● Reported first by Jiro Kimura on his Gumshoe website, mystery and SF writer Edward Wellen died on January 15, 2011. Noted primarily for his short fiction, Mr. Wellen wrote two crime novels included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, and one collection of criminous short stories:

EDWARD (Paul) WELLEN 1919-2011.
      Hijack. Beagle, pb, 1971.

      An Hour to Kill. St. Martin’s, hc, 1993.
      Perps. Five Star, ss collection, hc, 2001.

   Hijack was a science fiction novel with a considerable crime component; the blurb on the front cover says “The Mafia takes to space!” A shorter version was published earlier in Venture SF (May 1970).

   A list of Wellen’s short SF can be found here on ISFDB, while some of his short work in the mystery (and western) field can be found here in The FictionMags Index.

   The earliest story there is “Enough Rope,” 2-Gun Western, August 1953, which is enough to qualify him as a pulp fiction writer, a category whose number is sadly decreasing every month.

    ● The death of author Barbara Whitehead was reported first by UK mystery writer Martin Edwards on his blog, Do You Write Under Your Own Name?

   Martin says in part: “Barbara came to crime fiction late after writing historical romances and non-fiction. Her first crime novel, Playing God, had an interesting background of the York mystery plays. It became the opening entry in her “York cycle of mysteries”, which eventually ran to eight titles spanning a decade of publication. Her main character was Detective Superintendent Bob Southwell and she was especially good at evoking the atmosphere of York Minster and the wonderful old city around it.”

BARBARA (Maude) WHITEHEAD. 1930-2011. Series character Inspector Robert Southwell in all titles:

       Playing God (n.) Quartet 1988; St. Martin’s, 1989.
       The Girl with Red Suspenders (n.) Constable 1990; St. Martin’s, 1990.
       The Dean It Was That Died (n.) Constable 1991; St. Martin’s, 1991.
       Sweet Death, Come Softly (n.) Constable 1992; St. Martin’s, 1993.

       The Killings at Barley Hall (n.) Constable 1995.
       Secrets of the Dead (n.) Constable 1996.
       Death at the Dutch House (n.) Constable 1997.
       Dolls Don’t Choose (n.) Constable 1998.

   The last four books have never been published in the US. For more information about her life and career, her webpage http://www.barbarawhitehead.com/ is still online.

   According to his entry in Wikipedia, before he became a writer, the multi-talented Lou Cameron was a comic book illustrator, a fact that I did not know before putting this page together, with his work for Classics Illustrated being perhaps the most well known.

   Listed below are his crime fiction titles (only) as included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, along with as many covers as I have been able to come up.

   He also wrote many westerns, both in the traditional vein and for several of the “adult” sexy western series. He created the “Longarm” series, for example, as Tabor Evans; wrote most if not all of the Stringer series; and as Ramsey Thorne, the “Renegade” novels.

   In 1976, Cameron won a WWA Spur award in 1976 for his novel The Spirit Horses.

   More? He has written war novels, adventure novels, science fiction, movie novelizations and more, most of which you can find listed on the Wikipedia page (see above).

   When James Reasoner reviewed Cameron’s western novel The Buntline Special on his blog last year about this same time, he filled in some the details of Cameron’s career and spoke highly of his very effective and distinctive writing style.

   Lou Cameron didn’t write for the pulp magazines, but throughout his writing career, he has been a Grand Master of pulp fiction, no doubt about it.

LOU CAMERON. 1924- . Pseudonyms: Julie Cameron & Dagmar.

    Angel’s Flight (n.) Gold Medal 1960

    The Empty Quarter (n.) Gold Medal 1962 [Saudi Arabia]
    The Sky Divers (n.) Gold Medal 1962

    The Block Busters (n.) McKay 1964 [New York City, NY]
    The Dragon’s Spine (n.) Avon 1968 [Viet Nam]
    File on a Missing Redhead (n.) Gold Medal 1968 [Las Vegas, NV]

    The Outsider (n.) Popular Library 1969 [Los Angeles, CA]
    The Amphorae Pirates (n.) Random 1970 [Italy]
    Before It’s Too Late (n.) Gold Medal 1970

    Behind the Scarlet Door (n.) Gold Medal 1971

    The Girl with the Dynamite Bangs (n.) Lancer 1973 [Brazil]
    Barca (n.) Berkley 1974 [New Jersey]

    The Closing Circle (n.) Berkley 1974 [New York City, NY]

    Tancredi (n.) Berkley 1975 [New Jersey]
    Dekker (n.) Berkley 1976

    The Sky Riders (n.) Gold Medal 1976 [Greece]
    Code Seven (n.) Berkley 1977
    The Subway Stalker (n.) Dell 1980
    The Hot Car (n.) Avon 1981 [Los Angeles, CA]

JULIE CAMERON. Pseudonym of Lou Cameron.

