Looking Back: More of Miss Withers

 classic mysteries, Funny Mysteries, GAD, Golden Age, Golden Age of Detective Fiction, Hildegarde Withers, impossible crimes, Locked Rooms/Impossible Crimes, Looking Back, mysteries, mystery, Stuart Palmer  Comments Off
Jun 132013
 

I have now read somewhat more than half of Stuart Palmer's books featuring Hildegarde Withers, the New York City schoolteacher who manages to spend a significant amount of her time solving murders with her (frequently frazzled) friend, homicide detective Oscar Piper. As a general rule, I really enjoy them - they're funny without being farcical, they often are built around so-called "impossible" crimes, and the central characters are thoroughly engaging.

I have reviewed several of these books, and you can find links to all the podcast audio reviews at this blog's backlist page (just scroll down to Stuart Palmer's name). Among my own favorites:

  • Murder on Wheels. The second Miss Withers novel, it features an impossible murder - right on Fifth Avenue, in the middle of a rush hour snowstorm;
  • Murder on the Blackboard. Another early outing, with a murder in the classroom across the hall from Hildy's room. Naturally, she has to get involved in the investigation. By the way, Palmer includes this wonderful description of Miss Withers in this book: "For those of my readers who are meeting Hildegarde Withers for the first time, let me inform them that she is in the neighborhood of forty – the close neighborhood – and that her face has something of the contour, and most of the characteristics, of a well-bred horse";
  • The Puzzle of the Blue Banderilla, set in Mexico, moves Miss Withers and Inspector Piper to Mexico to deal with a spectacular and apparently impossible murder at a bullfight;
  • The Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan, which is the one I review this week, is among Palmer's best, combining a seemingly impossible murder - more than one, in fact - with some funny and smart scenes set in the movie business in Hollywood of the 1940s.

The links above, by the way, will take you to my blog entries about these specific titles. Now that The Mysterious Press and Open Road Integrated Media have released 16 of Palmer's novels as e-books, I strongly urge you, if you haven't already done so, to meet Miss Withers and Inspector Piper. They're really worth knowing.

“The Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan”

 classic mysteries, Funny Mysteries, GAD, Golden Age, Golden Age of Detective Fiction, Hildegarde Withers, mysteries, mystery, Reading Challenges, Stuart Palmer  Comments Off
Jun 102013
 

Perhaps it's because Hildegarde Withers is a New York City schoolteacher that she insists on getting involved in the kind of crime puzzles that require a lively curiosity and an active intelligence to solve them. The heroine of Stuart Palmer's first-rate mysteries is certainly meddlesome - but it's usually a good thing for the innocent and a problem for the guilty when she does get involved.

Take The Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan, written during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction in 1941, in which Miss Withers goes to Hollywood and - somewhat to her surprise - finds herself hired at a major studio to work as a technical adviser on a movie about Lizzie Borden, the New England girl who, according to the popular rhyme, gave her mother forty whacks and her father forty-one with a small hatchet. It isn't long before Hildy is deeply involved in a much more immediate mystery - the death of one of the movie's writers. The Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan is the subject of this week's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the entire review by clicking here.

Miss Withers has barely begun work when one of the script writers is found dead in his office just down the hall from her, apparently having broken his neck in a fall. Just an unfortunate accident? Miss Withers isn’t convinced. If the writer had crashed to the floor after falling off a chair – the police theory – he would have made more than enough noise in falling to have been heard all along the corridor where Miss Withers worked – and she and the other people nearby heard nothing.

All of this is happening in Hollywood, so Miss Withers puts in a transcontinental call to her old friend, Inspector Piper of the New York City police department: can the inspector think of any peculiar cases where someone died of a broken neck in a suspicious accident? As it happens, Piper can. And he and Miss Withers quickly find an apparent connection to someone in Hollywood - someone who seems to be very hard to find. But as Inspector Piper starts working on the case…well, let’s just say something very bad happens in Hollywood, something bad enough to force Piper to jump on a plane – remember, this was 1941, and plane travel was a lot less common than it is today – and fly to Hollywood looking for a killer.

