudonym as well as at least a birthdate, but got nothing. If I find more later, I'll make an addendum here, but for now, she remains a question mark. That's a shame -- I love unearthing people's histories; they're often very enlightening as well as interesting.  Oh well. I tried.

I did, however, discover two different covers of  Death in the Cards -- the original

and the reprint

both of which as you can see, offer a clue in the cat on the cover. While I won't say why the cat (whose name is Beauty) is important, let's just say that the poor kitty has a role to play, ultimately coming to a pretty sad end.  But the cat is the least of the worries at the old house on Brattle Street, where Paul and Lita Redfern have taken rooms so that Paul can be close to his new professorial job in Boston.

Death in the Cards is not the best book I've ever read from the 1940s, but it did keep me turning pages to find out who killed old Mrs. Carrie Seton, who owns the house and rents out rooms.  The tenants, aside from Paul and Lita, include an anthropologist (Dr. Oglesbie) whose rooms are filled with skulls, a handyman named George from South Dakota, a Navy man (Phillips) who's just finished a tour of duty on a submarine, two elderly, former Beacon Hill women (Miss Lovelace and Miss Brundage) whose fortunes have faded since the social heyday, and Mrs. Seton's granddaughter Caroline.  Within just a few weeks of moving into the place, old Mrs. Seton ends up dead and Paul, who comes across her body, finds evidence that his wife may have been the culprit.  So many things point to her guilt that he hides what he discovers and takes it upon himself to find the real murderer before the police hone in on his wife.  With so many people in the house though, that's not going to be easy -- and the police are eager to bring this case to a close.

Way more interesting to me than the mystery (which quite frankly gets a bit convoluted and even  brings in a Nazi spy as a sort of patsy -- remember, it's still wartime) is that the author takes her readers into the world of Boston's Beacon Hill society in its heyday (and later as fortunes decline) as she recalls Mrs. Seton's life.  As it turns out, the dead woman was not of their ilk -- au contraire, she was a young woman nee O'Toole from Irish stock and from the wrong part of town. She had caught the attention of her future husband who fell for her and was bound and determined to introduce her to his Boston Brahmin world, which did not go over so well and required the help of her old Miss Lovelace, who remained her very best friend and stayed with her long after Mr.Seton had passed on.

It's a good find, probably not of interest to most people unless you're into obscure vintage fiction, and aside from the meandering nature of the story, not a bad read.

Just as an aside, I have pretty much finished my obscure women writers project for this year, but I have been stacking my shelves with many, many more titles and I'll be reading and posting about them as I come to them.  I'll also be inaugurating my page "Forgotten Women Found" here shortly -- so stay tuned. Thanks to all who have commented.

pure (icky) pulp: Solomon's Vineyard, by Jonathan Latimer

159640168
Black Mask, 2009 (reprint)
[originally published 1941]
132 pp

paperback

With the call to read banned books about to start up again here shortly (banned books week starts the 27th), crime readers may wish to move off the beaten path and read something really different.  Solomon's Vineyard was originally published in 1941, and banned not too long afterwards.  My my how times have changed.  Today we have so much explicit rough sex in novels that it's sort of old hat and skimworthy, but my guess is that the Boston matriarchs and the bible belters of the day rejected it in print, at least in public.

The very short preface to this novel states the following:

"Listen. This is a wild one. Maybe the wildest yet. It's got everything but an abortion and a tornado. I ain't saying it's true. Neither of us, brother, is asking you to believe it. You can lug it across to the rental library right now and tell the dame you want your goddam nickel back. We don't care All he done was write it down like I told it, and I don't guarantee nothing."