    The Darklings (Berkley, 1975, pb)

    Devil in the Pines (Berkley, 1975, pb)

DAGMAR. Pseudonym of Lou Cameron.

    The Spy with the Blue Kazoo (Lancer, 1967, pb) [Regina; Central America]

    The Spy Who Came In from the Copa (Lancer, 1967, pb) [Regina; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil]

[UPDATE] 03-04-11.   Bill Crider’s nostalgic review of File on a Missing Redhead appears today on his blog, complete with details of what was happening on the same day that he read it the first time, January 27, 1969.

BEVERLEY NICHOLS – Murder by Request. Hutchinson, UK, hardcover, 1960. E. P. Dutton, US, hardcover, 1960.

No Man’s Street, Beverley Nichols’ first novel featuring Horatio Green, retired private detective, I found not too impressive.

The plot was good, but it seemed to me that Nichols, having an impressive background as a mainstream novelist, was just toying with the mystery form. In that [first] case, Green was merely a bundle of idiosyncrasies.

With Nichols’ second mystery, The Moonflower (published in the U.S. as The Moonflower Mystery), Green, probably because of the horticultural background, his avocation, comes alive and retains that attribute through the following three novels in the series.

In this, the last of his investigations after his “retirement” at approximately age sixty, Green is invited by Sir Owen Kent, famous financier, to Harmony Hall, the foremost Nature Cure establishment in England. Kent will be spending the Christmas season there himself, and he has received, in the most astonishing ways, threats on his life.

The threatener succeeds in his or her threat, Kent being shot in a room where there are sixteen people, but no one sees the murderer.

A baffling crime, a bit too much even for Green, but when the investigation starts slowing down, fresh clues, reminiscent of those in a mystery novel, pop up. The publishers say that the murderer “is the last person whom even the most hardened expert in whodunits would expect.”

I would differ. Still, it’s a fascinating case.

Bio-Bibliographic Notes:   John Beverley Nichols (1898-1983) was a multi-talented man. According to Wikipedia, he was “an author, playwright, journalist, composer, and public speaker,” with substantial credentials provided in each category to prove it.

From the same source, “Nichols is now best remembered for his gardening books, the first of which, Down the Garden Path, […] has been in print almost continuously since first published in 1932, since people love to work on their gardens, and that’s why they keep their gardening tools in places like Duramax sheds which are great for this.

The Horatio Green series —

1. No Man’s Street (1954)
2. The Moonflower (1955) (aka The Moonflower Murder, US)

3. Death to Slow Music (1956)

4. The Rich Die Hard (1957)

5. Murder by Request (1960)

IMOGEN ROBERTSON – Anatomy of Murder. Headline, UK, hardcover, 2010.

Genre:   Historical mystery. Leading characters:   Harriet Westerman & Gabriel
Crowther; 2nd in series. Setting:   England-Georgian era/1781.

First Sentence:   Captain Westerman was in his cabin reading the letter from his wife for the fourth time when he heard the officer of the morning watch ring Six Bells.

    Mrs. Harriet Westerman and her friend, anatomist Gabriel Crowther, are once again embroiled in solving a murder. However, the stakes are even higher as they deal with treason against England during the Revolutionary War.

    In a much less elegant part of London, a Tarot-card reader sees the impending murder of one of her clients. Although she fails in preventing the murder, she is determined to bring the woman’s killers to justice.

    Beginning with an exciting and dramatic scene, this is one of those can’t-stop-until-I-finish-it books. Ms. Robertson’s writing is atmospheric and insightful with a strong sense of time and place, subtle, wry humor, a marvelous voice and style which evoke the period and the emotions of the characters.

    I found it fascinating to see the Revolution from the English perspective. Harriet, intuitive and more able to relate to others, and Crowther, the cold, analytic scientist, balance each other well.