And that's all I really want to say about the plot, which is pleasantly complex and - very often - outrageously funny. As a screenwriter himself, Stuart Palmer had a wickedly perceptive eye for Hollywood foibles. Hildy keeps running up against the producer and others working on the movie who want to turn Lizzie Borden's story into a super-sized epic; at one point, the producer gets the idea of having Lizzie commit the murders with an ancient pole-ax rather than a little hatchet, which he dismisses as not being big enough for his movie. And when Miss Withers manages to persuade the villain to confess...well, wait until you find out how she does it.

Stuart Palmer's books remain wonderfully readable, in no small part because they are quite genuinely funny, and Hildegarde Withers and Inspector Piper make a first-rate odd couple of detectives. I do recommend The Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan as one of Palmer's best. It has been out of print for a while, but The Mysterious Press and Open Road Integrated Media have joined forces to bring it back as an e-book, and they provided a copy to me for this review.

Once again, I am submitting The Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan to the Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge under way at the My Reader's Block blog - this one, taking place in Hollywood, will fit nicely into the category called "Yankee Doodle Dandy," a mystery set in the United States.

“Fatal Descent”

 Carter Dickson, Cecil Street, classic mysteries, Funny Mysteries, GAD, Golden Age, Golden Age of Detective Fiction, impossible crimes, John Dickson Carr, John Rhode, locked room mysteries, Locked Rooms/Impossible Crimes, mysteries, mystery, Reading Challenges  Comments Off
May 192013
 

You might think of it as a disgruntled author's revenge: an arrogant and well-disliked publisher gets into his small, private elevator on the top floor of his office building. The door locks automatically and the elevator descends. The publisher can even be seen through windows in the locked access doors, and he is standing in the elevator as it descends. The elevator never stops. Yet suddenly a gunshot is heard, and when the elevator car reaches the ground floor, the publisher is dead - shot through the heart. And there is no way anyone could possibly have shot him in that elevator, especially as there is no gun to be found either in the car or in the elevator shaft.

Impossible? Why of course! Welcome to Fatal Descent, by Carter Dickson and John Rhode - or, to give them their correct names, John Dickson Carr and Cecil Street. Both authors were masters of the impossible crime novel as well as being friends - and they collaborated on just this one book, in 1939. Fatal Descent is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the full review by clicking here.

Fatal Descent is a fascinating mystery, with two sleuths who team up to solve it. One, the Police Surgeon, Dr. Horatio Glass, is very much the type of detective favored by John Dickson Carr - full of ideas that give elegant solutions to impossible problems, brilliant in their conception and flawed only in that they are invariably wrong. Chief Inspector David Hornbeam is a realist who seeks the scientific explanations for crime, and he is quite representative of the kind of sleuth that Street wrote about under his "John Rhode" pen-name. Between them, they will eventually solve the case - but only after a second murder.

It’s a fine story, written with wit and good humor, quite fairly clued for the reader who can find the hints, and with some first-rate characters. It’s a pity that Street and Carr only wrote this one mystery together. Readers who enjoy a good impossible crime story really should read Fatal Descent. It’s been out of print for a while, but there is now an e-book edition available.

This is another entry in Bev's My Reader's Block blog Vintage Mysteries Reading Challenge. As this 1939 mystery was originally published under the title Drop to His Death, I am entering it in the category called "A Mystery by Any Other Name," a book that has been published under more than one title.

 

Withers on the Vine

 classic mysteries, Film, Funny Mysteries, GAD, Golden Age, Golden Age of Detective Fiction, Hildegarde Withers, Looking Back, mysteries, mystery, Mystery Publishers, Open Road Media, Stuart Palmer  Comments Off
May 162013
 

Some very good news today from Open Road Media, a company which has been making a significant number of Golden Age mysteries, both from the US and from England, available in electronic editions. The latest author to benefit from this treatment is Stuart Palmer, whose series detective, Hildegarde Withers, is one of my perennial favorites. Palmer frequently referred to her more-or-less affectionately as "that meddlesome old battleaxe," but Hildy Withers is nobody's fool, and she makes an interesting team with New York City Inspector Oscar Piper, with whom she maintains a rather prickly friendship.