That little tongue-in-cheek blurb is signed by Karl Craven, the narrator and main character of this novel. His attitude toward women sucks -- he is the poster boy (and quite possibly king) of misogynists everywhere. Ex-football player and now PI,  the only thing going for this fictional jerk in my opinion is that he was a fervent reader of Black Mask magazine. His creator was evidently a reader of Dashiell Hammett -- if you read Hammett's The Dain Curse, you'll notice that there's a beyond-huge similarity between the two books.  Both (although Hammett's was first, obviously) take the reader on a wild ride centered around an odd religious cult -- here it is the titular Solomon's Vineyard taking center stage, a "religious colony," where they "raise grapes and hell."  Craven's rolled into the corrupt little burg of Paulton to meet up with his partner, Oke Johnson ("a smart Swede", the only smart one I ever saw"), who is there trying to convince their client's niece to leave Solomon's Vineyard and return home.  A lot of money is riding on their success, so when Johnson turns up dead, Craven has to try to get the girl out of there by himself.  But he also wants to nail the people who killed Johnson. And that is not going to be easy, by any stretch.  He makes enemies of the town tough guy pretty much the minute he hits town by bedding his girlfriend Ginger; his real interest though lies in "The Princess," who is "the head of the women" up at the Vineyard.  Craven noticed her the minute he got into town:

"From the way her buttocks looked under the black silk dress, I knew she'd be good in bed." 

and then of course, his eyes move further up:

"She had gold-blonde hair, and curves, and breasts the size of Cuban pineapples."

Ick.

Then in a scene highly reminiscent of Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice, when Craven finally gets the blonde, he's surprised when he discovers that not only is she willing, but that she likes it rough, telling him

"Hit me!" after she slaps him and then beats him with her fists.

[As a sidebar, I've just finished Cain's novel -- and the first physical scene between Frank and Cora is her telling Frank to bite her.]

 It gets pretty out there sometimes, not just in terms of the masochistic sex but also in what's really going on in the town and more importantly, up at the Vineyard.  But to get through it, you absolutely have to leave whatever amount of  PC-ness and modern sensitivities at the door. It's not for the faint of heart -- in this book misogyny and racism rule the day.   If you're a plot-based crime reader, you'll also notice that this book starts moving into the incredulity zone pretty quickly and just sort of hangs there like an inversion layer over the LA basin until the ending.

Solomon's Vineyard is likely the most hardboiled (and icky) novel I've ever read and I'm hoping, judging from the short preface,  is that it's meant to be kind of a wisecracking, skewering take of that genre especially since it's pretty obvious that Latimer sort of "borrowed" elements from at least two other books I've read.  All in all while I hated the main character, I did enjoy the novel.  Once you pick it up, you cannot put it down. It actually scares me that I just said that.

*back to the past, #16: The Bus Station Murders, by Louisa Revell

Macmillan, 1947
183 pp

hardcover

<==  The very first thing you might notice about this book is its ugly cover. When you compare it to this UK paperback edition,

you really notice how unappealing it is.  Or if you look at  this one,

I can definitely claim to have the ugliest edition of the bunch.  Oh well. I'm not one to judge a book by its cover, but jeez -- for a first edition, you'd have thought that the publishers would have made it a bit more exciting to the eye.

As usual, first it's all about the author.  Louisa Revell is the pseudonym of Ellen Hart Smith who, aside from her career as a mystery novelist, also wrote a famous biography of Charles Carroll  called Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence.   Strangely enough, finding biographical information about Ellen Hart Smith isn't that easy, but I'll certainly keep looking. All I know for sure is that she died in 1985 and that as Louisa Revell, she has seven mystery books to her credit, all featuring retired Latin teacher Julia Tyler from Rossville, Virginia as the main character:

The Bus Station Murders (1947)

No Pockets in Shrouds (1948)

A Silver Spade (1950)

The Kindest Use a Knife (1952)

The Men With Three Eyes (1955)

See Rome and Die (1957)

A Party for the Shooting (1960)

The crimes in this series take place where ever Miss Julia goes on vacation.  She's 67 years old, and is a huge fan of murder mysteries, as evidenced by her mention of such authors as Mignon Eberhart, Agatha Christie, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Ngaio Marsh, Leslie Ford (who I'll now add to my list of obscure women crime writers to find), and I know there are more.  Because she's such a constant reader of mystery novels, she has a tendency to want to do some sleuthing on her own, and we get to see her in action in this book. She is, in fact, on the scene when the first murder occurs, on the very bus taking her to her destination. As they reach the Annapolis bus station, the small group passengers begin to disembark, passing a "gray-haired woman" who seems to be sound asleep.  Julia's seatmate wonders out loud how anyone could possibly sleep through all the noise, but it soon becomes obvious:

"The reason was, of course, that the woman was dead,"

the weapon a silver knitting needle.  While Julia isn't too keen on getting involved in this particular case, she does a 180 when she realizes that the policeman in charge is one of her former students.  He encourages her help, noting that he's counting on her "to be another Miss Marple or Miss Silver."

