Back from hiatus and moving right along. Dead Center, by Mary Collins

 

978888011708

Stark House, 2025

202 pp

paperback

It's been a long and very busy summer, filled with busy hours in  preparation for selling our house and moving out of state.  We're leaving the tropics and heading to the Blue Ridge Mountains, where for part of the year anyway I can be happiest in my winter clothes.   And, while I've not stopped reading completely, the frequency has dwindled over the last few months while we've been more than a bit on the stressed side.  Things are finally starting to get rolling now so we can relax, and that means attacking the stack of books I've been stockpiling over the summer.   Since Stark House has been so incredibly generous, I'll start with their upcoming November release, Dead Center, by Mary Collins from 1942.   Earlier this year I had the pleasure of reading her Sisters of Cain (1943) which was her fourth novel.  Dead Center, according to gadetection , is her second.  

Janet Keith is a well-known San Francisco socialite — the daughter of a wealthy family living in the  “Victorian monstrosity” she calls home on Pacific. But despite the charm of her well-appointed home, Janet much prefers the cramped, slightly shabby office she rents at 706 Montgomery Street, where she’s trying to make her mark as a writer — “one novelette and four quite good short stories” to her name.  The building itself has character to spare. A laundry occupies the first floor, while upstairs a handful of tenants — mostly artists, with two exceptions — work away in their own small studios. Janet’s office in this “dank old tenement” somehow feels more alive to her than her elegant house ever could.  By the end of Chapter Three, we’ve met all of Janet’s fellow tenants, and the author has skillfully planted the seeds of tension among them — rivalries, resentments, jealousies — the kind of atmosphere where a spark could easily set something off. And it does. One of their number, Anne Ehman, a woman known to “stir up trouble everywhere she goes,” turns up dead in the tenants’ shared workroom. Unfortunately for Janet, she’s the one who finds the body the next day while searching for a hammer to hang a picture, in grim fulfillment of her earlier joke that 706 Montgomery “was a perfect setting for murder.” The police think they’ve got their killer, but Janet isn’t so sure. She’s convinced they’ve made a mistake — and she’s determined to prove it.

1942 first edition cover, from Bibliophile.com

While I have to admit I enjoyed Sisters of Cain a bit more, Dead Center was still a thoroughly entertaining read — the kind that sweeps you back to 1940s San Francisco, both in atmosphere and in its sharp social and political observations. As always, I turned to one of my favorite resources, San Francisco Film Locations Then and Now to visually trace Janet’s path through the city. Following her through those streets  makes the book feel that much more alive.  She is an interesting figure: raised in privilege but drawn toward the bohemian world of struggling artists who share her building. As Ashley Lawson notes in her introduction, Janet “moves back and forth between both worlds," but she is never quite fully accepted by her fellow tenants and her family tends to see her as "something of a black sheep."   After the murders (yes, there are more than one)  things get worse on both fronts, with her father insisting on hiring a bodyguard for her, while her friends' distrust is heightened when she offers the police her help.   As she learns more about the other residents of the office block, and as the police seem to be going down the wrong road, she decides that she will have to step up and play detective to find the real answer to the crimes. 

A staple of vintage crime novels: map of 706 Montgomery Street offices; my photo, from the book

I wouldn’t exactly call Janet a “plucky heroine,” but she’s certainly entertaining to watch in action. What’s amusing is that she’s not a particularly skilled detective — the police are usually a step or two ahead of her — yet that’s part of her charm. Her back-and-forth with Spike provides some genuinely funny moments, the kind that lighten the tension just when it’s needed. As for Fitz, her fiancé… well, I have to confess I couldn’t stand him — though that's likely a personal bias.  Overall, Dead Center is a pretty good mystery (I never guessed) and an interesting look at the time period as well as the divisions existing between Janet's two worlds.  

Definitely recommended for readers of American vintage crime as well as for those who have enjoyed Mary Collins' work.  My many thanks to Stark House for my copy of this book and the others I'll be diving into here shortly.  

Crimson Friday, by Dorothy Cameron Disney

  

9798886011463

Stark House, 2025

originally published 1943

242 pp

paperback

(read earlier this month)

Another vacation read, Crimson Friday is the work of author Dorothy Cameron Disney, who published her first novel, Death in the Back Seat in 1936.  Eight more would come along over the next thirteen years including this one in 1943.  I'm quite sorry to say that I've only read one other book by this author, her The 17th Letter, but I do have Death in the Back Seat awaiting my attention on my Kindle.

Al and Janey Blake have left the hustle and bustle of New York City for the small village of Merristone, Connecticut, the site of Al's childhood home.   Al's brother Selby had convinced them to buy an "old New England house" so they've come back to the village awaiting the completion of the remodeling and staying in the home of Al's Aunt Mildred in the meantime. While the issues and the "difficulties with the remodeling venture" were part and parcel of the village gossip, the more pressing business in the local gossip circles was a woman who had moved into the village a year before, known as the "Merristone Enigma."  This is a certain V. Moran, and as Janey, who narrates the story notes, "After a residence of a year, the village had been unable to discover so much as Mrs. Moran's first name. The provocative initial on her mailbox remained unsolved." This is a woman who had two cats that she walked like dogs, and lived with a maid by the name of Hannah, described as "lantern-jawed, bespectacled" who gave people a "cold stare" and was obviously quite deaf, carrying an earphone around with her.  She wore a "dizzying succession of rainbow hues," complete with "floating veils," and Janey's convinced she's sticking to "a single style and a single garish color for each appearance."   A January Friday rolls around, and something unusal happens leaving Janey and Al completely speechless -- while on a walk one day, Hannah stops them to say that Mrs. V. Moran wants them for tea.  Al doesn't want to go at all, and reminds Jane that their family is supposed to be getting together that night so they wouldn't have time anyway, but Hannah finds them at their still-unfinished home and "enforces an acceptance."   So it's off they go, with Al's curiousity piqued now,  and find themselves walking into a true spectacle, highlighted by  Mrs. V. Moran wearing crimson.  As she explains,

"Friday's crimson for me... just as Thursday is yellow. A deep sulphur yellow. Saturday is always green. Sunday's white, of course, and Monday's blue." Electric blue..."

