January 2011


IT’S ABOUT CRIME, by Marvin Lachman


PATRICK QUENTIN

● PATRICK QUENTIN – Puzzle for Puppets. Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 1944. Paperback reprints include: Pocket #420, 1946; Avon, 1980; International Polygonics Ltd (IPL), 1989. Filmed as Homicide for Three (Republic, 1948; with Warren Douglas & Audrey Long as Peter & Iris Duluth).

   [… Among the recent offerings from IPL is the] fast-paced and even more enjoyable Puzzle for Puppets by Patrick Quentin, my choice as the best book in the Peter Duluth series.

   Wartime San Francisco is portrayed vividly, especially its hills, cable cars, and Chinatown, as Naval Lieutenant (jg) Duluth’s plans for a romantic weekend leave with Iris, his actress wife, are constantly hindered by theft and murder.

   This intemtptus-based frustration leads to even stronger emotion when he is framed for the murder and must track down the guilty party if he wishes to stay out of jail, let alone spend time with Iris.

CHARLOTTE ARMSTRONG

● CHARLOTTE ARMSTRONG – A Little Less Than Kind. Coward-McCann, hardcover, 1963. Paperback reprints include: Ace Double G-540, no date [1965]; Berkley S2173, 1972; IPL, 1989.

   More serious, though no less readable, is Charlotte Armstrong’s A Little Less Than Kind (1963), about the attempt of a young man to prove that his new stepfather murdered his father.

   Perhaps Pasadena is an unusual setting for a modern working out of Hamlet, but in the expert hands of Armstrong, one of the great writers of domestic suspense, the reader’s attention and emotions are grabbed early in the book, and then it is almost impossible to put it down.

— Reprinted from The MYSTERY FANcier,
       Vol. 11, No. 4, Fall 1989 (slightly revised).


Editorial Comment:   My apologies for not being able to come up with images of either of the two IPL covers. I think the two I did locate should do almost as well, however.

(1) WILLIAM JOHNSTON, 1924-2010.

WILLIAM JOHNSTON

    Al Hubin sent me earlier today news of the death of William Johnston, author of many movie and TV tie-in novels, including nine in the Get Smart series. He was born in 1924 and is reported to have passed away last October 15th.

    There’s a long article about Johnston on Lee Goldberg’s blog

http://leegoldberg.typepad.com/a_writers_life/2010/01/william-johnson-named-tiein-grandmaster-for-2010.html

on the occasion of Johnston’s being awarded last year’s Faust, the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers’ Grand Master Award.

    Said Lee Goldberg: “He wrote books based on Captain Nice, Room 222, Happy Days, Welcome Back Kotter, The Flying Nun, The Brady Bunch, Nanny and the Professor, The Munsters, Gilligan’s Island, Bewitched, The Monkees and F-Troop, among others.

WILLIAM JOHNSTON

    “But his TV tie-in work extended far beyond sitcom adaptations. He wrote books based on Ironside, Dick Tracy, The Young Rebels, The Iron Horse, Then Came Bronson, and Rod Serling’s The New People, to name a few. He even adapted the cartoon characters Magilla Gorilla and Snagglepuss into books for children.

    “Johnston also penned many novelizations, including the pilots for the 1930s-era private eye series Banyon and the high school drama Sons and Daughters. His feature film novelizations include Klute, The Swinger, Echoes of a Summer, The New Interns, The Priest’s Wife, Lt. Robin Crusoe USN and his final tie-in project, Gore Vidal’s Caligula (under the pseudonym William Howard).”

ARIANA FRANKLIN

(2) ARIANA FRANKLIN, 1935-2010.

    From my daughter Sarah’s historical fiction blog, Reading the Past:

    “Diana Norman, who also wrote historical thrillers as Ariana Franklin, passed away on Thursday after a lengthy illness. […] Her ‘Mistress of the Art of Death’ series brought her back to the early Plantagenet era in the company of Adelia Aguilar, a Salerno-trained physician and forensic specialist (for the 12th c).”

    L. J. Roberts recently reviewed A Murderous Procession, the fourth in the series, on this blog. I added a bibliography and some cover photos.


