CHRISTIANNA BRAND – Fog of Doubt. US hardcover edition: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1953. Previously published in the UK as London Particular, Michael Joseph, hardcover, 1952. US paperback reprint editions: Dell 881, 1956; Carroll & Graf, 1984,1995. UK paperback: Penguin, 1955.

   Fog of Doubt is, Christianna Brand states, her own favorite of all of her novels, and its amazing construction sets up seven suspects all in a row, positions each one as the killer, then eliminates them one by one till none are left.

   (The dotty grandmother likens their situation to the notorious Ten Little N-word nursery rhyme is a passage we can no longer cite.) Then one of the seven emerges, the impossibility overcome, and Cockrill has solved yet another case.

   The reader has to visualize the floor plan of two very different houses, for the solution depends on being able to “see” what is happening in both, and not just the floor plan but a good 3-D working knowledge of upstairs, downstairs, on the stairs, and what’s outside the windows of each house.

   Each belongs to a doctor: in one, lonely bachelor Ted Edwards (“Tedward”) keeps his office and moons over the lovely, Rose Birkett-like Rosie Evans, recently returned from a finishing school on the Continent and secretly pregnant with a mystery baby.

   In the other, Rosie lives and sulks and plans an abortion, while her staid older brother, Dr. Thomas Evans, may be the only character in the book from whom her pregnancy is a secret.

   His wife, Matilda, is busy with her own housekeeping and the care of a two year old, Emma; his grandmother, the dotty one, throws furniture from the windows and gets lost in the bodice-ripping Valentino silents of her youth. A sort of secretary, Melissa Weeks, lives in the basement mooning over men; and nearby a communist organizer, Damien Jones, wants to do the right thing by the errant, blowsy Rosie.

   When an unexpected visitor from Europe arrives, on the night of the worst fog in ages (a “London particular,” which Brand used for the UK title of the novel), a bloody murder occurs in the family’s midst — and no one, oddly enough, hears a sound…

   I didn’t really “buy” that in this one, Cockie is supposed to be a friend of the family. His friendship never seems convincing and they never explain how any of them came to know him. And, as the plot wears on, and one suspect after another becomes first the top suspect, then gets eliminated, the story presently turns on Brand’s less appealing characters, so the second half of the book has its longueurs.

   But on the whole Fog of Doubt is amazing, and some of its characters will live forever for their humor, charm, and valiant efforts to make sense of a suddenly violent world. Matilda Evans in particular anticipates Celia Fremlin’s trademark harried wives and mothers, with lives poised in an eternal and uneasy balance between tragedy and comedy; she might well be the mother of Lady Lydia Timms, the irrepressible housewife heroine of Peter Dickinson’s classic The Lively Dead (1975), reviewed earlier on this blog by Steve Lewis.

   The centenaries have come thick and fast lately: Woolrich in 2003, Fred Dannay and Manny Lee in ‘05, John Dickson Carr last year. Now we celebrate one of the great masters of English detective fiction, Christianna Brand. She was born Mary Christianna Milne in Malaya – on December 17th of, as if you hadn’t guessed, 1907 – began writing whodunits a couple of years after the start of World War II, and is best known as the author of Green for Danger (1944), a classic of fair-play detection set in a military hospital in Kent during the Blitz.

   I got to meet her when she was around 70 and quickly discovered that she was as perfect in the role of the dotty English lady as was Basil Rathbone playing Holmes. Who can ever forget the MWA dinner where she was asked to present one of the Edgar awards? “The nominees are: Emily Smith, James Quackenbush….Hahaha, Quackenbush, what a funny name!” The audience, except perhaps for poor Quackenbush, was left rolling in the aisles.

   On my first visit to England, to serve as an expert witness at a trial in the Old Bailey during the summer of 1979, Christianna and her husband Roland Lewis, one of England’s top ear-nose-and-throat surgeons, took me to dinner at Simpson’s in the Strand, the famous old eatery where one tips the server who carves your roast beef tableside. A few years later I edited Buffet for Unwelcome Guests (1983), the first collection of her short stories published in the U.S. On my next visit to England after the book came out I could hardly lift my suitcases, which were packed to bursting with copies for her. She died on March 11, 1988, and everyone who knew her still misses her.

   The 1946 movie version of Green for Danger, starring Alastair Sim as the insufferable Inspector Cockrill and featuring superb English actors like Trevor Howard and Leo Genn, has long been considered one of the finest pure detective films ever made, but it’s been very hard to access over here until just a month or so ago when, in a miracle of perfect timing, it was released on DVD. If you love the classic whodunit but have never seen the film nor read the book, you have a double treat in store.

   The tale of fair-play detection has become a dying art, but each of two recent issues of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine has featured at least one specimen worthy of the Golden Age. Jon L. Breen’s “The Missing Elevator Puzzle” (February 2007) is quite simply the finest short whodunit with an academic setting that I can recall reading, with a puzzle that might have fazed Ellery himself: Why was a visitor to the campus, just before being murdered, searching for the elevator in a building that had none?

    “The Book Case” (May 2007) by Dale Andrews and Kurt Sercu not only has two authors like the Queen books themselves but returns to center stage their most famous detective, physically frail but mentally spry at age 100, as he tackles a murder with a dying message composed of copies of his own novels. Readers who aren’t well up on those novels are likely to get lost in this tale, but if you’re at home in the canon you’ll have a high old time trying to beat the centenarian sleuth to the solution.

   In most centenary celebrations the subject is dead, but there’s one coming up in just a few months where the honoree is still with us – and, so I’m told, doing well for a 99-year-old. He claims to have written a number of short whodunits published under a pseudonym in his student years but his real significance for us lies in his extensive writing about the genre over several decades and in his connection with the supreme master of pure suspense fiction.

   I am referring of course to Jacques Barzun, distinguished professor at Columbia University, co-author of the massive Catalogue of Crime, and, in the early 1920s, Columbia classmate of Cornell Woolrich, who quit college in third year when his first novel sold.

   My first contact with Dr. Barzun was back in the late Sixties when I arranged to include one of his essays in my anthology The Mystery Writer’s Art (1970). In April 1970, while I was working on Nightwebs (1971), my first collection of Woolrich stories, he invited me to his Columbia office and we spent most of an afternoon talking about what the university was like almost half a century earlier when he and Woolrich were undergraduates together and sat next to each other for several courses.

   We corresponded off and on for several years. After translating from the French (a language I had never studied) an essay about Georges Simenon’s pre-Maigret crime novels, I presumed on my acquaintanceship with Barzun and asked him to look over my draft before I sent it in to The Armchair Detective. He made many small corrections, one of which I still vividly remember: I had rendered a line from an early Simenon as “Marc’s bottle was empty” which he changed to “The bottle of marc was empty,” pointing out to me that marc is a cheap French brandy. But on the whole he was hugely pleased with my translation, saying that he was “truly amazed” that I had done it without ever having taken a French course and that it was “certainly better than much advanced student work in a Romance Language Department.”

   In the early Eighties I became involved with Nacht Ohne Morgen (Night Without Morning), a documentary on Woolrich for German TV, and arranged for the director, Christian Bauer, to interview Barzun. They talked for almost an hour but only about a minute of footage found its way into the finished film. I obtained an audiotape of the entire interview and quoted from it extensively in my own Woolrich book First You Dream, Then You Die (1988). If Jacques Barzun had not been still alive and well and blessed with a vivid memory, we would know so much less about a key period in Woolrich’s life. For that gift to the genre and for countless others, merci beaucoup. May his hundredth birthday be a joyous one and not his last.

REVIEWED BY RAY O’LEARY:

LEE WILSON – This Deadly Dark. Dodd Mead, hardcover, 1946. Handi-Books #78, paperback, 1948.

   I picked this one up at a used book sale because its tattered dust cover heralded it as the winner of the $1,000 Red Badge Prize Mystery. Of the dozen previous winners listed inside, however, only two were by familiar names: Hugh Pentecost and Christianna Brand, and only her Heads You Lose was a familiar title.

   Matt Rogers, having just returned from a three year stint as a soldier and war correspondent in the Pacific and Japan, returns to bis Crime Beat for the San Francisco Globe. Receiving an anonymous tip on a recent crime of violence, Rogers is lured into an alley near the scene of the crime, where he’s assaulted and viciously blinded by person(s) unknown. Wallowing in self-pity and trying to work up the nerve to kill himself, he’s goaded into investigating the crime once more by R. B. (you don’t learn what the initials stand for until the last few paragraphs) Clancy, a female photographer for People (!) magazine.

   Though Wilson is no prose stylist, he (?) offers some pretty decent dialogue, and, more importantly, brings his characters to life. Though I spotted the Vital Clue (but not the killer) well before Rogers did, and saw the hate-turning-to-love relationship between Rogers and Clancy marching down Main Street, I found this all-in-all to be a pretty solid effort.

Editorial Update: Lee Wilson was the pseudonym of Laura Elizabeth Lemmon, (1917-2003). This was her only work of crime fiction.

(Give Me That) OLD-TIME DETECTION. Spring 2019. Issue #50. Editor: Arthur Vidro. Old-Time Detection Special Interest Group of American Mensa, Ltd. 41 pages (including covers). Cover image: Christianna Brand.

THE LATEST ISSUE of Old-Time Detection focuses primarily on an icon of Golden Age detective fiction, Christianna Brand (1907-88), whose work, with its emphasis on plot, seems emblematic of the era. As many mystery fans know, Brand was responsible for one of the best mystery novels of all time, Green for Danger (1944), which was made into one of the most highly regarded detective movies; not many mystery fans know, however, the extent of her involvement in the film’s production, but they’ll find it in this edition of OTD. Fans will also find out more about the origin of Brand’s series character, Inspector Cockrill, and why he appeared in only a limited number of her mysteries.

