LIZA CODY – Bucket Nut. Eva Wylie #1. Doubleday, hardcover, 1993. UK edition: Chatto & Windus, hardcover, 1992. Mysterious Press, US, paperback, 1995.

   I haven’t been a big fan of Cody’s Anna Lee stories. Haven’t really hated them, you understand, just haven’t like them well enough to seek them out. For better or worse, Eva Wylie is a different breed of cat entirely.

   Eva is a big, not very pretty, not exceptionally bright young lady who is a security guard for a wrecking yard, and a lady wrestler (the villain), and an errand runner for a shady Chinaman. She has an attitude, a drunken whore for a mother, and a sister from whom she was separated in childhood and with whom she yearns to be reunited.

   She’s a bit of a thief, too. She’s a brick or two shy of a load, and it’s probably because she threw them at someone. Her best friends, maybe her only, are two guard dogs, but she wants none of your effing pity, thank you. Innocently enough (according to her own lights, anyway), she gets herself involved in a gang war, and ends up with what seems to be half of London looking for her.

   This is different. If you’re tired of the same old thing in crime fiction, this isn’t it. It’s a portrait of a young woman who hasn’t been given a whole lot of a breaks by either nature or nurture, and is coping the best way she can. Cody tells her story in a matter-of-fact first person, and the language is the lower-class language of London.

   It’s a rough story, told in rough words, about rough people. The picture painted of the world of professional wrestling is fascinating, if not particularly edifying.

   Cody seems to strives for neither humor nor tragedy, though you may find elements of either or both, depending on your own psyche. While first-person a narration has its limitations, it is perfect for the kind of portrait that she paints here.

   This is as good a job of making an unlovely, unlikable character seem human enough to be worthy of sympathy as I’ve seen lately, and it’s excellent storytelling. Eva sticks in your mind.

Note:   Bucket Nut was awarded the British CWA Silver Dagger in 1993. Cody’s other series character, PI Anna Lee, makes a cameo appearance in this first outing for Eva.

       The Eva Wylie series —

1. Bucket Nut (1992)
2. Monkey Wrench (1994)

3. Musclebound (1997)

        #1. SHAMUS MAGUIRE, by Stanley Day.

    The “Shamus Maguire” stories by Stanley Day were a short series of eleven stories (some short stories and some novelette length) published in Detective Fiction Weekly from 1932 to 1934. There may be more.

    The series involves the exploits of a hotel detective of indeterminate age, although he is noted as being a former policeman of 30 years service. Maguire retired on a pension four years before (according to his statement in the last story in the series) and became a hotel detective in the super-exclusive Hotel Paragon “to preserve himself from boredom.”

    His service time “had given him an air of authority that was no respecter of persons.” (The Glass Eye of the Corpse) He weighs 240 pounds (260 in some stories), a bit overweight, and smokes Little Policeman cigars. He lives in a house elsewhere, and doesn’t room in the hotel.

    Hank Shaw is the assistant manager of the hotel, and gives orders to Maguire. He also likes to play jokes on Maguire, but in one case this backfired on him when a murder took place.

    Maguire wasn’t concerned with the reputation of the hotel or whether the guests would flee if a scandal broke out. “He was concerned entirely with wrongdoing. And he possessed an unshakable belief that crime in the Hotel Paragon was his affair and his only.” (The Glass Eye of the Corpse)

    When the city police got involved in the hotel on investigations, Maguire would interfere and if possible mislead them. Maguire’s “contention that he was capable of doing the hotel’s police work single-handed had a firm basis in fact.” (The Glass Eye of the Corpse)

    Flynn and Schultz, two police detective-sergeants, also appear in the stories whenever a police investigation is called for. Maguire usually outsmarts them easily. Each story, it seems, is a ready-made conflict between Maguire and the police, and a kind of race to see who will solves the crime or crimes.

    “Error in Time” is the first story in the series, and Shamus Maguire is actively involved in working on a case of kidnapping. One of the wealthy guests in the hotel has gone missing, and Maguire was assaulted by the kidnappers seeking his hotel keys. He recognizes one of the kidnappers, and sets out to track them down. His broken wristwatch provides the key clue.

    “The Glass Eye of the Corpse,” the second story in the series, involves the murder of a guest in the hotel lobby. No one saw the murder, but the victim had recently told the assistant manager he thought he had seen a murder victim upstairs in one of the rooms. It takes a bit of work for Maguire to piece together what really happened and have the police arrest the guilty.

