IRINA KARLOVA – Dreadful Hollow. Hurst & Blackett, UK, hardcover, 1942. Vanguard Press, US, hardcover, 1942. Reprint paperbacks include: Dell #125, 1946; Paperback Library 53-860, 1965; 2nd pr., 64-030, 1968.

   This gothic supernatural novel with detective novel elements wavers between genuinely creepy and outrageous self-parody. At the time I was reading it I wondered if Karlova is a pseudonym for some better known writer. The name seems influenced by Universal horror movie characters and actors. I later learned that I was correct.

   The author’s real name is Helen Mary Clamp (sometimes noted as H.M. Clamp), and she was extremely prolific throughout her lifetime. In addition to writing three supernatural novels using the Karlova pen name, she wrote over 60 novels from main stream to romance to adventure under her given name.

   Using yet another pseudonym (Olivia Leigh) she wrote a few more romances and eleven literary biographies on historical figures such as Nell Gwynn, Charles II of Spain and Louis XV. Her writing career lasted from 1925 to 1970.

   Dreadful Hollow seems to be influenced by those Universal monster movies I mentioned earlier. It certainly seems to be a bit of a coincidence that those films with all the Eastern European atmosphere and characters should share such a similarity with this book written several years after those films were popular.

   It is peopled with Hungarian gypsies, a mysterious countess of either Czech or Hungarian descent, and a stuffed werewolf, and the dread vampire legend looms large over the story.

   Although it does borrow a framework from the detective novel in that the two narrators do some digging up of clues and interview servants and neighbors, it really is nothing more than a pulpy, over-the-top horror novel with all the usual HIBK trappings of the neo-Gothic novel.

   The major difference is that whereas most of those books are pale imitations of a Gothic novel, Karlova’s book is indeed a true Gothic. She does very well with all the Radcliffian elements – emphasis on dreary landscapes and decaying households, a real femme fatale, a ninny of a heroine who suspects she is losing her mind, and genuine supernatural beings and activity.

   As I read I also noted that the structure of the novel was probably inspired by Stoker’s Dracula, with the first person narrative journal entries of young Dr. Clyde (who seems to have escaped from the pages of a pulp magazine like Speed Detective — he speaks in an entirely American wiseacre slang) interspersed with the third person limited sections focusing on Jillian Dare, the young girl hired to act as a companion to an ancient crone.

   The book is unintentionally funny and the mystery is, sadly, to a modern reader, rather obvious from the opening chapters. When young Countess Vera arrives on the scene, any reader who hasn’t instantly figured out the mystery has probably never seen a vampire movie in his or her lifetime.

   That isn’t to say the book is not without its deliciously gruesome surprises. There is a disappearance of a young boy that isn’t fully explained until the final pages, for instance. I have to confess that I was alternately raising my eyebrows, gasping and laughing in the final pages which really do get rather wild and bizarre for a book of this era.

   I am sure that even most jaded contemporary reader will find something thrilling in Dreadful Hollow. They certainly don’t write them like this anymore.

   A side note: Some additional research turned up several articles on the internet which mention the fairly recent discovery of William Faulkner’s screen adaptation of Dreadful Hollow.

   Apparently the find happened sometime in 2001 by his daughter who turned the script over to Lee Caplin, Faulkner’s literary executor. Caplin also happens to be a film producer and was toying with the idea of making the movie. Here’s a link to the news story I found from 2007.

   And there is also some mention of the discovery of the script in a article back in the March 2009 issue of The Faulkner Journal: “The Unsleeping Cabal: Faulkner’s fevered vampires and the other South.”

   But now in 2010 it seems the whole thing as been scrapped. There is no info on the movie on Lee Caplin’s website for his Picture Entertainment outfit and nothing noted on his page at IMDB — a source I find generally reliable about films in pre- and post-production.

Irina Karlova’s supernatural mysteries:

      Dreadful Hollow. Hurst & Blackett, 1942.
      The Empty House. Hurst & Blackett, 1944.
      Broomstick. Hurst & Blackett, 1946.

