Golden Age of Detection Archives

“Murder at Cambridge”

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May 122013

Another of England's ancient and long-respected universities is the setting for an entertaining Golden Age mystery by Q. Patrick. His 1933 book, Murder at Cambridge, follows the adventures of an American undergraduate student at that extremely English university, as he first falls in love at first sight with a young woman student - and then finds himself involved in a murder in which that young lady may have played a critical part. Murder at Cambridge is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the entire review by clicking here.

In Murder at Cambridge, we meet Hilary Fenton, an American who finds much to like at the university. He enjoys student life, his studies, the occasional escapades and pranks of his fellow students. But one day, sitting in class, he sees an unknown young woman sitting across the lecture hall from him. He immediately falls in love with her (all right, this IS Golden Age fiction, after all!), and tries to learn who she may be.

But before he can do so, he finds the body of another student, a young man who lives on the same stairway at Cambridge as Hilary does. And he thinks he sees the mysterious young woman coming down the stairs from the victim's rooms at what must have been right around the time of the murder.

So Hilary does what any young man (at least of the period) would do: he proceeds to meddle in the investigation, hiding potentially critical evidence and generally being a nuisance. Fortunately for him, and for the course of justice, the police officer in charge, Inspector Horrocks, is nobody's fool. He sees through Hilary's deceptions pretty quickly and still invites the young man to help him investigate. Working together, they must discover the relationship between that mysterious young woman and the victim and the secret that lies hidden at the heart of the murder. There will be a second murder, and the young woman herself will narrowly escape becoming a victim.

While all this is going on, we are given a student's-eye view of Cambridge University life in the early 1930s - perhaps too much so for some tastes. The author even includes a glossary of student terms, in an effort to help readers decipher some of the jargon - though even he cannot make me understand the game of cricket.

A word about the author: "Q. Patrick" was one of several names used by four different writers working together in various combinations between the 1930s and 1950s. Some books appeared under the names of "Patrick Quentin" and "Jonathan Stagge." Murder at Cambridge, though, appears to have been the solo work of Richard Wilson Webb, the only book he wrote without collaborating with another author. It is an entertaining book, and the university setting certainly adds to the reader's enjoyment of a pretty tight mystery. A British publisher, Ostara Publishing, has brought Q. Patrick's Murder at Cambridge back into print as one of a series of mysteries set in that fine old University town. The paperback, I think, is a bit on the pricey side, but there is also an edition for the Amazon Kindle which is available for less than half the price of the paper copy.

Murder at Cambridge is another entry in the My Reader's Block Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge. Its setting makes it a natural for the category called "Jolly Old England."

I would be remiss if I did not tell you that I came to Murder in Cambridge through a post by mystery writer Martin Edwards, on his excellent blog, "Do You Write Under Your Own Name," which you will find linked from my blogroll on the right. His review includes more information about "Q. Patrick," and I commend the article to you.

“Vintage Murder”

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May 062013

You can do a lot of celebrating with a jereboam of champagne. The giant bottle, four times the "normal" size of a bottle of wine, was to be the centerpiece of a theatrical birthday party. Instead, it became a murder weapon. Fortunately for the New Zealand authorities, one of the witnesses to the entire sorry affair was an English detective - Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn of Scotland Yard. And that proved to be most unfortunate for someone who had carefully plotted what must have seemed like a perfect murder.

In essence, that's the story told in Vintage Murder, by Ngaio Marsh. First published in 1937, the fifth book in Marsh's long series of mysteries starring Detective Inspector Alleyn, it is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the entire review by clicking here.

In "Vintage Murder," we are introduced to the members of the Carolyn Dacres Comedy Company, a small but mostly successful English theater company which, at the time of this novel, is on tour, traveling to a town in New Zealand for a series of performances. Riding in the same compartment of the train with members of the theater group is Scotland Yard detective Roderick Alleyn, who is traveling on holiday through the area while recovering from surgery.

Tensions are running high among some of the members of the company. Alleyn, despite his efforts to avoid any possible involvement, finds himself present at a birthday party held onstage after a performance of the show for the company's leading lady. During the course of the party, arrangements have been made for a jereboam of champagne to be lowered gently from the flies above the stage, as a surprise. Instead, it comes crashing down, killing the person sitting underneath it.

Despite Alleyn's reluctance, he finds himself advising the local police in their investigation - for he, and they, quickly determine that it was no accident. And, among the limited field of suspects, it is up to Alleyn to identify the villain.