    “Murder by the Window” is the third story. This involves a series of supposed suicides from the hotel windows by guests who have plenty of money. Maguire and the police are certain it is murder, but are not sure how the crimes were arranged. Maguire figures out the solution and puts it to the test with a fake guest and some money. As usual, Flynn and Schultz of the police are on hand for the investigation.

    “Shamus Adds Them Up” is an interesting story. Thirty-seven pairs of pants have been stolen from occupants of the fifteenth floor of the hotel, and Shamus Maguire is puzzled as to the reasons. Money and valuables were left behind. Maguire suspects that the real reason may have something to do with the British lord and his relatives, and finally figures out the motive behind the crimes.

    “Kindergarten Stuff” is a simple case for Shamus Maguire. A millionaire in the hotel seems to have been seriously injured by a fall. He is taken to the hospital where he later dies. His secretary seems to have been first on the scene with Maguire opening the hotel room door to discover the injured man. Maguire spends the rest of the story manipulating the secretary and the situation until he gets the secretary to sign a confession that he injured the millionaire. The title comes from Maguire’s statement to the secretary at the end: “It was simple as hell — kindergarten stuff for any cop.”

    “Dead Man’s Eyes” is another good entry in the series. Shamus Maguire investigates a supposed suicide by hanging in one of the hotel rooms, and decides it was really murder. He is generous enough to tell the police detectives his idea, which they take in another direction guaranteed not to solve the case. Meanwhile, Maguire figures out the reason for the murder and who the victim really is.

    “Shamus Spots a Phony” is a better than usual entry in the Shamus Maguire series. This particular story is a good example of the kind of puzzling mysteries Maguire runs across, and it takes him a long time to figure out the solution. As usual in this series, he has to solve the crime despite the interference of two of the local police detectives.

    “Other People’s Business” is a story that keeps Maguire on his toes, trying to get the better of a well-known professional criminal named Harry the Boss. An expensive oil painting is at stake here. It is on exhibition in the hotel, and Flynn and Schultz as usual are on the scene. When the painting is stolen, Maguire enjoys the discomfiture of the two policemen. However, Maguire figures out where the painting is hidden and prevents the criminals from escaping the hotel with it.

    “A Doctor in the House” involves a kidnapping and a murder, as well as various goings on that seem to mystify the two police detectives. Shamus Maguire soon gets a handle on the entire affair and very quickly the crooks are behind bars.

    “Social Error” involves a jewel theft and a murder which seems like it could be a suicide. The jewel theft is of the least valuable piece of jewelry in the ball-room full of rich people at the Hotel Paragon. Shamus Maguire solves the problem and makes the two detectives look especially foolish.

    “Cold Blood” is the last story in the series, and is of novelette length. Maguire becomes an involuntary witness to a murder in the hotel, and sets out to discover the real story behind it. Maguire sees certain discrepancies in the murder scene, and this sets him off on his investigation. He is assisted in this case by an insurance investigator named Culver, who winds up saving Maguire’s life during the investigation. A better story than some of the others in the series.

    This is an above average series, with very good stories. There is an element of humor in the stories, with Shamus Maguire and his interactions with the two police detective-sergeants. There were many series in DFW of similar attraction to the Shamus Maguire series, and these series gave the magazine its distinctive personality.

        The Shamus Maguire series by Stanley Day:

Error in Time     February 6, 1932
The Glass Eye of the Corpse     March 12, 1932
Murder by the Window     December 24, 1932
Shamus Adds Them Up     January 28, 1933
Kindergarten Stuff     February 18, 1933
Dead Man’s Eyes     April 15, 1933
Shamus Spots a Phony     May 20, 1933
Other People’s Business     September 2, 1933
A Doctor in the House     December 30, 1933
“Social Error”     January 20, 1934
Cold Blood     October 6, 1934

SHELDON SIEGEL – Judgment Day. MacAdam/Cage, hardcover, June 2008; trade paperback: June 2010.

Genre:   Legal thriller. Leading characters:   Mike Daley & Rosie Fernandez; 6th in series. Setting:   San Francisco/Bay Area.

First Sentence:   The oldest man on death row is eying me from his wheelchair.

    Attorney Mike Daley, in spite of a promise to his ex-wife and law partner Rosie Fernandez, takes on a death-row appeals case. Former powerhouse-attorney Nate Fineman, is due to die in eight days. He was convicted of killing three men in a Chinatown restaurant shooting, but he claims he is innocent and the gun was planted by the police.

