a new author for me: James Sallis -- The Long-Legged Fly

0802776205
Walker and Company, 2001
originally published 1992
200 pp

paperback

Well now here is something entirely different -- rather than having an entire series follow a main character's arc, James Sallis manages to put it into one book.  There are five books which follow this one in his Lew Griffin series which I haven't read, but The Long-Legged Fly covers a span of time from 1964 through 1990.

Set in New Orleans, each section of  The Long-Legged Fly centers around Griffin's search for someone who is lost.  Taken as a whole, one could argue that Griffin is also searching for himself in this book.  Who is this Lew Griffin exactly? When we first meet Griffin, he's hell-bent on vengeance and actually kills a man before he goes back to settle into his office where we discover he's a PI  who is friends with a local cop -- pretty much standard pulp-fiction fare.  Then another surprise -- he hits the skids and comes back as a collector for a loan outfit, spending time in a halfway house after weeks of detox for his alcohol problem.  At some point he becomes interested in writing and changes his life again, becoming the author of a Cajun detective series,  until there's a big twist at the end where just who is actually doing the narrating becomes a central question that forces the reader to completely re-evaluate everything he or she has just read.

As New Orleans changes over the years, so too does Lew Griffin.  According to the chronology, the book begins when he is twenty-four.  He is asked by a militant group to find a missing activist who got on a plane in New York and was never seen again. This part of the book has a lot of focus on racial identity, which is a theme carried throughout the novel, with references to early works of Chester Himes and George S. Schuyler (among others), and black heritage, including history and the blues which the author will later note was

"a way of letting you get outside -- outside the sixteen or eighteen 18 hours you had to work every day, outside where you lived and what your children had to look forward to, outside the way you just plain hurt all the time." 

 In the second part, Griffin (now age 30 but feeling "old and tired")  is tasked with finding the "shy" daughter of a couple from Mississipi, who had been gone for three weeks. New Orleans, her parents say, is where she'd been talking about going and that she was talking about staying with an actress with Willona.  It will be tough -- as Griffin tells them,

"...the city doesn't much care about any of us individually, let alone a sixteen year-old girl from Clarksdale." 

It's also in part two where we discover that Lew had served in the military as an MP and had a penchant for "busting heads."  1984 comes along and we find Griffin in a hospital doing detox after he had hit bottom -- committed by the court.  He is in the care of a British nurse with whom he falls in love; through her he feels "new worlds opening within him" that he knew were always there but he could never reach. While staying at a halfway house he meets someone whose life is cut short by gang violence in the inner city, but not before Griffin had agreed to find the man's missing sister.  Six years later, things have really turned around for Lew; he's become a successful detective novelist, a part-time teacher,  and life is good -- up until the day he gets a call about another missing person, this time someone he knows very well. Once more its time time to take stock -- and reflect.

Clearly, this is no ordinary man and Griffin is definitely not the stock PI of pulp fiction. There is a certain rich interplay of elements in this book that makes it unlike any other in this genre. First, there's New Orleans, a city that, like Lew, reinvents itself while keeping its history intact; there's also an abundance of literary references and references to local blues artists and their work.  Griffin has to work through a lifetime of pain and, as noted on the back-cover blurb, he fears "becoming as lost as the frail identities he is trying to recover."  I genuinely appreciate an author who allows his or her characters to discover themselves around a plotline rather than making the plot the central focus of a novel -- and since I prefer understanding people and why they do what they do in a given situation,  I've always felt a plot should be secondary with characters first.  Then again, not everyone reads like I do, so readers looking for a fast-action, pulpy PI novel will definitely not find it here. Readers who also prefer a strictly linear chronology may also not care for this one, but for me, The Long-Legged Fly  is something completely out of the ordinary.  Recommended with absolutely no qualms whatsoever, but mainly to readers who are much more into fullness of character rather than straight-up action.