Palmer created the character of Hildegarde Withers with actress Edna May Oliver in mind, In fact, Oliver did star as Hildy in several popular movies in the mid-1930s, opposite James Gleason as Inspector Piper.

As a general rule, the stories are well-plotted and told with some nice humorous touches. I've already reviewed nine of Palmer's books on this blog, and you can find a full list on the backlist page - just scroll down (the authors are listed alphabetically). I'll be reviewing more books from the series, now that Open Road is making them available. If you haven't met Hildegarde Withers...now is the time! I should mention that Open Road is also publishing some additional Stuart Palmer titles that do not have Hildy - I'll be looking forward to trying them as well.

Of Gladys Mitchell and the Saint

 classic mysteries, Film, GAD, Golden Age, Golden Age of Detective Fiction, Looking Back, mrs. bradley, mysteries, mystery, The Saint  Comments Off
May 132013
 

Exciting news for lovers of classic mysteries: Amazon will be republishing all 49 of Leslie Charteris's books featuring the character Simon Templar, known as "The Saint," as well as all 65 of the Mrs. Bradley books by Gladys Mitchell along with six of her other books that do not feature Mrs. Bradley.

Although I don't think I have ever read any of the original books, I remember The Saint from the series of "B" movies which were always on television when I was growing up, often featuring George Sanders in the title role. And I've written here - frequently - about some of the Mrs. Bradley mysteries, many of which have never been published in the U. S.

Apparently these will start appearing sometime later this year, under Amazon's Thomas & Mercer imprint.

S. T. Karnick has more details at his blog, The American Culture.

“Blind Drifts”

 classic mysteries, GAD, Golden Age, Golden Age of Detective Fiction, ILAM, ILoveAMystery Newsletter; locked rooms, impossible crimes, Locked Rooms/Impossible Crimes, mysteries, mystery, Reading Challenges  Comments Off
Apr 082013
 

When one of the directors of the Virgin Queen Gold Mine was shot, deep inside the mine, it happened in front of seven witnesses. Unfortunately, none of them apparently saw the shot fired, nor did they have any idea who might have fired it. And there was no sign of a gun. It was, to be blunt, an impossible situation. So it was probably a good thing that one of the witnesses on hand was a professor of Roman history and amateur detective named Theocritus Lucius Westborough, a man who had earned something of a reputation for solving impossible crime puzzles. He does so again in "Blind Drifts," a 1937 "impossible crime" novel by Clyde B. Clason which is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. You can listen to the full review by clicking here.

Professor Westborough, having inherited a large amount of stock in the Virgin Queen mine from his brother, finds himself at the mine in Baddington, Colorado and caught in the middle of a power struggle between two groups of directors seeking control of the mine. The more he investigates, the more he finds himself caught up in the remarkable violence that seems to befall some of the key players in the power struggle. Another of the mine’s directors has vanished, and may be the victim of foul play. That director’s daughter has also vanished, last having been seen walking onto the campus of the local university – and apparently vanishing. As the situation grows more complicated and dangerous, the local sheriff is more than happy to have assistance from Professor Westborough.

In the 1930s, writing during America's Golden Age of Detective Fiction, Clyde B. Clason made a reputation for himself as an author with a knack for coming up with ingenious locked room/impossible crime situations. Although I find his stories are less exciting than those of John Dickson Carr, whose gift for creating eerie atmospheres was unequalled, I think Clason's books about Professor Westborough are clever and quite enjoyable. "Blind Drifts" takes the reader into a very unusual world - a world of gold mining, drifts, adits, crosscuts, stopes, vugs, strikes and more. The action is fairly slow to start, but once it picks up and the bodies start falling, and believe me they do, it moves to a good, tight conclusion.