Things get weirder as teatime toddles along, with Mrs. V. Moran making her guests beyond uncomfortable with easy-to-spot lies, tears, "posing and posturing."  Finally, she makes an exit, leaving Al and Jane completely alone, so they go back to Aunt Mildred's for the planned family dinner.  For some reason, that goes south as well, so Alan takes everyone back to their property to see what's been happening there.  The architect decides to start with the stairway, using a flashlight to illuminate the scene.  But instead of seeing what he wants them to see, the light picks up the dead body of Hannah, who has a crushed skull, the result of having been beaten to death.  Worse, no one can find Mrs. V. Moran -- has something happened to her as well?   

Map in Dell 1946 edition, from Abebooks

Clues start piling up that link a specific person (who is not talking) to Hannah's death, but wait -- as everyone will soon begin to realize, nothing is actually as it seems in this murder.  I sort of guessed a small part of what was going on, but as for the larger picture, I had no clue.   The author is quite clever  with her plotting, establishing a set of mysterious circumstances in which a particular clue (or set of clues) lead to another plotline that then sheds an entirely new light on the story.  To say any more would be criminal, except that the early mention of "Pandora's Box" is not at all out of line in this mystery, and that the title doesn't really make sense until everything is revealed, at which point you'll probably find yourself (as I did) doing a big "aha!"  Another factor at play here is just how very much the family suffers as the case drags on, with the anxiety being writ large throughout.  The only issue I have is that while  I don't generally say this about older mystery stories, the motives behind certain actions (or inactions) in this book seem a bit dated (and to be honest, a bit on the melodramatic side) in our own time, but overall,  Crimson Friday gave me a good run at one of my favorite pastimes, armchair sleuthing, and was very, very entertaining.   I can certainly recommend this book to fellow readers of vintage crime.  And while I'm here, I hope Stark House continues to reprint Disney's work -- these two that I've read have been well worth every second of time I've invested.  

Thanks to Stark House as always for my advanced reading copy!  

Night Cry, by William L. Stuart

 

9798886011531

Stark House Press, 2025

originally published 1948

162 pp

paperback

(read in April)

A few weeks ago I turned on my television and an ad/small clip for the 1950 movie Where the Sidewalk Ends popped up on the home page for Amazon Fire TV (I know, but I really hate cable).   I clicked on the "add to my list" button, thinking it looked like a good noir film to hold on to for a late night insomnia viewing.  So, imagine my surprise when this book arrived the next day with its photo of Dana Andrews on the cover.   I took it as kismet and read the novel right away.    And before I get into this post, my many thanks to the Stark House Press people -- they are just terrific. 

Lieutenant Mark Deglin is still angry over missing out on a promotion he thought he'd had in the bag.   He believes that he's "one of the best detectives on the force," but as his captain notes, "he doesn't do things by the book all the time" while on the job.  He's still carrying that chip on his shoulders the night he is called out to a gambling club to investigate a murder.  The victim had been in a fight earlier that evening with another gambler by the name of Kendall Paine, a war-weary, decorated  vet who had since been thrown out of the club, so he quickly becomes the prime suspect.   Deglin goes to Paine's apartment where he starts asking questions, but the situation changes for the worse when the two men get into a physical fight and Paine falls down dead.   When Deglin calls in, he learns that the murder has been solved and that Paine wasn't the killer.  Instead of copping to the truth of what happened, he goes into cover-up mode, ditching the body while leaving clues that suggest that Paine had left town.  Things might have worked out at this point, but the real complications set in when Deglin is told that  although he's no longer wanted for murder, the DA really needs Paine as a witness in the murder case, and Deglin's captain assigns him the task of finding him. Deglin's web of deceit becomes even more tangled when Paine's girlfriend, Morgan Taylor, refuses to believe that Paine would just up and leave and a reporter named Smith offers to help her find him.  To add yet another twist to the knife, some secrets refuse to stay buried, backing Deglin into a tight  corner while the walls close in. 

first edition, Dial, 1948 (from Abebooks)

Aside from the taut story here, Night Cry is a compelling psychological portrait of a man battling his inner demons as the weight of his actions comes down on him. It also asks the question of what happens when the badge becomes worthless and a cop is left to ponder what's left. It is a truly fine crime novel, with darkness gripping the narrative tightly, and with noir vibes seeping deep into all facets of this book. It is gritty, moody and emotionally charged, and I give the author a lot of credit for building this story in well under two hundred pages.  From the outset, the author crafted an atmosphere that not only doesn't quit, but stays with you long after you've finished reading.    I can most highly recommend this book, especially to readers of vintage noir, and to crime aficionados who don't mind the darkness.

from posteritati

The novel is the latest in Stark House's Film Noir Classics series, so after the book comes the film viewing.  The  1950 film, scripted by Ben Hecht and directed by Otto Preminger, is gripping in its own right and well worth the watch, although I have to admit my preference for the novel.   In the movie Deglin becomes Mark Dixon;  Dana Andrews really throws himself into the role, slipping into Dixon's skin and taking on the moral weight that drags this man down as he finds himself ever so slowly hemmed in by his actions.  Gene Tierney's Morgan Taylor changes in the movie novel from a socialite to the daughter of a cabbie who models designer gowns for a living.  The story goes well during  the first half of the film, pacing and plot on point, but starts to lose its intensity as Dixon and Taylor find themselves falling in love.   And while the novel's ending wasn't exactly the best, the film's ending was just disappointing.   But as I say, it's still well worth watching. 

Bottom line: loved the book, movie was good but not a) great or b) as well done as the novel. 

The Sister of Cain, by Mary Collins

 

97988866011296

Stark House Press, 2025

originally published 1943, Charles Scribner's Sons

196 pp

paperback

One of my greatest mystery-reading pleasures is discovering authors whose work has been around for a long time but who are new to me, especially women writers I've never heard of before.   I've found that joy here with The Sister of Cain, published by Stark House last month, by Mary Collins (1908 - 1979).