   A bonus is the first publication of one of her short stories in its unabridged form, “Cyanide in the Sun” (1958), an ingenious whodunit solved by the most amateurish amateur detective we’ve yet encountered.

   Knowledgeable introductions to Christianna Brand by Francis M. Nevins and to her story by Tony Medawar are nicely supplemented by both the transcript of a 1978 taped interview she gave to Allen J. Hubin, and Arthur Vidro’s reproductions of letters Brand wrote to an American fan.

   Toss in Dr. John Curran’s “Christie Corner” (“I am not going to waste words discussing this abomination . . .”); Michael Dirda’s incisive review of Conan Doyle for the Defense; Charles Shibuk’s evaluation of Golden Age of Detection (GAD) paperback reprints; Trudi Harrov’s concise reviews of several GAD classics; and you’ve got another winner by our estimable publisher/editor Arthur Vidro.

    Subscription information:

– Published three times a year: spring, summer, and autumn.
– Sample copy: $6.00 in U.S.; $10.00 anywhere else.
– One-year U.S.: $18.00 ($15.00 for Mensans).
– One-year overseas: $40.00 (or 25 pounds sterling or 30 euros).
– Payment: Checks payable to Arthur Vidro, or cash from any nation, or U.S. postage stamps or PayPal.

    Mailing address:

Arthur Vidro, editor
Old-Time Detection
2 Ellery Street
Claremont, New Hampshire 03743

Web address: vidro@myfairpoint.net

BARRY FORSHAW – The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction. Rough Guides, softcover, July 2007.

   The Penguin Group’s Rough Guides to literature is a smartly-presented series of pocket-sized guidebooks chock full of easily digested information on various literary genres. Barry Forshaw, who edits the Crime Time website, produced The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction [RGTCF], the series’ take on the mystery genre.

   While this particular guide definitely has its virtues and can be recommended, the helpful reviewer (especially at a website like Mystery*File) must include a considerable caveat: the coverage of the Golden Age leaves quite a bit to be desired. Dare I say, it’s a bit rough?

   The back of the RGTCF notes that “this insider’s book recommends over 200 classic crime novels and mystery authors.” By my count, 248 crime novels are independently listed, along with 21 authors who are specially highlighted. The first book listed was published in 1899, the last in 2007. Thus the 248 books are drawn from a time span of nearly 110 years. Here is how the nearly eleven full decades are represented:

      1899-1909     3 books
      1910-1919     3 books
      1920-1929     4 books
      1930-1939     12 books
      1940-1949     14 books
      1950-1959     11 books
      1960-1969     10 books
      1970-1979     9 books
      1980-1989     16 books
      1990-1999     25 books
      2000-2007     141 books

   Notice anything slightly out of balance here? Perhaps that 57% of the books listed come from the last decade? Or that two-thirds (67%) of the books were published after 1989? Or that 4% of the books come from the first thirty years, 1899-1929?

    Barry Forshaw writes in his preface that his Rough Guide “aims to be a truly comprehensive survey, covering every major writer….It covers everything from the genre’s origins and the Golden Age to the current bestselling authors, although a larger emphasis is placed on contemporary writers.” This is a bit of an understatement, perhaps.

   I would have no objection to this selective coverage, but for the fact that the book is offered as a “truly comprehensive survey” of this 109 year period. Let’s look at how the earlier decades, particularly those of the Golden Age, are covered, shall we?

   First it should be noted that the listed books are divided into fifteen sections. It’s a mite confusing, since some are chronological, more or less, and some go by subject:

       1. Origins
       2. Golden Age
       3. Hardboiled and Pulp
       4. Private Eyes
       5. Cops
       6. Professionals
       7. Amateurs
       8. Psychological
       9. Serial Killers
       10. Criminal Protagonists
       11. Gangsters
       12. Class/Race/Politics
       13. Espionage
       14. Historicals
       15. “Foreign”

   You can see immediately how there is potential for overlap—and there often is (Hardboiled/Private Eyes). Then there are places where there isn’t any such overlap, though one would have expected it — Golden Age and Amateurs, for example.

   The Golden Age was the Age of the Amateur, surely, yet the Amateurs chapter lists twenty books, only one from before 1957 (G. K. Chesterton’s The Innocence of Father Brown) and, indeed, only three (including Innocence) from before 1992.

   Similarly, one might have thought that in the Historicals chapter there might have been room for Agatha Christie’s Death Comes as the End (set in ancient Egypt), John Dickson Carr’s The Devil in Velvet (set in Jacobean England), Josephine Tey’s investigative The Daughter of Time (concerning Richard III and the murder of the princes in the Tower) or one of the collections of Lilian de la Torre’s Dr. Samuel Johnson short stories; yet, no, of the 22 listed books, only three come from before 1990, and these are all between 1978 and 1985 (Ellis Peter’s A Morbid Taste for Bones, Peter Lovesey’s The False Inspector Dew and Julian Rathbone’s Lying in State).

   It comes to appear that the later chapters mostly exist to provide more opportunities for listing more current authors. Indeed, one could rightly wonder, after reading this book, why the decades of the 1920s and 1930s are considered a “Golden Age” at all. The real Golden Age would seem to have dawned with the new millennium in 2000.

   Only thirteen books are listed for the Golden Age:

       Margery Allingham, The Tiger in the Smoke
       Nicholas Blake, The Beast Must Die
       Christianna Brand, Green for Danger
       John Dickson Carr, The Three Coffins
       Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express
       Edmund Crispin, Love Lies Bleeding
       Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Turning Tide
       Patrick Hamilton, Hangover Square
       Geoffrey Household, Rogue Male
       Francis Iles, Malice Aforethought
       Ngaio Marsh, Surfeit of Lampreys
       Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night
       Josephine Tey, The Franchise Affair

   Again there is confusion. Is the Golden Age a period or a style? If a style, what are Hangover Square and Rogue Male doing there (couldn’t the one go in psychology, say, and the other espionage)? If a period, why do three of the books come from after the end of World War Two? Does Forshaw view the Golden Age as having lasted into the early 1950s — if so, why? It would have been nice to have some more depth here.

   But, more important, Forshaw’s collection of Golden Age book listings seems ever so paltry. It will be recalled that fully 200 of the 248 listed books in RGTCF come from after the 1950s. Where are British writers like R. Austin Freeman (he’s not in Origins either), Freeman Wills Crofts, H. C. Bailey, Michael Innes, Cyril Hare and Gladys Mitchell?

    And, damn it, where in hell are the bloody Americans?! It’s rather eccentric to find (if we discount John Dickson Carr) only one American, Erle Stanley Gardner — and this not for a Perry Mason but rather a 1941 Gramps Wiggins tale. In this book you will not find listings for Melville Davisson Post, Earl Derr Biggers, S.S. Van Dine, Ellery Queen, Rex Stout, Mary Roberts Rinehart or Mignon Eberhart.

   One might almost conclude that the United States did not exist in the 1920s and 1930s, but for the presence of a slew of hardboiled novels by the usual suspects (Chandler, Hammett, James M. Cain, W. R. Burnett, etc.).

   In a moment I found quite regrettable indeed, Forshaw writes: “The superficial ease of churning out potboilers attracted many hacks, such as the prolific but now little read Ellery Queen.” I am utterly baffled by this statement. How anyone who has read “Ellery Queen” in his best period, from the thirties to the fifties, can deem him a “hack” is beyond me (events after 1960, when the Ellery Queen name was loaned out, admittedly are more problematic).

   If Forshaw thinks writing books like The Greek Coffin Mystery and Cat of Many Tails was easy, he should turn his hand to mystery writing immediately, because he must surely be a creative genius of the first order.

   It’s emblematic of the low standing to which Ellery Queen has fallen that “he” could be treated in such a way. Not only were the cousins behind Ellery Queen (Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee) great genre writers, they were most generous men who did much to promote mystery writing and genre scholarship. To me it seems rather a shame for a writer following in their footsteps to dismiss them in such a cavalier manner.

   There are other omissions of which one could complain. No mention is made of Edgar Wallace and Sax Rohmer — hugely important figures in the history of the English thriller (they were even “bestsellers,” just like John Grisham, who is included here). They could easily have been fitted into the Criminal Protagonist or Gangster chapters.

   Philip MacDonald is omitted, even though his brilliant Murder Gone Mad most certainly belongs among the Serial Killer tales.

   Margaret Millar and Celia Fremlin are omitted in the Psychology chapter (and everywhere else, for that matter). To be sure, they are not as well-known today as Patricia Highsmith (listed for Strangers on a Train and with a separate info-box for her Ripley series), but they did fine work that influenced other writers in the 1950s though the 1970s and merited inclusion in a collection of nearly 250 books.

   Julian Symons, the important and influential mid- to late-20th century crime novelist and mystery critic, is omitted as well; as are Symons’ excellent contemporaries, Michael Gilbert and Andrew Garve.

   In the Origins chapter, Forshaw gives brief nods to Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, but ignores Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Mrs. Henry Wood and Anna Katharine Green. These three women are in my view inferior to the three men, but they certainly should have been mentioned at least. (They have been subjects of quite a lot of academic scholarship of late.)

   Many (though not all) of the omissions I suspect can be explained by the fact that the omitted authors were out of print when Forshaw was writing his Rough Guide. And that’s perfectly fine, really, but I think this point should have been conceded up front for the benefit of the less experienced readers who presumably are the Rough Guide’s target demographic, for such innocent neophytes may be considerably misled, with potentially baneful results, in that they will not learn of many good writers or not see good writers at their best.

