Fri 13 Feb 2015
A 1001 Midnights Review: HELEN McCLOY – The Singing Diamonds and Other Stories.
Posted by Steve under 1001 Midnights , Reviews[11] Comments
by Robert E. Briney
HELEN McCLOY – The Singing Diamonds and Other Stories. Dodd Mead, hardcover, 1965. No paperback edition.
Helen McCloy wrote relatively few mystery short stories, and only four of the eight stories in this collection fall into the mystery category. All of them, however, are superior examples of the form. They all appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and each of them was a prizewinner in the magazine’s annual contests.
The book opens with what is probably the author’s most famous short work, “Chinoiserie,” written in Paris in 1935 but not published until 1946. It makes use of the author’s art background in a tale of obsession and revenge set in nineteenth-century Peking.
The title story, “The Singing Diamonds,” features Basil Willing. The “diamonds” of the title are a species of flying saucer: “nine flat, elongated squares, like the pips on a nine of diamonds, flying in V-formation at 1,500 miles per hour,” seen by a navy pilot and by six other eyewitnesses scattered around the country and overseas.
Shortly after the sighting, the witnesses, one by one, die in unexplained ways. One of the survivors comes to Basil Willing for help. Are the deaths just an amazing coincidence, or are they murder? And how could such murders have been carried out? Willing’s acute mind is equal to the task of ferreting out the truth. The story may be too fantastic for some tastes, but it is an astonishing tour de force of mystery and detection.
Another Basil Willing story, “Through a Glass, Darkly,” was expanded to a full-length novel under the same title. The remaining mystery, “The Other Side of the Curtain,” is a gem of psychological suspense: A young wife, troubled by a threatening dream, visits a psychiatrist for help, but finds herself sinking deeper and deeper into the nightmare….
It is difficult to believe that the other four stories in the book were written by the same author. “Number Ten Q Street,” “Silence Burning,” “Surprise, Surprise!” and “Windless” are science fiction of a ponderous and heavily didactic variety, minor exercises at best. But the four mystery stories make the volume worth tracking down.
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Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007. Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.
February 13th, 2015 at 5:21 pm
Since I have a nearly complete run of EQMM I can at least sample some of her short stories in a brief span of time. There’s a lot of good info in this blog!
February 13th, 2015 at 8:17 pm
“The Singing Diamonds,†is indeed an outstanding story. It is utterly unusual.
These reviews by Robert E. Briney are excellent.
It is great to have them at Mystery*File, so everyone can read them.
February 13th, 2015 at 11:02 pm
“Through a Glass Darkly” is that rarity, a fine short that in turn became an equally fine novel. “Chinoiserieâ€is probably her most anthologized short story and a tour de force worthy of it.
The science fiction she wrote may not have been particularly good, but that fascination with the offbeat informs many of her stories and best novels. She always managed a fine balance between the fantastic and solid detective work and suspense in most of them making her work frequently atmospheric. Her use of the ‘doppleganger’ legends in DARKLY are as good as any on that theme.
While Willing is not a psychic sleuth such as John Silence, Carnaki, Morris Klaw, or Paul Harley, he has as fine an appreciation for it as any of them and his genuine detective work plays very well off the darker background. Helen McCloy in her own way has as fine a feel for the scent of sulfur and brimstone in a mystery as John Dickson Carr.
February 13th, 2015 at 11:15 pm
Just like Randy, I may have to dig through my set of EQMM’s to read these stories. I looked online for copies of this hardcover book, and the least expensive I could come up with was $30. I’ve already spent my budget for non-essential items this month, and that was a week ago.
February 14th, 2015 at 5:31 am
Good news.
“The Singing Diamonds,†“Through a Glass Darkly†and “The Other Side of the Curtain†are all ALSO available in the in-print collection “The Pleasant Assassin and Other Cases of Dr. Basil Willing” (available from its publisher Crippen & Landru).
This book is also available as an e-book, selling for six dollars.
So are countless other McCloy titles. See:
http://www.amazon.com/Pleasant-Assassin-Other-Cases-Willing-ebook/dp/B00GU2NRR0
Plus her books are easily obtainable as Interlibrary Loans – at least here in Michigan, with our free MeLCat system. (That’s how I read The Singing Diamonds collection.)
McCloy is an author who is available to nearly everyone.
She is not the province of a few rich people who can afford rare books.
I try to be the “mystery historian of the 99%”.
A key goal: to get great classic detective fiction out to people on a budget.
And Mystery*File’s huge effort to get wonderful information out to everyone is greatly appreciated!
February 14th, 2015 at 5:44 am
Between John Nieminski’s paper index to EQMM from 1941 to 1973 and having a standing order for the Crippen & Landru books I think I’m good to go.
February 14th, 2015 at 5:46 am
Linda Landrigan, editor of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine (AHMM), teaches a college course called “Forgotten Masters”.
McCloy is one of the four authors covered.
See her blog:
http://trace-evidence.net/tag/helen-mccloy/
My 85-page article on McCloy is designed to be a free textbook, helping any college or high school study McCloy.
It is a founding text in the field of McCloy Studies.
McCloy was endlessly championed during her lifetime by the two great mystery critics of her era: Ellery Queen and Anthony Boucher.
Currently, one of her biggest critical admirers is Jon L. Breen.
February 14th, 2015 at 12:21 pm
I found my copy of THE PLEASANT ASSASSIN AND OTHER CASES OF DR. BASIL WILLING, still in the shrink wrap after all these years (it was published in 2003). It is part of the Lost Classics series from Crippen & Landru. I suppose removing it from the shrink wrap may have decreased its value. Steve, if you still want to read the stories in EQMM these are the dates to dig out: 9/48; 10/49; 2/65; 7/57; 7/58; 12/70; 11/64; 3/78; 5/79; and 8/79.
As I said above, I have a standing order for the C&L books, but that doesn’t mean I read each one as it arrives. I’ve known Doug Greene for some time, but the last time I saw him was in St. Paul at the Bouchercon a few years back. He once convinced George Vanderburgh that the world needed a complete collection of Thomas W. Hanshew’s Cleek of the 40 Faces stories and I was the one to put this together. I spent two years on the project and the proof set of 12 paperback volumes arrived here for corrections just about a year ago. The set was to have been published last March on the centennial of Hanshew’s death, but is still among the missing. That’s all I know. George V. is one of those publishers who is working on so many projects that some of them vanish from sight without a trace. His website still says “price not set” and describes the set as two large folio volumes. Whether it appears within my lifetime is anyone’s guess.
February 14th, 2015 at 2:40 pm
Hanshew wrote some very fine stories.
This project sounds fascinating!
Please alert us if there is any news of publication.
I’ve only read two of Hanshew’s books.
It would be good if a lot more of his work became available.
February 14th, 2015 at 3:38 pm
As the resident authority on Hanshew and Cleek (a series, one critic said, needed to be read to be disbelieved) I can tell you a little about it. It contains all of the Cleek novels and short stories that had been published in book form as well as those that had only appeared in magazines, mostly SHORT STORIES and CASSEL’S SATURDAY JOURNAL. There’s even a very long novel that appeared in a story paper in England. One volume is devoted to the short story sequence that was adapted to silent films — they came out one a month, the same month that the short story appeared in the magazine. There are stills from many of the films and any illustrations that could be found were included as well.
February 14th, 2015 at 6:20 pm
George’s publishing company is the Battered Silicon Dispatch Box … you might check the website from time to time to see if the Cleek books have been released yet. I can’t find the project mentioned, so that may mean it’s been moved up the queue. It would be under “Lost Treasures from the Pulps.”