About this author I can find very little online, except for the brief blurb at the Stark House website, which tells me that she was born in St. Louis, MO, then moved along with her family to Berkeley at age three where later she would attend the University of California. She wrote "a few fiction stories" for a magazine called The Passing Show, eventually turning to mystery writing, with six novels written between 1941 and 1949: The Fog Comes, Dead Center, Only the Good (also reprinted by Stark House 2022),  The Sister of Cain, Death Warmed Over, and Dog Eat Dog.  It seems that she then "retired from writing" to give her time to her family.  There is also an archive of materials covering her mystery-writing years and a few years beyond, containing "correspondence, contracts, manuscripts, notes and scrapbooks, 1941-1953," for a scholarly someone who might want to delve further into her life.  

On to the novel now, which according to Curtis Evans in his introduction to this book, received a "rave review" from Dorothy B. Hughes and was also broadcast on radio in 1944 as part of  the Molle Mystery Theater Program  from NBC (I've just spent a couple of hours scanning that page and being completely awed at all the titles I know).   Hilda Moreau has arrived in San Francisco at the home of her husband David's family; more specifically, his six sisters Pauline, Sophie, Anne, Elise,  Marthe and Rose, varying in age from 51 to 20, Pauline being the eldest.  There was another sister, Berthe, but she had died fifteen years earlier.  David and Hilda had met while he was teaching and she, a teacher, had been attending a summer session where he worked.  They married just shortly after Pearl Harbor, and because of his Navy reserve commission, he had been called up for active duty, and the last time she'd seen him was a month earlier, in New York.   She has come to his family home while he was serving in the Atlantic because she had no family to speak of; the plan was that Hilda would find an apartment but still enjoy the security of being looked after by his sisters.  The Moreaus lived in "the oldest house still standing in San Francisco ... built in 1852," which Curtis Evans notes is based on a "real city mansion, built in 1852 and known locally as Humphrey's Circle." 

The Humphrey House, from Library of Congress

 Oh. And Hilda is pregnant, but neither she nor David have told anyone yet. 

 Original hardcover edition, from Abebooks

Instead of a warm and loving family, Hilda discovers the opposite.  Pauline, it seems, has complete control over the sisters, financially and otherwise, to the point where she will not allow any of the sisters to marry.  Hilda realizes early on how this woman has created an atmosphere of "fear and bitterness and hatred."  There is also a maid, Nanette, who has been with Pauline since she was born, who is as surly toward the sisters as can be.    Hilda quickly gets down to brass tacks with Pauline regarding her husband's portion of the family trust, but Pauline has other ideas.  It seems that the trust can only be broken by marriage, and since David is now married, all of the siblings should legally be able to come into their share.  Pauline refuses to speak to her about it, so Hilda tells her that she has no other choice but to use her power of attorney and to speak to a lawyer.  This situation doesn't sit well with Pauline, who has control over the trust.  Unfortunately, Hilda is pretty much stuck at the house for the time being, since housing is nearly impossible while the city was filled with "service people, shipyard workers, and government employees."  It isn't too long, however, until murder also finds its way into the house when Pauline is found dead, killed with a knife from the kitchen.  As one of the sisters says, "there's no grief in this house" over her death, since they'd all "wished her dead a thousand times."  But, as the detective says to Pauline, 

"The other people in this house have had their motives for a good many years, Mrs. Moreau. The fun didn't start until after you got here, did it?" 

While the police focus on Hilda as the possible murderer, and as long-buried secrets come cascading out that provide definite reasons for wanting Pauline dead,  Hilda does all that she can to find the real culprit in the house, but it won't be too long before there are more deaths and she finds herself in serious danger.

What a fun ride this novel is, and how incredibly hard it was to have to put this book down when I had to!  The gothic vibe is pretty strong here with Collins doing a great job establishing a dark, tension-filled atmosphere almost immediately.  While Pauline is a great villain for reasons I won't go into, it's really all eyes on Hilda here, who is an extremely strong woman, more than capable of taking care of herself and not averse to personal risk in her quest to clear her name and to bring the real murderer to justice.  I will say that it was rather cringeworthy to see her light up while pregnant, but ah, the things no one really knew back then.  The historian in me was also interested in her descriptions of wartime San Francisco which after all, she knew very well.  

I tried so hard to guess the killer's identity and absolutely couldn't, even as the number of people started dwindling, because there were just too many great suspects.    I consider that a true plus -- Collins really didn't make it easy.  I can certainly and highly recommend The Sister of Cain for vintage crime readers and for mystery lovers like myself who enjoy finding new and somewhat obscure writers from the past.  

As always, my many thanks to Stark House for my copy (these guys are so great), and I'm sure I'll be moseying over there to pick up a copy of another Mary Collins novel.  

One more thing: there is an amazing blogger by the name of Tim Welsh who has not only read this book, but has posted photos of the various locations described by the author.  Don't go there until you've read The Sister of Cain, but his blog, San Francisco Film Locations Then & Now: A Then and now Tour and History of San Francisco Through Films and Photography is well worth the visit when you've finished.  I bookmarked it so I'm sure I'll be spending time going through that rabbithole in the near future. 

The Peepshow: The Murders at 10 Rillington Place, by Kate Summerscale

 

... "everything in life is but a peep-show"

9781526660480

Bloomsbury Circus, 2024

300 pp

hardcover

Before I get started here, let me just say that the entire month of February was just horrible.  My very sweet spouse had three  surgeries during that time, one of which was unexpected and directly on the back of the second after his blood pressure dropped so low during recovery that I actually thought that this was it.  The good news is that it wasn't his time, apparently, and little by little as he's been regaining his physical strength, I've been working on getting back to some semblance of mental normalcy, not always an easy feat.   But here I am again after this sort of forced hiatus, ready to get on. 