    Now Mike has not only to prove Nate’s innocence, but to find and identify the killer in order to prevent Nate’s execution. There is one slight conflict; Mike’s late father was one of the officers at the scene of the shooting.

    Living in the Bay Area, I do love books set here and it is delightful to read of places I know or have been and people whose names are iconic with the area. But it is also nice that Siegel gets the geographic and atmosphere right as well.

    Siegal has a great voice, writes realistic dialoque and uses humor well, but it’s his characters I particularly like. His people are … people; not over-the-top or infallible. Mike and his ex-wife Rosie work together, are occasionally intimate but can’t life together yet they make it work so they are both involved in their children’s lives.

   The contrast between Mike and his ex-cop brother, Pete, is a study in contrasts and adds dimension to both characters. The story is very well plotted.

    The element of time counting down is always effective and, although I don’t know how realistic they may be, I do particularly like the courtroom scenes. [An attorney friend tells me the courtroom scenes are very well done.]

   Siegel is a writer whose books I very much enjoy and was pleased to learn there is a new book on its way.

Rating:   Very Good.

      The Mike Daley & Rosie Fernandez series —

1. Special Circumstances (2000)

2. Incriminating Evidence (2001)
3. Criminal Intent (2002)
4. Final Verdict (2003)

5. The Confession (2004)
6. Judgment Day (2008)
7. Perfect Alibi (2009)

ANN CARDWELL – Crazy to Kill. Mystery House, hardcover, 1941. Black Cat Detective #10, digest paperback, 1944. Harlequin #22, Canada, pb, 1949. Macfadden 35-119, paperback, 1962. Nightwood Editions, softcover, Canada, 1990. The book was also converted to an opera with this title by James Reaney, Sr., and John Beckwith; it was performed in Canada in 1989.

   After spending ten years in Resthome, a private hospital for “nervous” cases, Agatha Lawson, a spinster in her early sixties, is due to be released. Unfortunately, just at this time a grisly series of attacks and murders involving the staff starts taking place at the hospital.

   Since Lawson is around at the time of each episode, she feels that she is more than capable to solve the case, particularly in view of the incompetence of Lieutenant Hogan of the local police.

   Also aware that Hogan is beyond his depth, the authorities bring in another detective, this one willing to consult with Lawson. Between them, the murderer is apprehended.

   One of the rare mysteries with a mental institution setting and one of the rare… But that mustn’t be revealed.

   Forget that this novel was published by Mystery House, a publisher of third- and fourth-rate novels. While not in the first rank, this is nonetheless quite readable.

Bibliography: Adapted from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin —

    ANN CARDWELL. Pseudonym of Jean Makins Powley, 1902-1966. Daughter of a judge in Stratford, Ontario.

   Crazy to Kill. Mystery House, 1941.

   Murder at Calamity House. Arcadia House, 1947.

CHARLOTTE MacLEOD – Rest You Merry. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1978. Avon, paperback, 1979; reprinted many times.

   Every Christmas the New England agricultural college where Peter Shandy is a professor attracts people from far and wide to view the mammoth Grand Illumination covering the campus. All but Shandy’s house, up until this year, and then his uproariously flamboyant form of rebellion has an unexpectedly murderous backlash.

   No book with an undertaker named Goulson and a ubiquitous blond student named Heidi Hayhoe can be entirely serious, and it should be noted that the key to the first murder is a missing marble (no kidding).

   Nevertheless, even seasoned mystery readers will fall all over themselves in trying to put together the pieces of this puzzle before Shandy and his disarmingly amateurish sleuthing. Uncommonly enjoyable.

     The Professor Peter Shandy series —

Rest You Merry (1978)
The Luck Runs Out (1979)

Wrack and Rune (1981)
Something the Cat Dragged in (1983)
The Curse of the Giant Hogweed (1985)
The Corpse in Oozak’s Pond (1986)

Vane Pursuit (1989)
An Owl Too Many (1991)

Something in the Water (1994)
Exit the Milkman (1996)

[UPDATE] 02-01-11.   Charlotte MacLeod’s last mystery novel was published in 1998, and she died in 2005 in her early 80s. Her books were very popular while she was alive, but she’s nearly forgotten today. (If I’m wrong about this, please correct me.)

   I think that books in both of her series, this and the Kellling-Bittersohn mysteries, were wacky and eccentric enough to be called “screwball mysteries,” although she was never fortunate enough to have any of them picked up and adapted into the films.