MARY PLUM – State Department Cat. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1945.

   Touch the cat, aptly named Trouble, that wanders the State Department halls, and bad luck ensues. The last Department employee who did so was assigned to Australia and was never heard from again.

   George Stair, about to take his oral exam for the Diplomatic Corps, touches the cat and fails the test. He also has secret papers stolen from him, is hit with the ever popular blunt instrument, and suffers various other unpleasantnesses while dealing with a would-be Latin-American dictator and a Nazi spy.

   An occasionally amusing thriller that will probably appeal only to those interested in the Washington, D.C., area, and maybe not to them. Still, it’s far better than Plum’s mysteries featuring John Smith.

MARY PLUM. 1904?-1991?    Series character: John Smith [JS].

      The Killing of Judge McFarlane (n.) Harper 1930 [JS]
      Dead Man’s Secret (n.) Harper 1931 [JS]

      Murder at the Hunting Club (n.) Harper 1932 [JS]

      Murder at the World’s Fair (n.) Harper 1933 [JS]
      State Department Cat (n.) Doubleday 1945
      Susanna, Don’t You Cry! (n.) Doubleday 1946

      Murder of a Redhaired Man (n.) Arcadia 1952

Note:   The first four books are all also Harper Sealed Mysteries.   Of Dead Man’s Secret, an online list of novels taking place in Illinois says: “Most of the people at Gray Manner’s house party are glad to see Rook Chilvers get what’s coming to him, but no one is willing to admit the murder. As the case develops and evidence implicates first one guest then another, even the cool, logical John Smith, a professional Chicago detective, seems puzzled.”

MAX LONG – The Lava Flow Murders. Series detective: Komako Koa #2. J. B. Lippincott, hardcover, 1940.

   After an expository overload in which the characters are introduced in quick succession, the first third of the book is spent on detailed descriptions of a volcanic eruption and the attempts of plantation policeman, Komako Koa, and the plantation owner, Tucker, in evacuating the visitors who have recently arrived from a yacht in the harbor.

   They are also told to avoid a heiau (sacred Hawaiian shrine) to Pele. But two members of the party mock nearly everything to do with traditional Hawaiian beliefs and culture. One of those mockers, a brash woman, enters the heiau and is seen arguing with someone who the visitors believe is the embodiment of Hawaiian goddess Pele.

   The woman is almost immediately discovered dead — her head crushed by a coconut. For some reason the mainlanders actually believe that Pele is responsible and there is a lot of silly melodrama with people running around crying out to beware of Pele.

   None of this makes any sense. Koa takes advantage of this and rather than telling everyone that he knows the woman was murdered he lets them indulge themselves in superstitious gullibility. Irresponsible of a policeman and a bit contrived on the part of the author. But without that the rest of the story would not follow.

   Meanwhile, the volcano continues to erupt and encroaching lava flows continue to threaten the characters as well as the ranch house where they are staying. Then another person is hit on the head with a coconut and yet another person disappears.

   Soon it appears that a homicidal maniac is at work and the book takes on the atmosphere of And Then There Were None set in Hawaii with an active volcano as an added menace.

   Koa’s friend and the series narrator, Hastings Hardy, believes that a local Hawaiian has gone mad and is acting as a murderous nemesis for the offended Pele. There is a character called “the firewalker” who fits this bill. But Koa says no Hawaiian would enter a heiau and commit murder let alone do any of the other horrid things that the killer does (for example, a woman is thrown into the steaming, fomenting ocean where the lava flow ends and is basically boiled to death!).

   The book is not very well constructed and — believe it or not — is often dull. It’s a hodgepodge of a disaster adventure comprised of lots of scientific detail about volcanoes, lava flow, the different types of lava and how they behave, the types of rock and ash that accompany violent eruptions, etc. etc.

   The murder mystery is thrown in almost as an afterthought. The book could easily have been much shorter and the narrative handled less clumsily had the author focused on the story rather than focusing on the volcano and the lava.