The Girl Who Wasn't There, by Ferdinand von Schirach

9781408705827
Little, Brown, 2014
216 pp

originally published as Tabu, 2013
translated by Anthea Bell

paperback

I have no idea when this book is going to be published in the US, but it's definitely one worth looking into. Although I'm posting about it in the same space as other crime fiction, I'm not exactly sure that particular moniker fits this novel.   Whatever you want to call it, it is an interesting work that in my opinion takes reader expectations and turns them on their heads in a very big way. What it centers on is truth and reality; however,  having read von Schirach before, I'm not surprised to see his ongoing themes of the nature of crime, the judicial process, and the nature of guilt repeated in this novel.

The way this book is set up is genius -- sadly, I can't really recount much of the story without giving too much away.  What I can say is that von Schirach carefully guides his readers through the story of Sebastian von Eschburg, who as a young boy lived with his parents in a lakeside home up until the time his father kills himself.  His mother had always been inattentive to him, preferring to bestow her love on her horses, but his father spent time with him, for example, taking him hunting. On one such trip, Sebastian watches his father bring down a deer -- and the experience is one that stays with him for a very long time, as will his father's suicide, which his mother tried to convince him was just a bad dream.  She also tries to convince him that his father was merely cleaning his gun and it went off accidentally, something Sebastian knows is not true. The house, of course, is sold, and Sebastian returns to the boarding school that he will call home for the bulk of his childhood.  When he is finished with school he comes back home -- his mother has married  a genuine creep and all three of them know that living with mom and her new husband is not in the cards for Sebastian. He takes up the photography profession, and it isn't long until he becomes known for his work. He eventually comes to have quite a name in the art world, money, and a lovely woman beside him, but there is something quite dark deep down inside of Sebastian that prevents him from happiness. He also knows that if the situation with the woman becomes serious, he will end up "hurting" her.  He is a very strange person, and it will come as no surprise to the reader at all, given his past, that he ends up becoming the only suspect in a murder.  (This is not a spoiler by the way; a lot of this outline is on the back cover).  While in jail, Sebastian requests that Konrad Biegler become his defense attorney, and Biegler, who is recuperating at a Swiss hotel for burnout, takes the opportunity to get back into the courtroom once again. But as he will discover, and not only from his client, there is truth, and then there is truth.

If that all sounds cryptic, it is meant to be -- to tell is to spoil so it's one that is best experienced on one's own. I will say that long before this story was over I had figured things out (hoping as usual that I was wrong) -- but not the who or the how, and I was still blown away.   Throughout the book  I was entirely wrapped up in von Eschburg's world of darkness and pain almost to the point of claustrophobia, and truthfully,  I enjoyed the getting there more than the reveal of the actual solution. von Schirach is a great storyteller, and while this book is very different than his The Collini Case, which I absolutely loved, there are a number of the same elements that are explored in The Girl Who Wasn't There. This is an incredibly intelligent novel that demands a reread -- and after the second time through, the book made much more sense.   What he does here is so different than the norm that it was actually refreshing from a reader point of view.  As noted earlier, it's not so much a crime fiction novel, but I can't exactly explain why without ruining things. It is, however, one of the better books I've read so far this year and is certainly a candidate for favorite books of 2015.  Definitely recommended.

reading Ripley, part one: The Talented Mr. Ripley, by Patricia Highsmith

0679742298
Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 1992
(originally published 1955)
290 pp

paperback

"He was versatile, and the world was wide!"

Tom Ripley is an extremely disturbed man.  Knowing what we know about him, we probably wouldn't want him to come to dinner, live in our neighborhood, date our daughters or our sons, handle our investments -- in short, after we've gotten to know him, we discover he is someone we would avoid like the plague.  But all of the above are judgments made from our outside,  reader point of view.  Rereading this novel taught me a valuable lesson -- when accepting an author's invitation to enter the mind of a paranoid psychopath, you may not like where things are heading, but you've made the choice to be party to his point of view for the time being.  Reading The Talented Mr. Ripley demands that you step into Ripley's brain in order to more fully understand this guy and what makes him tick.  It's the best and imo the only  way to wrap your head around what he does and why he does it.