ROBERT E. W. JANSSON

(3) ROBERT E. W. JANSSON. 1936-2011.

    Born in England, died in Missouri January 13, 2011. A long online obituary can be found at

http://obit.schrader.com/obitdisplay.html?task=Print&id=884065

    A teacher and chemist by trade, Jansson was also the author of two crime thrillers in the 1970s, both in Hubin: Meet You in Munich (Barker, 1975) and News Caper (London: Macmillan, 1978).

    These were followed by Feet First in 2009, a detective novel, preceded in 2008 by a novel taking place in Iceland during the Viking era, Kari’s Saga.

[UPDATE] 02-04-11.   Jiro Kimura, on his Gumshoe Site, adds the fact that Prof. Stuart Warlock appeared in both of Jansson’s 1970s novels, a series character previously unknown to Hubin.

REVIEWED BY DAN STUMPF:         


THE SCOUNDREL. Paramount Pictures, 1935. Noel Coward, Julie Haydon, Stanley Ridges, Martha Sleeper, Ernest Cossart, Alexander Woollcott, Everley Gregg, Rosita Moreno, Eduardo Ciannelli, Lionel Stander. Written & directed by Ben Hecht & Charles MacArthur.

THE SCOUNDREL Noel Coward

   The gem of movie-watching in last October’s spooky season was an off-beat ghost story with the unlikely title The Scoundrel, written and directed by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur (who appear as derelicts in one scene) and starring Noel Coward in his screen debut.

   This is a wonderful thing, witty, moving and quite creepy at times as it tells of Tony Mallare, a powerful publisher, unredeemed cynic and the devil with women (Coward naturally, at the top of his archly-amusing form), surrounded by back-biting sycophants and spurned lovers, who dies in a plane crash and returns to walk the earth for a month to see if he can find someone who will cry for him.

   Sounds hokey, I know, but Scoundrel has the wit, talent and imagination to carry it off. The first half of the film is brittle comedy, with everyone speaking in epigrams, topped easily by Coward at every turn, dispensing bons mots like loose change falling from his pockets as he breaks hearts with the lethal grace of a gunfighter in a western.

   Surprising, then, to see this drawing room comedy suddenly pirouette into bizarre drama when Mallare returns to seek redemption.

THE SCOUNDREL Noel Coward

   Hecht and McArthur wisely use no special effects, but suggest Mallare’s otherworldliness by careful mise en scene and Coward’s remarkable acting, which somehow detaches him from the players around him.

   The contrast between his casual elegance earlier and the agonized isolation as he roams about, tired, wet and despairing, is … well, it’s haunting!

   The character of Anthony Mallare, incidentally, is playing a character based on Horace Liveright, the publisher whose name became synonymous with American Literature in the first half of the 20th century, the man who brought Dracula, with Bela Lugosi, to Broadway. But he’s chiefly remembered for his self-indulgence and lavish parties — and because his funeral was attended by only three mourners!

   I’ll just add that the supporting cast includes Lionel Stander and Eduardo Ciannelli as poets, some lovely actresses I never heard of, and Alexander Woollcott as a critic, who help make this a film whose like you will not see again.

THE SCOUNDREL Noel Coward

IT IS PURELY MY OPINION
Reviews by L. J. Roberts


SHONA MacLEAN – A Game of Sorrow. Quercus, UK, trade paperback, 2010.

Genre:   Historical mystery. Leading character:   Alexander Seaton; 2nd in series. Setting:   Scotland/Ireland-1628.

SHONA MacLEAN

First Sentence:   The bride’s grandmother smiled: she could feel the discomfort of the groom’s family and it pleased her well.

    It is disconcerting enough to be accused of less-then reputable actions you know you did not commit, but even more so when confronted by a man who could be your twin.

    Alexander Seaton, a reputable teacher at Marischal College in Aberdeen, has never known any family beyond his now-dead parents until now. Near-twin cousin Sean O’Neill is about to change all that with an entreaty for Alexander to come with him to Ireland. It seems his grandfather is dying and the entire O’Neill family is under a curse which only the proven existence of Alexander can break.