    Harriet is someone who, as a real person, I should like very much. We learn more of Crowther and his past, which hints of much more to come. I am enjoying the evolution of their relationship despite the differences in the ages and natures.

    All the characters are alive and wonderful. It’s nice to see the characters from the first book, including Molloy, and meet the delightful new characters Jocasta, Sam and Boyo. (I did feel a cast of characters would have been helpful.)

    The captivating plot, good twist, the way in which the threads were brought together was wonderful. Set in 1781 during the Revolution, the story deals with traitors, murder and opera with a touch of the metaphysical. It takes you from the Opera house and salons of the wealthy to the meanest slums of London revealing the apathy and cruelty which resides in each.

    Ms. Robertson is one of the best new-to-me-authors I’ve found this year. Her writing is insightful with interesting observations on celebrity worship, and encourages one to look at things from a different perspective. It is not often that events in a book make me truly cry, but it speaks to speaks to an author’s skill that her writing evokes strong emotion.

    Anatomy of Murder was an excellent read but I recommend starting with her first book. I can’t wait for her next book.

Rating:   Excellent.

    The Harriet Westerman & Gabriel Crowther series —

1. Instruments of Darkness (2009)

2. Anatomy of Murder (2010)
3. Island of Bones (2011)

   Since we spend quite a bit of time researching biographical details such as birth and death dates of various crime and mystery writers, my co-author queried me one day about the writer Allen Hymson.

   Hymson’s claim to fame was his inclusion as one of the authors of the book The Marble Forest, published by the Alfred A. Knopf Co. of New York and copyrighted for publication on January 10, 1951. It was a collaborative effort on the part of twelve members of the California chapter of the Mystery Writers of America and published under the byline of Theo Durrant. [See also below.]

   I quickly set to work to check through my various genealogical databases to see what might. be there of value concerning Allen Hymson.

   Much to my surprise, the name Allen Hymson was nowhere to be found in any of the census records or birth and death records. I relayed that message back to Allen with the suggestion that perhaps he should contact the office of the Mystery Writers of America in order to learn just who was this Allen Hymson.

   It didn’t take more than a few minutes for Allen to agree that this was a good suggestion and he sent off an e-mail to the office of the Mystery Writers of America. Within a day, an answer came back with the information that Allen Hymson was actually a pseudonym for Alma Hymson, a San Francisco writer. Along with that information came the revelations that Alma Hymson also used the pseudonyms Allen S. Jacobs and Edgar C. Nicholas, as well as Sylvia Blair.

   Armed with that information, I quickly ran the names through the WorldCat database to see what books she may have written. Alas! Nothing turned up. What next? I took a stab at the Fictionmags database and there I hit a bit of pay dirt.

   For there were entries for the pseudonyms Allen S. Jacobs, Allen Hymson and Edgar C Nicholas. But nothing for Sylvia Blair. Perhaps that had been used for newspaper publications at one time or another.

   Taking another look at the pseudonyms, I thought “If Allen Hymson represented Alma Hymson, could the pseudonym Allen S. Jacobs represent Alma S. Jacobs?”

   This opened a new avenue to explore and the answer to that puzzle lay in the fruits of a family tree on Ancestry.com labeled The Aaron and Jennie (Cohn) Jacobs Tree.

   Here the complete story unfolded. An Albert J Hymson, born July 8, 1904 in Jefferson, KY and had died in San Francisco, CA on Oct. 25, 1950. His spouse was listed as Alma S. Jacobs. She was the offspring of Aaron and Jennie (Cohn) Jacobs. Her record revealed that she was born January 14, 1899 in California and had died in San Francisco April 12, 1995.

   There were some family photographs and documents attached to the tree. One of particular interest was a document composed by Alma Hymson wherein she had traced some of her ancestors back to Spain and who were later expelled during the Spanish Inquisition and ended up in Eastern Europe. Anyone having access to Ancestry. com can examine the tree for whatever reason.