The first page of this book isn't even over before it becomes clear that Tom Ripley is probably not an upstanding citizen. After he orders a gin and tonic at a bar the next thing on his mind is whether or not the police would send a guy who looked like a

"businessman, somebody's father, well-dressed, well-fed, greying at the temples," 

to effect his arrest. Arrest?  Then -- a reprieve...he's not getting taken away for "grand larceny or tampering with the mails or whatever they call it," but rather, the man who seems to be interested in him has a job for him.   The crime that has pushed his paranoid self to believe he's going to be arrested is tax fraud -- a sort of shakedown operation that benefits Ripley not at all since everyone he's hustled has paid by check and not cash. The "businessman" turns out to be Herbert Greenleaf, father of Dickie, and under the mistaken assumption (which is never corrected)  that Tom and Dickie are close friends, Greenleaf senior wants Tom to go to Europe and convince his son to come home. For Tom, it's the perfect opportunity to start over -- to leave behind his old life.  Raised by his Aunt Dottie, whom he cannot stand (but from whom he still accepts regular checks out of necessity), he grew up in an emotionless environment seeking approval which was never offered; his adult self gains acceptance at parties where he makes an idiot out of himself to make people laugh. This voyage is his chance at escaping -- and he takes it.  His "transformation" begins on the ship, where he decides to play the part of "a serious young man with a serious job ahead of him," but the biggest role of his life awaits him in the small seaside village of Mongibello, where he manages to worm his way into the life of Dickie Greenleaf, with deadly results that will follow Tom as he makes his way around Europe.

[possible spoiler ahead -- do  not read if you don't want to know]

So, getting back to reading this book from the point of view of a paranoid psychopath who has added killing to his repertoire, while in the mind of Tom Ripley, it's easy to understand exactly why he does the things he does.  First, there's Tom, who has zero self esteem and zero self confidence, who is looking to be more than he has been in life so far, and who just wants to be free to live the perfect life.  In Tom's mind, Dickie is a symbol of the freedom that Tom desires -- his life is the one Tom wants for himself, so much so that in his mind, he wants to be Dickie. There's Dickie himself -- the spoiled, self-absorbed son living off of his parents' money, free to do what he likes when he likes, only having to please himself and no one else.  Then there's Marge, who is in love with Dickie who doesn't fully appreciate or love her back, but she keeps waiting for him to come around. Marge is the object of Tom's jealousy; she is an impediment to the happiness that in his mind, he and Dickie could share. So it should absolutely come as no surprise to anyone that when Dickie changes course in his relationship with Tom, Tom takes steps to take care of the situation.  By this time we're so into Tom's head that what he does seems necessary as well as logical.  And here's where I seem to differ from so many people that have read this book -- since I'm seeing things from Tom's point of view, it's almost impossible not to want to see him succeed after everything he's done to get what he wants.  How many people actually take the chance to not only change their lives, but to experience the very freedom that Tom has achieved?

Back in the real world, outside of Ripley's mind, of course the guy's a pathological killer, an amoral bad guy  who will stop at nothing to get what he wants.  He's the ultimate manipulator, the worst kind of bad guy, and someone you would want to never encounter.  But none of that is applicable while you're inside of his world, where good and evil do not exist, where things just sort of follow a logical progression necessary to achieve his ultimate goals.   In fact, it's easy to understand why everyone does what they do in this novel, and that's why it works so well, and why it has remained a classic over the last sixty years.

for the action-packed set: Windy City Blues, by Marc Krulewitch

9780804177214
Alibi, 2015

kindle ed.

(I did receive a copy of the book, but as happens often, I  ended up not being able to find it when needed so I ended up buying my copy)