Between the two of them, they discover that half  of the people on the bus had motive enough for wanting the woman dead; now they just have to figure out who was actually responsible. They have to hurry though, because while they're collaborating, more people are being murdered.

While Miss Julia is definitely enough of a quirky character to make this book worthwhile, the setting is also quite interesting and worthy of mention. Annapolis is a very Navy town but at the same time, there are a number of people who are interested in preserving its colonial character. The author is obviously quite familiar with Annapolis, and is able to describe some of its more run-down areas just as well as several of its famous houses and buildings complete with histories.  The local chapter of the DAR is well attended, and there are different historical and building-preservation groups one can join as well.  On the Navy end of it, she describes the students who come out of Annapolis as being "trained technically and trained socially and gentlemen (sic) by Act of Congress..."   The Navy aspects of the town filter down into social circles as well -- the author describes a a strict social hierarchy based on rank not just among officers but among their wives and the "Navy etiquette" that exists within them.   Since this book is set during wartime, she also depicts several of her female characters as sewing for the Red Cross, putting up with shortages, etc.  But beyond all of that, there is also an interesting look at the mental health issues of returning soldiers that still rings true nearly 70 years after this book was written.

Although Miss Julia can slip into various social groups in her little-old-lady persona, the book doesn't end up becoming just another Jane Marple-type mystery at all.  Miss Julia speaks her mind about everything and everyone and can be rather feisty when crossed.  Will I read another book to see where murder follows her again? Highly likely -- I rather like this character but even more, I enjoy the author's insights about the town, about the people, and about people dealing with wartime issues.  Very much worth the read.

back to the past #15: The Fifth Dagger, by Dorothy Quick

1947
Charles Scribner's Sons
202 pp

hardcover

"She always got what she wanted, but when she had it, she destroyed it." 

The Fifth Dagger is the first full-length mystery novel by this author, who is more well known for her poetry and short stories (including weird tales). Personally speaking, I wasn't awed by this book, which was kind of silly in the long run and chock full of melodrama.    But Dorothy Quick isn't that well known for her novel -- her major  claim to fame is in her relationship with Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain. She chronicled her experiences in a book called Mark Twain and Me (1961), which 30 years later would become a Disney TV movie of the same title.

Born in Brooklyn in 1896, Dorothy Quick met Mark Twain at the age of 11 while returning from Europe during an Atlantic crossing.  According to one obituary, she recognized him "by his wavy hair and white suit," and  "she walked around and around the deck, passing very slowly by his chair each time, until he finally came over and introduced himself."  Quick herself wrote in 1954 that "It was the beginning of a friendship that was to last until the very day of his death."  When I read this, I'm thinking, now how often does that happen, until another article pointed out that Twain had a "hobby" of "collecting" young girls as little friends.  According to that article, Twain is reputed as saying in 1908 that

“… As for me, I collect pets: young girls — girls from ten to sixteen years old; girls who are pretty and sweet and naive and innocent — dear young creatures to whom life is a perfect joy and to whom it has brought no wounds, no bitterness, and few tears.”

Just as an FYI, the article also cautions the reader that while this may sound creepy nowadays, the girls in question were part of his Aquarium Club; collectively they were known as Angel Fish and were properly chaperoned at all times. But I don't know...there's just something about an old guy wanting to be around young girls that's just sort of bizarre to me. But I digress. Quick split her adult time between New York City and East Hampton; she married in 1925 but continued to write under her maiden name. She died in 1962.