   Ruth Rendell, for example, gets three listings, all for three novels published after 2000. I have read two of them, The Babes in the Wood and The Rottweiler, and in my view they are in no way anywhere comparable to the author’s best work from, say, 1975 to 1995. Where in the world, for example, is A Dark-Adapted Eye or A Demon in My View or A Fatal Inversion?

   Similarly, P. D. James gets a listing for The Murder Room and H. R. F. Keating for Breaking and Entering, both post-1999 novels and simply not their best work. (In a separate entry for P. D. James, Forshaw lists “the top five Dalgleish books” — confusingly this list omits the one James book with a full entry, The Murder Room, while including Innocent Blood, a suspense novel in which Dalgleish never appears.)

   I have probably sounded quite rough on this Rough Guide, but it does have its rough patches. Nevertheless, the book has merit, especially for people mainly interested in recent crime fiction (especially that published between 2000 and 2007), for whom I think it can be recommended without qualification. There the coverage truly does appear to be “truly comprehensive.”

   I also should mention that I particularly enjoyed the Espionage chapter and that I thought Forshaw’s treatment of Hardboiled books superior to that which he gave the Golden Age detective novel. Perhaps the Golden Age needs a Rough Guide all its own!

HAKE TALBOT – Rim of the Pit. Bantam, 1965. Originally published by Simon and Schuster, hardcover, 1944. Reprinted several times in other editions.

   This book was chosen by Anthony Boucher for Bantam’s “World’s Great Novels of Detection” series, along with such classics as Christianna Brand’s Green for Danger and Ellery Queen’s Cat of Many Tails. Like those two, this is an excellent book that should be far better known than it is (it was not mentioned by Barzun & Taylor).

   The detective in Rim of the Pit is gambler Rogan Kincaid, who tries to determine a rational explanation of seemingly supernaturally caused murders.

   Many years ago Grimaud Desanat froze to death in the North Woods of New England. His wife Irene, a supposed medium, holds a seance to ask him about some trees he owned. During the seance Desanat appears and terrifies Irene, who is later found inside a locked room brutally murdered

   The question is, who murdered her? Was it another member of the house party or the spirit of Desanat himself acting through another’s body?

   More and more inexplicable events pile up that seem to favor the latter theory, including a second murder that seems to clinch it, but Talbot makes it all come clear in a brilliant ending.

   Talbot wrote only two detective novels, the other being Hangman’s Handyman (1942), which may help to explain why he is so little known today, but Rim of the Pit is a classic of the genre that bears out Boucher’s comparison with such more noted masters of impossible crime as John Dickson Carr and Clayton Rawson.

Editorial Comments:  Both of Talbot’s detective novels have recently been reprinted by Ramble House. Puzzle Doctor, on his/her blog, suggests that Talbot wrote a third, one that was never published and is now presumed lost.

ELIZABETH FERRARS – Give a Corpse a Bad Name. Hodder & Stoughton, UK, hardcover, 1940. Collins Crime Club, UK, hc, 1981. Chivers, UK, large print edn, 2000. No US edition.

    Like Christianna Brand, the prolific, long-lived mystery doyenne Elizabeth Ferrars (1907-1995) slipped into print at the tail end of the Golden Age of British mystery (roughly 1920 to 1940); and, like Brand, upon her appearance in the detection field, she was raved as part of the “literary” school of British women mystery writers following Crime Queen’s Dorothy L. Sayers’ injunction to transmute detective novels into novels of manners with a crime interest.

    Ferrars went so far as to use a Lord Peterish, Campionite series detective in her first five books, one Toby Dyke, who comes complete with a Bunterish, Luggite assistant, one George (no last name — George is wary about giving out personal details). Though Toby is no aristocrat, he is an winning gent; and George seems to have picked up quite a bit of knowledge of crime and criminals at some point in his life.

    I have read three of the later four titles in the series and thought the last, Neck in a Noose, the best, with the other two getting bogged down in messy plots. Give a Corpse a Bad Name, however, struck me as very good, with a particularly ingenious, twisting finish.

    In the English village of Chovey, the charming, youngish widow Anna Milne (formerly of South Africa but now residing at one of Chovey’s most desirable residences, “The Laurels”), reports to the police that she has run down and killed a man. Oddly, the dead man also comes from South Africa and has Anna Milne’s address in his pocket, yet Anna Milne claims not to recognize him.

    Since the man had been drinking heavily before the fatal accident and she herself had not, no legal culpability is attached to Mrs. Milne. But then anonymous letters begin appearing, suggesting that this “accident” was no accident….

    Soon former crime reporter Toby Dyke and his mysterious yet amiable friend George are investigating, with surprising results. And George proves no slouch himself as an “amateur” detective in the end.

    Give a Corpse a Bad Name is an enjoyable book, with sufficient, sometimes strong, characterization, good writing and an interesting puzzle with some coherent cluing. Toby and George remain more nebulous than Peter and Bunter and Campion and Lugg, yet they do have some nice moments, such as George’s lecture to Tony on the merits of barley sugar.

    Definitely worth reading, though the original edition, printed only in Britain by Hodder and Stoughton, is very rare and very expensive. Fortunately it was reprinted in hardcover by Collins in 1981 and also a new press, Langtail, appears to have reprinted it in paperback just this year.

   Some Brief Bio-Bibliographic Bits:

The Toby Dyke mysteries:    [Taken from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin.]

       Give a Corpse a Bad Name (n.) Hodder 1940.
       Remove the Bodies (n.) Hodder 1940. Doubleday, 1941, as Rehearsals for Murder.
       Death in Botanist’s Bay (n.) Hodder 1941. Doubleday, 1941, as Murder of a Suicide.
       Don’t Monkey with Murder (n.) Hodder 1942. Doubleday, 1942, as The Shape of a Stain.

       Your Neck in a Noose (n.) Hodder 1942. Doubleday, 1943, as Neck in a Noose.

Note: Both Elizabeth Ferrars and E. X. Ferrars, her byline in the US, were pen names of Morna Doris Brown, 1907-1995. A long obituary for her by Jack Adrian can be found online.

Editorial Comment: I have found no website for Langtail Press, but there is a list of their forthcoming mysteries, all softcover reprints, on Amazon UK, with almost 50 titles scheduled for release on December 1st. The books are uniformly priced at 12 pounds; other authors include Anthony Berkeley, Freeman Wills Crofts, Fredric Brown, Gavin Black and John Dickson Carr.

   Steve suggested the title of this one and the theme, so praise — and/or blame — should go to him.

   The chief rule for this is the book in question had to make me laugh: a hearty guffaw, a dry chuckle, a knowing smile — that and that indefinable thing called charm are the chief attributes of the books on this list; and of them, charm is the one that weighed the heaviest.

   Of course being funny is serious business as any comic will tell you, and nothing is harder than being consistently funny at novel length while still producing a discernible plot, actual characters, and a genuine mystery and suspense. All these succeed on that level — or they did for me.

   Taste is always subjective and humor the most subjective of all. For that reason I expect this to promote some argument. That said, some short story and novella collections made the list, and in a few places more than one book by some writers.

   You’ll find some of the usual suspects here, but where I could I went for a less well known title by a less well known writer if it was one I particularly liked. These are favorites and not bests, and I’ve tried for a variety.

    If I have overused the words ‘droll’ and ‘wit’ it is because for me those are far more common qualities in the comic mystery or thriller than belly laughs.

   As always, just because a book is not on the list doesn’t mean I didn’t find it funny or deserving. I’ve avoided books like The Smiling Corpse or The John Riddell Murder Case because they were chiefly satires before they were mysteries.

    Also not on the list many of the soft core series and books like Ted Marks’ “Man From Orgy” or Clyde Allison’s “0008” novels — although many of them were very funny.

   Film novelizations were left off too, though some, like the ones for Gambit, How To Steal a Million, The Notorious Landlady, and On the Double were very well done and funny in their own right. The same for TV-tie-ins. I realize that is arbitrary, but without some arbitrary rules these lists would be so all inclusive as to be meaningless.

   I ended up without a Donald Lam mystery by A. A. Fair, but let it be said the entire series is bright and sprightly, and for my money’s Gardner’s best. Somehow Cleve Adams, Robert Leslie Bellem, Robert Reeves, Kurt Steel, Kelly Roos, Jimmy Starr, Martin Wodehouse, Alice Tilton (though she made it as Phoebe Atwood Taylor), and some other obvious choices didn’t make the list, but that doesn’t mean they did not deserve to. On a different day in a different mood some choices would be different.

   In a few cases time has passed a book by, and what was very funny then is at best mildly humorous now. This included books like The Disentanglers by Andrew Lang.

   Mostly I limited myself to one book by author, but in the case of Stuart Palmer and Craig Rice allowed for a collaborative effort to stand on its own. Many writers such as Palmer, Rice, Fish, Block, and Westlake could easily make up a list of their own.

   I did not forget Thorne Smith’s Did She Fall? I just thought it was poor Smith and a mediocre mystery.

   At the end I have added fifty more without comment.

   As usual an * indicates a film or television adaptation.

   The Light of Day (aka Topkapi) * by Eric Ambler — Any one who knew Ambler’s screen work should have known he had a dry wit, but this took everyone by surprise, although Arthur Abdel Simpson, Ambler’s illegitimate stateless half British half Egyptian pimp and pornographer ‘hero,’ is well within the Ambler tradition. Not as playful as the Jules Dassin film, but in many ways funnier and more suspenseful. Other Ambler’s in a playful mode; Send No More Roses, Dirty Story, A Kind of Anger, and Dr. Frigo. Peter Ustinov, Melina Mercouri (Mrs. Dassin), Maximilian Schell, Robert Morley, and Akim Tamiroff starred.