There is a great deal to enjoy in Vintage Murder. Ngaio Marsh, in addition to her writing, held a "day job" as producer/director for a successful New Zealand acting troupe, and her mysteries placed in theatrical settings are among her best works. She is wonderful at evoking character in a few lines. For example, here is how she describes one of the character actors in the company:

"Old Brandon Vernon looked a little the worse for wear. The hollows under his cheek bones and the lines round his eyes seemed to have made one of those grim encroachments to which middle-aged faces are so cruelly subject. A faint hint of a rimy stubble broke the smooth pallor of his chin; his eyes, in spite of their look of sardonic impertinence, were lackluster and tired. Yet when he spoke one forgot his age, for his voice was quite beautiful, deep, and exquisitely modulated. He was one of that company of old actors that are only found in the West End of London. They still believe in using their voices as instruments, they speak without affectation, and they are indeed actors."

As a New Zealander, and a theatrical producer, Marsh was writing about the things and people she knew and loved. That comes across very strongly in Vintage Murder. It has been republished by the Felony & Mayhem Press. It is highly recommended.

Vintage Murder is another of my entries in the Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge under way at the My Reader's Block blog, in the category, "Staging the Crime." If you haven't been checking the challenge, you are missing some great reading - it's not too late to start!

“Gaudy Night”

classic mysteries, GAD, Golden Age, Golden Age of Detection, Harriet Vane., Lord Peter Wimsey, mysteries, mystery, Reading Challenges, vintage mystery reading challenge Comments Off

Feb 252013

As I am writing this post on an evening when the entertainment industry gathers for a glittering showcase of Oscar presentations at the Academy Awards, "Gaudy Night" might seem like a good description of those annual festivities. But the "Gaudy Night" to which I am referring is something that endures far longer than the glitter of an awards show. It is the title of a delightful mystery by Dorothy L. Sayers that studies the perils endured by a pioneering college for women at ancient Oxford University. The book is "Gaudy Night," published in 1936, and it is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. You can listen to the entire review by clicking here.

A "Gaudy Night" in the British academic sense is a kind of formal reunion of "old grads," who return to their college for a sort of academic festival. They renew old acquaintances with their professors and with each other. That is how Harriet Vane, a graduate of the fictional Shrewsbury College, the first college entirely for women at Oxford, is drawn into the mysterious and dangerous goings-on at her old school.

The newly republished edition of "Gaudy Night" from the Bourbon Street Books imprint of HarperCollins says, on the front cover, "A Lord Peter Wimsey mystery with Harriet Vane." This is backwards; it is really a Harriet Vane mystery with occasional appearances by Lord Peter. This is fine; Harriet is more than capable of handling things quite nicely, even if Wimsey does come in towards the end to help unravel some of the mystery. For readers who may be new to Sayers, and to Wimsey and Vane, Lord Peter first met Harriet when she was on trial for murder a couple of books earlier in the series. His investigations saved her life. He has been wooing her ever since, to her general consternation - she worries whether she is mistaking a natural gratitude for love. There will be some resolution in the course of "Gaudy Night."

The main plot has Harriet pressed into service to help investigate a series of poison pen letters aimed at students and officials at Shrewsbury College. The letters are quickly augmented by a series of increasingly dangerous practical jokes. It appears that somebody is trying to destroy the reputation of the school and of its scholars. Harriet and Lord Peter must determine what is happening - and try to head off the growing possibility of tragedy.

As with most of Sayers' other books, "Gaudy Night" is written with humor and wit and a great deal of insight into the personalities and conflicts of the central characters. The tension between Lord Peter and Harriet in their relationship is also at the heart of the novel. At one point, for example, Harriet, having just read a rather surprising letter from Lord Peter - one that clearly accepts her as his equal in every way - muses:]

"That was an admission of equality, and she had not expected it of him. If he conceived of marriage along those lines, then the whole problem would have to be reviewed in that new light, but that seemed scarcely possible. To take such a line and stick to it, he would have to be not a man but a miracle."

Mystery readers frequently argue over the merits of "Gaudy Night." Some are put off by its length, some object to its frequent literary quotes and allusions and some complain that not enough "happens" to suit their taste. All may be fair complaints, but I don't join in them. Sayers has a wonderful writing style that keeps the story moving while providing insightful and witty and, yes, thought-provoking comments that I find extremely entertaining. It's also a well-plotted and gripping mystery with a fair number of surprising twists that lead to a thoroughly logical conclusion. This should not be your only Sayers novel - almost certainly not your first. But it should definitely be on your "To Be Read" list as an example of the kind of elegant writing that made the Golden Age of Detective Fiction in England so memorable.

My thanks to Sally Powers, the editor of the "I Love a Mystery" Newsletter, where portions of this review also appeared, for permitting me to review the book here as well.