A Chronological Listing of the Writings of Alma Sylvia (Jacobs) Hymson:

  Writing as Allen Hymson —

  Writing as Allen S. Jacobs —

Scented (ss) Clues Apr. 1927
Square Up (ss) Clues June 1927
The Dagger of Mahaputi (ss) Clues July 1927
The Trouble Cruiser (ss) Clues Oct. 1927
Foxiest Crook Living (ss) Clues Feb 25, 1928
Another Perfect Crime (ss) Clues Mar. 25, 1928
Three Gats (ss) Short Stories Mar. 25, 1928
   — Short Stories (UK) Aug. 1928
Hard-Boiled Soft (ss) Clues Sep. 25, 1928
Easy Mark (ss) Clues Oct. 25, 1928

A Cinch Lay (ss) Clues Nov. 10, 1928
One Minute More (ss) Clues Jan 10, 1929
A Tight Squeeze (ss) Clues Feb. 10, 1929
The Menacing Garment (ss) Clues May 10, 1929
On An Even Draw (ss) Clues May 25, 1929
A Fraud In Pictures (ss) Clues June 10, 1929
Dead Partners (ss) Clues July 25, 1929
Sharpshooter (ss) Clues Aug. 10, 1929
The Machine Gun Racket (ss) Clues Sep. 10, 1929
Every Man For Himself (ss) Clues Dec. 25, 1929
Catspaw (ss) Clues Jan. 25, 1930

The Boasted Boomerang (ss) Clues Apr. 25, 1930
One Man’s Jinx (ss) Clues May 10, 1930
Reverse Luck (ss) Clues June 10, 1930
Convicting Evidence (ss) Clues Sep. 10, 1930
Chicken Feed (ss) All-Fiction Nov. 1930
Double Decoy (ss) Clues.Nov. 25, 1930
Better Dead Than Alive (ss) Clues Mar. 25, 1931
Nemesis (ss) Clues Apr. 25, 1931
The Dead Past (ss) Clues Feb. 1932
Coppered Bet (ss) Clues Apr. 1932
The Sinister Sap (ss) Clues May 1932

The Secret Address (ss) Clues Aug. 1932
Under The Gun (ss) Rapid-Fire Detective Stories Oct. 1932
Trial By Gunfire (ss) World Stories Feb. 1933

  Writing as Edgar C Nicholas —

   It has yet to be determined which part of The Marble Forest Alma Hymson had written.

   The authors would like to express their sincere thanks to Ms. Margery Flax of The Mystery Writers of America office in New York for her able assistance in helping to put the pieces of this puzzle together.

THE MARBLE FOREST, by Theo Durrant, a joint pseudonym of William A. P. White (Anthony Boucher), Terry Adler, Eunice Mays Boyd, Florence Faulkner, Allen Hymson, Cary Lucas, Dana Lyon, Lenore Glen Offord, Virginia Rath, Richard Shattuck, Darwin L. Teilhet & William Worley.    Alfred A. Knopf, hardcover, 1951. Popular Library #507, paperback reprint, 1953 as The Big Fear. Filmed as Macabre (Allied Artists, 1958; director: William Castle).

   From Jeffrey Marks’ recent biobibliography of Anthony Boucher, The Marble Forest was far less a detective novel than it was a thriller in which a young girl is buried in a coffin with only five or six hours to live. The Northern California chapter of the MWA held a contest challenging readers to determine which author wrote which chapters.

   From TCM.com: “For $5,000, he [William Castle] purchased an insurance policy from Lloyds of London guaranteeing a $1,000 payout to the beneficiaries of anyone felled by fright while watching Macabre.”

A Special Note:   The pulp cover images used in this post came from Phil Stephensen-Payne’s Galactic Central website. Follow, for example, the link to Pulp Magazines, then to Clues, then to Issue Checklist. The result will take your breath away.

SIMON BRETT – Blotto, Twinks and the Ex-King’s Daughter. Felony & Mayhem, softcover, February 2011. British edition: Constable, hardcover, May 2009.

   The name Simon Brett should be no stranger to anyone on these pages. His Charles Paris series about a bibulous actor is held in the highest esteem by lovers of humorous well written mysteries, and for the past decade he has been penning less humorous but well received British cozies set in Fethering, a small English town out of Miss Marple by way of The Last of the Summer Wine.

   Blotto, Twinks and the Ex King’s Daughter is yet another venue for Mr. Brett, and one that shows a different side both to his humor and English village life. Indeed, his new series lies somewhere in that vague country inhabited by P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster, Dornford Yate’s Berry and Company, some of the more playful Agatha Christie’s, the early Albert Campion, the more extravagant adventures of Michael Innes Sir John Appleby, and Leonard Wibberly’s Duchy of Grand Fenwick.