Most of my reading was done via audiobooks for passing long, quiet hours, but I did manage to get my hands on a physical copy of Kate Summerscale's newest book, The Peepshow: The Murders at 10 Rillington Place.  I bought mine at Blackwell's (postage to US included in price!) because the US release isn't until May 6th and I didn't want to wait.  I've read several of this author's books, including The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher (which I loved), The Wicked Boy (which I didn't love) and The Haunting of Alma Fielding, and I think with The Peepshow she brings much less of the extraneous detail she usually brings to her books for the reader to wade through, and more of an opportunity to draw connections between that time and our own.  It is both a true crime sort of read and a social history and really, I believe it is her best work yet. 

You can look up 10 Rillington Place online if you've not heard of the crimes that occurred there, but in a nutshell, it was the address in the Notting Hill section of North London that was the home of John Christie, who lived there with his wife Ethel in the ground-floor flat.  In 1948, Timothy Evans and his wife Beryl arrived at this place and lived upstairs from the Christies, and in 1949, Beryl and their baby Geraldine were killed, with Timothy being charged with and tried for the baby's death.  John Christie served as a witness against Evans at his 1950 trial, and Evans was found guilty of and hanged for the crime.   Later, after Ethel had supposedly gone off without him, Christie eventually left the flat, another tenant who had permission from the landlord to use the Christie kitchen started cleaning and found a space to hang a shelf for his radio.  He discovered that the wall where he wanted to put his shelf was hollow, and there he discovered a hidden cupboard. When he used a light to look inside, he made the horrific discovery of what seemed to be the body of a naked woman. Eventually the police would find the bodies of several other women both inside and outside the Christie flat, along with evidence that would point to Christie as their killer.  Christie by this time was on the run, and would eventually be found, charged and tried for his crimes.  

In putting her book together, Summerscale tells of events through the eyes of  two reporters: Harry Procter, a successful and highly-driven tabloid journalist,  and author Fryn Tennyson Jesse, who approached events from a much different perspective, and whose analysis of the case would eventually appear in the volume of the Notable British Trials series featuring the trials of both Timothy Evans and John Christie in 1957.  

contemporary headlines, from Murderpedia

Procter, as she quotes another journalist here,  

"did not just report a story; 'he infiltrated it, embedded himself, then owned it, then manipulated its protagonists as puppeteer-in-chief so that everything fell into place, as, and when, and exactly how, he wished.' " 

In the book that had inspired him to become a reporter, The Street of Adventure, author Philip Gibbs wrote  that "everything in life is but a peep-show," and that reporters felt like "the only real people in the world."  When he got wind of the story at 10 Rillington Place after the first bodies had been discovered and Christie had gone on the run, Procter went to the scene only to realize, "with a shock," that he had been there before when he worked for The Daily Mail.  It was during the time when Tim Evans had been charged with murder, and Procter had interviewed Christie about his neighbor.  Christie had been polite and soft spoken, and at the time, Procter saw no reason at all to suspect that Christie might have had anything to do with the deaths.  Now though, he not only "cursed himself for not having questioned him more closely" at the time, since it was obvious that Christie must be behind the current murders, but as Summerscale writes, Procter considered it possible that Christie just might have framed Evans for something Christie himself had done, and may have helped to send an innocent man to the gallows.  His personal stakes were high in getting Christie's story, both in terms of somehow making Christie feel the need to confess to the murders of Beryl and her baby and of course, reporting the story that would completely make his career.   Fryn Tennyson Jesse, who had been "gripped" by the coverage of the murders, was, as the author notes, "part of a golden generation of female crime writers. One of her books, Murder and Its Motives focused on (as noted here) "Six spectacular murders of the past century," and she had also written a novel called A Pin to See the Peepshow, which author Sarah Waters described in a Guardian article as "an achingly human portrait;" a  "thinly fictionalised account of the life of ... Edith Thompson, one of the three main players in the 'Ilford murder' case of 1922. "  She had also written essays in the Notable British Trials series.  Summerscale states that Jesse, now sixty-five, was going blind, was "frail" and a morphine addict, and was "afraid that she was being forgotten," so she "hungered for a story that would restore her."  If she could do the write up of the Christie case for Notable British Trials, it would be just what she needed.    Neither Procter nor Jesse could fathom Christie's lack of moral responsibility for his deeds, another factor bringing the two strands of reporting together.  

 What stands out about Christie here is that he was a man who outwardly resembled any number of men his age of the time, looking respectably average in his suit and his spectacles, while speaking softly and serving in a number of respectable positions.  When he was being sought by the police, it seemed that people saw him everywhere because he seemed so ordinary.  Summerscale gets behind that veil of respectability to reveal  a virulent racist who couldn't stand the fact that West Indian people were living in his building, even blaming the horrific odors of decomposition on his upstairs neighbors, an idea that was readily accepted by people who came into his apartment.  He was also a complete misogynist who viewed himself as passive while the women he victimized were the aggressors, and even to the last he  refused to show any sort of remorse for what he'd done.   If this book were only about John Christie and his crimes it would still be very good, but the author goes deeper into the lives of the many victims (doing so with the great care that these women truly deserve) as well as the social, political and economic landscapes of the time, while also diving into the power/machinations of the press  and the readers who lapped up every word. The dustjacket blurb says that her mining of the archives "sheds fascinating light on the origins our fixation with true crime," and although there is no definitive answer behind the biggest question of them all (i.e. who really killed Beryl and Geraldine Evans),  the blurb  also notes that Summerscale does "suggest" a possibility. 

I can only begin to imagine how much research went into writing this book and it shows.  I absolutely did not want to put this book down while reading and when I had to do so, I couldn't get back to it fast enough.  I found it to be an enlightening piece of social history,  a book that I can highly recommend.  

The Bus Station Murders/No Pockets in Shrouds, by Louisa Revell

 

"...murder isn't a very nice ladylike hobby, I know ..."

