ANTHONY HOROWITZ – Scorpia Rising: The Final Mission. Philomel, hardcover, 2011. Puffin, softcover, March 2012.

   That sums up the plot of Scorpia Rising, the ninth and final book (a prequel of sorts was published earlier this year) in Anthony Horowitz’s series about fourteen year old reluctant British agent Alex Rider, who finds when his secret agent uncle dies in the first book, Stormbreaker, that he has been trained all his life a be a spy, and indeed his father was an agent as well.

   Stormbreaker was a clever entertaining semi send up of the genre much in the Ian Fleming tradition of tongue definitely in cheek, what with Alex’s souped up bike and a lethal yoyo and chewing gum, but what Horowitz also took from Fleming was the knowledge that you must always play it straight, and the hero is everything. The series works because of Alex Rider, because ridiculous as the idea sounds, Horowitz makes it work. This is no Cody Banks. Alex is not only a character you cheer for, but he is one you learn to understand a bit more each book.

   The books grew darker as Alex was drawn deeper into the world of spies and secret agents. All nine books take place in a single crowded year, but it becomes at least plausible as long as the novels compel you along with relentless action and one twist after another, revealing the secrets behind Alex Rider.

   Alex lives with Jack Starbright, a young American woman hired as a sort of babysitter, who ends up as his guardian. Other regulars include Mr. Blunt, the cold blooded head of MI6 Special Operations; Mrs. Jones, who has a jaundiced eye to the exploitation of Alex; Smithers, the head of Covert Weapons, Q to Alex’s 007; and Sabina Pleasure (Fleming would love it), a classmate involved in his first adventure and Alex’s girlfriend.

   In Scorpia Rising Alex is drawn into a trap, and faces an old enemy, Julius Grief, a clone given plastic surgery to be Alex’s twin and dark doppelganger being used by Scorpia, SPECTRE to Alex’s Bond, a ruthless terrorist organization that has been at the heart of Alex problems from the beginning.

   But of course they do. There wouldn’t be a book if they didn’t. I suppose that must be very limiting for master criminals and super villains. You can imagine Moriarty complaining that once in a while it couldn’t be Martin Hewitt or Dr. Thorndyke instead of Holmes.

   Scorpia Rising is the longest of the books to that point, and a fine climax for a series that turned out to be a dark look at the excesses of intelligence, and far more accessible than any of John Le Carre’s adult novels. Horowitz (of Poirot, Foyle’s War fame, and author of numerous other young adult novels — notably here the Diamond Brothers and their best known case, The Falcon’s Malteser) is clever, inventive, playful as his model Fleming was, but unlike Fleming there is a more serious theme underlying the Alex Rider books (more serious than Fleming’s ennui anyway), and the effects of his ordeal show on what is, after all, a fourteen year old. That he keeps Alex a believable fourteen year old and not an angst-ridden mini-adult is no mean feat.

   There is a stunner at the end of this one, and Alex graduates to what he has been on the way to becoming all along. At the end he escapes Scorpia and Mr. Blunt, but at a price he was not willing to pay. Despite the upbeat ending, Horowitz never suggests Alex is going to simply forget what he has seen and done, or that the can go back and be a normal teenage boy now, not entirely. Everything is nicely sewed up and closed, but you won’t buy it for a moment. Alex’s new happy life in San Francisco with Sabina’s family is presented as the finale to his adventures, but you know heroes like Alex Rider stumble on massive criminal conspiracies the way the rest of us find pennies on the ground.

   You leave the series fairly certain that Alex’s days with MI6 Special Operations are only suspended until he is older.

   If you like spy thrillers or James Bond, this series will be hugely entertaining. The villains are properly larger than life, the action beautifully choreographed, and the set pieces big and well drawn. Above all, without ever imitating Fleming, Horowitz manages to mine what was properly called the Fleming Effect, that ineffable voice no one has been able to echo since. Like Fleming, the writing is deceptively simple, full of short sentences and with a page-turning rhythm that easily explains why young audiences devoured these.

   Alex Rider inspired graphic novels, audiobooks, and a somewhat disappointing movie, Stormbreaker, that was none the less perfectly cast. If you haven’t read these, find a young adult you can buy them for, and then read them yourself before giving them to him or her. Though you may have to buy a second set because you are reluctant to let them go. They really are intelligent and playful novels with a dark and serious message hidden among the lightning action.