   The only thing that holds one’s interest is the interspersing of Hawaiian lore and legends. The culprit, once one accepts Koa’s dismissal of anyone Hawaiian, is a bit obvious. The killer’s motive, set up also rather obviously way back in the first chapter when land rights and inheritances are discussed, and the denouement overall are less than satisfying.

LONG, MAX (Freedom). 1890-1971. SC: Komako Koa, in all.
      Murder Between Dark and Dark. Lippincott, 1939.
      The Lava Flow Murders. Lippincott, 1940.
      Death Goes Native. Lippincott, 1941.

J. B. O’SULLIVAN – Someone Walked Over My Grave. T. Werner Laurie Ltd., UK, hardcover, 1954. No US edition.

   As I often do, I’ll append a list of all of J. B. O’Sullivan’s Steve Silk mysteries at the end of these comments. There are a few of them, as you’ll see, but only two have even been published in the US.

   Silk himself is described on the Thrilling Detective website as “a former boxer turned un-licensed PI. Quick with a wisecrack and quicker with his fists, he dresses well and chases women with vigor,” but there are no signs of fisticuffs in the book at hand, and no woman chasing either.

   Silk is usually based in New York, so maybe the difference is that when he visits Ireland, as he does in Someone Walked Over My Grave, he’s on his best behavior. In fact the murder that’s solved in this book is a country manor affair, one much more suited for the likes of Supt. George Tubridy than a smooth as silk operator like Steve.

   There is a point in time, however, at which the reader (this one, anyway) will suddenly realize that what is going on is a competition between the two. Who (and which approach) will solve the case first? Amusingly, though, the two end up asking the same questions of the same people and each in their own fashion, coming up with very much the same answers.

   Dead is the father of a would-be bridegroom, and the number one suspect is the wayward brother (on the other side of the Irish political divide) of the would-be bride when it appears the wedding is off (therefore all of the would-be’s). Telling the story is Jimmy (no last name noted), a local reporter who spent some time in the US chronicling some of Silk’s earlier adventures.

   In the grand Golden Age of Detection fashion, there are lots of suspects, some with alibis, some not, and some of the alibis are suspicious if not outright flimsy. There are several decent twists before a suspect admits to having done the crime, then an even better one before (PLOT ALERT, and maybe I shouldn’t even be telling you this) the last three paragraphs turn everything around again.

   An amazing feat. I was on cruise control at the time, and it made me stop on a dime, sit up and take notice, I’ll tell you that.

The Steve Silk novels —     [Adapted from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin]

       Casket of Death (n.) Grafton 1945
       Death Came Late (n.) Pillar 1945
       The Death Card (n.) Pillar 1945

       Death on Ice (n.) Pillar 1946
       Death Stalks the Stadium (n.) Pillar 1946
       I Die Possessed (n.) Laurie 1953. US: Mill, 1953

       Nerve Beat (n.) Laurie 1953
       Don’t Hang Me Too High (n.) Laurie 1954. US: Mill, 1954

       Someone Walked Over My Grave (n.) Laurie 1954
       The Stuffed Man (n.) Laurie 1955
       The Long Spoon (n.) Ward 1956

       Choke Chain (n.) Ward 1958
       Raid (n.) Ward 1958
       Gate Fever (n.) Ward 1959
       Backlash (n.) Ward 1960

       Make My Coffin Big (n.) Ward 1964
       Murder Proof (n.) Ward 1968

The Supt. George Tubridy novels —

       Someone Walked Over My Grave (n.) Laurie 1954
      Pick Up (n.) Ward 1964

       Lunge Wire (n.) Ward 1965

  LINDA BARNES – Snapshot. Carlotta Carlyle #5. Delacorte Press, hardcover, 1993. Dell, paperback, 1994. Reprinted several times since, in both hardcover and paperback.

   I don’t think there’s any doubt that Linda Barnes is in the top five female PI writers, and I may enjoy her more than any but Marcia Muller. Her ex-cop, part-time cabby PI, Carlotta Carlyle, is one of my favorites.

