Mon 22 Nov 2021
Mystery Review: DONALD CLOUGH CAMERON – Death at Her Elbow.
Posted by Steve under Comic Books, Cartoons, Comic Strips , Reviews[7] Comments
DONALD CLOUGH CAMERON – Death at Her Elbow. Henry Holt & Co., hardcover, 1940. Green Dragon #20, digest paperback, circa 1945-46, abridged.
After the suicide death of her New York City roommate, Ann Porter fled to the West Coast to get away from the memories. Returning after a year’s absence, she thinks the memories have faded, but not only is she wrong about that, but the body of the man who at the root of Jenny’s death is found murdered in Ann’s bedroom, hit over the head by a heavy statue in the shape of a cat.
Investigating the murder is homicide detective Peter Gore, whose only appearance in print this seems to be. The story does not follow Gore’s footsteps through the case, but Ann’s, who fears that her former boy friend, who has waited faithfully for her, committed the crime, whereas – you guessed – he thinks she did it.
This complicates matters, of course, at least as far as Ann and Alec are concerned. Gore – and this is rather surprising – looks kindly upon the pair of lovers and does his best not to suspect either one. But what this means is that are two major themes to Death at Her Elbow. One, the romance, and secondly, the mystery.
Luckily the mystery does not take a total second shrift. The problem is, as far as solving the murder is concerned, is that there are just a few too many suspects (although at least one is an out-and-out ringer) and not quite enough clues. As for me, I could have done with less romance, but Cameron was a decent writer, describing the characters and capturing the setting well, and I enjoyed this one.
Cameron wrote a total of six mysteries between 1939 and 1947, three of them starring a chap named Abelard Voss, about whom Wikipedia says was a “young criminologist and detective … who liked to take philosophical reflections during his investigations.†He also wrote extensively for the comic books. I found this interesting enough that I’m going to quote liberally from his Wikipedia page:
“His work on Superman includes creating the Toyman in Action Comics #64 (Sept. 1943) and writing the earliest Superboy stories in More Fun Comics.
“Cameron created Liberty Belle in Boy Commandos #1 (Winter 1942) and Pow Wow Smith in Detective Comics #151 (Sept. 1949). He was one of the writers of DC’s Hopalong Cassidy licensed series based on the film and TV Western hero. Other comic book work by Cameron includes Aquaman, Congo Bill, and the Western character Nighthawk.â€
November 22nd, 2021 at 8:35 pm
Romance has been either the downfall or making of many mystery novels over the years, either too intrusive, too cute, too dramatic, or just too much for fans hoping for more violence or detection.
The writers who get it right often produce books that maintain their freshness better than many others rather the way the writing was sometimes better in the Ranch Romance Western type books than the more pulp action oriented ones just because the writers had to work harder to sell a romance in that setting and still get the required action in.
I might try to find something by him. His series detective sounds interesting.
The book almost sounds as if it had one eye on the silver screen where a romance was almost as vital to most mysteries as comic relief and murder itself.
November 22nd, 2021 at 8:38 pm
Replace romance with sexual conduct and you have something real.
November 22nd, 2021 at 8:53 pm
No sex in this one, not even close, but it would have made for very good movie.
November 22nd, 2021 at 9:28 pm
You can read “The Origin of Pow-Wow Smith” here:
http://readallcomics.com/detective-comics-v1-0151/
It’s the last story in the issue. And pretty good. Cameron wrote some fine scripts.
I had no idea that the Don Cameron of the comic books also wrote prose mysteries.
November 22nd, 2021 at 11:40 pm
Likewise. I had no idea that Donald Clough Cameron the mystery writer ever wrote for the comics!
November 23rd, 2021 at 10:56 am
The covers are pretty good. Will see if I can find the author’s books.
November 23rd, 2021 at 11:11 am
I don’t know if the hardcover was published with a jacket or not. What you see (top image) is the pictorial cover on the book itself, and yes, it’s very nice. Eye catching, in fact!