Sat 31 Jan 2015
Reviewed by William F. Deeck: CAROLYN WELLS – The Clue of the Eyelash.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[12] Comments
William F. Deeck
CAROLYN WELLS – The Clue of the Eyelash. J. B. Lippincott, 1933; A. L. Burt, reprint hardcover, no date; Triangle, reprint hardcover, 1938.
Fleming Stone, called the “ubiquitous” by the publisher most bafflingly, but maybe they mean he has appeared in many books, is dining at the home of Wiley Vane, dilettante collector of old coins, rare books, etc, along with a number of other guests. One of his relatives finds Vane shot in the head, but dinner goes on nonetheless. Wouldn’t want to announce his murder and ruin a social event, would we?
The only clue Stone has is a false eyelash, an item that he is not acquainted with, but that he and we become all too familiar with as the novel progresses, if that is what it does indeed do.
The murderer was evident early on to this reviewer, who doesn’t spot many, although the motive wasn’t transparent. But I fancy my incorrect theory of why the crime was committed a lot more than I do the murderer’s alleged reason.
A tedious investigation by Wells’s Fleming Stone, but interesting in that Stone is twice given strychnine by the murderer and survives. Stone, knowing that the murderer would try to dispose of him in this fashion — how he knows this is never provided to the reader and why he takes the poison is another secret — has his doctor’s word that a tumbler of “strong spirits” taken shortly before the strychnine will make the poison ineffective.
The author says this is a fact, and I’m not going to experiment to disprove it. The murderer tries to poison Stone again, in a triumph of hope over experience, but Stone once more has taken strong drink rather than demur at taking the poison.
One does wonder who the human guinea pigs were who tested this counteragent and what might have been the fate of those who drank only, say, a half tumbler.
A novel for those who will read anything.
January 31st, 2015 at 3:28 pm
Ubiquitous usually refers to something common and pleasant which can’t be Fleming Stone or Carolyn Wells.
I know someone will mention, and even Haycraft credits her, with a good book about writing mysteries, but I have never seen much evidence she took her own advice.
I always associate Wells with Lee Thayer and her Peter Clancy, another ‘ubiquitous’ creation. Just what did fans get out of these?
Alcohol will not counter act strychnine, though milk and olive oil can prevent it being immediately absorbed into the blood stream long enough to have the stomach pumped. Strychnine has a strong unpleasant taste and often has to be disguised by a stronger taste such as strong drink.
Sorry but Fleming Stone should not have been able to shrug off strychnine poison easily even if he survived, and strong drink would not have made a difference unless he poisoned himself with alcohol and died of that first.
Essentially it’s Rat Poison, and has to be well disguised to get down. Strong drink won’t save you from it.
Maybe Wells needed to be in charge of the poison cabinet at the hospital like Christie and find out the properties of the ones she used.
January 31st, 2015 at 3:40 pm
Carolyn Wells has come up for review and discussion on this blog before, and each and every time, the appraisal of her work gets worse than the time before, if that were possible. Bill Deeck outdid himself on this one, especially that last line. One wonders how he himself got through this one. Maybe we should consider him a hero for doing so.
Or upon proper consideration, there is no maybe about it.
January 31st, 2015 at 4:45 pm
I actually had my students read a chapter of an early Carolyn Wells for a class I taught many years ago, but I don’t remember my reasons. I think she represents an earlier era of detective fiction that was far more innocent than we would find today. She appeared frequently in the first pulp magazine devoted to detective fiction, Street & Smith’s DETECTIVE STORY MAGAZINE. So did the early Lord Peter Wimsey novels.
January 31st, 2015 at 5:08 pm
Bill Pronzini dismantles Carolyn Wells in GUN IN CHEEK. I have almost all the Street & Smith DETECTIVE STORY magazines, 1915-1949, over a thousand issues. One author I studiously avoided reading was Carolyn Wells. She’s is really dated nowadays. I see Mike Grost discusses her on his website.
January 31st, 2015 at 5:21 pm
I have a lot of her books and pulled a couple from the shelves to sample. If I survive I will report back. John Dickson Carr thought highly enough of her to take a set with him when he moved to England.
January 31st, 2015 at 6:50 pm
“Isn’t our host joining us?” “I’m afraid not. He has a headache.”
January 31st, 2015 at 9:59 pm
Walker,
Thank you for the shout-out.
I have fond memories of reading Wells’ books of the 1910’s.
They are available free on-line. And some are much fun.
“Anybody But Anne” and “Raspberry Jam” are the best.
I love the 1910’s.
It is a great era in painting, film, music, literature, mysteries, science fiction…
Much of modern art in all these fields was invented then.
January 31st, 2015 at 11:26 pm
I never quite understood why Fleming Stone was a ‘great detective.’ His sleuthing always seemed to involve somehow tricking the killer by doing something stupid like taking strychnine — twice.
Wells and Thayer’s earliest work may be better, fresher, but both kept going long past their shelf life buy date.
I can’t agree with Mike about the teens though. It was highly productive for the thriller, but it isn’t until the very end of the era that Bentley comes along and the Golden Age is born with the mystery. I find many of the writers of detective fiction in this era (obviously not those left over from the late Victorian and early Edwardian era) difficult to appreciate. Wells, Reeve, and J.S. Fletcher for example. Certainly in novel form. Short fiction does much better. The detective novel in this period often seems in a decade long doldrum.