9798886011265

Stark House Press, 2025

originally published 1947/1948 respectively

292 pp

paperback

Coming to Stark House in January 2025 is another set of two novels in one volume, written by a woman whose work, I thought, had been all but forgotten, Louisa Revell.  It is so nice that Stark House has chosen to bring at least these two back into print, The Bus Station Murders and No Pockets in Shrouds, both set during World War II in 1945.    As I started reading the first of the two  it wasn't too long before I realized that I'd read it before. I mean, seriously, there just aren't all that many mystery novels that begin with someone being stabbed by a knitting needle while on a bus so it was easily recognizable.  I'd also posted about it some time ago here  when I was first exploring forgotten and neglected women authors from the past, which has now become one of my crime/mystery-reading passions.  The very awesome people at Stark House have not only helped to support my indulgence with their wonderful reprint editions, and but have also introduced me to women writers I've never heard of.  My thanks to them for this copy.  

As I noted in my original post about The Bus Station Murders, which is the first in a series featuring Miss Julia Tyler, crime just seems to follow her whenever she's away from home.  In this story, she has gone to visit her great-niece Anne and her husband in Annapolis, and she hasn't even gotten off the bus there when a few of the passengers notice a "gray-haired woman" who seems to be deep in slumber  even though the noise should have been enough to wake her.  In fact, Miss Julia's seatmate wonders aloud how anyone could remain asleep through all of the hubbub but it turns out that "the woman was dead," having been stabbed by a silver knitting needle.  Needless to say, although she's a bit reluctant to take part in any sort of investigation, she is eventually talked into it by the lead detective on the case who, as she discovers, is one of her former students.  He changes her mind by saying that he's hoping she'll become "another Miss Marple or Miss Silver" and that he can definitely use her help. 

These are not just idle words; Julia has a great fondness for crime novels, especially those written by Mary Roberts Rinehart, Agatha Christie, Mignon Eberhart and other famous female crime writers; in No Pockets in Shrouds she also references E. Phillips Oppenheim , a hugely-prolific writer (whose book Ghosts of Society has also recently been reprinted by Stark House and which I've commented on here). 

from PS Publishing (the nerve of the designer of this book cover, for reasons which will go unsaid!) 

No Pockets in Shrouds is book number two in this series.  Miss Julia's visit with her niece has come to a close after four months, and after a suggestion by Anne that she go somewhere nice while her house is being rented out, sixty-eight year old Julia decides that perhaps Louisville, Kentucky is the place to be.  She has an old friend named Charlotte Buckner who had read about her bus-station adventures and had invited Julia to "make her a visit" at her home there.   Three or so months later, Julia had seen Charlotte's photo in a newspaper article describing the murder of the Helm family butler, along with a young member of the Helm family who had been suspected of that death.  Charlotte had long been connected with the Helms, and Julia, even though she finds Charlotte "tiresome," she decides that Louisville is where she should go next.  As she said about her choice of vacation venue, "I went where murder was."  The butler's murder is still  unsolved, while she doesn't believe Charlotte's notion that the murderer must have been a tramp, Julia hopes that she will be able to do some  sleuthing to see if she can make any headway in discovering the identity of the killer.  What she doesn't count on is another murder which takes place during her time with Charlotte; the sad thing is that the killer is most likely someone she knows.    

It may well be wartime, but prominent Louisville society ("all the nice families") continues with its rituals -- the telephone is silent after ten a.m. when calls become those of the in-person sort; there are afternoon receptions and the social niceties continue to observed. The biggest interruption, it seems, is that the Kentucky Derby would not be keeping its regular May schedule.  It is because of being in this milieu that  Julia has to tread carefully, but despite everything, she will not stop until she gets to the truth.  

I will just say that there are a few cringeworthy reading moments when it comes to race, but I do appreciate that Stark House didn't go down the route taken by a few publishers to clean it all up to reflect modern sensibilities.  I once read a modern redo of No Orchids for Miss Blandish that was completely sanitized and it really pissed me off.  I remember saying at the time that Shakespeare would likely be next.   Back to the business at hand though,  even though she understands that "murder isn't a very nice ladylike hobby," Miss Julia Tyler and her adventures in sleuthing make for a truly fun read -- while the solutions to these mysteries may take their time, it is  totally worth it for readers of vintage crime, especially American vintage crime.  While you shouldn't expect carbon copies of Miss Marple or any of her British fictional counterparts here, Miss Julia certainly shares with them the ability to quietly soak up the scene on the sidelines before she makes her move.  I hope that in the future Stark House will be so kind as to continue to reprint Revell's work.  Definitely different, and definitely recommended.  As always, do not miss the intro by Curtis Evans but save it until after you've finished reading both books.  

The 17th Letter, by Dorothy Cameron Disney

 

9798886011210

Stark House Press, 2024

originally published 1945

212 pp

paperback

Published just this month, The 17th Letter is my introduction to the work of Dorothy Cameron Disney.  She was the author of nine novels, written between 1936 and 1949; The 17th Letter comes in at number seven.  According to the introduction in the Stark House edition by Curtis Evans, the novel "draws heavily" from the real-life story of Franz von Werra, a German prisoner of war in England who, after being transferred to Ontario, Canada along with other prisoners, escaped by jumping out of the window of a train and eventually made his way back to Nazi Germany.  The 17th Letter is, as Evans says, a "flight-and-pursuit thriller," and somewhat of a departure for the author, whose previous books were more in the "classic style of mystery godmother Mary Roberts Rinehart."   For someone like me who devours vintage crime, that departure and the turn to something different is most welcome.  

The main characters in this novel are Mary and Paul Strong, two journalists who live in a New York apartment overlooking Washington Square.   Their best friend is Max Ferris, who has been away on assignment for News Review documenting a picture story of a convoy destined for Murmansk.  With his task completed, Ferris made his way to Iceland, where he had been stuck for "six long weeks," waiting for some way to make it back home.  In the meantime, he'd been sending his friends a series of letters, sixteen in total, with a number denoting their order on the envelopes.   Now he was expected back home via "the Clipper" from Reykjavik, where he'd been staying with some Danish fishermen, but Paul learns that not only had Max not made the plane, but he had actually given up his ticket.  While Mary thinks that Max might be ill,  Paul believes that "Something important kept him off the Clipper", but he has no conceivable idea of what it might be.   His suspicion increases when he and Mary receive a cable from their friend telling them that there will be a seventeenth letter in the mail, and that they should "be understanding."  The weirdest part of the message is in Max's signature, where he adds a strange middle name -- Icarus. The promised missive arrives, but again it's obvious that something out of the ordinary is going on, since all it contains is a theater program for a show that had run five months earlier.   Add to all of this the theft of some of Max's letters, new neighbors in the building and a strange man in the park who seems to know a great deal about Paul and Mary and finally some devastating news about Max, and Paul decides that it's time to go and find out what's going on with their friend, setting off aboard a ship.  Mary, who has stayed behind, comes across some dangerous information that needs to be acted upon immediately, and knows she must relay it to her husband at any cost, finding herself aboard the same ship as a stowaway.  They manage to make it to Halifax in Nova Scotia, and it is here where their adventure truly begins; unfortunately, they have no idea who they can trust as they find themselves in a great deal of trouble. 