the author with Mark Twain

***

The Fifth Dagger begins with the newly-married Diana Blakely (the narrator of this story), who has just recently tied the knot with psychiatrist Allen Blakely. As  the story opens she is being "introduced" to "Boston society" at a charity ball. Out of nowhere, in walks the beautiful Honora Davenport, one of  the Boston Davenports, and it becomes apparent to Diana that Honora and Allen have a history that he's sort of forgotten to tell her about.  He rectifies the situation later that night, but only after Honora slaps her and after someone shoots at the newlyweds as they're getting in their car to leave.  He reveals that Honora is suffering from some strain of inherited madness, and that he was one of the doctors helping her before she went a little psycho and fixated on him as a potential husband.  Despite Honora's family physician telling Allen he should marry her to help her with her illness, Allen's not having any part of the plan, and has to go into hiding until Honora gives up looking for him and moves to California.   She may have given up trying to find him, but it's clear to everyone that she hasn't given up on her fixation with Allen, even though in the meantime she married an actor from Hollywood.  Although his account quells Diana's jealousy (I did say melodrama, right?) she is surprised one day to find the Davenports (Honora and her brother Bruce) in her living room, inviting her to attend a Cotillion that Honora is throwing at her family home.  She's even more surprised to find herself accepting the invitation, but she and Allen trot off to the party.  Bad decision, Diana. Honora throws herself at Allen and monopolizes him the entire evening, and they pair up again on the dance floor where Diana notices that they're dancing too closely together.  While she's watching her husband with the woman who's obsessed with him, Honora suddenly falls in what appears to be a faint.  But as it turns out, she's been stabbed in the back -- and the murder weapon turns out to be one of the daggers given away as party favors.  The police arrive, and it isn't long until Allen becomes the chief suspect, but the Lieutenant asks for Diana's help with the case -- it seems that not too much earlier than this, she had solved the murder of her sister and has made a name for herself among law enforcement.  Of course Diana will do anything to help clear Allen, but things progressively get worse for both of them as the long night continues on.

The first word that comes to mind when considering the novel as a whole is "cockamamie," as in ridiculous, incredible and implausible. I have several reasons for making this call, but nothing beats this one:   the night that Honora is killed at her family home, Diana and Allen stay overnight there in a guest room, and Diana even borrows a new nightgown from the dead woman's wardrobe.  There's more, but it has to do with the solution to the murder so I can't go there. Trust me -- if you ever decide to read this book, you'll do more than a few eyerolls as you move through the story, especially as it winds down to its denouement. Speaking of which, Dorothy really let me down here since she made it so easy to pinpoint the murderer well before we're anywhere close to where that should happen.  And I do mean easy. Sheesh -- she should have illustrated the particular page with a red neon arrow flashing over the murderer's head!

As it stands, though, I did find another crime-writing woman author I'd never heard of before, so that's a plus, and I also discovered that Mark Twain had a thing for young girls. Now THAT is something I need to read more about.  I'd say if you're truly truly a diehard vintage-crime addict like I am, The Fifth Dagger is worth a shot but do keep in mind that it's a wee bit on the odd side.

back to the past #14: Murder in the Mist, by Zelda Popkin

00735103909
Replica Books, 2001
originally published 1940, Lippincott
286 pp
paperback


"A country inn is a percolator. News seeps, simmers, and bubbles."

 Published in 1940, Murder in the Mist is a true whodunit in every sense of the word.  In fact, it is one of the best whodunits I've read in a very long time. No angsty detectives, no gratuitous sex or off-the-wall violence in this one -- it is pure mystery-reading pleasure.  As you might be able to surmise from my photo, Murder in the Mist also makes for great by-the-pool reading.

A brief look at the author.
Born in 1898 in Brooklyn,   Zelda Popkin's (née Feinberg) parents were Jewish immigrants who had originally named her Jenny, a name she herself changed.   By the time she was sixteen, she had a job with the local newspaper in Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania. Eventually Zelda moved to New York where she met her husband Louis; together they started a public relations firm, one of the first in the city.  Sadly, Louis died in 1943, and Zelda decided to turn her hand to writing, closing the PR firm and settling into life as an author.  Between 1945 and 1946, she was sent by the Red Cross to take a tour of the displaced-persons camps that were home to refugees from the Holocaust.  According to her grandson, Professor Jeremy D. Popkin of the University of Kentucky writing about Zelda in an introduction to her novel Quiet Street,

"What she saw 'shocked her into Zionism', as she later told an interviewer, and drove her for the first time to put a Jewish theme and Jewish characters in a central place in her writing."