    It is always frustrating when you absolutely love an author’s first book and are then disappointed in their second. Unfortunately, that was the case here. In The Redemption of Alexander Seaton, I felt great empathy for the character and came to care about him.

    In this book, other than as the “voice” of the story, and the one to whom everything happens — how many times can one get hit on the head without major concussion or brain damage — we learn little about his internal makeup. Yes, it is interesting that he is such a fish-out-of-water character being an academic caught up in conflict, but he never really came to life.

SHONA MacLEAN

    I’ve never been to Ireland, but I did love MacLean’s descriptions. She made me feel as though I were standing next to the characters, and wished I could be. I also felt she well conveyed the sense of Ireland as a land where faith and superstition walked hand-in-hand.

    While I found the history fascinating and gained a better understanding of the conflict between the Catholics and Protestants, English and Irish, I felt MacLean became so caught up in the history, I somewhat forgot about the story.

    I was also interested to learn that a troupe of traveling players may have performed Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” in Ireland during this time.

    The story was interesting but I found it difficult to keep track of all the characters and, because most of them were simply that, there were few about whom I really cared. I am, by no means, ready to give up on MacLean. I do hope, however, her next book focuses more on telling us a whopping good story.

Rating:   OK.

Editorial Comment:   An interview with Shona MacLean can be found online here. And in case you may have been wondering, the answer is yes, sort of. Her uncle was “best-selling author Alistair MacLean who wrote The Guns of Navarone, Where Eagles Dare and a host of other action thrillers.”

JOHN NICHOLAS DATESH – The Janus Murder. Leisure Books, paperback original, 1979.

   One of the pleasures that comes from doing a regular column on mysteries like this one is that once in a while a book comes along that I can point out to that you might not have known about otherwise.

JOHN NICHOLAS DATESH The Janus Murder

   While it’s not a book all of you are going to turn somersaults over, it is one you’re probably going to have to go out and do some hunting for if you want it.

   For example, who ever reads anything published by Leisure Books? And just look at that cover. I’m no expert, but that certainly looks like a double-barreled shotgun to me, suggesting a Mafia revenge novel, or if not that, then most certainly a crime novel crammed to the cranny with violence. Even the most dedicated private eye fan is going to think twice before opening this one up.

   Surprise. Believe it or no, this is a detective story. Not a bit of blood’n’guts in the book. The private eye’s name is Casey Carmichael. He may not be the most brilliant detective in the business, but he’s honest, he’s dedicated, and he tries hard. (He works out of Pittsburgh, by the way, and it’s been along time since anyone could say that about a detective story.)

   He’s hired in The Janus Murder by a female client to exonerate a man, her fiance, who’s been accused of killing her father. It seems he made the fatal mistake of committing the murder while being overheard on an open party line.

   That there’s no easier way of framing someone doesn’t seem to have occurred to anyone, and as I mentioned before, even Casey doesn’t seem always to have all his brain cells clicking at once.

   This is a novel that simply cries out for some substantial line-by-line editing, but there are some subtle clues in the midst of the telling. Remarkably, some of them are left for only the reader to catch the significance of, and as the title indicates, a number of the clues are two-faced as well, including the one of the little gray man from upstate New York who turns out to be the key to unraveling the entire case.

   This is definitely little more than raw material for the true connoisseur, but it could easily have been much more than it is. And with it all — this is the truth — I found it very much impossible to put down.

— Reprinted from The MYSTERY FANcier,
   Vol. 3, No. 5, Sept-Oct 1979. Slightly revised.


[UPDATE] 01-29-11.   Leisure was indeed a small, obscure paperback publisher when this book came out, but until its recent financial problems came along, it had survived and was doing a fine business putting out westerns, historical romances, and even more importantly, the line of Hard Case Crime novels.

   The book is probably more easily found today than when I wrote this review, what with the ease you can buy most every book on the Internet. In fact, and this surprised me, you can download a copy almost immediately to your Kindle. That’s where I got the cover image, not from the original paperback.

   As for the book itself, I can add one other thing. The letter grade I gave it back in 1979 was a solid “B minus.” Unfortunately, while Datesh has two other books in Hubin, both written about the same time, neither one is a follow-up adventure for PI Casey Carmichael.

