Thu 29 Sep 2016
A Locked Room Mystery Review: WARREN B. MURPHY – Leonardo’s Law.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[8] Comments
WARREN B. MURPHY – Leonardo’s Law. Carlyle Books, paperback original, 1978. PaperJacks, paperback, 1988.
Along with co-author Richard Sapir, Warren B. Murphy was the creator of Remo Williams, aka The Destroyer, who appeared in nearly 150 men’s adventure novels over a period of some 35 years, many of them ghosted all or in part by other writers. In Leonardo’s Law, Murphy tried his hand at the classical detective novel, with decidedly mixed results.
Let’s take Leonardo first. He’s Doctor David Vincent Leonardo, a professor of mathematics at a small college in Connecticut who also has a small interest in solving crimes, although this one is the only one of his ventures in that regard to have seen print. He is also something of an enigmatic genius, with additional degrees in philosophy, anthropology and psychoanalysis, among others.
Dead is Barry Dawson, writer of mysteries, who is found dead in his study — the usual blunt instrument — in a room with a door that can be locked only from the inside, and in his hand is the only key, along with a tie-tack that Inspector Drossner, dashing representative of the Connecticut State Police with a fine eye toward good press coverage, is sure will lead directly to the killer.
Leonardo demurs. Telling the story is Lt. Anthony Jezail, second-in-command of the local Walton police force, a sour-minded misanthrope who thinks very poorly of the world and believes that all those with more power than he are idiots, and who says so at length and often profanely. It does not help matters that he is correct, beginning with Police Chief Waldo Semple, a man who can barely be trusted with a gun.
As far as the solution to the locked room mystery is concerned, which in many respects is an audacious one, Murphy proves to be more than adequate in misdirection and yet providing all of the details you might need to solve the case yourself, maybe. What I don’t understand is the need to make Jezail not only a bitter observer of humanity in general, but a victim of virulent homophobia as well.
September 30th, 2016 at 11:22 am
Carlyle Books was a small paperback publisher that lasted only a copy of years. You can tell that the production staff did not know much about mystery fiction. Note the cover blurb: “A Locked Door Mystery.”
Otherwise a more bland cover you cannot imagine.
September 30th, 2016 at 8:21 pm
Warren was a nice guy, but it was hard sometimes to separate him from extreme right wing positions?
October 1st, 2016 at 12:07 pm
My favorite character created by Warren Murphy was Digger/ Trace/ Murphy. One of these days I hope to review MURPHY’S LAW the ABC TV series based on the Digger/Trace character.
Thrilling Detective has a nice look at the character.
https://www.thrillingdetective.com/murphy.html
October 1st, 2016 at 4:15 pm
I remember the TV show quite well. I didn’t find much on YouTube, but I came across one seller who has has 11 of the 12 episodes. I’m tempted!
October 1st, 2016 at 4:31 pm
There is one full episode on Youtube but it is broken into parts.
Here is part one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD-0dRYCGiA
The other parts should be easy to find.
I bought my copy of the series from videohutt at sell.com for $19.95. He is a good dealer with a large fair priced catalog.
October 1st, 2016 at 7:54 pm
Michael
Thanks for the link. I remember watching the series, but I obviously didn’t manage to see all of them, since I don’t remember this episode at all.
Videohutt, by the way, is the seller I found when I went looking. Hope the quality of what he has is better than the one on YouTube, though.
October 2nd, 2016 at 12:41 am
The episodes are not edited like YouTube (you can see the opening credits) but picture quality is the standard high 8-9. Reminds me of watching videotaped copies in the past. I was happy but picture quality has never been a big deal to me.
October 4th, 2016 at 10:28 am
Sounds like an interesting read – many thanks for bringing this to my attention, especially with the promise of an “audacious” solution…I’m very, very curious now!
I have excelent memories of the Fred Ward movie Remo Williams: Unarmed and Dangerous which was spun from The Destroyer series…aaah, happier times…