   The time is somewhere between the two world wars in an England of stately homes, dizzy aristocrats, loyal retainers, dastardly villains, and vintage automobiles.

   The setting is Tawcester Towers, where the Dowager Duchess of Tawcester (the Duke, her son — known as Loofah and Rupert the Dull, descendant of Rupert the Fiend and Black Rupert — having passed on five years earlier) is entertaining the exiled king of Mittleuropa, Sigismund, when her youngest son, the Right Honorable Devereaux Lyminster, known as Blotto (and with good reason) announces he’s found a body in the library, one Captain Schtoltz.

   In very short order Chief Inspector Trumbull and Sergeant Knatchbull arrive, none too impressed by the body or the Duchess and her royal guest, and then to add to the trouble the Princess Ethelinde is kidnapped.

   Well, naturally Blotto can’t allow that kind of thing to happen in Tawcester Towers without doing something, but considering his limited capacity in the brains department, it is just as well his beautiful sister Lady Honoria, known as Twinks, has a first rate mind and nose for murder (“– what a brainbox that girl had”).

   And the chase is on — in vintage open automobiles of course — and with Grimshaw, Blotto’s valet, in tow (a gentleman never travels without his valet) all the way to Mittleuropa, where they stumble on intrigue supplied by nearby Transcarpathia, ruled by King Anatol and Princess Ethlinde’s betrothed, Prince Fritz-Ludwig among others.

   Before you can say Zenda…, Blotto and Twinks (Grimshaw in tow) are on the trail of the murderer in the capital Zling and over the battlements of the Castle Berkenziepenkatzen … assuming you actually can say any of that.

   Of course Blotto will rescue the Princess and nobly renounce said princess in true Rassendyl style (he has to get out of it somehow) while Twinks will hunt down the kidnapper and murderer displaying both brains and spunk, but it is all a near run thing — especially for Blotto, who might have ended up king of Mittleuropa, or in the arms of the dangerously attractive Svetlana Lubachev (“as a femme fatale she did have some standards”). All before Blotto confronts the killer back in England at jolly old Tawcester Towers in Rupert the Antisocial’s billiard room.

   This is a very funny book, inventively, and splendidly, silly, bright, clever, and outrageous. There isn’t a serious bone in its head. I’m not really sure a mere reviewer can convey the exact spirit and voice of the book, but if you want to escape from reality into a world of smiles, chuckles, and undignified guffaws, this is your chance. Wodehousian, yes, but with a few left turns reminiscent of the Marx Brothers or Mel Brooks, and all bundled up as an attractive new series we can only hope to see more of.

   If you want a few laughs you’d be blotto not to read it.

       The Blotto & Twinks series —

1. Blotto, Twinks, and the Ex-King’s Daughter (2009)
2. Blotto, Twinks and the Dead Dowager Duchess (2009)

3. Blotto, Twinks and the Rodents of the Riviera (2011)

GEOFFREY HOMES – The Man Who Murdered Himself. William Morrow, hardcover, 1936. Avon, no number [#18], paperback, 1942.

   Working for a missing persons outfit specializing in lost heirs is a cutthroat business, at the fringe of legal niceties, requiring a stretch of the truth now and then, with a little money every so often into the right hands.

   So we meet Robin Bailey, ex-newspaperman, on a case of either suicide or murder — death by personal pollution of a local reservoir.

   Crackling dialogue and a twisting, turning plot, but short but effective glimpses of character and existence in the 1930 leave us wanting more in that regard, while Homes concentrates on the story. Bishop himself finds his work increasingly distasteful and begins to wonder why he never before noticed the office secretary.

   The secondary characters, understated, unobtrusive, are even more memorable, exemplified by the sorrow displayed by the victim’s landlady. I believe this to be Homes’ first book. He’s worth looking into as a writer.

   Bibliographic Data:

      The Robin Bishop series —

    The Doctor Died at Dusk (n.) Morrow 1936.
    The Man Who Murdered Himself (n.) Morrow 1936.

    The Man Who Didn’t Exist (n.) Morrow 1937.
    The Man Who Murdered Goliath (n.) Morrow 1938.

