IT’S ABOUT CRIME
by Marvin Lachman

CARR Doyle

   One of the beneficiaries of the [recent] Sherlock Holmes “boom” was John Dickson Carr’s excellent 1949 biography of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle which was reprinted by Vintage in paperback in 1975. “Renaissance man” is a term too frequently used nowadays and applied to anyone who can both read and write. There are some people to whom it applies. Anthony Boucher was one. Doyle was certainly another with his knowledge and ability in such diverse fields as medicine, literature, politics, sports, medieval history, and military tactics. Furthermore, as Carr clearly shows, Doyle was a “‘doer,” a man who accomplished an incredible amount in his lifetime.

   Carr gives most of his attention to the non-Holmesian Doyle, and there is much to be learned on many non-mystery subjects – e.g., South Africa. Without saying so, Carr clearly shows how today’s apartheid problems had their roots in the Boer rebellion at the turn of the 20th Century. Doyle went to South Africa, in charge of a field hospital, and published a history of the war on his return.

Valley of Fear

   Though he is generally objective, Carr occasionally intrudes, getting in a few digs at Socialist Britain which he left at about the time he was writing this book. He also, I am glad to say, doesn’t entirely forget that he was one of the best Holmesian scholars around. He especially enjoyed The Valley of Fear which, unlike most critics, he considered Doyle’s best mystery novel.

   The Valley of Fear is based on the 19th Century violence in the Pennsylvania coal fields. Doyle became familiar with this through his friendship with William Pinkerton, son of the famous detective. An engrossing non-fiction account of this strife is Wayne G. Broehl’s The Molly Maguires (1964), originally written as a dissertation at Harvard and reprinted in paperback, as part of a series on American violence, by Chelsea House/Vintage.

Molly Maguires

   This is a book which, in addition to being a fine history, offers many bonuses to the reader. For example, there is the origin and correct usage of the much mis-used expression “reading the riot act.” Also, for students of perhaps the smallest sub-genre within the mystery (“exchanged murders” as used by Patricia Highsmith, Nicholas Blake, and Evelyn Berckman), there is a historical example of this. In Ireland, rebels, in various counties, would mutually import strangers to commit murders against landholders, thus permitting alibis and suspects who had no apparent motive.

   Though it was the “Golden Age” of detection, thrillers were also popular about the time that Doyle stopped writing of Holmes. Furthermore, lest you believe that the drug problems of the 1960’s and 1970’s are either new or unique, you should consult English thrillers of this time. A.S.F. The Story of a Great Conspiracy (1924) by John Rhode is a good example, a fast-moving book about the drug traffic in England and Europe and how it affects members of the British upper classes.

   This is a book with enough coincidences to choke a horse, or at least a reader. I wouldn’t dream of detailing them because part of the fun in this book is reading them and saying “WHAT!” as they occur. One of Rhode’s characters sums up the situation nicely when he refers to “just one of those malicious strokes of Fate which endows men’s actions with a grim humour.”

RHODE A.S.F.

   However, in case you never get closer to this book than my review, I suppose I should quote Rhode’s last paragraph:

    “What does all that distant past matter?” he said eagerly. “Let us begin again from now, let us forget the clouds that have hung over us, and go out together, you and I, to meet the morning. Let all the long wasted years pass with the night to leave us nothing but the sunshine of happiness.”

   And, yet, with all that is corny, there is a vitality of writing here that is very apparent in this, Rhode’s first book. It would lead to a grand, prolific career with well over one hundred mysteries for this author who gave pleasure to many but whom Julian Symons derided and whom hardly anyone reads today.

   Just as much fun is Gerard Fairlie’s The Muster of the Vultures (1929), a thriller in which Robin Murdoch does battle against “the best brains of the criminal profession … joined together under one genius of organizations.” I frankly loved such other examples of comic book dialogue in this book as:

      1. “I am much too powerful for the police of any country to suppress.”

      2. “We meet again, Robin Murdoch!”

      3. “Curse him, I say, for the foul fiend that he is!”

      4. “Take that, you hound!” he cried. “Take that! and that! and that!”

– To be continued.

   Books reviewed or discussed in this installment:

CARR Doyle

JOHN DICKSON CARR The Life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: The Man Who Was Sherlock Holmes. Harper & Row, hardcover, 1949. Vintage Books, paperback, 1975. Carroll & Graf, trade paperback, 1987. Da Capo Press, trade paperback, November 2003

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLEThe Valley of Fear. Smith-Elder, UK, hc, 1915. George H. Doran, 1915. Reprinted many times and the basis for several films.

WAYNE G. BROEHL, JR.The Molly Maguires. Harvard University Press, hardcover, 1964. Vintage/Chelsea House Book, softover, 1968.

JOHN RHODEA.S.F.: The Story of a Great Conspiracy. Geoffrey Bles, UK, hardcover, 1924. US title: The White Menace. McBride, hc, 1926.

GERARD FAIRLIE The Muster of the Vultures. Hodder & Stoughton, UK, hardcover, 1929. Little-Brown & Co, US, hc, 1929.

Reprinted from the The MYSTERY FANcier, Mar-Apr 1979.