"Gaudy Night" is also another of my entries in the Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge, in the category "Murder is Academic: a mystery involving a scholar, teacher, librarian, etc. OR set at a school, university, library, etc." "Gaudy Night" is both.

"Death Leaves No Card"

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Sep 102012

If it was a case of murder, it was a case with remarkably few clues. When members of the Maplewood family and their servants broke down the bathroom door, they found the body of Basil Maplewood, who apparently died while getting into his bath. Certainly there was nobody else in the locked bathroom. And yet there was no indication at all of how the young man might have died. Even the post-mortem didn't come up with a likely cause of death. You'd have to say, really, that in this case, "Death Leaves No Card." Which is the title of the Golden Age mystery by Miles Burton which is the subject of today's audio review on the "Classic Mysteries" podcast. You can listen to the full review by clicking here.

"Miles Burton" was one of the pen names used by Cecil John Charles Street, who also wrote as John Rhode and Cecil Way. As Burton, he produced a long series of mysteries featuring Scotland Yard Inspector Henry Arnold and amateur investigator Desmond Merrion. Merrion is absent from "Death Leaves No Card," and Arnold has the field to himself in this very enjoyable locked room/impossible crime mystery from 1939.

As I said earlier, the victim was found alone inside the locked bathroom. He had not drowned. He had not been poisoned. There were no marks of violence on the body. He was, physically, in good health. So how did he die? And why? And who did it? Let me warn you: readers may think they have some pretty good ideas on the subject - but are likely to find that Burton has quite skillfully misled them.

"Death Leaves No Card," in other words, is an excellent traditional mystery, and the "howdunit" is every bit as important as the "whodunit" element. Inspector Arnold, even without his usual cohort, Desmond Merrion, is no slouch and connects the dots quite thoroughly to reveal a pattern that is likely to surprise the reader.

One note on editions: "Death Leaves No Card" is in print, or, to be accurate, print-on-demand, from Ramble House. The Amazon links above will tell you that only a hardcover edition is available. Not so. If you're interested in the trade paperback edition, you can use this link to find and order it directly from Ramble House.

Looking Back: More by Clason

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Jul 012012

If you are intrigued by the kind of locked room/impossible crime mysteries that were specialties of Clyde B. Clason, you might be interested in a couple of other Clason mysteries, written a few years after he wrote "The Purple Parrot."

"Dragon's Cave" is a fairly complex but quite enjoyable mystery, involving the murder of a rich Chicago man, found murdered in a locked room, the apparent victim of an antique halberd, one of the antique weapons he collected. How could the murder have taken place inside that locked room - and why did the killer choose such a large and awkward weapon?

In "Poison Jasmine," Professor Westborough is on the scene in California, when a fellow-guest at the home of a world-famous perfume maker is poisoned at the dinner table - in plain sight of several guests, none of whom saw anyone tampering with the victim's food. It's another impossible-crime thriller, and a very clever one.

The links, by the way, will take you to my earlier blog posts about those books - where you'll find links to my podcast reviews and the book pages on Amazon.

"The Purple Parrot"

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Jun 252012

Granted that old Hezekiah Morse was unlucky enough to be a murder victim. But one might argue that his granddaughter Sylvia found herself in an equally unlucky position, given that the police were convinced she must have murdered him. After all, the only way into the room where he was stabbed was through the door from her room - where she was sitting alone, summoning the courage to go tell her grandfather that she was defying his wishes to marry someone of whom he didn't approve. And she was being cut out of his will - being left only a small, apparently worthless statuette of a purple parrot. So there you are - motive, means, opportunity - and a situation where apparently nobody else could have done it.

No, Sylvia's position was anything but ideal. And that's the situation we find in "The Purple Parrot," a 1937 "Golden Age" locked-room mystery by Clyde B. Clason, set in Chicago. It's the subject of this week's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the full review by clicking here.

While the police believe that Sylvia committed the murder, it is worth pointing out that she had a fair number of defenders. Her husband-to-be, a lawyer (and our narrator), was also in the house at the time, and he insists that Sylvia could not have done it. Fortunately, he is supported in that belief by Professor Theocritus Lucius Westborough, an expert on Roman history - and a man with quite a track record as an amateur sleuth who has provided invaluable assistance in the past to Chicago police detective Johnny Mack. Westborough has a reputation for explaining impossible crimes. He also is intrigued by that strange statue of a purple parrot - which, by the way, seems to have disappeared. And it is only when he uncovers the secret of the bird - and a number of other seemingly incidental details concerning rare wines, malevolent gangsters and rare first editions - that the mystery will be explained.