   I enjoyed this one, as you’ve already read, but wackiness is difficult to maintain over a long period of time, and later books did not seem to have the same pizazz as this one did. Or maybe it was only me.

CHARLOTTE MacLEOD – The Convivial Codfish. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1984. Avon, paperback, 1985; reprinted many times.

   The Comrades of the Convivial Codfish have had such a glorious time “Bah, Humbug-ing” their way through their annual Scrooge Day luncheon that it seems a shame it has to be spoiled by the loss of the silver Codfish from its chain around the neck of the Exalted Chowderhead.

   To Jeremy Kelling, the E.C., this is almost as bad as his subsequent fall and the deadly events at the Tolbathy’s railroad party. Max Bittersohn, Sarah Kelling’s new husband, has allowed himself to be inveigled into attending the railroad party (on the Tolbathy brothers’ private railroad) to take Jeremy’s place, and not so incidentally, to try to find out what’s going on.

   He does, but not until several people have died, and the question of motive becomes very complicated indeed. Sarah plays only a small role, unlike in some of MacLeod’s other mysteries, while Max does the detecting. The opening scene, with the Comrades at their Scrooge lunch, is worth the price of the book. Wonderful!

      The Sarah Kelling & Max Bittersohn series —

The Family Vault (1979)

The Withdrawing Room (1980)
The Palace Guard (1981)
The Bilbao Looking Glass (1983)
The Convivial Codfish (1984)
The Plain Old Man (1985)

The Recycled Citizen (1987)
The Silver Ghost (1987)
The Gladstone Bag (1989)

The Resurrection Man (1992)
The Odd Job (1995)
The Balloon Man (1998)

BAYNARD H. KENDRICK – The Eleven of Diamonds. Greenberg, hardcover, 1936. Penguin #616, paperback, 1946.

   Edward Fowler is found in the poker room of the Sunset Bridge Club with a knife in his back and the eleven of diamonds in his hand: Fowler was a gambler and a lover and a burglar, and he may have been other things besides.

   Since the case is an unusual one, the police call upon Miles Standish Rice, the Hungry, for assistance. Rice is also hired by a rich man whose son, verging on the ne’er-do-well and a confirmed and not very talented gambler, owed Fowler a large gambling debt.

   In this portrait of post-boom Florida, Rice eats a lot and often and puts his life in jeopardy on several occasions as he tries to figure out not only who killed Fowler but how he was killed.

   While the characters are interesting, I was disappointed in not being able to find the spies promised by the paperback publisher. Though not as good as many of Kendrick’s novels featuring Duncan Maclain, there is sufficient action and cerebration to keep most readers entertained.

The Miles Standish Rice series —

    The Iron Spiders. Greenberg, 1936.

    The Eleven of Diamonds. Greenberg, 1936.
    Death Beyond the Go-Thru. Doubleday, 1938.

NOTE:   Deputy sheriff Miles Standish Rice also appeared in several novelettes and short stories, including “Headless Angel,” Black Mask, September 1939. See also Comments #2 and #3.

BILL CRIDER – Death on the Move. Walker, hardcover, 1989. Reprint paperback: Ivy, 1990.

   The beleaguered Sheriff Dan Rhodes returns in Bill Crider’s Death on the Move (Walker, $17.95). Widower Rhodes is inching his way to marriage with a very nice lady, Ivy Daniel, but criminous complications keep intervening.

   First of all, the eminently respectable undertakers of Dan’s town, Clearwater, Texas, have a problem: jewelry keeps disappearing off bodies set out for viewing, and the grieving survivors are sore displeased.

   Then someone is raiding houses down in a sparsely settled part of Dan’s county, and a corpse, well aged and most curiously wrapped, presents itself for Rhodes’ attention, while the humorists Dan employs as staff have their fun with all of this. A winsome novel in a rewarding series.

       The Dan Rhodes series —

1. Too Late to Die (1986)

2. Shotgun Saturday Night (1987)
3. Cursed to Death (1988)
4. Death on the Move (1989)
5. Evil at the Root (1990)

6. Booked for a Hanging (1992)
7. Murder Most Fowl (1994)
8. Winning Can Be Murder (1996)
9. Death By Accident (1997)
10. A Ghost of a Chance (2000)
11. A Romantic Way to Die (2001)

12. Red, White, and Blue Murder (2003)
13. A Mammoth Murder (2006)
14. Murder Among the O.W.L.S. (2007)
15. Of All Sad Words (2008)

16. Murder in Four Parts (2009)
17. Murder in the Air (2010)
18. The Wild Hog Murders (2011)

IAIN PEARS – The Titian Committee. Harcourt Brace, hardcover, 1993. Originally published in the UK: Victor Gollancz, hardcover, 1991. Reprint paperbacks include: Berkley, 1999; trade pb, August 2002.