      The Alex Rider series —

1. Stormbreaker (2000)
2. Point Blanc (2001)
3. Skeleton Key (2002)
4. Eagle Strike (2003)
5. Scorpia (2004)
6. Ark Angel (2005)
7. Snakehead (2007)
8. Crocodile Tears (2009)
9. Scorpia Rising (2011)
10. Russian Roulette (2013)

JOHN WALTER PUTRE – Death Among the Angels. Scribner, hardcover, February 1991. No paperback edition.

   John Walter Putre brings back his private eye Doll in Death Among the Angels, a book with little to recommend: no people I’d care to meet again, a rather insubstantial plot insubstantially resolved, an unmemorable Florida setting, muddy motivations.

   An old girlfriend of Doll’s asks his help: she’s in jail, charged with the murder of her current boyfriend. She refuses to talk to her lawyer, says she was drunk during the critical night and doesn’t remember what happened, and in dare course also refuses to talk to Doll.

   What’s behind all this? Well, maybe an illegal salvage operation, into which — as is usual in these matters — it may be fatal for Doll to inquire.

Bibliographic Note:   This is the second of only two works of detective fiction involving Doll, the first being A Small and Incidental Murder (Scribner, 1990).

GUY COMPTON – Disguise for a Dead Gentleman. John Long, UK, hardcover, 1964. No US edition.

   Not a happy one is the life of the confidence man, particularly one as inept as Graham Boyce. Hating his brother and embittered at not having attended what would appear to be a second-class public school, Boyce is planning to impersonate his brother at the school’s centenary celebration and sell some worthless stock to one of the old boys.

   Unfortunately, Boyce did not know that his accomplice, whom he asked to take up with any graduate of the school in order to be invited to the ceremonies, would choose Ben Anderson, the best friend of Boyce’s brother at the school, mystery writer, and detective manqué . After Anderson arrives for the celebration, two deaths occur at the school.

   As I read this book I had the feeling that Compton was a good writer who could — and really should — have done better for his characters and his plot. Though the novel does leave some dissatisfaction, I would be willing to try another of Compton’s works.

      The Ben Anderson series —

Too Many Murderers. Long, 1962.
Medium for Murder. Long, 1963.
Dead on Cue. Long, 1964.
Disguise for a Dead Gentleman. Long, 1964.
High Tide for Hanging.Long, 1965.

Bibliographic Note: While I was getting this review ready to post, I discovered that Guy Compton has to be a lot better known to science fiction fans than he is to mystery fans. Most of his SF novels were as by D. G. Compton, many of them published in the US as paperbacks.

   In his letters and essays Chandler frequently made sharp comments about his colleagues and their literary output. He disliked and sharply criticized such famous crime writers like Eric Ambler, Nicholas Blake, W. R. Burnett, James M. Cain, John Dickson Carr, James Hadley Chase, Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy L. Sayers, Mickey Spillane, Rex Stout, S. S. Van Dine, Edgar Wallace. A lot of Chandler’s criticism was negative, but he also esteemed some writers and books. So let’s see, which these are.

   A problem is that he sometimes had a mixed or even inconsistent opinion. When the positive aspects predominate the negative ones I have taken the writer or book on my list.

   The list follows the alphabetical order of the names of the mystery writers. Each name is combined with (only) one source (letter, essay) for Chandler’s statement. I refer to the following books: Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler, edited by Frank MacShane, Columbia University Press 1981 (SL); Raymond Chandler Speaking, edited by Dorothy Gardiner & Kathrine Sorley Walker, University of California Press 1997 (RCS); The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Non-Fiction 1909 – 1959, edited by Tom Hiney & Frank MacShane, Penguin 2001 (RCP); “The Simple Art of Murder,” in: The Art of the Mystery Story, edited by Howard Haycraft, Carroll & Graf 1992.

   I am rather sure that the list is not complete: It does not include all available sources nor all possible writers and books.

         THE LIST:

Adams, Cleve, letter to Erle Stanley Gardner, Jan. 29, 1946 (SL)

Anderson, Edward: Thieves Like Us, letter to Hamish Hamilton, Sep. 27, 1954 (SL)

Armstrong, Charlotte: Mischief, letter to Frederic Dannay, Jul. 10, 1951 (SL)

Balchin, Nigel: The Small Back Room, letter to James Sandoe, Aug. 18, 1945 (SL)

Buchan, John: The 39 Steps, letter to James Sandoe, Dec. 28, 1949 (RCS)

Cheyney, Peter: Dark Duet, letter to James Sandoe, Oct. 14, 1949 (RCS)

Coxe, George Harmon, letter to George Harmon Coxe, Dec. 19, 1939 (SL)

Crofts, Freeman Wills, letter to Alex Barris, Apr. 16, 1949 (RCS)

Davis, Norbert, letter to Erle Stanley Gardner, Jan. 29, 1946 (SL)