   Chip Harrison and the Topless Tulip Caper by Lawrence Block — There are too many to choose from by Block, from the exploits of burglar/bookseller Bernie Rhodenbarr to sleepless Evan Tanner, to hit man Keller, but I choose this paperback original because it is as good a portrait of an adolescent in the throws of sexual awakening as anything by Roth or Salinger, and because it is a dead on satire/tribute to Rex Stout and Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. It is also cheerfully dirty minded without a smirk or a snicker — a rarity in any American fiction.

   Rocket to the Morgue by Anthony Boucher — A nun, Sister Ursula, and a harried cop, Terry Marshall, must team up to solve a murder at a convention of science fiction writers. As if that wasn’t enough, the book features savage but affectionate portraits of some of the titans of the science fiction field and a barbed look at early fandom as well as a satisfying mystery plot. Boucher’s Fergus O’Breen mysteries are similar blends of laughs and detection, by a man whose bona fides in the mystery and science fiction field are unquestionable.

   A Case for Three Detectives by Leo Bruce — Discussed here recently. Sgt. Beef, a solid and seemingly plodding policeman shows up three spoofs of famous Golden Age sleuths (Lord Peter, Poirot, and Father Brown) and solves a fine fair play murder along the way by an under acknowledged master of the form. A surprisingly fresh read.

   Huntingtower * by John Buchan — Dickson McCunn is a canny Glasgow grocer who has just retired and wants a little adventure, so he sets out on a walking holiday in Scotland and gets a bit more than he bargained for including a Bolshie poet, a Russian princess, royal jewels, dastardly villains, and a ragtag Boy Scout troop known as the Gorbals Diehards who could give the Dead End Kids and Bowery Boys a run for their money. First of three delightful books about McCunn and the Diehards, If possible catch the BBC radio adaptation (it was also a silent film and adapted at least twice for television). It may remind you a bit of the great Brit comedy Hue and Cry.

   Surprise Package * by Art Buchwald — A less than honest Union Boss gets deported to the tiny island where he was born, and along with his ‘moll’, who proves to be more than he — or anyone — can handle, finds himself scheming to get home, steal the crown from an exiled playboy king, and outwit corrupt police and ruthless thugs trying to take the crown back to his highness now Communist homeland. There’s also a band of patriotic monks in the mix who want the crown for religious reasons. Broad satire, but very funny, and I admit I liked the film much more than most do. Yul Brynner, Mitzi Gaynor, and Noel Coward starred with a script by Harry (Marco Page) Kurnitz.

   The Great Affair by Victor Canning — The title is from a quote by Robert Louis Stevenson ( “The great affair is to travel.”) and Canning, in a rare funny mood, provides an entertaining romp for a somewhat straight laced missionary in Africa who discovers his real talent lies in decidedly less legal and moral pursuits.

   The Arabian Nights Murder by John Dickson Carr — Dr. Fell takes on a case that owes as much to the Marx Brothers as Edgar Allan Poe, and Carr proceeds on a romp of epic proportions that is both very funny and still a fine example of the form. Carr indulges his penchant for the bizarre, the gargantuan Fell’s eccentricities, and Eighteenth Century drolleries, wit, and rambunctiousness so effortlessly you likely won’t care how contrived and unreal it all is. In fact, that is half the fun. We even get Carr’s idea of a sexpot.

   The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton — Nothing dates faster than yesterday’s whimsey, but this bright and allegorical phantasmagorical tale still shines. Poet Gabriel Syme (The Poet and the Lunatics) stumbles on a secret society of anarchists, is recruited by Scotland Yard to infiltrate them, and moves up the organizations ladder through members named for the days of the week until he encounters the leader of the group — Sunday. Just read it, no explanation or description could do it justice. The reading of this on BBC 7 by Geoffrey Palmer (As Time Goes By) was particularly good.

   Arigato by Richard Condon — Captain Huntington is a former RAF hero married to a beautiful American heiress. He also has a few gambling debts his wife is refusing to pay for, so Captain Huntington needs to raise a little money — quick — and has few scruples about doing it. Condon was one of the masters of the sharp observation and the pen as scalpel, and this little book and its companion simply ooze charm and invention. If your prefer him a bit more savage try Whisper of the Axe or closer to home, Prizzi’s Honor — or any of the Prizzi books. Also check out his caper novel The Oldest Confession and his savage Hollywood satire, The Ecstasy Business, about a madman trying to kill a Liz Taylor/Richard Burton pair of movie idols. If you only know him from The Manchurian Candidate, Prizzi’s Honor, or Winter Kills, you have some wonderful reading ahead of you.

   Love Lies Bleeding by Edmund Crispin — Oxford don Gervase Fen gets involved with a missing Shakespearian play, murder, the kidnapping of a little girl, an aged an demented bloodhound, and the usual patented Crispin chasing around in a fine example of what Crispin did best. Crispin, who was composer Robert Bruce Montgomery, wrote the scores for the “Carry On” films among others, and knew his way around comedy and the detective novel. This one wins out over the others for me only for that magnificent senile bloodhound. Almost any of the Crispin books would have made a perfect Ealing comedy.

   Sally in the Alley by Norbert Davis — Carstairs and Doan are a mismatched team of private eyes. Carstairs is a highly bred aristocrat and Doan is a bit of a mutt. Carstairs is also a prize winning Great Dane, who thinks his private eye owner Doan is a bit beneath him. Together they featured in three books and a long short story that show Davis skills at plotting, orchestrating, and amusing. It I choose this one over the others it is mostly because I was married to a Sally.

   The Incredible Schlock Homes by Robert L. Fish — Finding a new Schlock Homes story in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine was always a delight. Overrun with puns, absurdity, and sheer manic energy they are to Holmesian satire what the original was to detective stories. Read them and weep with laughter.

   The Liquidator * by John Gardner — Boysie Oakes is a genial but attractive idiot recruited as chief executioner for the British Secret Service by the loathsome Colonel Mostyn, and forced to hire a Cockney hit man, Charlie Griffin to do his job for him. Boysie’s adventures manage to both thrill, amuse, and postillion the whole James Bond thing — ironic when you recall Gardner ended up replacing Ian Fleming writing the Bond saga. The film starred Rod Taylor, Jill St. John, and Trevor Howard as Mostyn, with Eric Sykes as Griffin.

   The Megstone Plot * by Andrew Garve — A decorated submariner stuck in a desk job at the Admiralty would like to marry a beautiful but mercenary lady, but lacks the money so he sets out to frame himself for treason and then collect big by suing the tabloid press for libel when he is cleared. What could possibly go wrong … A droll book that was an even droller film with James Mason, Vera Miles, and George Sanders as A Touch of Larceny.

   The Devil in Amber by Mark Gatiss — The second outing for bisexual Edwardian artist and spy Lucifer Box, who works for the real British Secret Service, the Royal Academy. Here he is sent to America in the twenties to look into a proto-Fascist group known as the Amber Shirts founded by one Olympus Mons, runs into his hated sister, Pandora, is framed for a shocking murder, and must save a young woman (Agnes Daye) and the world from a plot to literally raise the devil. Gattis is an actor (the BBC sitcom The League of Gentleman) and writer (Doctor Who) who can keep the pages turning and you chuckling, with the most likeable scoundrel since Harry Flashman. Gattiss own five part reading and adaptation of this was recently featured on BBC7.

   The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax * by Dorothy Gilman — Mrs. Pollifax is a well to do widow with grown children who just wants to serve her country — so she volunteers for the CIA. Of course the CIA isn’t interested, but then they have this little problem in Yugoslavia, and Mrs. P. might just prove useful — nothing too dangerous of course — like breaking out of a Yugoslav prison with a wounded American spy and being pursued by the entire army and secret police … First of a long and delightful series of well plotted and ably told adventures all preceding from the simple premise of the entire world underestimating Emily Pollifax. You shouldn’t. Rosalind Russell and Angela Lansbury both essayed the role of Mrs. Pollifax in the film and television versions of this.

   A Thrill A Minute With Jack Albany * by John Godey — Jack Albany is a character actor with the kind of face that keeps him on screen — as a long procession of cheap hoods, tough gangsters, and assorted thugs. So when a criminal mastermind mistakes him for a deadly hitman… Entertaining tale from a writer better known for the suspense novel The Taking of Pelham, One Two Three. This was a Disney film, Never a Dull Moment, with Dick Van Dyke, Dorothy Provine, Edward G. Robinson, Henry Silva, and Joanna Moore.

   No Way to Treat A Lady * by William Goldman — A charming New York homicide cop with a Jewish mother and a shiksa girlfriend, a serial killer with mother issues and a penchant for theatrical disguises — these are the elements of a fine mix of laughs and thrills that was also a memorable film with George Segal, Lee Remick, and Rod Steiger.

   Our Man in Havana * by Graham Greene — Mr. Wormwold is a widower with a teenage daughter, and sells vacuum cleaners in Havana on the eve of the Castro Revolution. What he mostly wants is to make a little money and go home because his teen daughter is a ripe young thing and in Havana her age is even less protection than in the rest of the world, so when a persistent British spy recruits him Mr. Wormwold doesn’t see what harm it could do to have a little extra income — and he doesn’t have to actually spy on anyone — he can just make if all up while padding his expenses. Which is how he becomes the most important agent in the western hemisphere and up to his neck in spies, killers, secret police, and betrayal. Also a notable Carol Reed film with Alec Guiness, Ernie Kovacs, Maureen O’Hara, Noel Coward, and Burl Ives. Sharp satire on politics, spies, sex, and life in general by one of the masters of the form, and you will never look a vacuum cleaner or play chess quite the same again.. For Greene in a humorous vein also try Travels With My Aunt, Lovers Take All, Monsignor Quixote, and Dr Fischer of Geneva or The Bomb Party.