"Blind Drifts" is another book read for the Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge under way at Bev's Reader's Block blog. I'm putting it in the category called Amateur Night: a book with a "detective" who is not a P.I., police officer, official.

It's also another book which I have reviewed for the I Love a Mystery newsletter, edited by Sally Powers, who has graciously given me her permission to use portions of that review here and on my podcast. She also provided me with a copy of the new Rue Morgue Press edition of "Blind Drifts" for my review.

 

“A Hearse on May-Day”

 classic mysteries, GAD, General Suggestions, Golden Age, Golden Age of Detective Fiction, mrs. bradley, mysteries, mystery  Comments Off
Mar 252013
 

“No maiden be safe, except under lock and key, at the Mayering of Seven Wells.”

That extremely odd, and rather ominous, warning is given to a young woman named Fenella Lestrange. Her car having broken down in the tiny English village of Seven Wells on the afternoon before May Day - the festival the locals call "Mayering" - she has no choice but to spend the night at the local pub. But the locals warn her to stay locked in her room, for her own safety.

Fenella, not being one to pay attention to efforts to restrict her freedom, rather naturally refuses to stay locked up. That, in turn, leads to a number of very bizarre adventures which, eventually, will involve Fenella's great-aunt, Dame Beatrice Bradley, in an investigation of a local murder. And that's really just the beginning of "A Hearse on May-Day," by Gladys Mitchell, featuring one of England's more eccentric detective characters, Mrs. Bradley, a woman of amazingly keen intellect, reptilian appearance and a truly appalling sense of fashion. "A Hearse on May-Day" is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the entire review by clicking here.

Fenella is a strong-willed young woman, and she is determined to find out what is going on in Seven Wells. What she discovers, among other things, is some distinctly odd fertility rites, an odd gathering of people wearing face masks and costumes based on the signs of the zodiac, and a number of local residents who are muttering ominously about a decided shortage of skeletons. She also hears about the murder of the local squire, who is to be buried on May Day. When Fenella leaves the village the next morning, she travels to nearby relatives and gets a visit from her great-aunt, Mrs. Bradley, who has been asked to investigate that murder. Among the many questions to be answered: Why would anyone kill the popular squire? Who are the people hiding behind those Zodiac masks? Why did the original hosts and servants at the pub in Seven Wells disappear suddenly, to be replaced by an entirely new staff? What is the real story behind some newly-uncovered skeletons? And are the very odd activities observed by Fenella on Mayering Eve connected in some way with the murder?

Gladys Mitchell is not as well known in the US as the other "crime queens" of the English "Golden Age," but her mysteries can be thoroughly enjoyable, filled as they are with eccentric (and occasionally downright insane) characters, odd situations, a great deal of very dry and, sometimes, very dark humor and the wonderful personality of Mrs. Bradley. "A Hearse on May-Day" is one of Mitchell's later books, first published in 1972; this edition, from the invaluable Rue Morgue Press, is the book's first American publication. I think it's one of the most accessible (to an American audience) of Mrs. Bradley's appearances. By all means, give it a try.

My thanks again to Sally Powers, of the "I Love a Mystery" newsletter, for letting me use portions of the review which I originally wrote for that publication and for providing me with a copy of the book for review.

"The Tau Cross Mystery"

 classic mysteries, GAD, Golden Age, Golden Age of Detective Fiction, mysteries, mystery  Comments Off
Jan 212013
 

Looking for a classic Golden Age mystery with fair (and rather prolific) clues, interesting characters, good detective work, and even an intelligent "Watson" to help the detective? Let me suggest "The Tau Cross Mystery," by J. J. Connington, the subject of this week's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. You can listen to the full review by clicking here.