Faulkner, William: Intruder in the Dust, letter to Hamish Hamilton, Nov. 11, 1949 (SL)

Fearing, Kenneth: The Big Clock, letter to Hamish Hamilton, Mar. 12, 1949 (SL); The Dagger of the Mind, The Simple Art of Murder

Fleming, Ian, letter to Ian Fleming, Apr. 11, 1956 (SL)

Freeman, R. Austin: Mr. Pottermack’s Oversight; The Stoneware Monkey; Pontifex, Son and Thorndyke, letter to James Keddie, Sep. 29, 1950 (SL)

Gardner, Erle Stanley, letter to Erle Stanley Gardner, Jan. 29, 1946 (but not as A. A. Fair, letter to George Harmon Coxe, Dec. 19, 1939) (SL)

Gault, William, letter to William Gault, Apr. 1955 (SL)

Hammett, Dashiell, The Simple Art of Murder

Henderson, Donald: Mr. Bowling Buys a Newspaper, letter to fredeeric Dannay, Jul. 10, 1951 (SL)

Holding , Elisabeth Sanxay: Net of Cobwebs, The Innocent Mrs. Duff, The Blank Wall, letter to Hamish Hamilton, Oct. 13, 1950 (RCS)

Hughes, Dorothy, letter to Alex Barris, Apr. 16, 1949 (RCS)

Irish, William (Cornell Woolrich): Phantom Lady, letter to Blanche Knopf, Oct. 22, 1942 (SL)

Krasner , William: Walk the Dark Streets, letter to Frederic Dannay, Jul. 10, 1951 (SL)

Macdonald, Philip, letter to Alex Barris, Apr. 16, 1949 (RCS)

Macdonald, John Ross: The Moving Target, letter to James Sandoe, Apr. 14, 1949 (SL)

Maugham, Somerset: Ashenden, letter to Hamish Hamilton, Dec. 4, 1949 (SL)

Millar, Margaret: Wall of Eyes, letter to Alex Barris, Apr. 16, 1949 (RCS)

Nebel, Frederick, letter to George Harmon Coxe, Dec. 19, 1939 (SL)

O’Farrell, William: Thin Edge of Violence, letter to James Sandoe, Aug. 15, 1949 (SL)

Postgate, Raymond: Verdict of Twelve, The Simple Art of Murder

Ross, James: They don’t dance much, letter to Hamish Hamilton, Sep. 27, 1954 (SL)

Sale, Richard: Lazarus No. 7, The Simple Art of Murder

Smith, Shelley: The Woman in the Sea, letter to James Sandoe, Sep. 23, 1948 (SL)

Symons, Julian: The 31st of February, letter to Frederic Dannay, Jul. 10, 1951 (SL)

Tey, Josephine: The Franchise Affair, letter to James Sandoe, Oct. 17, 1948 (RCS)

Waugh, Hillary: Last Seen Wearing, letter to Luther Nichols, Sep. 1958 (SL)

Whitfield, Raoul: letter to George Harmon Coxe, Dec. 19, 1939 (SL)

Wilde, Percival: Inquest, The Simple Art of Murder.

OLIVER WELD BAYER – Paper Chase. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1943. No paperback edition. Film: MGM, 1945, as Dangerous Partners.

   According to The Crime Club, this is a “fast-paced mystery by a new writer who offers speed, humor, and one of the cleverest plot twists ever to appear in a mystery story.” One does wonder whether a fast-paced mystery could be achieved by a writer who doesn’t offer speed, but never mind.

   On the subject of humor, of which I understand little, I yield reluctantly to those who think witless people in unusual situations, particularly characters beyond their depth, provoke mirth. Finally, if there is a clever plot twist, it escaped my, by the end of the novel, numb attention. Another point is that this book was serialized in Liberty, [a magazine] not noted as I recall for its departures from the norm.

   After a plane crash, a confidence couple, man and wife, adopt Albert Mercer and his collection of four wills of which he is executor and beneficiary. When Mercer goes to Cleveland, he discovers that one of the will-makers is planning to write another in which Mercer does not figure. A statue topples on the will-maker, creating suspicion in the mind of his attorney, Jeff Piper, who is trying to get into Air Force Intelligence. Which he did, and how we won the war under that handicap is beyond my comprehension.

   Piper teams up with Elizabeth Neff, detective-story novelist, who has a low opinion of her own books. Together they bumble through an investigation of the confidence couple and— But maybe that’s the clever plot twist and I shouldn’t mention it.

Bibliographic Notes: Information taken from Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin. No recurring characters.

