Mon 8 Jun 2020
A Mystery Review by David Vineyard: VAN WYCK MASON – The Branded Spy Murders.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[7] Comments
VAN WYCK MASON – The Branded Spy Murders. Captain Hugh North #5. Doubleday, hardcover, 1932. Reprinted in Complete Detective Novel Magazine, November 1932. No paperback edition, but currently available on Kindle.
It’s 1932 and Hugh North, Captain Hugh North the man from G2 (still D.I.C. in 1932), is in Hawaii, where one of his men has recently committed suicide, and with another having blown an assignment both over the same woman, he’s been given a task that could have international implications, since an incident where American soldiers died in a clash with the Japanese in Manchuria is threatening to blow up into full blown war if Hugh North can’t defuse the situation.
The story takes place almost a decade before Pearl Harbor, but a Japanese fleet is steaming towards Hawaii and Hugh North is the only thing between his country and war in the Pacific unless he can uncover who is provoking the trouble as the deadline for the arrival of the Japanese fleet narrows.
Not that it’s much of a challenge for Hugh North, who even by this is fifth outing had quite a record of pulling fat out of the fire, whether capturing spies, averting catastrophe, or nailing murderers. He managed to do that particular trick from 1930’s Seeds of Murder to 1968’s Deadly Orbit Mission, so obviously he was pretty good at it. The last “Murders†title was 1941’s Rio Casino Murders, which saw North on hiatus until 1946 and Saigon Singer, when the series continued with more exotic titles usually referring to the locale and more concerned with spying than murder mystery.
North, as one Howard Nevins, is present at Abner Polk’s dinner party along with Lt. Wilson Clark, the officer who blew his assignment; Baron Von Rentner, a Prussian big game hunter; Mr. Kanamura, a Japanese ships chandler; Polk; and the beautiful Mademoiselle Phedre Renoire (Something feline—that was what she resembled. Sleek, graceful, and probably unexpectedly strong.) when news reaches them the tension has escalated — “JAPAN SENDS U. S. ULTIMATUM!†Then in slightly smaller type: “Shells Kill More Americans Guarding Transpacific Property! War Demanded!â€
Tensions are escalating between Clark and the Japanese over the news. and between Clark and the Baron over a woman both are entranced with, and into this walks North’s old ally — sometimes rival — Major Bruce Kilgour of British Intelligence, when something is noticed in the water nearby …
That murder (“The poor girl was naked as a jay bird, and there wasn’t a wound on her that I could see—and I looked very carefully. That scratch on her neck—does that suggest anything?â€) will have repercussions from Hawaii to Washington D.C.,Tokyo, and Moscow as North finds himself at odds with agents who want nothing better than war in the Pacific.
Meanwhile North has one dead officer and another one enchanted with the woman who is causing all the problems …
And it isn’t long before North finds out just how formidable Nadia Stefan is when Lt. Clark commits suicide like Major Cross before him.
Mason may not be Ian Fleming. and Hugh North certainly isn’t James Bond, but there are plots to be uncovered, codes to be deciphered, genuine detective work, clues to be followed, and an exciting down to the wire ending that helps explain the longevity of the series.
Prior to the war, Mason, John P. Marquand, and David Garth (Four Men and a Prayer) were the American spy novel, and Mason continued well after the War.
Mason, who as F. Van Wyck Mason wrote best selling historical novels and was a staple in pulps like Argosy, had a long successful career, having traveled extensively even before he created Hugh North, who would rise in the ranks from Captain to Major and eventually Colonel as the series went from Hugh North D.I.C. to the man from G2. North inspired a short lived radio series, The Man from G2, and comic book artist Nick Cardy (Bat Lash, Teen Titans) even attempted to syndicate a comic strip, Major North.
Just how he missed Hollywood is still a question, but certainly the series had a long a critically recognized run, North not quite falling in the category of great detective, but so close the difference is hardly worth mentioning. The series was recognized early on for its use of exotic locations fully realized. Mason claimed despite his travels that he did most of his research in National Geographic, but if so he was a master of spotting the telling detail.
North might not be a Great Detective, but I’d like to see Ellery Queen or Philo Vance manufacture fingerprint powder in an exotic location or create their own ballistics test with bales of cotton both of which North does in another adventure.
Of course there is no doubt North will solve the codes and the murder and save the day just on the edge of disaster in a suspenseful finale on a sub chaser. That’s what we read this sort of thing for, but it is an entertaining journey written in surprisingly modern prose with only some of the politics mildly questionable (Mason has less to apologize for than many if not most of his contemporaries), and with a bevy of well written females including the spider like Nadia Stefan at the center of the web, but victory comes bitterly.