In the thriller you have Buchan, Oppenheim, Rohmer, Leroux, Leblanc ( the last two producing far more interesting detective fiction in this period than the Americans or Brits in novel length) and the like.
In the mystery novel you have Wells, Reeve, Fletcher, Hanshew and bright moments only from Freeman or Mason and a few others until Bentley and Trent. The novels lack the freshness of Christie and Sayers. They have that unpleasant smell of lavender cachets, aging velveteen, and gas stoves, houses shut up too long without a breath of fresh air. In fact that is my objection to Wells, everything I’ve read of hers has that smell.
The books are often stilted, the detection seldom legitimate, and fair play is a joke. Granted there are good writers who worked in the era, but they seem to often be ones who started earlier and lasted into the era beyond — lavender and old lace, high button shoes, and spats.
Re Carr, he was also a huge fan of Hanshew and Cleek. I seriously doubt it was Wells or Hanshew’s actual mystery writing skills he admired though. Cleek often specialized in impossible crime and locked rooms (some quite well done admittedly)and fairly atmospheric at times near horror like atmosphere. The Hanshew influence is very evident in the Bencolin books with the air of adventure, the mysterious hero, Parisian street apaches, and the grand guignol. I suspect some of Fleming Stone’s tricks impressed him more than the plots or the actual mystery though. Some of the high handed tactics of Carr’s sleuths may have come from Wells and Stone as much as Doyle and Holmes.
I’m sure I am leaving out some wonderful mystery writer from the teens Mike or someone will point out, but it says something that I can’t think of one off hand.
February 1st, 2015 at 6:35 am
A portal on my site lists links to articles on the 1910’s:
http://mikegrost.com/tens.htm
This has links to articles on 38 good mystery writers of the 1910’s.
A guess: an ideal would have articles on 75 or 100 talented mystery writers of the 1910’s. I need to work harder!
David makes a good point about the importance of Leroux and Leblanc. And on Hanshew, Wells and Carr.
Everything dates.
Fifty years from now, people wil view “The LEGO Movie” and “The Flash” TV series as “so 2014!” They will have “period charm”.
As Cocteau said, “la mode, c’est ce qui se démode” (fashion is that which goes out of fashion).
February 1st, 2015 at 7:05 am
My article on Wells has a handy-dandy plot chart. It specifies exactly what is good in each Wells book:
http://mikegrost.com/hanshews.htm#WellsPlot
Column 6 of the chart deals with “Sleuths”.
It shows how to find sections in Wells where her detectives are characterized: both their personalities and detective skills.
Fleming Stone shines in the novel “Anybody But Anne”, Chapters 2 and 3.
Fisby sparkles in “Raspberry Jamâ€, Chapters 13-18.
And so on.
It’s a roadmap. It tries to tell readers how to find the good stuff in Wells.
***
The sad news: I suspect that out in the cold cruel world (not here at wonderful Mystery*File), that most educated Americans still do NOT respect mystery fiction.
They just don’t think it is good or accomplished.
This attitude is dead wrong.
I try to specify, right down to book and chapter, where to find positive accomplishments in mystery fiction.
Vagueness is bad. Clear, specific directions to the good stuff are better!
Maybe this will help change readers’ minds.
Such good stuff passages are Exhibit A, in the “Case for Mystery Fiction”.
February 2nd, 2015 at 7:43 pm
I don’t mean to suggest there is nothing good in Wells (or Thayer), but I don’t find enough good to justify a deeper reading. Wells novels fall into the even a blind rat finds a piece of cheese category for me.
I appreciate your hard work and the idea of a guide for those who may want to at least read the best of her work, but I’m afraid I found her one of those ‘her best is none to good’ writers.
And I really did find Stone a pain as a character. I really think he is a good example of the worst of pre Golden Age mystery fiction, the kind of detective who we are told is brilliant but seldom shown it.
Making “The Case for Mystery Fiction” with Wells is one even Perry Mason would give up on.
Educated Americans do read mysteries still, but they tend to read writers who have mainstreamed, bestselling literary mysteries, books that are still mystery, but get reviewed on the front page of the NY Times Book Review. With some marked exceptions I don’t think they ever were big on genre fiction. People like John Carter. Vincent Starrett, Dorothy Parker, and Alexander Woolcott were always exceptions.
I recall a good fifteen years ago an exasperated Peter Straub with a group of ‘literary writers’ trying to make the case of Elmore Leonard, already a bestselling writer. They said ‘popular fiction’ the way other people say ‘pornography.’
He didn’t get very far. Neither will anyone else however strong their case.
Anyway, the educated American women I know are reading trashy romance novels and about half of them are mysteries if not good ones. I personally know three women with Masters degrees who read them faithfully and prefer so called ‘romantic suspense’.
Currently the classic mystery section of the bookstore just isn’t the same as it was. Half the books that should be there are in the mainstream section of the book stores. In many bookstores you will find the late P.D. James or Dick Francis there and not in mystery.
I think what is missing are the devoted mystery fans of the past who reads and writes about the genre and takes an informed interest. Those who do are on here and a relatively few other sites. The days when you might find two people discussing the merits of the new Agatha Christie are sadly gone. They are too busy swapping the latest sexy vampire novels or James Patterson’s noon book (that’s a reference to an old cartoon about Edgar Wallace).
The genre isn’t lost, it’s just unrecognizable to us.
February 4th, 2015 at 11:57 am
On the other hand, there are those who enjoy Wells just because she is so consistently bad.