She had a  had a long and prolific writing career that began in 1938 with the first book in the Mary Carner mystery series, Death Wears a White Gardenia.  She would go on to write four more books in this series, of which Murder in the Mist is the second entry. Another crime novel, So Much Blood (1944),  was written as a standalone, bringing her mystery/detective novels to a total of six.  [You can find a complete list of Popkin's work here.]   She didn't limit herself to crime writing, though -- she has several fiction novels to her credit as well:  The Journey Home (1945), Small Victory (1947), Walk Through the Valley (1949), and Quiet Street (1951), Herman Had Two Daughters (1968), A Death of Innocence (1971), and Dear Once (1975).   She also penned an autobiographical work called Open Every Door (1956), which, according to her grandson, started out as a biography of Zelda's husband Louis but 

"developed instead into the author’s autobiography, recounting her childhood in small towns in New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania and her subsequent career."

 Mrs. Popkin died in 1983.  Although she may be a forgotten, obscure crime writer, her novels were very popular -- she won the National Jewish Book Award in 1952 for her Quiet Street, and her A Death of Innocence was made into a TV movie in 1971.  I may have to read more about this woman in the future; I'll certainly be trying to get my hands on her detective novels.

and now, back to the show... The Rockledge in Laneport, Massachusetts is home to summer visitors, built while Chester A. Arthur was in the White House. This seaside inn is run by Miss Dow and Miss Moffett, "plump, amiable spinsters, pompadoured, energetic..." who pride themselves in making sure they allow only the right sort of people in their establishment.  On one typical evening, a bridge game is interrupted by the entrance of a new arrival, a beautiful woman wearing red sandals. This is Nola Spain, a model who has come to Laneport with her little daughter.  She asks for directions to a local art gallery and sets off to her destination.  Later, two other guests arrive who are there on their honeymoon after just being married that morning.  On their way to Kennebunkport, they had missed a turn in the fog, ending up instead in Laneport.  Late that night, actually in the wee hours of the morning the next day, bride Mary is awakened by strange noises and the touch of a hand which belongs to the small daughter of Nola Spain. It seems that she can't wake up her mommy and is afraid because she saw "a witch" in the room.  Mary, who is none other than the renowned Mary Carney, New York City store detective, goes into Nola's room and finds the model  laying in bed with the dagger-like object still stuck in her after someone had killed her.  Mary calls the police but the Chief is so inept that he ruins the crime scene, making Mary see red.  Eventually the bona fides of both her husband Chris and herself are established, and Mary is asked by the local DA to take on the case.  With very little to go on, including the murder weapon, the little girl's description of "the witch" that came into her mother's room and a strange footprint that resembles a cloven hoof, Mary has her work cut out for her.

While this may sound like an average whodunit story, it is actually anything but.  Popkin has a deft touch at writing people, and the guests at the Rockledge (as well as the full-time residents of Laneport)  all have interesting backstories and many of them are hiding secrets behind their closed doors that they will go to great lengths to protect. As the author notes at the beginning of Chapter VIII,

"A country inn is a percolator. News seeps, simmers, and bubbles"

and nowhere is this more true than at the Rockledge. Its proprietors and some of the guests of the inn are very into "types" -- after Nola's murder, a Miss Templeton offers the opinion that "she was a very low type," and that Nola brought her death on herself:

"Only certain types of people get themselves murdered. People who have done something which makes other people want to kill them. People like ourselves, for instance, our sort of people never gets murdered." 

There is also a difference in the minds of the locals between the full-time residents and "the summer people," and commentary about small-town politics and small-town life. As just one example, the "Sabbath peace" tradition that is observed by everyone is noted as being

"centuries old, not to be thrust aside by the transitory turmoils of summer people."

Mary and husband Chris steal the show in this novel with their particular brand of sarcastic, snarky humor, and as soon as I can track down the other novels in this series,  I'll be back for more.