“Yes, I suppose so,†muttered Captain Hugh North, his face leaner and grimmer than ever, “it is my greatest victory.â€
He turned back to Kilgour as the vision of Nadia Stefan vanished from before his eyes.
June 8th, 2020 at 7:45 pm
It’s been a long time since I’ve read one of North’s adventures, and I probably never read more than a couple of them, but I do remember them well. This one, unfortunately, wasn’t one of them.
You’re right. Hollywood missed a bet on not creating a whole series of North’s adventures. There any number of very good actors who could played the part, and I’d have gone along with any of them. At the moment I’ve got Cary Grant in my head. David, or anyone, who might you pick?
June 9th, 2020 at 7:34 pm
His paperback incarnation on book covers seemed to vary between Clark Gable and maybe Walter Pidgeon, though a younger Preston Foster would work (he is most often shown with a mustache for some reason though I can’t recall a mention in the books of one, maybe it is because he was Colonel North by then).
Personally I always thought of him looking like the hero of Don Sherwood’s comic strip DAN FLAGG (a sort of Marine Col. North) who was modeled on the older Robert Taylor (who, ironically when modeled by John McCluskey with Gary Cooper ended up looking surprisingly like Sean Connery in the pre films JAMES BOND strip).
Unlike most American secret agents of the period he was neither a slumming aristocrat (Anthony Hamilton or the Freelancers of Diplomacy) nor a thick headed lout but a capable, tough, unsentimental type who took a real interest often in the people and places he visited.
Considering the books era there are, of course, politically incorrect passages, but they are fewer and farther between than most similar series. North is a casual self assured patriot for most of his career, not given to long tirades, and Cary Grant would not be too far off in the way he handles the femme fatales he meets who are far more than Dragon Lady stand ins. In TWO TICKETS TO TANGIER he even meets his British female equivalent and is well matched.
My favorite North novel is 1950’s HIMALAYAN ASSIGNMENT which finds him battling his old enemy the renegade General Sam Steel and a beautiful silver haired Soviet siren on the roof of the world. It’s got everything but a yeti in it.
Most of the MURDER titles are entertaining with high marks for SHANGHAI BUND, FORT TERROR,and YELLOW ARROW ( a well done variation on the old munitions manufacturers trying to start a war).
Mason is one of those bestselling novelists (his historical novels in particular) like Edison Marshall unfairly forgotten today, but who, in his day, was a reliable source of thrills, adventure, and well researched adventure stories.
The bit about his researching his locations in the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC came from an interview of him I read more than forty years ago in an ancient writers magazine on microfiche so, no, I can’t give particulars, but it stuck with me because he had actually been to many of the North locales and still used NG as his source.
His books don’t read as if they were researched in the NG, and that is one of the pleasures of reading them. They feel authentic.
June 10th, 2020 at 9:30 am
Between your original review and this followup comment, David, I think we now know more about Van Wyck Mason and Col. Hugh North than anyone reading the latter’s Wikipedia page. (Well, there isn’t one, but now there easily could be.)
After reading your comment, though, I have changed my mind. The next time I read a Hugh North adventure, I will be thinking Robert Taylor rather than Cary Grant. A better fit, I think.
June 10th, 2020 at 10:45 pm
I’m sure I’ve told this story before, but here goes. I wrote a letter to Mason asking for information for one of those reference books to which I was apt to contribute and in his reply he thanked me for being a fan and said he had decided to quit writing the North books because of that “damned Ian Fleming.” I was never quite certain what he meant by that. When I asked him to autograph copies of his books he sent me about a dozen personal bookplates (signed) I could paste into my books and save postage.
I thought I was about to begin an interesting exchange of letters until I read in the paper that shortly after that he had gone swimming (he lived in Bermuda) and drowned.
June 11th, 2020 at 10:52 am
You have told me the story before, Randy, but not everyone else has heard it, and it’s a good one, well worth telling again. I wish when I was younger that it had even occurred to me that I could write letters to the authors of all the books I read.
June 11th, 2020 at 11:22 am
I don’t know when I started writing to authors I read, but it never occurred to me that I couldn’t and might even get a reply. If I was asking a question I enclosed a stamped envelope — known as a “sase.” I sent books to a number of them to be autographed (always with enough return postage). I sent a number of items to Leslie Charteris and enough return postage that he wrote back that he’d used the extra to buy a bottle of Scotch and toast my health. My favorite reply was from P. G. Wodehouse whose note began “Awfully glad you like my stuff.”
June 12th, 2020 at 1:20 pm
I had a fairly long ongoing correspondence with Dick Francis, I eventually broke up because his arthritis was so bad and he needed to devote his writing time to books and not correspondence.
I never asked for book plates (not bright enough to), but Eric Ambler was gracious, and I think Ian Fleming bemused to have a twelve year old fan of the books in Texas. I’ve known a few others professionally,