Other American mystery writers - most notably John Dickson Carr - were more famous for their locked room mysteries, but Clyde B. Clason really deserves a wider readership. He wrote ten mysteries between 1936 and 1941, most of them involving seemingly impossible crimes for Professor Westborough to solve. Those of his books which I have read don't have the kind of atmospherics, the touch of terror that Carr brought to his novels. But they were very good, enjoyable mysteries, with some ingenious solutions to the seemingly impossible problems. The Rue Morgue Press has republished "The Purple Parrot" and a few other Clason novels. If you like locked room puzzle mysteries, you really ought to make his acquaintance.

"Murder on Wheels"

classic mysteries, Funny Mysteries, GAD, Golden Age, Golden Age of Detection, Hildegarde Withers, Locked Rooms/Impossible Crimes, mysteries, mystery, vintage mysteries Comments Off

Jun 032012

So you think you've had bad days?

Consider the plight of New York City police officer Francis X. Doody, directing traffic at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street in 1931-era New York City. In rush hour. In a snowstorm. And an open roadster - with no driver - careens down the Avenue and crashes into a taxicab. Well, there was a driver in the roadster - but he apparently did a back flip out of the driver's seat a short way up the street and is now lying - very dead, with a rope tied around his neck - in the middle of the road. Murdered - but how? By whom?

No, not a good day for Officer Doody. Not much better for his boss, Inspector Oscar Piper. Luckily for Piper, his friend, that "meddlesome old battleaxe" Hildegarde Withers, is on hand to help him investigate this apparently impossible crime. And we're off and running, in "Murder on Wheels," by Stuart Palmer, a wonderful mystery (with plenty of comic overtones) from America's Golden Age of Detection. It's the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the full review by clicking here.

Written in 1932, "Murder on Wheels" was Palmer's second book featuring Hildy Withers, a schoolteacher who takes no nonsense from her students or from stubborn police inspectors. In fact, after agreeing to disagree over a number of points, Hildy and Piper agree to each investigate the crime independently to see which of them can solve it first. Any of my readers want to place any bets?

"Murder on Wheels" is a strong entry in the Hildy Withers series. With an impossible murder, interesting characters, a foul-mouthed parrot, and an entire rodeo - yes, a rodeo - there's plenty going on here. Good thing we all have Hildy to sort it out.

"Murder in the Maze"

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May 142012

This is the stuff of which nightmares are made. You are lost inside a maze - one of those garden affairs where the passageways are narrow lanes between very tall and very dense hedges. The idea is to find your way to the center of the maze, and then find your way out again. So here you are, exploring the maze - a maze with two centers - when you hear a cry. Someone has been murdered in the maze, and the killer is trying to get out. And you hear footsteps...

As I say, it's the stuff of nightmares. And it is one of several memorable scenes inside that frightening double maze in "Murder in the Maze," a marvelous 1927 mystery by J. J. Connington. Long out of print, it is once again available in a handsome paperback edition with a fine introduction by mystery scholar Curtis Evans. It is the subject of this week's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, and you can listen to the full review by clicking here.

"Murder in the Maze" begins at the country estate called Whistlefield, the home of Roger Shandon. Roger and his twin brother Neville, both needing a place where they can study their business affairs privately, go into the great double maze - a maze with two centers - that is Whistlefield's pride.

But both men are murdered in the maze, the victims of poisoned darts. Also in the maze at the time of the murder are two young visitors to the estate. They are the ones, exploring the maze separately, who hear the murders being committed - and who are terrified hearing the footsteps of the murderer trying to escape. What if that murderer comes across these potential witnesses, who are helplessly lost in the maze...

It's a nightmarish scene, remarkably well-realized. And there are other, equally well thought-out and created scenes within that maze which will linger in the memory long after you finish reading this book. The detective who solves the problems of the maze is Sir Clinton Driffield, the Chief Constable of the county where the crimes take place. Driffield and his friend Squire Wendover are Connington's series detectives, and the investigation is remarkably well done.

I must admit I was completely unfamiliar with Connington until I read about him on Curtis Evans's fine blog, "The Passing Tramp." In his introduction to this new edition, Evans notes that "Murder in the Maze" drew praise from the great English poet T. S. Eliot, who called it "a really first-rate detective story." I suspect that modern readers will agree with Eliot's assessment; Evans calls it "one of the very finest country house mysteries produced by a British detective novelist in the 1920s." It is highly recommended.