BAYER, OLIVER WELD; pseudonym of Eleanor Rosenfeld Bayer, (1914-1981) & Leo Grossberg Bayer, (1908-2005)

      Paper Chase. Doubleday 1943
      No Little Enemy. Doubleday 1944
      An Eye for an Eye. Doubleday 1945
      Brutal Question. Doubleday 1947

   The film exists. Starring are James Craig, Signe Hasso, Edmund Gwenn and Audrey Totter. Has anyone seen it?

JOHN MALCOLM – The Wrong Impression. Scribner’s, hardcover, 1990. No US paperback edition. First published in the UK by Collins, hardcover, 1990.

   The seventh of John Malcolm’s tales about Tim Simpson is The Wrong Impression, one of the more intense in this good series. Tim corrals works of art for a London bank’s investment fund, and has been instructed to track down (at affordable prices) a couple of impressionist paintings — a Monet, perhaps.

   But there are bad times for Tim: his friend Inspector Nobby Roberts lies at death’s door from a shooting. The police seem at a loss, but determined that Tim will not conduct the independent investigating that he’s equally determined to do. This leads to an explosive rift in Simpson’s relationship with Sue Westerman, his live-in woman.

   This part — Sue’s behavior — is not to me credible; she seems to have taken leave of her senses. But otherwise Wrong Impression is full of good stuff.

         The Tim Simpson series —

1. A Back Room in Somers Town (1984)

2. The Godwin Sideboard (1984)
3. The Gwen John Sculpture (1985)
4. Whistler in the Dark (1986)
5. Gothic Pursuit (1987)

6. Mortal Ruin (1988)
7. The Wrong Impression (1990)
8. Sheep, Goats and Soap (1991)
9. A Deceptive Appearance (1992)
10. The Burning Ground (1993)

11. Hung over (1994)
12. Into the Vortex (1996)
13. Simpson’s Homer (2001)
14. Circles and Squares (2003)
15. Rogues’ Gallery (2005)

JOAN COGGIN – Who Killed the Curate? Hurst & Blacken, UK, hardcover, 1944; paperback reprint, no date. Rue Morgue Press, US, softcover, 2001.

   At first sight, and at second and third I would argue, Lady Lupin Lorrimer would seem an unlikely person to become the wife of a clergyman. At twenty-two she is a social butterfly, indeed possesses the brain of that creature, one moreover that was dropped on its head when it was a baby. But marry she does, to the Rev. Andrew Hastings, vicar of Glanville, somewhere on the English coast.

   With no preparation, Lady Lupin is thrust into the parish’s affairs — the Mother’s Union, the Girl Guides, Foreign Missions — of which she knows little, that usually in error, and learns less. She also has to deal with the death of the parish’s curate, who may or may not have died from eating fish at the vicarage. Sort of a dimwitted Pamela North, Lady Lupin, along with her friends, becomes embroiled in the investigation.

   Not a particularly good mystery, but a quite amusing novel.

Editorial Note:   For a long informative essay on the life of Joan Coggin, check out the Rue Morgue Press page for her on their website here. In recent years Rue Morgue has published all four of the titles below, each one for the first time in the US.

         The Lady Lupin Hastings series —

Who Killed the Curate? Hurst 1944.
The Mystery of Orchard House. Hurst 1947.
Why Did She Die? Hurst 1947.
Dancing with Death. Hurst 1949.

ANDREW SOUTAR – Night of Horror. Hutchinson, UK, hardcover, 1934; paperback, Crime Book Society #8, no date. No US edition.

   One evening Charles Barton comes to Phineas Spinnett, private detective, to ask him to locate Barton’s sister, bride of Lord Dargot. Barton’s tale is a strange one, and Spinnett concludes his would-be client is insane. This is the first of Spinnett’s errors, some of which he admits to as the novel progresses.

   Barton dies of poison outside Spinnett’s home. Lord Dargot visits Spinnett, and Spinnett himself nearly dies of poison. He would have died if he had not been aware of that little-known antidote to apparently any poison — lots of whiskey.

   Since the author makes clear quickly that Lord Dargot is a homicidal maniac, with emphasis on the latter characteristic, the novel is a thriller rather than a detective story. And thrill it does, if you are capable of putting yourself in the Thirties’ frame of mind and are willing to accept astounding coincidences, telepathy between two Irish lovers, a trip by one of the Irish lovers to rescue the other in what seemed to me an astonishingly short time, and a preposterous plot of which much is left unexplained.

   Despite his investigative shortcomings, Spinnett possesses a good many other lacks, if such a thing is possible. However, he and his servant, the lugubrious ex-jailbird Timson, are engaging and amusing characters, and Soutar’s writing style transcends a plot of thud and blunder.