   It Happened In Boston by Russell Greenhan — For more detail see my review. A forger who complains because the old masters keep copying his work gets involved in a deadly plot and goes happily off the cliff taking us with him. To say the least, this book is unique.

   The Thin Man * by Dashiell Hammett — Nick and Nora Charles are the templates for all the bright brittle husband and wife sleuths to come, bantering, detecting, and destroying their livers, all with equal glee. Hammett succeeded at making marriage sexy, and then William Powell and Myrna Loy succeeded at making it effortless. While it is the least of Hammett’s novels it is still a damn good detective story and a refreshingly good read today with the sharp dialogue and Nick’s dry wit both intact. Though in all fairness Hammett himself hit on one of the minor problems when he lamented no one ever invented a more smug pair.

   Just Desserts by Tim Heald — Simon Bognor, that overweight and less than brilliant agent of the Inland Revenue, customs and taxes, has a love of good food, so he doesn’t mind too much when he is asked to look into the murder of a famous chef he knew, even if he is still not sure how he ended up working for the Inland Revenue in the first place. Pretty soon he is overseas on the expense account, attracted to a young lady his fiancee would not approve of, and up to his neck in murder and fraudulent champagne. Yet another fast moving, clever, and funny entry in the entertaining series which began back in Unbecoming Habits with Simon looking into a little truth in labeling problem involving a mysterious group of monks. If you don’t know these discover them.

   Why Shoot a Butler? by Georgette Heyer — A bit of entertaining froth from the mistress of the Regency romance and the creator of sleuths Hannayside and Hemingway, this sprightly comedy mystery reads the way a good British comedy mystery of the era plays on screen. There is a handsome likable hero, an attractive heroine in trouble, a mystery to be solved, a satisfying amount of shooting around in the dark on narrow foggy country roads in low slung roadsters, and a better crime, plot, and solution than is really needed to make it fun. Why shoot a butler? Why not, if the result is this much fun?

   A Fairly Dangerous Thing by Reginald Hill —Joe Askern, who teaches English in a small English village, has a passion for the local stately hall, Averingrett, and comely ladies with well developed bosoms. When he is recruited by a ring of professional thieves, who plan to systematically loot the stately hall, thanks to a call girl named Cynthia who is more than amply endowed in his other area of interest there are bound to be complications. Just how it all ends for the best is a delightful trip that reads like a slightly risque Ealing comedy.

   Fellow Passenger by Geoffrey Household — Household indulges both his skill at chase and pursuit and his penchant for the picaresque in this tale narrated from the Tower of London, by one Claudio Howard-Wolverston, who finds himself trying to extricate himself from a series of increasingly dangerous coincidences that leave him at sea in a dangerous storm and working as an elephant trainer in a circus while trying to maintain his freedom and clear his name. Household’s best mix of the classic elements of his Rogue Male type novel in a lighter vein. Also check out Olura and The Life and Times of Bernardo Brown for more in this mood.

   One Man Show by Michael Innes — Sir John Appleby takes on art crime in this high handed caper that proceeds like The Lavender Hill Mob or The Ladykillers with chuckles, smiles of recognition, and some expertly orchestrated belly laughs. For my money, this may well be Innes’s masterpiece in terms of all the elements of mystery, movement, and humor. The heist and chase is beautifully choreographed. Almost all the Innes novels are droll; try also his non-series novel Candleshoe.

   Lady in the Morgue * by Jonathan Latimer — Bill Crane takes a nap in the morgue (and if you drank like he did you could sleep anywhere too) and wakes up to murder. Meanwhile he’s hunting a missing heiress and two gangsters are fighting over one’s missing wife. Crane, who is the top detective for Colonel Black’s agency teams with his pal Doc Williams and manages to stay one step ahead of the cops while drinking like a fish and indulging in some still fairly racy patter and situations. On top of all the other virtues of this unvirtuous book it is wonderfully written and a damn good detective story with actual clues and deductions. Preston Foster was good as Crane in three cheap but effective Crime Club films with Frank Jenks as Doc. Latimer was likely the raciest writer of the screwball school, with Crane having a penchant for naked ladies unsurpassed until Mike Hammer. If anything The Dead Don’t Care and Red Gardenias are even more screwball and racier, as is his ultra-tough Solomon’s Vineyard.

   The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie — Television’s House, and Bertie Wooster, not to mention Blackadder’s benighted buddy, penned this top notch and laugh out loud funny thriller, about an ex-Special Forces type who tries to do a good turn and ends up battling terrorists and a plot to sell tactical missiles by staging a terrorist atrocity. If that doesn’t sound funny, imagine it narrated in Laurie’s dry acerbic style with just enough sense of the ridiculous to leaven the very real suspense and violent action. I have seldom been as thrilled by a book I laughed out loud out at.

   Out of Sight * by Elmore Leonard — He’s a charming crook escaped from prison and she’s a U.S. Marshall assigned to catch him, of course falling for each other while he tries to elude capture and she tries to bring him in is out of the question. Made into an entertaining film with George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez by Stephen Soderbergh. And yes, I Iike this much better than Get Shorty or Maximum Bob, but both are also very funny.

   The Norths Meet Murder * by Richard and Frances Lockridge — After Nick and Nora Charles Jerry and Pam North are the epitome of the married with murder set. Originating in a series of sketches in The New Yorker, Lockridge combined the Norths with murder and his career was set (by all accounts Frances only contributed her name and Pam’s character). This first one is as good a place as any to dip in. Despite being played by Gracie Allen in their only film, Pam, in the Nora Charles tradition, is one of the sexiest wives in fiction. The cats never bothered me, but you may not be so tolerant. This one as recently commented is also a fine snapshot of the period it was written in. Barbara Britton, from the television series with Richard Denning, was much closer to my idea of Pam North.

   Venus With Pistol by Gavin Lyall — Humor isn’t the first thing you think of in relation to Lyall’s brilliant thrillers, but this one about a dealer in rare and sometimes spurious antique guns who finds himself drawn into a scam of international proportions with a mercenary and amorous princess and some very bad men is both very funny and very exciting. The book was delayed for several months while Lyall experimented to see the trick with the antique gun could actually work.

   Who Is Killing the Great Chef’s of Europe? * by Nan and Ivan Lyons — a beautiful chef and her ex-husband, a gauche American fast food entrepreneur, find themselves as suspects, targets, and sleuths in this sophisticated romp through the best kitchens in Europe as someone is targeting and murdering Europe’s finest chef’s with their own specialties. Could it be the food critic and gourmand who is dying because of all their rich foods he can’t resist? This was made into a charming film with Jacqueline Bissett, George Segal, Robert Morley as the food critic, and various guest stars as the chef’s and a script by Peter Stone (1776, Charade). Re-read and re-viewed recently both are as good as remembered.

   Please Write For Details by John D. MacDonald — Yes, I know most of you would have chosen The Girl, the Gold Watch, and Everything, but this clever con artist scheme has always seemed to me under appreciated as an art colony fraud involves the usual collection of MacDonald characters and who is double crossing whom gets lost in the complications.

   Whiskey Galore * by Compton Mackenzie — A crisis strikes a small Scottish island when the war interferes with their ration of whiskey. Things are getting pretty desperate until a ship laden with the precious stuff is run aground on the nearby rocks. A desperate plan is then unfolded to salvage the cargo, but that is only the start of their problems as the Royal Navy and the excise man both want to know where the whiskey went precipitating a heroic effort by the entire island population to hide the precious cargo. Charming comic novel by a leading literary light who dabbled in spy novels too. Made into one of the funniest British films ever as Whiskey Galore, aka Tight Little Island by the legendary Ealing Studios. No, it isn’t in Hubin, but technically I consider smuggling and evading the police at the least a crime novel. Mackenzie himself has a small role in the film.

   Let’s Kill Uncle * by Rohan O’Grady — a pair of orphans stand to inherit their parents fortune, if they can survive being sent to live with their ex commando uncle in Canada, who in turn stands to inherit if something should happen to them. What are the poor dears to do? Murder comes to mind — more-or-less in self defense. Black comedy made into a decent William Castle film with Nigel Green the homicidal uncle.

   The Penguin Pool Murders * by Stuart Palmer — Spinster schoolteacher Hildegarde Withers is one of the great contributions from the American school of the detective novel, a woman with steel in her backbone as well as her whalebone in her stays, and a fine appreciation for spotting skullduggery after years of teaching children. That her foil Oscar Piper is one of the most likable policemen in the genre just makes it all the better. Then take all those ingredients and add perfection in the horsey face of Dame Edna May Oliver and the Irish weariness of James Gleason, throw in a small penguin named Oscar, who himself became a star, and the result was magic in print and on screen. Some solid detective work too.

   Hugger Mugger in the Louvre by Elliot Paul — Best remembered today for his non-fiction The Last Time I Saw Paris and Life and Death in a Small Spanish Town, Paul was an original humorist whose books about expatriate professor Homer Evans and his gun-toting Montana born girlfriend in a surreal Paris out of a Marx Brothers’ film have to be experienced to be believed. This is the second, after The Murder of Mickey Finn, and finds Paul in even deeper waters. The books started out to be a satire of S. S. Van Dine and Philo Vance, but that went by the wayside before chapter one was over and they took off on their own madcap way. Just fasten your seatbelt and bind up your ribs.

