Tue 12 Mar 2013
VINCENT FULLER – The Long Green Gaze. B. W. Huebsch, hardcover, 1925.
According to Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV, the author of this book, one “Vincent Fuller,” is a pseudonym, and this is his only entry. And from the title alone, if you saw this book misfiled on a shelf in a used bookshop, spine out, I can’t see how you could tell this was a work of crime fiction, until and unless you somehow happened to open it up and see the subtitle inside: “A Cross Word Puzzle Mystery.”
As such, this The Long Green Gaze very possibly makes the first mystery ever to have a crossword puzzle theme or background. (And if someone would like to send me a list of all crossword puzzle related mysteries, I’d be happy to post it.)
But while the novel itself, a relative obscurity, may have something extra to make it worth seeking out, as a detective story, everything else aside, its obscurity is, by most other standards, well deserved.
It begins at a Thanksgiving gathering of Aunt Emily’s various relatives, some of whom, like Ted Dunsheath, recently booted out of his latest university, are well-described. Others seem to flit in and out of the background as needed, although Janet Marsden, whom Ted is quite fond of, does make her presence known to Aunt Emily at the breakfast table. From page 21:
Janet’s crime: She was not wearing a corset.
The title of the book refers to a fabulous luminous emerald that glows in the dark. Aunt Emily owns it, but unfortunately she does not survive that very same breakfast, poisoned, but how, and by whom, completely unknown.
No one could have known she would have eaten the unexpected orange, and she had nothing else to eat or drink, except for half a cup of coffee from the percolator, and the first cup was passed on to someone else.
The mystery deepens when a second body is found, alone in a locked room, poisoned again with the same fast-acting toxin, but with nothing in the room to suggest where it may have come from.
Which is certainly all to the good. Where do the crossword puzzles come in? After Emily’s death and the police have gone, one of the family takes the floor. From page 33:
Which means that when someone finds a clue about someone else or starts to suspect someone of something guilty to hide, they formulate a message to be hidden in the words of a crossword puzzle, complete with clues, and when the puzzle — left in someone’s room or in a place easily found — is solved, a warning about someone is at length discerned.
The puzzles, by the way, are included for the reader to solve on his or her own, with solutions in a sealed section that can be opened in the back of the book. And for a short while after the characters of the novel have solved the puzzle, their conversation goes something like this:
Page 48: “Burke … called Chalfonte into the deserted kitchen and insisted on an explanation of the object named in vertical 25 and horizontal 38.”
Page 50: “I’ll tell you in advance that I’m doing just that just to watch some of the people concerned, the individual named in vertical 9 particularly.”
And on page 53, that same suspect is hustled off to jail, never named, not even on page 55, in which he is still referred to as “vertical 9.”
A technique of story-telling more awkward (and challenging) than this is difficult to imagine, but without the artifice of the crossword puzzles, I’d have to admit that it’s also as fun to read as any other obscure mystery written in 1925, complete with the mysterious Hindu servant of the world-traveler Chalfonte mentioned above, and perhaps even more so.
PostScript: The puzzles are tough, and I confess. I looked in the back of the book. Just what I tell all of my (math) students not to do.
[UPDATE] 03-12-13. Not only is this mystery novel all but unknown, it’s also scarce, but for some reason, not pricey. There are two copies presently offered for sale on ABE, for example, one for $4.00, the other $20.00. Neither has a dust jacket, nor does mine.
March 12th, 2013 at 12:14 pm
I bought a copy of this last year and intended to review it for my blog along with E.R. Punshon’s Crossword Mystery. Amazingly in both books none of the puzzles have been touched. But as usual a review showed up here first. I am beginning to think that you have access to reviews for every single book I own, Steve.
I can think of few mysteries with crosswords from the Golden Age. A short story in Lord Peter Views the Body has a difficult crossword puzzle that leads to finding a hidden will. Ellery Queen has a story or a novel with a crossword puzzle, too. But as for contemporary mysteries there are a lot. Two entire series devoted to crosswords: Nero Blanc and Parnell Hall’s “Puzzle Lady”.
March 12th, 2013 at 1:20 pm
I’m willing to wager that our collections overlap a lot, John.
As for the contemporary mysteries with crosswords in them, I’m aware of both of the Nero Blanc and Parnell Hall series, but as far as I recall, I’ve not read any of them. (I may have started one by Hall, once.)
I wonder if people who like doing crosswords have a higher likelihood of liking mystery novels too, or vice versa.
March 12th, 2013 at 2:13 pm
As far as I can remember one of the three detective novels by Norwegian crime writer Bernhard Borge had a crossword puzzle. He wrote in the 1940s and his novels have a psychoanalytical approach which was very unusual then.
March 12th, 2013 at 2:30 pm
According to Wikipedia, the first crossword puzzle recognized as such was published in 1913.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossword#History
And:
“The first book of crossword puzzles appeared in 1924, published by Simon and Schuster. ‘This odd-looking book with a pencil attached to it’ was an instant hit and crossword puzzles became the craze of 1924.”
Which means that THE LONG GREEN GAZE, published in 1925, must have been written as a direct result of that early craze.
March 12th, 2013 at 7:50 pm
Two months ago I had a chance to buy a copy from a local book store for $35.00 w/dj! I had never seen or heard of it before, so I passed it up. I did go back a week later with the intent to buy, but it was gone. STUPID,STUPID,STUPID!! And I like to do crossword puzzles to boot!!! Never hesitate!! Like Walker Martin told me years ago, you only regret what you DIDN’T BUY!!!
March 12th, 2013 at 8:12 pm
Tsk, Paul. Tsk.
I have to wonder if that copy you passed up was one of a kind. Dust jackets from 1925 simply don’t exist any more, and certainly not in the wild.
March 13th, 2013 at 12:44 pm
I’m not going to look for my copy of it at the moment, but my friends Ed & Karen Lauterbach wrote an article about crossword puzzles in mystery novels (or something like that) in The Armchair Detective once. You might want to look it up … and if you find it, send me the citation so I can find my copy.
March 13th, 2013 at 1:27 pm
This must be it:
http://books.google.com/books?id=vKsWDaxWBCsC&pg=PA110&lpg=PA110&dq=The+Crossword+Puzzle+Metaphor+and+Some+Crossword+Puzzle+Mysteries&source=bl&ots=SSKfXw3lOf&sig=zYyMFWLFK8b4xNMu9bXlAb3s85s&hl=en&sa=X&ei=18NAUfH-B_G02AWT2oGADw&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=The%20Crossword%20Puzzle%20Metaphor%20and%20Some%20Crossword%20Puzzle%20Mysteries&f=false
The Crossword Puzzle Metaphor and Some Crossword Puzzle Mysteries, by Ed & Karen Lauterbach
ARMCHAIR DETECTIVE Vol 10, No 2; p167 (if I’m reading the reference correctly)
March 13th, 2013 at 4:41 pm
That was it, Steve, many thanks. The Lauterbachs discuss THE LONG GREEN GAZE as well as E. R. Punshon’s CROSSWORD MURDER, George Goodchild’s DOUBLE ACROSTIC, and the Lord Peter story “The Fascinating Problem of Uncle Meleager’s Will,” along with much else. The article dates from 1977. Highly recommended.
June 13th, 2017 at 3:45 am
I actually just found this book laying around my bookshelf. It is an old one. I have no idea if there is a reprint of this or not so this one is a first edition. In relatively good shape too.