   It’s a shame that only one of Soutar’s books has been published in the U.S. If any of the others of an apparent two score or so of his novels were as enjoyable, readers in this country missed out on a great deal of mindless fun.

      The Phineas Spinnet series —

The Hanging Sword! Hutchinson 1933
Night of Horror. Hutchinson 1934
Eight Three Five. Hutchinson 1935
Facing East. Hutchinson 1936
The Museum Mystery. Hutchinson 1936
The Black Spot Mystery. Hutchinson 1938
One Page Missing. Hutchinson 1938
Silent Accuser. Hutchinson 1938
Chain Murder. Hutchinson 1939
A Stranger Came to Dinner. Hutchinson 1939
The Strange Case of Sir Merton Quest. Hutchinson 1940
The Wolves and the Lamb. Hutchinson 1940
Motive for the Crime. Hutchinson 1941
Study in Suspense. Hutchinson 1941

KEITH McCAFFERTY – The Gray Ghost Murders. Viking, hardcover, February 2013. Penguin, trade paperback, December 2013. PI Novel: Sean Stranahan; 2nd in series. Setting: Contemporary Montana.

First Sentence: The hands shook as the watcher adjusted the focus ring of the binoculars.

   Katie Sparrow’s search and rescue dog doesn’t find a reported lost hiker. Instead, they find a buried body which, when uncovered, was a murder victim. And then they find another.

   Fly-fishing guide, painter and PI Sean Stranahan is hired to find a lost tackle box. The box is also an entry to his being introduced to the members of the Madison River Liars and Fly Tiers Club; a group of men who bought a cabin along the river. It is they who really want to hire Stranahan to find two valuable fishing flies which have been stolen from their cabin. The trail turns very dark as Sean is asked to help the police with the murders while still searching for the flies.

   From the beginning, the author’s love of fly fishing is very apparent. Even if fishing and hunting, are not your style, don’t let that stop you from reading this book for it is the characters that carry the story.

   Stranahan may be described as extremely good looking, but that really doesn’t much play into the character. Yes, women are attracted to him, but he is anything but a womanizer, and how refreshing is that. Not only that, there is no profanity in the book; another nice change.

   And although he knows how to use a gun, he doesn’t own one. If anything, it is Sherriff Martha Ettinger who comes across as the tougher character, except where her love life is concerned. Then, she is classically vulnerable.

   Katie, the dog handler, facilitates moments of humor… “Godfrey, a schoolteacher with a scratch to itch and lay south of his belt buckle and a history of women cutting his fact out of photographs….” What’s nice is that are the characters are clearly drawn and distinct.

   McCafferty provides excellent descriptions which help the reader understand the love of fly fishers and give a desire for traveling to Montana… “Above him was one of those summer skies that people who live in the East can’t believe are real, the light over the Gravelly Range lavender bleeding to pink, the clouds rimmed with golden light from the setting sun and the river a study in pointillism, as wavelets bounced colors back and forth…”

   The plot is interesting and compelling. There are layers and twists enough to keep you going. There is a classic short story, “The Most Dangerous Game,” referenced which, if the reader is familiar with the story, gives a hint of the story’s path, but one isn’t certain quite how it’s going to play in. There are characters one suspects, but enough uncertainty to keep one guessing.

   The Gray Ghost Murders is a very good read. It kept me involved from first page to last.

Rating: Very Good.

      The Sean Stranahan series —

1. The Royal Wulff Murders (2012)
2. The Gray Ghost Murders (2013)
3. Dead Man’s Fancy (2014)

TAYLOR McCAFFERTY – Pet Peeves. Pocket, paperback original, 1990.

   If you’re tired of private eyes in big cities, you might dip into (Barbara) Taylor McCafferty’s Pet Peeves. Haskell Blevins returms to his hometown of Pigeon Fork, Kentucky, rents an office upstairs from his brother Elmo’s drugstore, and hangs out his shingle.

   And waits, in the eternal tradition of PI’s. Eventually the beauteous Cordelia Turley turns up to turn Haskell’s knees to mush. And to hire him to find out who killed her Granny. Sheriff Vergil Minrath has not made much progress over the past seven months, though there are some low-lifes in the underbrush that might serve as suspects.

   Pleasantly whimsical tale.

      The Haskell Blevins series —

1. Pet Peeves (1990)
2. Ruffled Feathers (1992)
3. Bed Bugs (1993)

4. Thin Skins (1994)
5. Hanky Panky (1995)
6. Funny Money (2000)