This 1935 classic by Connington, an author sadly neglected today despite having written about two dozen very good traditional mysteries, examines the murder of an unknown man in a deserted apartment. The local chief constable, Sir Clinton Driffield, and his good friend, Squire Wendover, are confronted with plenty of clues, none of which seems sufficient to make clear what happened here. Among other clues, the investigators find a bloody handkerchief, an extra pair of shoes, a spilled pot (can) of paint, a corpse wearing rubber gloves...and a small gold ornament, shaped like the Greek letter "T," or Tau - a Tau cross. It is up to Driffield's investigators to find out who was murdered, how - and, of course, why.

The astute reader may well figure out the solution before the end of the book, as the clues, when properly interpreted, certainly point in one direction - but that really doesn't detract at all from the reader's enjoyment of this book. The characters are fascinating and, for the most part, quite well rounded, Sir Clinton is quite smart, but, for once, so is his friend and assistant, Squire Wendover, who may not grasp the significance of all the clues as quickly as Driffield but who can still provide some occasionally surprising insight into the real course of events.

Most of Connington's books remain out of print, but Coachwhip Publications has re-issued three of them, including "The Tau Cross Mystery," in trade paperback print-on-demand editions, all of which feature a first-rate introduction by Curtis Evans. He says, in his introduction, that "The Tau Cross Mystery" and the other two books "should give considerable enjoyment to mystery readers of today, just as they did with mystery readers of the Golden Age." I quite agree.

"Laurels Are Poison"

 classic mysteries, Funny Mysteries, GAD, Golden Age, Golden Age of Detective Fiction, mrs. bradley, mysteries, mystery  Comments Off
Dec 172012
 

Are you acquainted with Mrs. Bradley? Mrs. Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley, noted psychiatrist, frequently employed by the police as a criminal investigator? Mrs. Bradley does not laugh, she "cackles." Her features have frequently been described by her author, Gladys Mitchell, as "reptilian," even as a "benevolent crocodile"; her students and other acquaintances often refer to her as "Mrs. Croc." It is safe to say that Mrs. Bradley is one of the most original and unusual protagonists to come down to us from the so-called Golden Age of Detective Fiction in England.

Mitchell's books about Mrs. Bradley - more than 60 of them - are something of an acquired taste, but to those of us who have been captivated by Mrs. Bradley's odd behavior, her belief that witchcraft has its uses, her insistence on doing things her way (even, on at least one occasion, committing murder herself), she is a marvelous companion. Take the events in "Laurels Are Poison," first published in 1942, which is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. It is said to have been Mitchell's favorite among her own books. You can listen to the entire review by clicking here.

In "Laurels Are Poison," we find Mrs. Bradley acting as the Warden - the person in charge - of a residence hall at the Cartaret Training College, where young women are trained to become teachers. The previous Warden unaccountably disappeared one night - simply wandered off and vanished - and Mrs. Bradley has been asked to move in and see if she can figure out what happened.

To that end, she enlists three of the students (who refer to themselves throughout as "The Three Musketeers") to help in her search. And there are more inexplicable phenomena, including a variety of apparent pranks, some innocent, others quite dangerous. Eventually, of course, there is murder.

All of which, I fear, gives very little idea of the general mayhem that is going on in this highly enjoyable book. It is enjoyable, that is, if you enjoy some of the extreme forms of English eccentricity. The writing is high-spirited, frequently funny, sometimes grimly so. Some of the events are quite surreal, if fascinating - take the discovery, for example, of a female drowning victim's corsets floating in the river. There are occasional attacks against Mrs. Bradley, too. And, as is often the case with Gladys Mitchell, while some events are quite thoroughly explained, others sort of...well, just happen, and the reader is left to go back and figure out precisely how, when and why.

During Gladys Mitchell's lifetime and her remarkably prolific and long writing career - her first book appeared in 1929, her last in 1984, after her death - remarkably few of her books about Mrs. Bradley were published in the United States. I think it's the occasional runs into the surreal and the amazing eccentricities of Mrs. Bradley and the other characters that may explain why she never really caught on among many American readers. But I am delighted to find some of her books, such as "Laurels Are Poison," being republished by the Rue Morgue Press and others. In fact, this book - and other Mitchells - are now available in a Kindle edition for Amazon.