1945 first edition, from Abebooks

I love espionage stories, especially those set during the first and second world wars as well as the cold war era.  Here, Disney starts with a strange mystery which leads to a slow-building suspense before moving on into full-blown page-turner mode.   I have to share that while reading The 17th Letter, I had to employ the old suspension of disbelief here and there, and I noticed myself doing the inner eye roll at the coincidences that pop up, but when all is said and done, this story worked well for me.  What comes through very strongly is the wartime setting which highlights the urgency of the Strongs' plight as they desperately try to find anyone in authority they can trust to share the information they carry, all the while trying to prevent themselves being captured.  And finally, who wouldn't love a dog named Bosco? 

I can recommend this one to people who are looking for something a bit off the beaten path in vintage crime, or to those who would like to read more by lesser-known American women mystery writers, or to people who enjoy books featuring husband-and-wife crime-solving teams.  My review copy came from the publishers, to whom I owe many thanks -- hopefully there will be more books by this author in the works.  

PPL#6: The Voice of the Corpse, by Max Murray

 

9781915530318

Galileo Publishers, 2024

originally published 1947

218 pp

paperback

(read in August)

Although The Voice of the Corpse is set in the UK,  Max Murray was actually born in Australia.   A very quick scan through online resources shows very little in the way of biographical information, but the back-cover blurb reveals that:

"The author, Max Murray (1901-1956) began life in Australia as a bush boy. His first job was that of a reporter on a Sydney paper but after a year he set out to work his way round the world. During WW2 he wrote scripts for the BBC Overseas Programme. After the war, with intervals for travel, he devoted himself primarily to writing fiction. He published 12 novels during his life, most of which had the word 'Corpse' in the title." 

 He is also an author who is new to me, so I'm getting in on the ground floor with this guy's work.  I've already bought the next book (also from Galileo), The King and the Corpse, and I'll keep buying the series if more are published.   

Set in the small village of Inching Round, this story begins with the death of Angela Pewsey, a forty-nine year old woman who evidently never married, waiting for someone to return from Ceylon.  She's been expecting him for fifteen years, ever since their meeting on a boat where he had asked her to wait for his next visit home "on leave from the plantation."  Up to the moment of her death, she'd been  singing "appropriate folk songs" while sitting at her spinning wheel, working on a sweater made from the hair of her Chow, so she never heard her attacker come up on her.  Angela, it seems, has made it her business to know everything about everybody in Inching Round, and she didn't shy away from letting people know, in her own way, that she knew.  As we learn, "the method of these revelations was in itself enough to make most most reasonable people feel capable of murdering her," so right away there is a village filled with victims turned suspects.  The time of death was "half past three," when one of her neighbors realized that Angela was no longer singing as the church clock noted the half hour.   The local police are called in, and come to the conclusion that the deed was done by a tramp. 

However, Inching Round isn't just the site of a murder -- it seems that someone has been sending the inhabitants of the village poison pen letters, causing not only a stir but distrust and fear.  As Celia Sim says in conversation with her friend and family solicitor Firth Prentice on a train journey to Inching Round,

"There's something in the atmosphere. There's something furtive about it: the way they look at each other as if they were wondering, suspecting; and then their eyes slide away as if they were ashamed of their thoughts. It is pretty awful."

 Once off the train though, the two hear about the murder, and Firth believes he knows the identity of the person yielding the poison pen:

"When somebody is writing anonymous letters and somebody is murdered, it's not hard to guess who was the author of the anonymous letters, is it?"

 He doesn't, however, believe in the mysterious tramp as Angela's killer, leaving, as Celia so aptly notes, "someone in the village ... one of us."  And when there are so many people who've suffered at her hands, it's not surprising that they're not only happy about her demise but also have a possible motive for getting rid of her.    Celia's mother wants Firth to investigate Angela's murder, but when Inspector Fowler from Scotland Yard enters the case, she is not at all forthcoming, explaining  to him that "the pain you will cause to so many of us will be out of all proportion to the good you do."  And, as it turns out ...

from Abebooks, 1947 First Edition 

While there is an intriguing whodunit at play here, the author also engages in a bit of romance,  humor and the scattering of some pretty good red herrings throughout the story.   There are two little boys who completely steal the show for a while,  offering Firth information they've obtained using their strange skills, including the recognition of the sounds of footsteps made by various people in the village.  I couldn't help it -- these kids were funny and they made me laugh out loud.     The Voice of the Corpse isn't as strong on the detection front as it might have been, but there's a huge twist (or two) that I did not see coming at all that made reading this book on the whole more than satisfying.  It was a fine introduction to the work of Max Murray, whose remaining mystery/crime stories I'll be very much looking forward to exploring.   I also can't believe my good fortune in this book being published while I've been engaged in reading as many poison-pen stories as I can in 2024! 

I can  recommend this novel to readers of vintage crime and to readers who are interested in fictional poison-pen phenomena but want something just a wee  bit different.    It's a bit off the beaten path and definitely not same-old same-old, which makes it majorly attractive for me.  

PPL #5: The Moving Finger, by Agatha Christie

"The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,

Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it."

--- The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

9780062073626

William Morrow, 2011

originally published 1942

240 pp

paperback

read earlier in August

 The Moving Finger, is quite possibly the most well known of all of the poison-pen letter mystery novels from yesteryear (at least of the books I've collected)  and even though I've read it before and knew the who, it was still a fun read. 