   The People vs. Withers and Malone * by Craig Rice and Stuart Palmer — It’s still not clear who had the idea to team bibulous Chicago lawyer John J. Malone with spinster teacher Hildegarde Withers, but the result was six of the most entertaining novellas in the genre as the two unlikely partners team and make life miserable for murderers and the police, mostly Malone’s foil Captain von Flannagan. One of the novellas came to the screen with decidedly mixed results as Mrs. O’Malley and Mr. Malone. Marjorie Main was miscast and painful as the substitute for Withers, but James Whitmore was Malone in the flesh. The writing is mostly by Palmer, but the two worked so often together as screenwriters it is almost impossible to tell.

   Trial By Fury by Craig Rice — Jake and Helene Justus got out of Chicago during the hot summer for a little trip and of course first thing off the bat they witness a murder and Jake is arrested as a material witness. Enter the cavalry in the person of John J. Malone, who finds himself not only defending Jake, but the local prosecutor. There is a serial killer who never kills the same way twice, bodies buried in cellars, dollar gin, a lynch mob, an exploding bank, a burning madhouse, and Hercules, a dog whose love for Malone and dollar gin are equally pure, and I’m not sure what more you would want in a mystery. The detective work is solid, the characters are American Gothic eccentric, but not too broadly drawn, the motive and murderer are believable, and the final clinch will leave you with a tear in your eye. Hercules gets my vote for the best dog in the genre — sorry, Asta.

   Lazarus #7 by Richard Sale — One critic labeled it a ‘gay Hollywoodian gambol,’ but as James Sandoe pointed out, you should read it anyway. The screwball school as done by a master, as a doctor who specializes in tropical diseases has to figure out why someone is trying to kill him when he arrives in Hollywood. The answer is a stunner saved practically for the last page.

   Red Diamond by Mark Schorr — Red Diamond is a rough tough private eye out of the pulps by way of Mickey Spillane — at least in his day dreams. The rest of the time he is a henpecked cab driver. At least until his wife throws out his precious pulp collection and he suffers a schizophrenic break and thinks he is Red Diamond, private eye. Havoc and hilarity follow as the police, underworld, and medical establishment all try to survive Red’s war on crime. First of a handful of fast paced funny reads.

   The Game of X * by Robert Sheckley — William Martin is an American graduate student in Europe, asked by a friend in intelligence to pose as Agent X. X is a legendary secret agent created by the CIA to act as a general bogeyman to the Russians and since he doesn’t exist he can be anywhere, do anything, and take credit for every coup. Alas for William his one meeting as X goes awry and he finds himself in the middle of the most dangerous mission of X’s career — and sadly William is a complete goof ball. Or is he? Maybe he was really X all along … The Disney film Condorman turns X into a comic book hero and is best forgotten, save that it reunites Michael Crawford and Oliver Reed from Michael Winner’s The Jokers.

   The Trouble With Harry * by Jack Trevor Story — The trouble with Harry is that he is dead and his body keeps turning up. This novel by Story, who also wrote for the Sexton Blake Library among other things, is a bit racier, and a shade darker than Alfred Hitchock’s black comedy, which moves the whole affair to New England, but the essentials are there and on the whole, a delight.

   Some Buried Caesar by Rex Stout — a prize bull is murdered. Nero Wolfe must leave the brownstone for the country, and ends up stranded in an open field on a rock with a very angry bull. Do I really have to say anymore? Damn fine bit of detective work too.

   Chinaman’s Chance by Ross Thomas — Artie Wu is the heir to the throne of Imperial China and the partner of Quincy Durant, and they, along with the divinely named Otherguy Overby get drawn into a caper of complexities so intricate only Ross Thomas could have brought it off. If The Maltese Falcon had been a comedy it would have been this book. And it almost brought Thomas the fame and fortune he deserved.

   Texas by the Tail by Jim Thompson — A strain of black humor runs in many of Thompson’s darkest novels, but here he takes on some charming con artists and shows a skill for a light touch that belies his reputation. Perhaps not his best book, but certainly his most surprising, and evidence there was more than met the eye or our expectations if fate had been a bit kinder.

   The Gracie Allen Murder Case (aka Scent of Murder) * by S. S. Van Dine — A stunt, pure and simple, and one that should not have worked, but somehow the comedienne seemed to revitalize Van Dine and Philo Vance, and the result, if not a great mystery, is charming and funny, and Van Dine, who hadn’t shown a great deal in the way of humor before, nails Gracie Allen’s voice and manner of thinking with perfect pitch. Everyone in the movie, including Warren William’s Vance, seemed to enjoy themselves too.

   Winter’s Madness by David Walker — Scottish lord Duncatto had planned a quiet little Christmas holiday with friends and family — complicated by a possible Nazi war criminal, a nymphomaniac with a child prodigy, the mafia, Duncatto’s ripe daughter and even riper wife, some eccentric scientists, a charming android, attempted murder, a shoot out on a private ski run, and James Bond’s idiot fellow agent Tiger Clyde. Snappy satirical farce by the author of the whimsical Wee Geordie and Harry Black and the Tiger. One of my favorite books of all time.

   The Busy Body * by Donald Westlake — – My favorite Westlake comic novel isn’t a Dortmunder caper, but a gangster comedy about a nebbish mobster who dreams of being an accountant, a body that won’t stay buried, and the most incompetent assortment of gangsters in history. The William Castle film with Sid Caesar, Richard Pryor, and Robert Ryan was funny too. I am willing to grant though this my be my favorite because it was my first Westlake.

       — Fifty Without Comment (mostly)

Sweet Danger by Margery Allingham
She Shall Have Murder* by Delano Ames
Tales of the Black Widowers by Isaac Asimov
High Noon at Midnight by Michael Avallone
Homicide For Hannah by Dwight Babcock
The Dorothy Parker Murder Case by George Baxt
The Revenge of Kali Ra by K. K. Beck
Sail a Crooked Ship* by Nathaniel Benchley
A Bullet in the Ballet by Caryl Brahms and S. J. Simon
Green For Danger* by Christianna Brand
Tomorrow is Murder by Carter Brown
Madball by Fredric Brown
Partners in Crime* by Agatha Christie
Penelope* by E.V. Cunningham (Howard Fast)
In the Fog by Richard Harding Davis
The Hog Murders by William De Andrea
Dr. Sam Johnson, Detector by Lillian de la Torre
Dolly and the Bird of Paradise by Dorothy Dunnett
The Man With Bogart’s Face* by Andrew J. Fenady
Blood and Honey by G. G. Fickling
A Graveyard of My Own by Ron Goulart
The Judas Pair by Jonathan Gash
The Limping Goose by Frank Gruber
Cotton Comes to Harlem* by Chester Himes
The Man Who Murdered Goliath by Geoffrey Homes
Siskiyou by Richard Hoyt
Every Little Crook and Nanny* by Evan Hunter
Johnny Havoc Meets Zelda by John Jakes
The Lady in The Car With Glasses and a Gun* by Sebastian Japrisot
Murder on the Yellowbrick Road by Stuart Kaminsky
The Murder of the Marahrajah by H. R. F. Keating
Murder by Latitude by Rufus King
Keystone by Peter Lovesey
Sci Fi by William Marshall
Fletch* by Gregory McDonald
Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen by Charlotte McLeod
The Red House Mystery by A. A. Milne
The Mummy Murder Case by Dermot Morrah
Hard Knocker’s Luck by William Murray
Murder at Horsethief by James O’Hanlon
Puzzle for Wantons by Q. Patrick
The Curse of the Pharaohs by Elizabeth Peters
Dover Two by Joyce Porter
The Kubla Khan Caper by Richard Prather
Silky by Leo Rosten
Something’s Down There by Mickey Spillane (Spillane still Spillane, but in a much lighter hearted mood than normal)
Caroline Miniscule by Andrew Taylor
The Corpse Came C.O.D. by Phoebe Atwood Taylor
Bony and the Kelly Gang by Arthur W. Upfield
The Choirboys* by Joseph Waumbaugh

   If at least one of these doesn’t get a chuckle out of you, you may want to consider a funnybone transplant.

   Qualifications are the writers had to publish their first true detective novel between 1920 and 1941 (the true Golden Age) and be British or close enough (Carr). So writers like, say, R. Austin Freeman, Michael Gilbert and S. S. Van Dine get excluded.

   I wanted to get outside the box a bit and so I’m sure I made what will strike some as some odd choices. This is a personal list. If I were making a totally representative list John Dickson Carr’s The Three Coffins, Nicholas Blake’s The Beast Must Die, Michael Innes’ Lament for a Maker, Anthony Berkeley’s The Poisoned Chocolates Case, Sayers’ Gaudy Night, etc., would all be there). And lists evolve over time. It’s highly likely, for example, that as I read more of Anthony Wynne and David Hume, for example, they would get more listings.

   Also I excluded great novels like And Then There Were None, The Burning Court and Trial and Error, for example, because I felt like they didn’t fully fit the definition of true detective novels. In any list list I would make of great mysteries, they would be there.

   If people conclude from this list that my five favorite Golden Age generation British detective novelists are Christie, Street, Mitchell, Carr and Bruce, that would be fair enough, though I must add that they were very prolific writers, so more listings shouldn’t be so surprising.

   The 150 novels break down by decade as follows:

       1920s 9 (6%)
       1930s 87 (58%)
       1940s 30 (20%)
       1950s and beyond 24 (16%)

   A pretty graphic indicator of my preference for the 1930s!

   Also, of the 61 writers, I believe 40 are men and 21 women — I hope my count is right! — which challenges the conventional view today that most British detective novels of the Golden Age were produced by women. Of these, 31, or just over half, eventually became members of the Detection Club. I exclude a few of these luminaries, such as Ronald Knox and Victor Whitechurch (am I anti-clerical?!).