"Sealed Room Murder"

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Mar 192012

If you were giving an award for "truth in advertising" or "truth in titling," you would need to look no further than the book "Sealed Room Murder," a Golden Age classic from 1937 by Rupert Penny. "Sealed Room Murder" gives the reader precisely what it promises: a victim is assaulted and stabbed in the back while inside a room whose only entrances and exits are both locked and sealed. It is the subject of this week's Classic Mysteries podcast, and you may listen to the full review by clicking here.

In "Sealed Room Murder," we are presented with the murder of a particularly unpleasant woman named Harriett Steele who, as I said, is murdered by being stabbed in the back while alone inside a locked and bolted room. It is one of those apparently impossible crimes - but, as Inspector Beale points out, it can't be impossible because it quite clearly did happen. The trick, then, is to figure out how it happened.

If you want to know why it happened that way, Beale is quite clear: "The essential quality of a miracle is that it can't be explained, and what can't be explained isn't punishable." Certainy, the circumstances of the crime make its investigation far more difficult. Yet Inspector Beale, to his credit, is able to see through the artifices which make the crime appear impossible.

That solution will be presented to the reader in its proper place - after he or she has been given all the necessary clues. And, just before the final section of the book, the reader is challenged, in the best traditions of, say, Ellery Queen:

"The problem is now complete, the previous chapters containing all the data necessary to a full solution. Accordingly, who murdered Mrs. Steele? Or, for those readers who like hard work, how was the murder committed?"

Be forewarned. While the solution is fairly given, it is quite complicated, involving a number of diagrams, thoughtfully included in the last section of the book to help explain the "miracle." As with all "impossible crime" stories, there is the risk of disappointment when the reader learns how the trick was done. I think that's unfair. This is the first book by Rupert Penny that I have read, and it is now available thanks to Ramble House publishers. It will not be my last.

"The Mysterious Affair at Styles"

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Feb 062012

It was a meeting (a reunion, actually) that rivals, in the history of crime fiction, the first meeting between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson:

As I came out again, I cannoned into a little man who was just entering. I drew aside and apologized, when suddenly, with a loud exclamation, he clasped me in his arms and kissed me warmly.

"Mon ami Hastings" he cried. "It is indeed mon ami Hastings!"

"Poirot" I exclaimed.

And so, for the first time, Captain Arthur Hastings introduces the reader to his "old friend," Monsieur Hercule Poirot, war refugee and retired Belgian police detective. And it proves to be a good thing that he did, for without M. Poirot's intervention (and without Captain Hastings to record the results!), the poisoning of a disagreeable old woman at the country manor known as Styles might well have gone unsolved - or pinned on the wrong person. It all happens in Agatha Christie's very first mystery novel, published in 1920, "The Mysterious Affair at Styles," which is the subject of today's review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. You can listen to the complete review by clicking here.

"The Mysterious Affair at Styles" contains a great many of what would become Christie's trademarks: it is set in a country house; the victim is a particularly unpleasant family tyrant; there are a lot of people around who might well have had sufficient motive for murder; the police are headed in the wrong direction and need help from Poirot; and the mystery is solved and explained at a confrontation in a drawing room where Poirot has gathered all the suspects.

The story of the creation of Hercule Poirot is fairly well known. He sprang, more-or-less fully formed, into Agatha Christie's head, an already-elderly retired foreign police detective who came to England as a war refugee from his native Belgium. That "already-elderly" designation would come to haunt Christie, who acknowledged in her autobiography that Poirot must have been well over a hundred years old before his career finally ended.

All the same, Poirot's first case, in "The Mysterious Affair at Styles," is a delight, made all the more astonishing by the fact that the story was written by a young woman with next to no real writing experience, dared by her sister to try her hand at writing a detective story. The book is full of Christie's marvelous tricks, as she uses misdirection artfully to throw readers off the right track. The poisoning is quite brilliantly handled; Christie used her extensive knowledge of poisons (acquired as a hospital dispenser during the Great War) to provide a novel and ingenious solution to the problem of "howdunit." If the characters are less than perfectly drawn, the plot is more than sufficient to carry the book along.

After "The Mysterious Affair at Styles," Christie went on to write novels, short stories and plays, eighty books in all; I think that no other author quite embodies the heart of the Golden Age of Detection as Agatha Christie does. If you've never read the book that started it all, what are you waiting for? There are inexpensive paperbacks available (see the link above); for that matter there are inexpensive Amazon Kindle versions including one for 99 cents which also includes Christie's second novel, the Tommy-and-Tuppence thriller "The Secret Adversary," another fun read.

"The Mysterious Affair at Styles" is my entry for the 1920s in the "Deadly Decades" division of the Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge under way at Bev's My Reader's Block blog. Check there for some of the other wonderful classic mysteries being read by other bloggers - books which you might enjoy reading.