Windy City Blues is the second novel in a series to feature Jules Landau, a Chicago private eye with a family history he'd much rather forget -- a take on the PI subgenre that I personally haven't encountered up until now.  The action begins in a short chapter with the murder of a parking officer, Bagrat Gelashvili, aka Jack. Jack is killed in his own neighborhood, but the homicide detectives in charge of the investigation  don't seem to care very much about getting serious about why Jack's dead. A week later, a concerned citizen visits the office of PI Jules Landau, and wants to pay him to find out who did it. He didn't know Jack, but he lives in the neighborhood where Jack met his end.  Remembering the Boston Marathon bombing and how deeply it affected him, he wants Jules to find out who did it so that the case does not stay unsolved -- he is also thinking about how the lives of his children, three year-old twins, who will "never be the same" after seeing the ambulance, police cars and the crowd. He needs to know "why a life was extinguished so close to where my children, my neighbors, and I lay our heads to sleep."  Jules, whose father wasn't particularly happy about the last murder case his son took on, is definitely interested, because the previous murder case he'd solved had made him feel that "he never felt more alive" while investigating it.  Needless to say (or we wouldn't be here right now, right?) Jules takes the case, but he has no idea what he's actually in for. As it turns out, the murder of the parking officer is just the first step down a long path that will take him places he never would have believed.

The story takes a twisty path before it gets to the end. If you can imagine a flow chart  looking something like this:

with the murder of the parking officer as the central event, that's what Landau eventually runs up against. In fact, he uses a flow chart to help himself make connections throughout the story; a necessity because every time he uncovers one clue, it leads to several others. This central mystery of who killed Jack and why is intriguing, the writing style is gritty, and the plot kept me interested -- to a point. I enjoy mystery novels where the facts are revealed slowly, little by little, and that is definitely the case here.  There are also a couple of built-in red herrings that sent my thinking in odd directions before getting back to business.

Now here come the niggles. The first obstacle is the good citizen who comes to Jules'  office and starts the ball rolling.   I mean seriously.  Most people would be irate and upset about a murder happening in his or her neighborhood, but probably not enough to spend a ton of money to hire a PI to do the job of the police, even if the police aren't doing their jobs. That is simply not realistic; it is simply not human nature.  Another thing:  Windy City Blues is the second in a series to feature Jules Landau -- and there's a lot in here about his father and  his dying mentor Frownie, as well as his previous murder case. A mention or two here and there about Landau's past might have been enough to get all of this down for someone who hasn't read this second book, whereas there are full chapters devoted especially to Frownie that totally interrupted the flow of the rest of the story.  I've read plenty of series novels in my life, and I've seen this kind of thing done so that it doesn't take up so much space and reader attention while still getting the point across.  Third:  I appreciated Jules' little "updates" each time he learns something new and is trying to make connections, because things start getting a little confusing as the scope of the bad guys grows in ever-widening circles.

 I'm not exactly sure just how to characterize this novel -- when all is said and done, it's like an action-packed  private eye/conspiracy/mob/corruption/crime thriller/murder mystery with a little bit of love interest added in. This becomes problematic at the end  because combining so many elements lends itself toward the entire story simultaneously coming together and falling apart as you're turning the final pages. It also finishes with that Hollywood/TV-style big flourish that  seems to be de rigeur  these days, which is, I suppose,  what readers want, but definitely not my style.

So, while I enjoyed the mystery component, Jules, and getting to the solution of the murder, there were a number of  distractions along the way and I thought the set up and ending were both too over the top to be believable. But hey - there are plenty of people who love that sort of thing, AND there are plenty of people who started with the first book in the series and continued on, so I guess that's why this book is getting some pretty good 4 and 5 star reviews.

****

I read this novel as part of a TLC book tour and it looks like I'm the end! If you'd like to see what a group other readers thought of this novel, you can find their reviews (which are pretty positive on the whole!) here. 

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.

well, that's time I'll never get back: Sound Alibi, by Maribel Edwin (from my obscure women crime writer project)

Hillman-Curl, Inc., 1938
288 pp

hardcover

"...a shot in the dark sounds to me like murder. That's what comes of reading thrillers." 

Sound Alibi is book number five in my ongoing project of discovering and reading the work of obscure/forgotten women crime novelists, and it was not, I repeat, not a pleasurable experience.  Had I not been so set on finishing it I probably would have put it aside, and moved on to the next book. But stuck with it I did, it's over and well, as I said at the outset, that's time I'll never get back. This book actually gave me a headache. It  was so slow and so repetitive that at one point I remember thinking a fork in my eye would have given me less pain.