Murder in the Mist is an absolute gem and a delightful summery read.  Even though it was published back in 1940, its age should not deter any true-blue dedicated mystery fans from reading and enjoying this book. I absolutely loved it and would definitely say that if you're lucky enough to get your hands on a copy, you should go lay out in your lounger chair and let it carry you away for an afternoon or two. I definitely recommend it for people like myself who LOVE vintage crime and who are looking for something very different to add to their repertoire.

back to the past: Motto for Murder, by Merlda Mace (1943)

Julian Messner, Inc., 1943
213 pp
hardcover

Merlda Mace is the pseudonym of Madeleine McCoy, but beyond that, I can find very little in the way of information about this writer.  I tried obituaries, the usual mystery novelist research sources, but found nothing. Aside from this book, she's also written Blondes Don't Cry (1945)  and Headlong for Murder (1943), both of which feature  "nice girl, with a certain stubborness and inquistiveness" Christine Anderson as the main character.  Motto for Murder was published in 1943 as well; my copy has a "Buy War Stamps and Bonds" message on the back cover. I love these old books -- even if the story isn't so great, having these old tomes in my hands complete with musty smell is heavenly.  

With Motto For Murder, we return to the "country house", closed-circle mystery format, only this time the house is in America, rather than the English countryside.  The setting is just ripe for murder: the house is miles away from anywhere, and there's a snowstorm that turns into a raging blizzard trapping everyone inside.  

The main character in this story is a man who works for the investment firm of Barnes and Gleason as a special investigator.  As Tip O'Neil (whose name actually made me laugh out loud) enters his office one morning, he discovers that he is about to spend his Christmas holiday playing nursemaid for another member of the firm, Jay Hammond.  Hammond, it seems, had "appropriated" around ten grand or so of the firm's money, thinking he'd pay it back before anyone noticed.  Unfortunately for him, the auditors found out, and Hammond now has until the following Tuesday to replace the money. If he fails, he's looking at five to ten in the big house.  His plan: having been invited (along with his two siblings) to his grandmother's Adirondack home called Pine Acres, he will try to convince the old dowager (Marie Hammond) that he really really needs his share of an inheritance left under her control.  The inheritance, to be divided among the three children, was left to them by their grandfather Hammond, to be given to them whenever she felt they were capable of managing their money.  In short, this particularly nasty woman has continued to withhold any money to which the Hammonds were entitled, all in the name of control.   Jay is constantly drunk as a means of trying to cope with his sleazy,  "musical comedy actress" demanding, money-grubbing wife Ivy; he can't tell his grandmother the real reason he needs the money or he'll be disinherited. Tip is to accompany Jay to Pine Acres as a "business friend," to ensure that Jay isn't tempted to do a runner to Canada.  For Tip, it's a Christmas holiday unlike any other -- first, the grandmother (who stays in her room and thumps the floor with a cane to get attention) shares her plans to disinherit the lot of them, changing her will so that they never see a penny; second, one killing turns into multiple murders with everyone stuck in the house, unable to leave.  It's a country home filled with suspects, and since Tip has no emotional or financial interests connected with the family, he takes it upon himself to play detective.

If there's a chance that anyone plans to take on this novel, just so you know, Motto For Murder really shows its age. As just one example, the housekeeper's daughter Molly is banking on a Hollywood career as an ice-skating actress, a la Sonja Henie, to whom she is compared in this book (and who I had to look up because I had no clue as to who she was).  The title itself comes from a Christmas tradition at chez Hammond where "motto candies" are handed out and put on the tree -- somewhat like a confectioner's version of fortune cookies with couplets rather than the standard fake Confucian aphorisms we get these days.  The solution, sadly, is pretty obvious and narrator Tip is a pretty crappy detective, whose one major flash of insight is accompanied by a rather excited "Jumping grasshoppers!,"   but I have to say that  I love this sort of thing.  Despite all of its flaws, it's still a fun little read, and I'm happy to have this book as part of my crime library.  Absolutely perfect for cozy readers and golden-age mystery fans; it may not be the best in the bunch, but I'll happily take on a country-home murder mystery any time.