THE BACKWARD REVIEWER
William F. Deeck


BAYNARD H. KENDRICK – The Eleven of Diamonds. Greenberg, hardcover, 1936. Penguin #616, paperback, 1946.

BAYNARD KENDRICK The Eleven of Diamonds

   Edward Fowler is found in the poker room of the Sunset Bridge Club with a knife in his back and the eleven of diamonds in his hand: Fowler was a gambler and a lover and a burglar, and he may have been other things besides.

   Since the case is an unusual one, the police call upon Miles Standish Rice, the Hungry, for assistance. Rice is also hired by a rich man whose son, verging on the ne’er-do-well and a confirmed and not very talented gambler, owed Fowler a large gambling debt.

   In this portrait of post-boom Florida, Rice eats a lot and often and puts his life in jeopardy on several occasions as he tries to figure out not only who killed Fowler but how he was killed.

   While the characters are interesting, I was disappointed in not being able to find the spies promised by the paperback publisher. Though not as good as many of Kendrick’s novels featuring Duncan Maclain, there is sufficient action and cerebration to keep most readers entertained.

— From The MYSTERY FANcier, Vol. 11, No. 4, Fall 1989.


The Miles Standish Rice series —

    The Iron Spiders. Greenberg, 1936.

BAYNARD KENDRICK

    The Eleven of Diamonds. Greenberg, 1936.
    Death Beyond the Go-Thru. Doubleday, 1938.

NOTE:   Deputy sheriff Miles Standish Rice also appeared in several novelettes and short stories, including “Headless Angel,” Black Mask, September 1939. See also Comments #2 and #3.

REVIEWED BY WALTER ALBERT:         


SHOW GIRL IN HOLLYWOOD

SHOW GIRL IN HOLLYWOOD. First National Pictures, 1930. Alice White, Jack Mulhall, Blanche Sweet, Ford Sterling, John Miljan, Virginia Sale, Lee Shumway, Spec O’Donnell. Based on John Patrick McEvoy’s novel Broadway Girl. Cinematographer: Sol Polito. Director: Mervyn LeRoy. Shown at Cinefest 28, Syracuse NY, March 2008.

   Dixie Dugan (Alice White), whose first Broadway show, directed by her boyfriend Jimmy Doyle (Jack Mulhall) has just opened and closed, is given a letter by movie director Frank Buelow (John Miljan) instructing studio producer Sam Otis (Ford Sterling) to test her for a contract.

   However, when she arrives in Hollywood, she finds she’s only one of a number of Buelow’s protegees. Discouraged, she’s ready to go back to New York when Jimmy Doyle’s musical is picked up by the studio. Dixie is hired as the lead, and she seems destined for stardom.

   White is not much of a dancer or a singer, the musical numbers are undistinguished, and the two-strip technicolor negatives of the closing musical number have not survived.

SHOW GIRL IN HOLLYWOOD

   However, the unoriginal plot is enhanced by the sometimes broad but still sharply etched performances of Hollywood types, by the behind-the-scenes filming of a major musical number, and by Blanche Sweet’s moving portrayal of Donna Harris, a silent film great who’s not made the transition successfully to sound films, and who serves as a mentor to Dixie.

   There are pre-echoes of A Star is Born, and if it’s a fairly routine musical, it’s more incisive and interesting as a portrait of the instability of careers in the early days of sound films, in the wake of the cataclysm that destroyed the silent film.

   As a kind of ironic commentary on this event, there’s a small role played by Spec O’Donnell, a talented comic actor who shone briefly in a series of late silent comedies with Max Davidson (a Cinefest favorite), with both of their careers largely ending with the demise of the silent film.

SHOW GIRL IN HOLLYWOOD

REVIEWED BY MICHAEL SHONK:


THE MAD MISS MANTON. RKO Pictures, 1938. Cast: Melsa Manton: Barbara Stanwyck, Peter Ames: Henry Fonda, Lt. Brent: Sam Levine, Sullivan: James Burke. Screenplay by Philip G. Epstein. Director: Leigh Jason.