First things first. The history:

About Maribel Edwin there seems to have been not a whole lot written.  When I googled her, one of the links I found was a pdf of an old journal called The Bookman. A small article in the December, 1933 edition reveals that Maribel Edwin was the daughter of  "the late" Sir J. Arthur Thomson, who evidently died that year. Thomson was a scientist, a naturalist; from what little I can gather.  Writing under the pseudonym of Maribel Edwin, the daughter  seems to have followed in her dad's love-of-nature footsteps, writing children's stories grounded in nature, several nature books (including a yearly publication called Nature's Year), and apparently, since she wrote this book, she must have also dabbled a little in mystery, although I've done a lot of looking and have yet to come up with any more crime/mystery novels she's written.

  Sound Alibi was written in 1938 and was a part of the original Hillman-Curl Clue Club, started in 1937. I LOVE finding these old books!

 This made me laugh: a so-called detective story readers' "bill of rights" which promised the following:

"1.  A Clue Club Mystery must have an exciting plot which is intrinsically interesting aside from the actual solution of the crime."  (this one didn't)

2.  All characters must be well-drawn flesh and blood people whose prototypes can be found in everyday life.  (okay, I'll go along with this one)

3.  The actual perpetrator or perpetrators of the crime or crimes must be prominent characters introduced early in the narrative.  (check)

4.  All purposely misleading circumstances must be carefully avoided.  (okey-dokey)

5.  The crime or crimes must be solved by logical deduction derived from material clearly presented to the reader without the aid of supernatural devices or psychic power."  (check)

Too many years have gone by for me to get my money back (and let's face it, they're probably LONG out of business anyway).

Then, a promise:  "Under this imprint Hillman-Curl, Inc., publishes each month outstanding mystery novels by distinguished writers.  The sign of the skull is a guarantee that the book is original and well-written." So I quickly checked the spine and sure enough, mine has a skull.  Again. Too late to sue for misrepresentation.
The best thing about this book was finding  this website I've been quoting from -- there are a LOT of other books I need to find and to read, if only to see if Sound Alibi was a fluke. Perhaps there were some really good mysteries/crime novels that were part of the Clue Club and this one was an aberration.

 But now, onto the book itself. Sound Alibi is another mystery novel written in the interwar years, and is also another example of the good old "English country house" murder.  The head of household at Dolphin Court is Dr. Quintin Grey, who is renown for his studies on heredity, specializing in "the inheritance of criminal tendencies."  Grey has been blind for several years now, and since coming to Dolphin Court (left to him by a wealthy uncle), he spends much more time dealing with flowers than criminals. He does, however, have a soft spot for rehabilitated criminals, and often helps to find them work. On a day when daughter Jenny has brought home a friend, Philip Westland, Grey's secretary Cuthbertson (aka "Stuffy) keeps telling Grey that he needs to have a word, but Grey is too busy and tells Cuthbertson that he'll see him at 9:15 that evening.  But Cuthbertson never gets to tell Grey whatever it was that was on his mind, because just as Grey is about to go and find him, a shot rings out and Cuthbertson is dead. The remainder of the novel is of course, the investigation into his murder -- and as the Inspector is going about his business, it seems that everyone at Dolphin Court has a very "sound alibi."  The Inspector has a long list of suspects to go through, and as he starts his questioning, it becomes apparent that each and every person at the house is holding back his or her share of secrets.

  This book is a true whodunit in every sense of the word.  The identity of the killer is not revealed until very near the end (which is a plus), and I didn't guess the solution (a double plus) because of a series of red herrings and a shortlist of suspects as well.  Thankfully the puzzle is a good one, but it's the getting to its solution that killed me. If ever there was a book that could labeled as "dull" it's definitely this one, and I don't often have that experience while reading these old novels. I wanted to skim so badly, but figured I'd miss something, so I stuck to it. However, after finishing it, I can easily say  it's a skipper, meaning even the most ardent fan of these old, obscure mysteries could go through life, never read it, and he/she wouldn't have missed a thing. I find that a little sad, actually, since up to now I was having such a great time with these old forgotten books.