David Goodis: Nightfall

0679734740
Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 1991
originally published 1947
139 pp

paperback

"The road he had selected could be the wrong road. Because there were many other roads. The road he had selected could be the wrong road. And it was as though he was in a car and he was going up the that road, and the farther he traveled,  the more he worried about it being the wrong road."  -- 94


A good Samaritan finds himself locked in a nightmare in this book, the third novel by crime author David Goodis.  He is a man who has experienced the grave misfortune to have been exactly in the wrong place at exactly the wrong time.  He is also the subject of a three-city manhunt, wanted for murder and for bank robbery, and according to the evidence, is guilty of both crimes.  But Nightfall goes much deeper, examining two men who ponder the roads they've taken in their lives.

As the novel opens, it's a "hot sticky" summer night in Manhattan, and Jim Vanning, a WWII Navy veteran, now working as a freelance commercial artist at his home, is feeling the heat. As he stares out his window, "looking upon Greenwich Village, seeing the lights, hearing noises in the streets," he decides that he'd really like to get out and go talk to somebody. But he's also afraid to leave his place -- he knows for a certainty that if he goes out, "something was going to happen tonight."  His gut sense of danger proves correct -- a chance meeting with a young woman in a Village bar leads him right into the path of three very nasty characters who want something they think he has. The problem is, he doesn't have it, and has no idea where it might be, since his mind only sends him fleeting images of that part of his past.  Even when they rough him up and some memories start to surface, he still can't remember where the object is.

Recently discharged from the Navy, Jim Vanning decides that he's going to take some time before going to Chicago, where a job awaits him along with his dreams of someday getting married and starting a family. First though, he's going to go to Denver, and sets off from Los Angeles in his newly-bought convertible.  On the road, he comes across a station wagon that has just been in an accident, and being the good Samaritan that he is, he gets out to try to help. That is when Vanning's living nightmare begins, one that culminates in his life on the run.   He considers going to the police, but plays scenarios of being given the third degree over and over in his head and realizes that this could quite possibly make things much worse for himself and kill his dreams of a decent future.

While Vanning manages to escape his captors, he is still unknowingly under surveillance by the police.  He is being carefully and closely watched by Fraser, a family man whose career is riding on Vanning's successful apprehension. But Fraser is also trapped in his own way -- he has been watching Vanning for some time, feels like he knows him like the back of his hand , and although under pressure from the police in three different cities, he finds it incredibly difficult to believe that Vanning is capable of committing the crimes for which he's been accused. As he notes, "Talk about a paradox, this one takes the cake."  And then there's the small matter of the incontrovertible evidence which says that Vanning must have done it...

As the two storylines slowly come together, there is, of course, the question of the truth, but the true focus is on Fraser and Vanning, who just may epitomize the proverbial both sides of the same coin.

This is only the second Goodis novel I've read after Night Squad, but in comparison to other noir novels I've enjoyed, there seems to be something missing in the depth zone.  When Goodis is inside the heads of Vanning and Fraser, the story is engaging, but as the story starts moving ever outward to the love interest, or to the violence of the three criminals, something seems to get lost here.  It's not as dark as I would have expected given the author's reputation.  That's not to say I didn't like it, and other Goodis fans may feel free to disagree, but it just didn't pack the gutpunch I'd expected.

One more thing, which is more personal: I wrecked my Vintage copy (that I'll have to replace now) by slicing my thumb on a fan blade and picking up the book right after. I discovered only then that I was bleeding all over pages 62 and 63:

I was more upset at ruining my book than I was at all of the blood, but at least it's appropriate to reading crime fiction!

another book nobody's ever heard of: Death and the Pleasant Voices, by Mary Fitt

0486246035
Dover, 1984
originally published 1946, by Michael Joseph, Ltd.
208 pp

paperback

Now, here's something entirely different -- we're still in the English country house murder phase with Death and the Pleasant Voices, but at least it's a new take on an old theme.