THE MAD MISS MANTON

   It is rare to find a comedy mystery with a strong enough mystery to equal the comedy. The Mad Miss Manton is screwball comedy mystery at its best.

   While walking her dogs at 3 am, debutant Melsa Manton discovers a dead body in an old house. She runs to notify the police, but when she returns with them the body is gone and the cops are convinced it is all a prank. Young newspaper editor Peter Ames uses the “prank” to ridicule Miss Manton and the idle rich lifestyle.

   Melsa enlists the help of her closest seven friends to help her clear her name. Eight determined debutantes out to find a killer. The cops, the press, even the killer are doomed.

THE MAD MISS MANTON

   The murder mystery plot could stand on its own without the comedy and make a good typical RKO B-movie mystery. What follows Melsa’s discovery of the body is a mystery that will keep you guessing until Melsa finds the final clue. The story features a variety of suspects, all involved in one kind of relationship or another.

   In screwball comedy tradition, Peter and Melsa hate each other. Peter hates Melsa so much he falls in love with her. But whenever Melsa’s begins to weaken towards Peter the mystery interrupts, and Melsa’s feelings for him return to hate.

   Reacting to Peter and Melsa, two of the debutantes exchange comments that sums up the philosophy of all screwball comedies.

    “You know, psychiatrists say hate’s just a step away from love.”

    “Yeah, but it’s the lull in between that drives you crazy.”

THE MAD MISS MANTON

   Director Leigh Jason maintains the frantic pace of the screwball comedy without losing any of the tension of the mystery. He also effectively uses the entire cast, especially the pack of debutantes, giving each character their own identity.

   From the opening titles on, the film’s dark look creates an atmosphere fitting for the murder mystery, not letting the screwball comedy overwhelm the suspense. Cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca would later be the cinematographer for Out of the Past.

   The main attraction of The Mad Miss Manton is Philip G. Epstein’s (Casablanca, Arsenic & Old Lace) script in the hands of Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda. The chemistry between Fonda and Stanwyck works as well for this film as it will later in Lady Eve.

THE MAD MISS MANTON

   The comedy and mystery blends well in The Mad Miss Manton, each playing off the other. Peter is at the first murder scene where the debutantes left him bound and gagged. The young ladies find a second murder victim. Believing it to be another hoax, the police refuse to respond. So the women take the second body and leave it in the lobby of Peter’s newspaper.

   When asked why, Melsa explains, “I thought if you read it in the paper you’d believe us.”

THE MAD MISS MANTON

   The screwball comedy genre is skilled at dealing with sexual attraction between characters. When Peter learns the killer has threatened Melsa, he runs to her rescue. Melsa is trying to sleep, but he insists he is spending the night there. Melsa mockingly congratulates Peter, of all the attempted subterfuge of others to remain in her bedroom, his is the best.

   The atmosphere, twists, and clues will appeal to those in search of a good B-movie murder mystery. Those looking for a funny screwball comedy will enjoy the non-stop wisecracks, gags, slapstick and wit. Unless you are one of the young men the debutantes dump without a word whenever the mystery surfaces, The Mad Miss Manton will prove entertaining.

   You can find more about this film, including the original trailer, at TCMdb.com. It is available on DVD from Warner Archive Collection.

THE MAD MISS MANTON

Reviewed by DAVID L. VINEYARD:         


GASTON LEROUX – The Phantom Clue. Macaualy, US, hardcover, 1926. Published earlier in the US as The Slave Bangle, John Long, hardcover, 1925, a translation by Hannaford Bennett of Le crime du Rouletabille (Paris, France: P. Lafitte, 1922).

GASTON LEROUX

   Eric, the damned and haunted “hero” of The Phantom of the Opera, is Gaston Leroux’s best known creation today, thanks to numerous films and television productions and the long running Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, but in his own day and time, Leroux was as well known for his thrillers featuring the frightening facial aspect of picaresque criminal Cheri Bibi, his weird novels, and the adventures of the arrogant genius, young journalist detective Joseph Rouletabille (an influence on Herge’s teen journalist Tintin almost certainly).

   If readers know of Rouletabille today it is for Leroux’s detective masterpiece, The Mystery of the Yellow Room, a famous and still effective application of the locked room mystery unraveled by the brilliant teen age sleuth (he’s only eighteen in his first case), Rouletabille.