    Then There Were Three (n.) Morrow 1938.

   The latter is a crossover novel with the detective duties shared by Homes’ other major series character, PI Humphrey Campbell, who also works for the Morgan Missing Persons Bureau detective agency.

       The Humphrey Campbell series —

    Then There Were Three (n.) Morrow 1938.
    No Hands on the Clock (n.) Morrow 1939.

    Finders Keepers (n.) Morrow 1940.
    Forty Whacks (n.) Morrow 1941.
    Six Silver Handles (n.) Morrow 1944.

   Homes also wrote two novels in which Mexican policeman Jose Manuel Madero was the primary detective:

    The Street of the Crying Woman (n.) Morrow 1942.
    The Hill of the Terrified Monk (n.) Morrow 1943.

and one standalone:

    Build My Gallows High (n.) Morrow, 1946.

   But if anything, either under his own name, Daniel Mainwaring, or as Geoffrey Homes, his list of credits is even longer on IMDB as a screenwriter.

   Previously on this blog:

  Forty Whacks.     [A 1001 Midnights review by Bill Pronzini.]
  Crime by Night, based on Forty Whacks.     [A film review by Steve Lewis.]

JEANNETTE COVERT NOLAN – “I Can’t Die Here.” Julian Messner, hardcover, 1945. Detective Novel Classic #49, digest paperback, no date [1946].

   Described inaccurately as a “whilom” lieutenant of the State Police (Illinois?), Lace White is fifty, unmarried, and a writer of historical novels. In this novel, one of several featuring her, she is an obviously intelligent woman who nonetheless operates with no apparent police training and seemingly no common sense.

   Though Dudley Shane, who has married into the rich Motley family in Capital City, has, or so we are told, a saint for a wife, Shane is a womanizer, without much staying power it would seem. Thus he has enemies, and thus he is shot one night and dies in his apartment, but not before one of his lovers has taken an overdose of amytal.

   Called in as a special investigator, White detects well with people, not well with tangible evidence. Finding blood near the door of Shane’s office, she does nothing about it until the evidence is no longer needed. The murder weapon is a .38 Colt revolver, with, as you will no doubt not be surprised to hear, a working silencer, which White accepts unquestioningly.

   Considering who the murderer is, the deceased’s actions — before he becomes deceased, of course — are inexplicable. The author portrays White, against type, as a foolish risk taker. Finally, the manifold awesome coincidences don’t help matters any.

Bio-Bibliographic Data:   Bill guessed the locale of this novel to be Illinois, but Al Hubin in his Revised Crime Fiction IV, says it was Indiana, only one state to the right.

   Here’s a list of all six Lace White books, as adapted from CFIV. These are author’s only works of crime fiction:

JEANNETTE COVERT NOLAN.   1897-1974.

       Where Secrecy Begins (n.) Long 1938.
       Profile in Gilt (n.) Funk 1941. [aka Murder Will Out, Detective Novel Classics #8, 1942]

       Final Appearance (n.) Duell 1943.
       “I Can’t Die Here” (n.) Messner 1945.
       Sudden Squall (n.) Washburn 1955.
       A Fearful Way to Die (n.) Washburn 1956.

   Nolan’s papers were donated to the University of Southern Mississippi Library as part of their de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection.

   Quoting from their website:   “During her lifetime, Ms. Nolan wrote over forty-five children’s books including biographies, essays, and historical non-fiction. Although she wrote for both children and adults, she is most noted for her work in children’s literature. In 1961, she was awarded the Indiana Authors’ Day Award for Spy for the Confederacy. In 1968, Ms. Nolan was added to the Indiana University Writers Conference Hall of Fame. The next year she was named a Litterarum Doctor, an honorary doctor of letters and literature. She died on October 12, 1974.”

ANABEL DONALD – An Uncommon Murder. St. Martin’s Press, hardcover, 1993. First published in the UK: Macmillan, hardcover, 1992.

   The inside back flap says Anabel Donald is the author of three previous novels, and lives in England and France. Nothing else. The back cover is completely blank. No other books are listed in the front. Who is this woman, and why doesn’t St. Martin’s want us to know more about her?