   JOHN DICKSON CARR (8)
The Crooked Hinge (1938)
The Judas Window (1938) (as Carter Dickson)
The Reader Is Warned (1939) (as Carter Dickson)
The Man Who Could Not Shudder (1940)
The Case of the Constant Suicides (1941)
The Gilded Man (1942) (as Carter Dickson)
She Died a Lady (1944) (as Carter Dickson)
He Who Whispers (1946)
   â— It’s probably sacrilege not to have The Three Coffins on the list (especially when you have The Gilded Man!), but when I read Coffins I enjoyed it for the horror more than the locked room, which seemed overcomplicated too me (need to reread though).

   AGATHA CHRISTIE (8)
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd 1926
Murder at the Vicarage 1930
The ABC Murders 1936
Death on the Nile 1937
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe 1940
Five Little Pigs 1942
A Murder Is Announced 1950
The Pale Horse 1961
   â— Haven’t reread The ABC Murders recently; was somewhat disappointed with Murder on the Orient Express when rereading and thus excluded from the list. And Then There Were None regretfully excluded, because I wasn’t sure it really qualifies as a detective story (there’s not really a detective and the solution comes per accidens).

   GLADYS MITCHELL (8)
Speedy Death (1929)
The Mystery of a Butcher’s Shop (1929)
The Saltmarsh Murders (1932)
Death at the Opera (1934)
The Devil at Saxon Wall (1935)
St. Peter’s Finger (1938)
The Rising of the Moon (1944)
Late, Late in the Evening (1976)
   â— A true original, but not to everyone’s taste.

   JOHN RHODE (MAJOR CECIL JOHN CHARLES STREET) (8)
The Davidson Case (1929)
Shot at Dawn (1934)
The Corpse in the Car (1935)
Death on the Board (1937)
The Bloody Tower (1938)
Death at the Helm (1941)
Murder, M.D. (1943) (as Miles Burton)
Vegetable Duck (1944)
   â— The Golden Age master of murder means, underrated in my view.

   LEO BRUCE (8)
Case for Three Detectives (1936)
Case with Ropes and Rings (1940)
Case for Sergeant Beef (1947)
Our Jubilee is Death (1959)
Furious Old Women (1960)
A Bone and a Hank of Hair (1961)
Nothing Like Blood (1962)
Death at Hallows End (1965)
   â— In print but underappreciated, he carried on the Golden Age witty puzzle tradition in a tarnishing era for puzzle lovers.

   J. J. CONNINGTON (5)
The Case With Nine Solutions (1929)
The Sweepstake Murders (1935)
The Castleford Conundrum (1932)
The Ha-Ha Case (1934)
In Whose Dim Shadow (1935)
   â— An accomplished, knowledgeable puzzler.

   E.C.R. LORAC (EDITH CAROLINE RIVETT) (5)
Death of An Author (1935)
Policemen in the Precinct (1949)
Murder of a Martinet (1951)
Murder in the Mill-Race (1952)
The Double Turn (1956) (as Carol Carnac)
   â— Has taken a back seat to the Crime Queens, but was very prolific and often quite good (my favorites, as can be seen, are more from the 1950s, when she became a little less convention bound).

   E. R. PUNSHON (5)
Genius in Murder (1932)
Crossword Mystery (1934)
Mystery of Mr. Jessop (1937)
Ten Star Clues (1941)
Diabolic Candelabra (1942)
   â— Admired by Sayers, this longtime professional writer (he published novels for over half a century) is underservingly out of print.

   MARGERY ALLINGHAM (4)
Death of a Ghost (1934)
The Case of the Late Pig (1937)
Dancers in Mourning (1937)
More Work for the Undertaker (1949)
   â— Her imagination tends to overflow the banks of pure detection, but these are very good, genuine puzzles.

G. D. H. and MARGARET COLE (4)
Burglars in Bucks (1930)
The Brothers Sackville (1936)
Disgrace to the College (1937)
Counterpoint Murder (1940)
   â— Clever tales by husband and wife academics not altogether justly classified as “Humdrums.”

   FREEMAN WILLS CROFTS (4)
The Sea Mystery (1928)
Sir John Magill’s Last Journey (1930)
The Hog’s Back Mystery (1933)
Mystery on Southampton Water (1934)
   â— The “Alibi King,” he’s more paid lip service (particularly for genre milestone The Cask) than actually read today, but at his best he is is worth reading for puzzle fans.

   NGAIO MARSH (4)
Artists in Crime (1938)
Seath in a White Tie (1938)
Surfeit of Lampreys (1940)
Opening Night (1951)
   â— Art, society and theater all appealingly addressed by a very witty writer, with genuine detection included.

   DOROTHY L. SAYERS (4)
Strong Poison (1930)
The Five Red Herrings (1931)
Have His Carcase (1932)
Murder Must Advertise (1933)
   â— As can be guessed I prefer middle period Sayers — less facetious than earlier books, but also less self-important than later ones.

   HENRY WADE (4)
The Dying Alderman (1930)
No Friendly Drop (1931)
Lonely Magdalen (1940)
A Dying Fall (1955)
   â— Very underrated writer — some other good works (Mist on the Saltings, Heir Presumptive) were left out because they are more crime novels.

   JOSEPHINE BELL (3)
Murder in Hospital (1937)
From Natural Causes (1939)
Death in Retirement (1956)
   â— Far less known than the Crime Queens, but a worthy if inconsistent author.

   NICHOLAS BLAKE (3)
A Question of Proof (1935)
Thou Shell of Death (1936)
Minute for Murder (1949)
   â— His most important book in genre history is The Beast Must Die, but I prefer these as puzzles.

   CHRISTIANNA BRAND (3)
Death in High Heels (1941)
Green for Danger (1945)
Tour de Force (1955)
   â— One of the few who can match Christie in the capacity to surprise while playing fair.

   JOANNA CANNAN (3)
They Rang Up the Police (1939)
Murder Included (1950)
And Be a Villain (1958)
   â— Underrated mainstream novelist who dabbled in detection.

   BELTON COBB (3)
The Poisoner’s Mistake (1936)
Quickly Dead (1937)
Like a Guilty Thing (1938)
   â— Almost forgotten, but an enjoyable, humanist detective novelist (B. C. worked in the publishing industry and was the son of novelist Thomas Cobb, who also wrote mysteries)

   JEFFERSON FARJEON (3)
Thirteen Guests (1938)
The Judge Sums Up (1942)
The Double Crime (1953)
   â— A member of the famous and talented Farjeon family (both his father Benjamin and sister Eleanor were notable writers), he wrote mostly thrillers but produced some more genuine detection.

   ELIZABETH FERRARS (3)
Give a Corpse a Bad Name (1940)
Neck in a Noose (1942)
Enough to Kill a Horse (1955)
   â— Came in at the tail-end of the Golden Age, like Brand, though she was more prolific (and not as good). She started with an appealing Lord Peter Wimsey knock-off (Toby Dyke), but eventually helped found the more middle class and modern “country cottage” mystery (downsized from the country house).

   CYRIL HARE (3)
When the Wind Blows (1949)
An English Murder (1951)
That Yew Trees Shade (1954)
   â— Another one who came in near the end of the Golden Age proper, his best is considered to be Tragedy at Law (see P. D. James), but I like best the tales he produced in postwar years.

   R. C. WOODTHORPE (3)
The Public School Murder (1932)
A Dagger in Fleet Street (1934)
The Shadow on the Downs (1935)
   â— A surprisingly underrated writer, witty and clever in the the way people like English mystery writers to be (why has no one reprinted him?).

   ROGER EAST (2)
The Bell Is Answered (1934)
Twenty-Five Sanitary Inspectors (1935)
   â— Another mostly forgotten farceur of detection.

GEORGE GOODCHILD & BECHHOFER ROBERTS (2)
Tidings of Joy (1934)
We Shot an Arrow (1939)
   â— Working together, these two authors (one, Goodchild, a prolific thriller writer) produced some fine detective novels (their best-known works are a pair based on real life trials).

GEORGETTE HEYER (2)
A Blunt Instrument (1938)
Detection Unlimited (1953)
   â— Better known for her Regency romances (still read today), Heyer produced some admired exuberantly humorous (if a bit formulaic) detective novels (plotted by her husband).

   ELSPETH HUXLEY (2)
Murder on Safari (1938)
Death of an Aryan (1939)
   â— After a decent apprentice genre effort, this fine writer produced two fine detective novels, interestingly set in Africa, with an excellent series detective.

   MICHAEL INNES (2)
The Daffodil Affair (1942)
What Happened at Hazelwood (1946)
   â— So exuberantly imaginative, he is hard to contain within the banks of true detection, but these are close enough, I think, and I prefer them to his earlier, better-known works.

   MILWARD KENNEDY (2)
Death in a Deck Chair (1930)
Corpse in Cold Storage ((1934)
   â— A neglected mainstay of the Detection Club, hardly read today.

   C. H. B. KITCHIN (2)
Death of My Aunt (1929)
Death of His Uncle (1939)
   â— These are fairly well-known attempts at more literate detective fiction, by an accomplished serious novelist.

   PHILIP MACDONALD (2)
Rynox (1930)
The Maze (1932)
   â— A writer who often stepped into thriller territory (and produced some classics of that form), he produced with these two books closer efforts at true detection (indeed, the latter is a pure puzzle)

   CLIFFORD WITTING (2)
Midsummer Murder (1937)
Measure for Murder (1941)
   â— Clever efforts by an underappreciated author.

   FRANCIS BEEDING
He Should Not Have Slipped! (1939)
   â— About the closest I would say that this author (actually two men) came to full dress detection.

   ANTHONY BERKELEY
Not to be Taken (1938)
   â— A true detective novel and first-rate village poisoning tale by this important figure in the mystery genre, who often tweaked conventional detection.