Jerry Burton and his sister Joanna have come to the small village of Lymstock where he has come to recuperate after a "bad crash" while flying.  His doctor had told him that "everything was going to be all right," but he had to "go and live in the country" where he should have "absolute rest and quiet" for at least six months.  Obviously, as Jerry's looking back on things and telling the story that's about to unfold,  we get the sense that the complete opposite has occurred -- as he notes, "Rest and quiet! It seems funny to think of that now."  They hadn't been there too very long when they receive a "particularly foul anonymous letter" suggesting that Jerry and Joanna ("the fancy tart") are not really brother and sister.  Jerry wonders if their presence in the village is resented by someone, but he finds out that they're not the only people in Lymstock to have received one -- that "They've been going about" for a while now.   He also believes that "the best way to take it" is as "something utterly ridiculous," but his doctor, Owen Griffith, tells him that the problem is that "this sort of thing, once it starts, grows."  He also notes that "crude, childish spite though it is, sooner or later one of these letters will hit the mark. And then, God knows what may happen!"   The people of Lymstock are about to find out when one person commits suicide and there's a murder shortly after.  It seems that even in "such a peaceful  smiling happy countryside," there is "down underneath something evil."  

The village "looks the most innocent, sleepy, harmless little bit of England you can imagine," but as one character notes, it has "plenty of wrongdoing" and "any amount of shameful secrets."  Strangely though, the letter writer doesn't hit on any of those, sending out wild accusations instead.  At the same time it's enough to make people distrustful and leave them with a sense of fear wondering which of their neighbors is cruel enough to do such a thing.   Jerry does a bit of his own sleuthing and the police do their best, but it's only when Jane Marple, who "knows more about the different kinds of human wickedness..." is brought on the scene (rather late in the game here) by the vicar's wife that the case is finally solved.   

1942 edition; from Abebooks

My guess would be that anyone reading it for the first time would be hard pressed to figure out the identity of the letter writer; due to potential spoilers I won't say why, but trust me on this one.  I will say that the discovery of the culprit, along with the motive behind it all, came without much excitement, as Miss Marple unspools the answers quietly among a small group of people.  Otherwise, it's difficult to not get caught up leading to that point, since Christie lays out a compelling story with a clever plot that you won't want to put down.   Every time I read one of her books, I come away the sense that this author must have been much like her elderly detective, having a keen eye for human nature, and  The Moving Finger  is no exception.  Definitely a no-miss for Christie readers, for people interested in the poison pen in mystery novels and for vintage readers in general. 

There are two television adaptations that I know of (and that I've seen), one from 1985 with Joan Hickson as the erstwhile Jane Marple and the other from 2006 with Geraldine McEwan in the role.  I'm a huge fan of the older two-part episode because it's more like the novel,  but you'll have to watch both and decide for yourself. 

Kiss the Blood off My Hands, by Gerald Butler

 

9798886010886

Stark House Press, 2024

originally published 1948

166 pp

paperback 

Just released this month, Kiss the Blood Off My Hands is the latest in the Noir Film Classics  series from Stark House Press.  I have a few of these books but this is the first I've read.  And since I love to see books I've read  sort of come alive on the screen, I bought a copy of the 1948 film based on this novel starring Burt Lancaster and Joan Fontaine and watched it as soon as I'd finished reading.  More on the movie later -- on to the book. 

The action begins in a pub when Bill Saunders, fresh off the boat in England,  kills a bouncer. He hadn't meant to, but the punch he'd landed on the man's face knocked him to the floor, stone cold dead. He doesn't care that the guy is dead; all he cares about is getting out of there.   Before anyone could call the police, Bill takes off running and so do a few others, chasing right behind him.  He notices a woman "going into a door," and takes advantage of the situation, forcing his way in.  Deciding to stay overnight, the next morning Bill discovers that the woman (Jane) has guts and doesn't seem afraid of him.  He realizes that she's different than the other women in his experience, and that  "There was something about her."  Eventually he leaves after she returns home from her job, but it won't be the last they see of each other. 

Bill is a certified tough guy, beating up and stealing money from taxi customers, robbing a sex worker, referring to women as bitches and tarts, and violence, which exists just beneath his surface,  is his way of dealing with most situations.  For him, people are just mugs, and as such, they're prey, ready to be taken advantage of.  He doesn't respond normally on an emotional level, but he is definitely attracted to Jane, showing up at her workplace,  but with Jane (whom he refers to as "the kid"), he's different.  He still hasn't told her that he'd actually killed the bouncer, and somehow he is able to persuade her to go out with him, at first to the races, then for tea based on the money she'd won from the track but when they're on a train and Bill tries the 3-card con on a fellow passenger, she sees his true colors when he turns violent when the fellow doesn't want to play any longer.  Then she lets him have it:

"I can't pretend that I didn't know you were a tough guy. I was fool enough to allow myself to be attracted by that. But I thought there was something decent underneath. Now I know there isn't. You're nothing but a cheap, bullying hooligan." 

Although she tells him she never wants to have anything to with him again, and that he's "rotten," it's that "something decent underneath" that Jane saw in him that eventually brings the two back together, with her believing that maybe a decent job would do him some good and give his life "a shape again."  Can she change this man  by taming what Curtis Evans refers to in his introduction as "his brutal impulses with the proverbial good woman's love?"  Is Bill at all redeemable and can he truly be rehabilitated?  In the meanwhile, in an horrific twist I didn't see coming, Jane finds herself in an unexpected dilemma that has the potential to bring everything crashing down around the two of them and tear down what the two have managed to build. 

The length of this book has nothing whatsoever to do with its complexity, and when an author can pack so much into such a short space, in my opinion, he's done a fine job.  Here that complexity is found not only in the character of Bill, or in the question of redemption, but more to the point, in the way that Butler maps out exactly how one random event sets everything else into motion, with unintended, and most certainly unexpected  consequences rippling down the line, definitely a true noir trait. 