 This book was written by Mary Fitt, AKA Stuart Mary Wick, both pseudonyms of Kathleen Freeman (1897-1959), a classicist who, in a field that belonged more or less to men, "used her excellent brain to make the Greeks intelligible and accessible to every man and woman in the English-speaking world."  When she wasn't working for the war effort, she turned her hand to writing mystery novels as well as ghost stories, some of them featured in The Second Ghost Book and The Third Ghost Book, anthologies edited by none other than Lady Cynthia Asquith, whose own ghostly tales are often featured in old ghost-story anthologies. Death and the Pleasant Voices is her tenth novel out of nineteen to feature Superintendent Mallett, who plays only a small role here.

Death and the Pleasant Voices itself starts out like a ghost story, in that the narrator of this tale is driving through a blinding rainstorm, complete with lightning. Coming to a fork in the road, he takes the wrong turn and before he can turn around, he discovers he's arrived at a mansion of "dark grey stone."  The door is opened by a manservant, who seemed to expect him, not even asking his name.  He is greeted by a young woman, Ursula Ullstone, who refers to him incorrectly as "Hugo," and introduces him to the others in the room. The narrator is actually Jake Seaborne, and as he proffers his real name, discovers that one of the party knows his brother. This is Sir Frederick Lawton,  a "great surgeon" and Jake's brother's hero.  Jake is also a medical student, now on a short holiday.  As Lawton escorts Jake to another room for a little chat, Jake hears Ursula ask "But where is Hugo?" , a question that will be answered quite shortly upon Hugo's arrival.  It seems that Hugo is the son (via first marriage to a high-caste Indian woman) of the late Mr. Ullstone (the father of Ursula and her twin brother Jim), and up until three weeks prior, no one in the family or in the household had even heard of him.  Strangely though, Hugo is now the owner of  Ullstone Hall, the now-deceased Mr. Ullstone having made him his heir after refusing to ever allow him to come into contact with the rest of the family. Obviously they've never seen Hugo, since they all mistook Jake for their half-brother.  The problem, as so neatly outlined by Sir Frederick, is that

"...all these people who thought themselves securely in possession for the rest of their lives are now going to be dependent upon the caprice of this young man. And as none of them has ever had to earn a living, none of them will have the slightest idea of what to do if Hugo decides that he doesn't want their company." 

In short, the Ullstone family destiny is in the hands of a complete stranger.  Jim and Ursula were left an annuity of three hundred pounds a year, "a sum that to most the inhabitants of this island would seem to give freedom from financial anxiety fro the rest of their lives," but Hugo has the bulk of the estate.  Lawton is there as a "sort of buffer" for Hugo against the family; he must leave and is overjoyed that Jake has arrived, and asks Jake if he wouldn't mind staying until Lawton returns to act in the same role. Because of Jake's connection to Lawton, he agrees -- and ultimately Hugo arrives.  That's when the first hint of trouble raises its head -- and before long, three people will end up dead.

Death and the Pleasant Voices is a novel about people, each with their little secrets and lies they have to maintain -- while the plot is decent enough, the heart of this book exists in its characters.  As an example, Jim and Ursula have  "conditioned" by their upbringing to never have to bother with the mundane task of working to make ends meet; their house guests are sponges who are there for long periods of time, one of them, a physician, has more or less given up on his practice, leaving it in the hands of his locum, for a life of leisure and secret love. The author makes a critical point here that not everything one sees is the way it actually is -- and it is the characters who eventually enliven this theme as the story progresses.   The book also  has a lot to say between the lines -- the author writes about class, about prejudice, about family relationships, about the roles of women and the follies and foibles of love -- but  considering that the book was published in 1946, there's surprisingly very little, in fact nothing, said about the effects of the war that had concluded just a scant year earlier. Frankly, to me, this is quite a surprising omission.  Everyone seems to have gone about his or her business somewhat unscathed after such a horrific war -- there is no rationing, the family still employs servants, and it's almost as if the war danced around this little slice of the English countryside.

It's a good enough little read; coming in at just over 200 pages, it will definitely give a crime reader a few good hours of entertainment, and I can attest to the fact that there is a true puzzle to solve here. I thought I had guessed the culprit by page 80 and as things progressed, I realized not only was I wrong, but my choice was not even close.  As usual though, if it's too easy, it's no fun.  Definitely a keeper, Death and the Pleasant Voices is book #6 in my ongoing obscure women crime writers project, and I would recommend it.