   Alex Tanner is a freelance television researcher in London. She’s prickly, a bastard from a lower-class background, raised in foster homes, and with a crazy mother. She stumbles upon an old woman who was a governess in a household which was involved in a high society murder some forty years ago; coincidentally (?) it’s a case on which a producer for whom she works regularly is considering doing a documentary. He hires her to research the background, and she begins investigating.

   This is quite a well written book. The story moves along nicely, and while I wouldn’t call the cast of characters enthralling, they were interesting enough to hold my attention.

   I did get more than a bit fed up with the heroine’s attitude and hang-ups. As a matter of fact, I’m getting damned tired of four of five female leads being anywhere from half screwed up to absolutely neurotic. Is it déclassé to be be well-adjusted, or what? Are reasonably normal people too dull to serve as leads? Well?

   Subject of tirade aside, it was a decent book.

Bio-Bibliographic Notes: Some 18 years later, it’s easy to use Google and come up with answers. From the Fantastic Fiction website comes the following information:

    “Anabel Donald has been writing fiction since 1982 when her first novel, Hannah at Thirty-Five, was published to great critical acclaim. In her thirty-six-year teaching career she has taught adolescent girls in private boarding schools, a comprehensive and an American university. Most recently, she has written the five Alex Tanner crime novels in the Notting Hill series.”

       The Alex Tanner series —

1. An Uncommon Murder (1992)
2. In at the Deep End (1993)

3. The Glass Ceiling (1994)

4. The Loop (1996)
5. Destroy Unopened (1999)

   Neither of the last two have been published in the US.

   As for Barry’s tirade, as he described it, Alex Tanner must really have been an off-the-wall character for him to have gone off the way he did. Most recurring detective story characters are eccentric, unusual or different in one way or another, not so?

CRAIG JOHNSON – Junkyard Dogs. Viking, hardcover, May 2010. Trade paperback: Penguin, May 2011.

Genre:   Police procedural. Leading character:   Walt Longmire; 6th in series. Setting:   Wyoming.

First Sentence:   I tried to get a straight answer from his grandson and granddaughter-in-law as to why their grandfather had been tied with a hundred feet of nylon rope to the rear bumper of the 1968 Oldsmobile
Tornado.

    It begins with a severed thumb found within a Styrofoam cooler at the junkyard. Sheriff Walt Longmire decides this might be a way to re-spark the drive in his bullet-shy deputy, Santiago Saizarbitoria. Little did Walt
know that thumb would lead to murders, drugs, kidnapping and family secrets.

    Craig Johnson is a story teller in the classic and best sense of the word. You are captivated with the first sentence and taken along with Walt through the story to the end.

    The characters are alive, real and balance each other beautifully. Walt is the personification of the good man who is intelligent, believes in his job, compassionate in his handling of people and dedicated to justice even when it takes a little bending of the law.

   Deputy Victoria Moretti is the street-wise, profane, East Coast transplant who provides edge to Walt’s calm. Of greater significance is that all the characters, whether recurring or episodic, are fully realized. Johnson’s voice is one to which you cannot help but listen. His dialogue, whether it be Walt’s internal dialogue or that between characters, is audible.

   His humor often causes me to laugh aloud…”It was a two-gallon Styrofoam cooler — one of the cheap ones that you can pick up at any service station in the summer season and then listen to it squeak to the point of homicidal dementia.”

   Sense of place and description can add so much to a story. Here we are in the middle of an exceptionally cold winter in Wyoming and no matter when and where you may be reading the book, you feel that cold.

    This particular book doesn’t convey as much of the openness of the area as some of the previous books, but it does make you aware of how small is the town and the relationships and history of the residents.

    The story builds beautifully, starting out fairly light and the tension building as the story progresses. I was never able to anticipate where the story was going yet the twists never seemed contrived. The element of the metaphysical is there but not overdone.

    As much as I enjoyed the book, and I did, I don’t feel the story is up to the same standard as the previous books. It lacked growth, depth, tension, and focus, both of story and of characters. I do recommend Junkyard Dogs, but really recommend reading the series from the beginning.

Rating:   Good Plus.

The Walt Longmire mystery series —

1. The Cold Dish (2004)

2. Death Without Company (2006)
3. Kindness Goes Unpunished (2007)
4. Another Man’s Moccasins (2008)

5. The Dark Horse (2009)
6. Junkyard Dogs (2010)
7. Hell Is Empty (2011)