   Most lists of the classics of the genre still include this tale, Leroux’s first venture into the detective novel, and it is in print currently from Black Coat Press and before that from Dover books. In France, Rouletabille had even greater success with films, a television series, and numerous graphic albums featuring his adventures.

   The Phantom Clue is the most personal of Rouletabille’s many adventures, beginning, surprisingly, with a situation closer to French farce than a mystery novel. It’s hard to imagine Philo Vance, Lord Peter, or Ellery Queen in quite such a predicament:

   Rouletabille has invited his friend Maitre Sainclair (in France lawyers are addressed by the title maitre), an older friend dating back to his first adventure, to join him and his wife Ivana at the seaside in Deauville at the Thatches where Irene is the medical research assistant to the famous (and infamous) Roland Boulenger, a medical research scientist both brilliant and arrogant (he has even challenged some of Pasteur’s research — unthinkable in France) who is pursuing a cure for tuberculosis.

   Boulenger, in addition to his arrogance and brilliance, is also a serial ladies man, and Ivana is his latest target, enlisted in this role with the approval of Madame Boulanger, Therese, as an “innocent” flirtation to divert her husband from a far more serious affair with the notorious femme fatale Theodora Luigi, who currently is involved with Prince Henry of Albania, and thus out of Boulenger’s sights.

GASTON LEROUX

   Sainclair, as his name suggests, sees clearly and warns Rouletabille of the dangers of the game. Rouletabille seems unconcerned, but in truth he is growing tired of this pretense despite his love for and trust of Ivana.

   Things come to a head when Theodora Luigi and Prince Henry show up in Deauville. After an encounter at the casino Madame Boulenger becomes distraught and Ivana redoubles her efforts to calm her, which finally pushes Rouletabille over the edge.

   Before he can act tragedy strikes. Madame Boulenger follows her husband to a rendezvous with Theodora — where Prince Henry commits suicide because of Theodora’s involvement with Boulenger, and Madame Boulenger is shot by her husband, heard by the policeman guarding Prince Henry to cry out just before the two gunshots that wound her — “Murder! Roland! Murder!”

   Madame Boulenger lives, saved by her husband, and the authorities are all too glad to cover up a potential scandal — ruling Prince Henry’s suicide an accident and Madame Boulenger’s injuries the same.

   Rouletabille insists Ivana return with him to Paris, but when the Boulenger’s return to Paris, Madame Boulenger fully recovered, Theodora is also there with her new lover, and Madame Boulenger again enlists Ivana’s help to distract her husband, this time against Rouletabille’s wishes.

   Ivana meets Boulenger in a small house in Paris and Rouletabille follows, but at the final moment decides to trust his wife and leaves. Then he learns Ivan and Boulenger have been murdered, shot, and he is arrested for the murder and thrown into a cell at Le Sainte, the city prison.

   At this point the book turns positively Hitchcockian. The police are anxious to frame Rouletabille for the crime not only to solve the case, but because Theodora Luigi is a valued agent of the French government, and they don’t want her role in the affair exposed in the volatile French press.

   Rouletabille escapes from Le Sainte with the elan and simplicity of Arsene Lupin, whom he sometimes resembles (*), and sets out to clear himself, which involves finding Theodora Luigi and a valuable witness and recovering a letter which proves she was at the rendezvous with Boulenger and Ivana.

GASTON LEROUX

   The police don’t dare to arrest him since he has the letter, so while he follows Theodora and her new lover out of Paris while tracking a witness who can prove she was near the site of the murder, he is stalked on the train by a retired pickpocket the police hire to steal the letter before Rouletabille can interfere with Theodora’s activities.

   Finally, Rouletabille, still a fugitive, the courts decide to try him in absence (legal under French law), but Rouletabille shows up in court for his trial, and presents his case — one of the most dramatic and surprising such chapters in the genre, with Rouletabille proving himself one of the great fictional sleuths of all time, reconstructing two crimes and revealing the murderer with a style both Ellery Queen and Perry Mason would have to admire.

