Mon 22 Sep 2014
Reviewed by William F. Deeck: MARGOT NEVILLE – Murder of a Nymph.
Posted by Steve under Authors , Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters[5] Comments
William F. Deeck
MARGOT NEVILLE – Murder of a Nymph. Doubleday Crime Club, US, hardcover 1950. Detective Book Club, hardcover reprint [3-in-1 volume]. Pocket #829, paperback, 1951. First published in the UK by Geoffrey Bles, hardcover, 1949.
Another young woman, no better than she should be, bites the dust. And here it’s Australian dust, in, of all places, Come-Hither Bend. Apparently the young woman’s, for want of a better word, friends and relatives at that oddly named place, including her betrothed, were not too fond of her. When she gets off the bus to spend the weekend there, someone beats her about the head and pushes her off a cliff.
Since everyone had problems with Enone — thus one reason for the nymph — coverup is the name of the game. Detective Inspector Grogan knows this but has difficulty penetrating what each person is trying to conceal. When another murder occurs through the stupidity of one of the characters, all begins to come clear.
It took me five attempts to finish this book. Grogan appealed, but the rest of the characters left me cold or slightly nauseated. While she writes well, Neville doesn’t provide the wit or lightness that I particularly enjoy. Maybe if I’d read it in sunlight and warmth —
Bio-Bibliographic Data: Margot Nevile was the joint pen name of Margot Goyder (1896-1975) and Anne Neville Goyder Joske (1887-1966). Most but not all of their criminous output consists of the Inspector Grogan series. All were published by Geoffrey Bles in the UK; those marked with an asterisk (*) were never published in the US:
The Inspector Grogan series —
Murder in Rockwater. 1944. US title: Lena Hates Men.
Murder and Gardenias. 1946. (*)
Murder in a Blue Moon. 1948.
Murder of a Nymph. 1949.
Murder Before Marriage. 1951.
The Seagull Said Murder. 1952. (*)
Murder of the Well-Beloved. 1953.
Murder and Poor Jenny. 1954. (*)
Murder of Olympia. 1956. (*)
Murder to Welcome Her. 1957. (*)
The Flame of Murder. 1958. (*)
Sweet Night for Murder. 1959. (*)
Confession of Murder. 1960. (*)
Murder Beyond the Pale. 1961. (*)
Drop Dead. 1962. (*)
Come See Me Die. 1963. (*)
My Bad Boy. 1964. (*)
Ladies in the Dark. 1965. (*)
Head on the Sill. 1966. (*)
September 22nd, 2014 at 9:45 pm
It’s kind of too bad that Bill disliked this one so much. I have copies of this in both the Crime Club hardcover and the Pocket paperback, and I’ve always meant to read it.
I am not dissuaded too easily, though. Since Bill did like Grogan as a detective, I found (and just now purchased) one of his adventures in a Bles hardcover, one never published in thus country. An inexpensive copy, mind you. I wouldn’t go big bucks on one — I do value Bill’s opinion that much.
September 23rd, 2014 at 7:24 am
Margot Neville was one of those authors whose books I always looked for in England, for Bill and others. I never read one, though.
September 24th, 2014 at 4:08 pm
A few DETECTIVE BOOK CLUB titles are almost impossible to find in any other form. There’s one by Vera Casparay — MURDER AT THE STORK CLUB — that is really hard to find in any other edition if at all. The only copy of Lester Dent’s DEAD AT THE TAKE OFF for a half decent price that I could find was a DBC reprint I bought back in the eighties.
I used to have tons of these and the Mason/Lam duos they released. There was some problem with censorship though since they toned down many writers including Gardner in the Fair books and certainly John D. MacDonald in the McGee titles. That famous scene in the Lam novel where the girl tears her blouse and yells rape (it’s famous or infamous because Dell had to reissue a much tamer cover than the original)is so changed you can’t tell why Lam is upset or gets arrested.
But I do have to say they had a hell of a line up of ‘names’ along with writers who often failed to make it into paper. These were the only form of some long running series I could find in many cases, and second hand bookstores used to have whole walls of these and READERS DIGEST BOOKS.
At a time they weren’t always easy to find in paperback Freeling, Simenon’s Maigret, Creasey/Marric’s Gideon, and no few others appeared in DBC titles. It was a godsend for mid list writers like Aaron Marc Stein, Hilary Waugh, and others who normally only sold to libraries. And in general at least two of any triple decker would be worth reading.
September 24th, 2014 at 7:08 pm
Yes, it’s a sad but true fact that the DBC 3-in-1’s were censored, sometimes badly. I remember a James Bond thriller I was reading in one of their selections (I no longer remember why, when the book was extremely easy to find in paperback) and discovering that whole chunks of story were missing — and fairly obviously, too.
But I do miss seeing them in used bookstores, clogging the hardcover mystery section in almost all of them. Of course, I miss used bookstores, too, for that matter.
Lots of good reading in them, and as you say, some of it not easily found elsewhere. One big regret of mine (of many) is going to a library sale and passing up several yards of DBC volumes, in nearly pristine condition. I’d already picked up more than my checking account could afford, and I promised myself I’d come back the next day, when everything left would be half price.
Of course, the next day they were gone.
September 25th, 2014 at 3:31 pm
Steve
At one hand I had a fairly crowded book shelf of nothing but those and the Gardner’s, though even the Perry Mason’s were heavily censored. I was surprised a few of Gardner’s racier titles even got by them.
But to give them their due, where else were you going to find the new Hooky Heffernan novel or writers like Lawrence Meynell? I was in a small town, even the library didn’t get those titles in.