It's so good that I couldn't put it down once I'd picked it up.   Solidly good reading and an absolute must for anyone who likes tough, gritty  twisty noir.  A giant thank you to Stark House for my copy!

 

from Movie Poster Shop

And now the film -- I once did a mega Burt Lancaster moviefest in the comfort of my own home, but somehow I missed this one.  Kiss the Blood Off My Hands was released in 1948, with Lancaster starring alongside Joan Fontaine.  The opening chase sequence is just dynamite with Lancaster running through the dark, shadowed streets of London before climbing into Joan Fontaine's window.   All of the basics of the novel are there as a foundation, although there are quite a few changes, as expected.   Fontaine plays Jane, whose occupation changed between page and screen from a shopgirl  to a nurse.  I have to think that it's as a caregiver that movie Jane recognizes something damaged inside of Bill, and it is instinct that makes her want to help him.  It's also a good setup, because as part of Jane's ability to help him keep his violent tendencies in check and get Bill focused, she is able to get him a job as the driver for the clinic where she works; in one particular case, he is able to bring a young father the medicine his dying daughter desperately needs to survive.  Even though ignorance causes the dad to not want his child to have it, the scene affords a glimpse of something within Bill that truly cares about this little girl as he forces his past the father to make sure she gets what she needs.  And speaking of Bill, in the film he admits to having been a POW, where in the book, he doesn't really have too much backstory going on.   One of the biggest changes, however, has to do with a blackmailer played by actor Robert Newton, whose utter nastiness comes through on the screen enough to make you uncomfortable just looking at the guy.  I won't say what the differences are so as not to wreck things, but the changes vis-a-vis that particular portion of the plot  worked very nicely in the film, as the suspense ratchets slowly until a fateful moment, but it's clear that the story's not quite over yet.   Nicely done, although I did prefer the ending in the novel to the ending of the film, although I didn't jump for joy over either one.

So, both book and movie are a yes, both I can easily recommend. 

Green For Danger, by Christianna Brand

 

9781728267661

Poisoned Pen Press, in association with the British Library, 2023

originally published 1944

284 pp

paperback

I'm still working at restoring my mental mojo, but that doesn't mean I've been idle readingwise. I'm just very, very behind and now I've got a stack of like five books sitting here waiting for me to post about. Not to worry -- I'll get there.

Green for Danger is book number two in Christianna Brand's Inspector Cockrill series, preceded by the series opener, Heads You Lose (which I'm reading now).  I'm just thrilled that it is a part of the British Library Crime Classics collection, since the copy I have is an old mass market paperback in pretty beat-up condition.   I enjoyed Green for Danger so very much that I immediately bought the remaining books,  including preordering Death of Jezebel (also from British Library Crime Classics and arriving in August) -- that's how very good it is.  

World War II serves as the backdrop for this clever, closed-circle mystery, which takes place at a former sanitorium now serving as military hospital at Heron's Park just outside of Heronsford in Kent.  The seven main players have all been called to duty there, and they are introduced one by one  (along with a bit of each person's backstory) via their acceptance letters which are being delivered by  postman Joseph Higgins.  The male contingent consists of Dr. Gervase Eden, a surgeon from Harley Street, Mr. Moon, another surgeon hailing from Heronsford, and Dr. Barnes (Barney),  a local anesthetist; the women are   Jane Woods  (Woody), who has been called as a VAD nurse as have Esther Sanson and Frederica (Freddi) Linley, and finally Sister Marion Bates.  Offering the tiniest bit of a clue as to where this story is headed, as Higgins takes himself and his bicycle up the hill leading to Heron's Park, the author tells us that he "could not know that, just a year later, one of the writers would die, self-confessed a murderer."  

Within that year, the hospital working routine of these new arrivals has been established, romance and more than a bit of sexual tension hangs in the air, and air raids are regularly bringing in casualties.  One of these is Joseph Higgins himself, admitted with a fractured femur.   His surgery is routine, "only a little operation, hardly anything at all," so when he dies before the operation begins while the anesthesia is being administered, everyone is surprised.  After all, "the old boy was all right" physically, and no one can find anything wrong in the equipment or the procedure that might have caused him to die so unexpectedly.  Goodness knows things like this can happen "for no rhyme or reason," but the problem is that this wouldn't be the first time that Barnes had lost a patient while administering anesthesia.  Major Moon tells him that if anything comes of Higgins' death, he'd be happy to call in "the high ding-a-ding" Inspector Cockrill  to ensure that "there isn't a lot of undue fuss."   At first Cockrill (who often goes by the nickname Cockie) doesn't "see what all the fuss is about," but it isn't too long before he realizes that Higgins' death was definitely suspicious, and definitely a murder.  He also realizes that it's one of our seven main characters who is responsible, but as to motive, he has no idea.  It seems however, that the murderer isn't quite finished, as there is a second death, again in the operating theatre.  

 Original first edition cover, from Wikipedia

As a person who often figures out the who long before the big reveal comes, I have to say that I was extremely delighted not to have done so this time.  I actually had two different suspects in mind but Brand came along and pulled the rug right out from under me.  That's not too surprising, since the author sort of toys with her readers by planting doubts (and thereby possible motives) about each of the seven suspects. In hindsight, all of the clues were definitely there, and it was like a "how did I miss that?"  kind of moment when Brand actually unmasked the killer.  Add to this the very realistic and credible sense of place and the atmosphere that the author delivers pretty much from the start, all making Green For Danger a pitch-perfect mystery. 

from Cinema Sojourns

I have the old black-and-white film (1946, Pinewood Studios) on DVD as part of my Criterion Collection movies, so I watched it right after finishing the novel.  While it deviates a bit from the book I could have cared less.  Alastair Sim definitely steals the show here in the role of Inspector Cockrill, often playing his scenes for laughs, which at times given the dark and actually somewhat sinister atmosphere underlying this film, can be a welcome relief.  He is eccentric, but underneath his quirkiness there is definitely a sense that he is a wise detective with a keen sense of justice.  The supporting cast, including Trevor Howard, also does a great job.  I would definitely recommend both book and movie, in that order.