   DOROTHY BOWERS
The Bells of Old Bailey (1947)
   â— Best of this literate lady’s detective novels, her last before her untimely death.

   CHRISTOPHER BUSH
Cut-Throat (1932)
   â— Prolific writer who is not my favorite, but I liked this one, with its clever alibi problem.

   A. FIELDING
The Upfold Farm Mystery (1931)
   â— Uneven, prolific detective novelist, but this one has much to please.

   ROBERT GORE-BROWNE
Murder of an M.P.! (1928)
   â— One of my favorite 1920s detective novels, by a mere dabbler in the field.

   CECIL FREEMAN GREGG
Expert Evidence (1938)
   â— Surprisingly cerebral effort by a “tough” British thriller writer.

   ANTHONY GILBERT
Murder Comes Home (1950)
   â— My favorite books by this author tend to be more suspense than true detection.

   JAMES HILTON
Murder at School (1931)
   â— Good foray into detection by well-regarded straight novelist.

   RICHARD HULL
The Ghost It Was (1936)
   â— About the closest I would say that this crime novelist came to detection.

   DAVID HUME
Bullets Bite Deep (1932)
   â— Though this series later devolved into beat ’em up thrillers, this first effort has genuine detection (and American gangsters). More reading of this author’s other series may yield additional results.

   IANTHE JERROLD
Dead Man’s Quarry (1930)
   â— One of the two detective novels by a forgotten member of the Detection Club, more a mainstream novelist (though forgotten in that capacity as well).

   A. G. MACDONELL
Body Found Stabbed (1932) (as John Cameron)
   â— Detective novel by writer better known for his satire.

   PAUL MCGUIRE
Burial Service (1939)
   â— Mostly forgotten Australian-born writer of detective fiction, mostly set in Britain. This tale, his finest, is not. It one of the most original of the period.

   JAMES QUINCE
Casual Slaughters (1935)
   â— A very good, virtually unknown village tale.

   LAURENCE MEYNELL
On the Night of the 18th…. (1936)
   â— More realistic detective novel for the place and period, in terms of its depiction of often unattractive human motivations, by a writer who veered more toward thrillers and crime novels.

   A. A. MILNE
The Red House Mystery (1922)
   â— A well-known classic, mocked by Chandler — but, hey, what a sourpuss he was, what?

   EDEN PHILLPOTTS
The Captain’s Curio (1933)
   â— Counted because his true detection started in the Golden Age. His best work, however, is found in crime novels (and straight novels)

   E. BAKER QUINN
One Man’s Muddle (1937)
   â— A strikingly hardboiled tale by a little-known author who was written of on this website fairly recently.

   HARRIET RUTLAND
Knock, Murderer, Knock! (1939)
   â— Mysterious individual who wrote three acidulous detective novels. This is the first, a classic spa tale.

   CHRISTOPHER ST. JOHN SPRIGG
The Perfect Alibi (1934)
   â— A fine farceur of detection, whose genre talent was purged when he became a humorless Stalinist ideologue (he was killed in action in Spain).

   W. STANLEY SYKES
The Missing Moneylender (1931)
   â— Controversial because of comments about Jews (as the title should suggest), yet extremely clever.

   JOSEPHINE TEY
The Franchise Affair (1948)
   â— Genuine detection, though veering into crime novel territory (and veering very well, thank you).

   EDGAR WALLACE
The Clue of the Silver Key (1930)
   â— One of the closest attempts at true detection by the famed thriller writer.

   ETHEL LINA WHITE
She Faded Into Air (1941)
   â— See Edgar Wallace. A classic vanishing case, with some of the author’s patented shuddery moments.

   ANTHONY WYNNE
Murder of a Lady (1931)
   â— Fine locked room novel by an author who tended to be too formulaic but could be good (can probably add one or two more as I read him).

Editorial Comment:   Coming up soon (as soon as I can format it for posting) and covering some of the same ground as Curt’s, is a list of “100 Good Detective Novels,” by Mike Grost. The emphasis is also on detective fiction, so obviously some of the authors will be the same as those in Curt’s list, but Mike doesn’t restrict himself to British authors, and the time period is much wider, ranging from 1866 to 1988, and the actual overlap is very small.

   Steve suggested we might try our hands at a 100 best list, so here with some reservations is mine. Reservation number 1:   I have limited myself to mystery and suspense novels, so no thrillers, adventure, or spy novels.

   Number 2:   I have no short story collections on the list — I couldn’t top the Queen’s Quorum anyway.

   Number 3:   I am skipping the early classics from The Moonstone to The Hound of the Baskervilles. For all practical purposes this list begins with the birth of the Golden Age which most would place with E. C. Bentley’s Trent’s Last Case. The books before that are deserving of a list of their own.

   Also, I have limited myself to one title per writer though obviously some writers should have multiple entries.

   The final reservation is that this is no “best” list. More a favorites list, and of course at different times there would be some variation. Some favorite writers don’t make the list because another, sometimes lesser, writer wrote one very good book. And though they wrote well after the cut off date I’m leaving R. Austin Freeman to the earlier period along with Conan Doyle and Chesterton.

   And warning, this list is extremely eclectic.

   It struck me too how many of these had been filmed so a * marks a film version.

   With those caveats, herewith:

About the Murder of The Circus Queen by A. Abbott *
The Death of Achilles by Boris Akunin
Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham *
Terror on Broadway by David Alexander
Perish By the Sword by Poul Anderson
Hell Is a City by William Ard
The Unsuspected by Charlotte Armstrong *
Murder in Las Vegas by W. T. Ballard
Death Walks in Eastrepps by Francis Beeding
Charlie Chan Carries On by Earl Derr Biggers *
The Beast Must Die by Nicholas Blake *
Bombay Mail by Lawrence G. Blochman *
No Good From a Corpse by Leigh Brackett
Green For Danger by Christianna Brand *
The Clock Strikes Thirteen by Herbert Brean
A Case for Three Detectives by Leo Bruce
The Screaming Mimi by Fredric Brown *
Asphalt Jungle by W. R. Burnett *
The Secret of High Eldersham by Miles Burton
Fast One by Paul Cain *
Circus Couronne by R. Wright Campbell
The Man Who Could Not Shudder by John Dickson Carr
Farewell My Lovely by Raymond Chandler *
Elsinore by Jerome Charyn
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie *
First Prize by Edward Cline
Stolen Away by Max Allan Collins
Brass Rainbow by Michael Collins
The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin
The Wrong Case by James Crumley
Snarl of the Beast by Carroll John Daly
Sally in the Alley by Norbert Davis
The Poisoned Oracle by Peter Dickinson
To Catch A Thief by David Dodge *
My Cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier *
End of the Game (aka The Judge and His Hangman) by Friedrich Duerrenmatt *
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco *
The Naked Spur by Charles Einstein *
The Eighth Circle by Stanley Ellin
L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy *
Mirage by Walter Ericson (Howard Fast) *
Double Or Quits by A. A. Fair
The Big Clock by Kenneth Fearing *
Death Comes to Perigord by John Ferguson
Isle of Snakes by Robert L. Fish
High Art by Rubem Fonseca *
King of the Rainy Country by Nicholas Freeling
Operation Terror by the Gordons *
Take My Life by Winston Graham *
Brighton Rock by Graham Greene *
It Happened In Boston by Russell Greenhan
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett *
Violent Saturday by W. L. Heath *
Why Shoot a Butler by Georgette Heyer
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith *
Night Has 1000 Eyes by George Hopley (Cornell Woolrich) *
Flush as May by P. M. Hubbard
Ride the Pink Horse by Dorothy B. Hughes *
One Man Show by Michael Innes
An Unsuitable Job For a Woman by P. D. James *
The 10:30 From Marseilles by Sebastian Japrisot *
The Last Express by Baynard Kendrick
Night and the City by Gerald Kersh *
Fata Morgana by William Kotzwinkle
Murder of a Wife by Henry Kuttner
Headed for a Hearse by Jonathan Latimer *
Curtain for a Jester by Richard and Francis Lockridge
Let’s Hear it For the Deaf Man by Ed McBain *
Through a Glass Darkly by Helen McCloy
The Green Ripper by John D. MacDonald
The List of Adrian Messenger by Philip MacDonald *
Black Money by Ross Macdonald
Gideon’s Day by J. J. Marric (John Creasey) *
Died in the Wool by Ngaio Marsh
Guilty Bystander by Wade Miller *
A Neat Little Corpse by Max Murray *
Sleeper’s East by Frederic Nebel *
Let’s Kill Uncle by Rohan O’Grady *
Puzzle for Fools by Q. Patrick
Fracas in the Foothills by Eliot Paul
To Live and Die in L.A. by Gerald Petivich *
Shackles by Bill Pronzini
Cat of Many Tails by Ellery Queen *
Footprints on the Ceiling by Clayton Rawson
Trial by Fury by Craig Rice
The Erasers by Alain Robbe-Grillett *
The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers *
So Evil My Love by Joseph Shearing *
Stain on the Snow (aka The Snow is Black) by Georges Simenon *
The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjowall & Per Waloo *
Death Under Sail by C. P. Snow
Blues for the Prince by Bart Spicer
One Lonely Night by Mickey Spillane
Judas Inc. by Kurt Steel
Some Buried Caesar by Rex Stout
Rim of the Pit by Hake Talbot
The Bishop Murder Case by S. S. Van Dine *
Above the Dark Circus by Hugh Walpole
Death Takes the Bus by Lionel White
Death in a Bowl by Raoul Whitfield

Editorial Comment:   Previously on this blog have been top 100 lists from Barry Gardner and Jeff Meyerson. Coming tomorrow is another such list from Geoff Bradley, editor and publisher of CADS (Crime and Detective Stories) . Thanks to all!