   The revelation proves to be not only psychologically as well as physically sound, but in the best tradition of the genre, it would have been obvious all along if the reader had only read the facts with Rouletabille’s eye. It’s a neat bit of misdirection on both Leroux and the murderer’s part.

   Leroux is no exponent of the fair play mystery, and Rouletabille is closer to Arsene Lupin or even Sherlock Holmes than the classic form, but he had a fine sense of drama and the weird, and in the Rouletabille novels he constructed some well done mystery plots with clever solutions, which, in fairness, the reader has half a chance to figure out if he is paying attention.

   In addition the continental morality of France in the period mean the books are more modern in their attitudes than many English and American novels from the same time, although a good deal of melodrama does manage to sneak into the books.

   The Phantom Clue proved to be the penultimate Rouletabille adventure. His next book, The Octopus of Paris, was a delightful romp involving gypsies and Ruritanian adventure, with the chief mystery revealed mid way through the book and the rest of the novel mostly a tale of chase and pursuit.

   Even here, however, Leroux manages a triple header at the end with Rouletabille making the same revelation three different times (and its a dilly) and surprising the reader every time. (You’ll have to read it to see how, but it is a unique feat in the genre, and utilizes such a clever bit of misdirection that every time the reader guesses the truth he ends up dismissing it until the final revelation.)

   The series ends with a suggestion of an American adventure for Rouletabille which we sadly never get to read.

   Stick with The Phantom Clue past the soap opera and farce found in the early chapters, and it turns into a clever and exciting mystery with Rouletabille facing a far more personal dilemma than most of his competitors ever managed. It’s not a tour de force, but still worth reading, and Rouletabille’s summation of the facts and revelation of the real killer are well worth waiting for.

          ____

    (*) G. K. Chesterton was an admirer of Leroux’s Rouletabille, and suggested that Gaston Leroux (the red) and Maurice Leblanc (the white), creator of Arsene Lupin, might be the same person.

    They weren’t, but both had similar skills and backgrounds and constructed clever mysteries and charming adventures. That the two most famous French mystery writers of the era were “the red” and “the white” is only one of those odd coincidences no one can explain.

    To the world outside of France in the era before Simenon they were the French detective novel, and both are still in print in English and well worth reading today.

THE ARMCHAIR REVIEWER
Allen J. Hubin


BILL CRIDER Death on the Move

BILL CRIDER – Death on the Move. Walker, hardcover, 1989. Reprint paperback: Ivy, 1990.

   The beleaguered Sheriff Dan Rhodes returns in Bill Crider’s Death on the Move (Walker, $17.95). Widower Rhodes is inching his way to marriage with a very nice lady, Ivy Daniel, but criminous complications keep intervening.

   First of all, the eminently respectable undertakers of Dan’s town, Clearwater, Texas, have a problem: jewelry keeps disappearing off bodies set out for viewing, and the grieving survivors are sore displeased.

   Then someone is raiding houses down in a sparsely settled part of Dan’s county, and a corpse, well aged and most curiously wrapped, presents itself for Rhodes’ attention, while the humorists Dan employs as staff have their fun with all of this. A winsome novel in a rewarding series.

— From The MYSTERY FANcier, Vol. 11, No. 4, Fall 1989.


       The Dan Rhodes series —

1. Too Late to Die (1986)

BILL CRIDER Death on the Move

2. Shotgun Saturday Night (1987)
3. Cursed to Death (1988)
4. Death on the Move (1989)
5. Evil at the Root (1990)

BILL CRIDER Death on the Move

6. Booked for a Hanging (1992)
7. Murder Most Fowl (1994)
8. Winning Can Be Murder (1996)
9. Death By Accident (1997)
10. A Ghost of a Chance (2000)
11. A Romantic Way to Die (2001)

BILL CRIDER Death on the Move

12. Red, White, and Blue Murder (2003)
13. A Mammoth Murder (2006)
14. Murder Among the O.W.L.S. (2007)
15. Of All Sad Words (2008)

BILL CRIDER Death on the Move

16. Murder in Four Parts (2009)
17. Murder in the Air (2010)
18. The Wild Hog Murders (2011)

BILL CRIDER Death on the Move

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