I have written in some more detail about this book in a recent edition of Sally Powers's excellent "I Love a Mystery" Newsletter, and I thank her for letting me re-review it here.

Looking Back: My Favorite Wimsey

 classic mysteries, Dorothy L. Sayers, GAD, Golden Age, Golden Age of Detective Fiction, Locked Rooms/Impossible Crimes, Looking Back, Lord Peter Wimsey, mysteries, mystery  Comments Off
Nov 272012
 

In writing about "Clouds of Witness," by Dorothy L. Sayers, this week, I indicated that it really wasn't my favorite novel to feature Lord Peter Wimsey. So that, of course, brings up the question, which is my favorite?

Other's tastes may vary, but I think the best Lord Peter Wimsey novel is "The Nine Tailors," the ninth book to feature Wimsey, originally published in 1934. I love it because it is a good mystery, because it has wonderful, thoroughly developed characters, because it balances tragedy and humor, because it is beautifully written and because the eight church bells, with their distinctive names and personalities, play such a central role in the story.

For those unfamiliar with the book, "The Nine Tailors" has nothing to do with making clothing. The "tailors" are the so-called "teller strokes" sounded by the largest church bell; when it rings out nine slow, solo strokes, it is to mark the death of a person. Sayers is writing about church bells that are played in mathematical combinations, not a carillon of bells used to play tunes. She writes of them with a deep affection for the art of change-ringing, as it is called, and the writing is breathtaking.

The story begins on New Year's Eve, when Lord Peter Wimsey and his valet, Bunter, are driving through the gloomy landscape in the English fen country. Their car breaks down in a snowstorm near the small village of Fenchurch St. Paul, and they seek shelter from the storm with the vicar of the town's church, which will be celebrating the new year by ringing an hours-long peal of the eight church bells, ringing out the old year and ringing in the new. Lord Peter fills in as a bellringer, replacing another man who is too ill for the strenuous task at hand.

Months later, Lord Peter is called back to Fenchurch St. Paul. The body of an unidentified man has been found, buried in another person's grave. He must have been murdered and the body hidden - but there is no indication how he died. It will be up to Lord Peter to uncover the truth of what happened.

At the center of the book and its mystery are the eight great church bells, and Sayers' description of them never fails to move me. Here is her description of the midnight start of that great, prolonged New Year's Eve peal:

"The bells gave tongue: Gaude, Sabaoth, John, Jericho, Jubilee, Dimity, Batty Thomas and Tailor Paul, rioting and exulting high up in the dark tower, wide mouths rising and falling, brazen tongues clamouring, huge wheels turning to the dance of the leaping ropes. Every bell in her place, striking tuneably, hunting up, hunting down, dodging, snapping, laying her blows behind, making her thirds and fourths, working down to lead the dance again. Out over the flat, white wastes of fen, over the spear-straight, steel-dark dykes, and the wind-bent, groaning poplar trees, bursting from the snow-choked louvers of the belfry, whirled away southward and westward in gusty blasts of clamour to the sleeping counties went the music of the bells – little Gaude, silver Sabaoth, strong John and Jericho, glad Jubilee, sweet Dimity and old Batty Thomas, with great Tailor Paul bawling and striding like a giant in the midst of them. Up and down went the shadows of the ringers upon the walls, up and down went the scarlet sallies flickering roofwards and floorwards, and up and down, hunting in their courses, went the bells of Fenchurch St. Paul."

 "The Nine Tailors" was the first book I ever reviewed on the "Classic Mysteries" podcast, before this blog was started. You can still listen to that review by clicking here. I know the sound of church bells is not welcomed by everyone - as Sayers herself points out, "The art of change-ringing is peculiar to the English, and, like most English peculiarities, unintelligible to the rest of the world." There are Sayers fans who do not care as much for "The Nine Tailors" as they do for other books in the series. But it is my favorite, and I commend it to you.

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