   This is the second novel featuring Flavia di Stefano of the Rome Art Theft Squad and art historian/dealer Jonathan Argyll. I haven’t read the first, The Raphael Affair.

   An American lady, a member of an international art committee meeting in Venice, is murdered there. More, because of politics than anything else, a member of the Art Theft Squad in the person of di Stefano is dispatched to Venice to “assist” in the investigation.

   In point of fact she is expected to do nothing, as is made quite clear to her by the local police. As one might imagine, however, she does a little more. When another member of the committee is found drowned, she pokes around still further.

   Argyll, with whom she has worked on a previous case, has been trying to buy a painting that was a matter of dispute among the members of the unfortunate committee as to its authenticity. It all sounds very complicated, and it is.

   This is an urbane, not exactly lighthearted but certainly not grim mystery featuring amiable investigators and a good bit of nice Venetian atmosphere and art lore. Di Stefano’s superior, General Bottando, is also an engaging character.

   It’s nothing you’re going to remember in any detail for long, but when you do think of it, your thoughts are likely to be pleasant. Pears writes smoothly and competently. A very nice read, and although I’m not going to strain any muscles doing it, I’ll probably hunt up the first in the series.

       The “Art History” series —

1. The Raphael Affair (1990)

2. The Titian Committee (1991)
3. The Bernini Bust (1992)

4. The Last Judgement (1993)
5. Giotto’s Hand (1994)
6. Death and Restoration (1996)

7. The Immaculate Deception (2000)

GEORGE WORTHING YATES – The Body That Wasn’t Uncle. William Morrow, hardcover, 1939. Reprint paperbacks: Dell #52, mapback edition, 1944; Dell #645, 1952.

   When a man off the train at Princeton Junction [New Jersey] heads straight across the snow for the Villars farm, the number one question asked later is, did he ever get there before he collapsed and died of atropine poisoning? And why did Sidney Villars claim the dead man to be his long-lost brother, Stephen Small?

   Ex-Scotland Yard Inspector Hazlitt Woar, now a private eye at loose ends in Bermuda, is called in by Katheren Meynard, a friend of the family who suspects fraud, but not murder. Woar, who speaks in riddles and short, clipped sentences, does a capable job of detection and fulfills while doing so a romance evidently begun in an earlier entry in the series, the courtship finally ending in a most curious fashion indeed.

   There is a class of detective novel, however, and this is one of them, in which you keep getting the distinct impression that the author is deliberately withholding information solely to keep the reader from solving the puzzle. The merely mysterious is emphasized, and not the mystery.

   Or in other words, characters are murkier than they need to be, and with murkier motives. To no avail, this time: there’s only one person the killer could be. Strangely enough, New Jersey trooper Lt. Gurney could have come straight from the pages of Black Mask, and equally so the ambitious, high-minded D.A. named Hellenberger.

   As for Woar himself, though, he has a tweedy and entirely British charm all his own.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:   [Adapted from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin.]

GEORGE WORTHING YATES. 1900-1975. see pseudonym Peter Hunt (books)

      There Was a Crooked Man (n.) Morrow 1936.
      The Body That Came by Post (n.) Morrow 1937.   [Hazlitt Woar]
      The Body That Wasn’t Uncle (n.) Morrow 1939.   [Hazlitt Woar.]
      If a Body (n.) Morrow 1941.   [Hazlitt Woar]

   In collaboration with Charles Hunt Marshall under the joint pen name of Peter Hunt, Yates also wrote three earlier works of detective or mystery fiction. Alan Miller, about whom I know nothing more, was the leading character in these, including the provocatively titled Murder Among the Nudists (1934).

[UPDATE] 01-25-11.   I can’t say this with any degree of certainty, but I believe it was the earlier Dell paperback that I read. What’s strange is that I’m almost sure that I remember the bookstore where I found the book, but all I remember of the story is what you’ve just read yourself in the review above.

[UPDATE #2] 01-29-11.   Murder Among the Nudists, I am pleased — and quite surprised — to be able to tell you, has recently been reprinted by Ramble House.   (Thanks for the tip go to Jamie Sturgeon.)