   Her latest case begins when a psychiatrist brings a woman to her office who is obsessed with the recent death of her child from a form of leukemia. The woman is not convinced that something didn’t go awry at the highly regarded hospital where the child died, and the psychiatrist thinks that having Carlyle lay her doubts to rest is good therapy.

   He has no idea that her fears are well-founded; the child’s doctor was one of the country’s best. Carlotta takes the case, and begins her investigation.

   At the same time, she has other problems. Someone steals her trash cans in the middle of the night, trash and all, and her 11-year-old Hispanic Little Sister has run away from home, and has been seen regularly in the company of a grown man.

   Barnes continues to impress me. Carlyle is a believable human being, possessed of her fair share of problems but refreshingly free from the anger and/or angst of so many of today’s characters.

   The supporting cast is nicely drawn, and Barnes tells her story well in straightforward prose. The plot didn’t have me tearing my hair out, which considering my luck with the rest of the PI novels I’ve read lately was a major triumph. Good book.

       The Carlotta Carlyle series —

1. A Trouble Of Fools (1987)

2. The Snake Tattoo (1989)

3. Coyote (1990)
4. Steel Guitar (1991)
5. Snapshot (1993)
6. Hardware (1995)
7. Cold Case (1997)

8. Flashpoint (1999)
9. The Big Dig (2000)
10. Deep Pockets (2004)
11. Heart of the World (2006)
12. Lie Down with the Devil (2008)

R. C. ASHBY – He Arrived at Dusk. Hodder & Stoughton, UK, hardcover, 1933. Macmillan, US, hc, 1933.

   Truly a little masterpiece of a book. Reminiscent of Christie at the height of her powers in its brilliant use of misdirection. William Mertoun, an antiquarian, is hired to catalog the estate of a bed-ridden colonel. He is doing this at the behest of the colonel’s nurse and housekeeper, Winifred Goff, a woman who seems terrified of strange poltergeist activities in the house and keeps a close guard on her patient whom she allows no one to see.

   Recently the colonel’s brother fell to his death off a cliff and there is talk that it was no accident. While cataloging the dreary and seemingly worthless library, Mertoun learns from the colonel’s nephew Charles Barr of a local legend. The area is haunted by the ghost of an ancient Roman soldier and the village townspeople are deeply superstitious of it – so much so that no one will set foot on the grounds.

   However, Mertoun soon discovers that a brazen shepherd has dared to ignore all the warnings of the townspeople and has set up a home for his flock amid the ruins of the haunted tower a few yards from the Barr estate.

   Soon the shepherd is discovered dead – an ancient Roman sword sticking in his back and all believe that the ghost has murdered him.

   The supernatural aspects pervade the first third of the book which is narrated by Mertoun who slowly begins to believe in the existence of the ghost – especially after a seance in which something resembling the ghost manifests itself in the manor and later he does see the ghost on the grounds.

   He runs to confront it and that is when he discovers the body of the shepherd. And only a few days later the colonel seems to vanish from his room.

   The second portion of the novel takes the form of a diary written by Miss Goff’s brother, Hamleth, in which we learn of an investigation into the death of the shepherd and the real reason for the disappearance of the colonel.

   Finally the last section is narrated by a Scotland Yard inspector who finally unravels the mystery of the ghost, who killed the shepherd and what happened to the colonel.

   What is so remarkable about He Arrived at Dusk is the use of the narrator Mertoun and his perceptions of everything, and the role of Miss Goff behind the scenes, which is perhaps the best part of the book. Much of what occurs is through her orchestration. That it fails to produce what she had intended is no fault of her own.

   Really a classic of its kind. One of the best blending of supernatural and detective novel genres written in the 1930s. Interestingly, this pre-dates Du Maurier’s Rebecca by several years and yet has quite a bit of similarity in that book’s use of a frightened narrator whose interpretation of events may or may not always be perfect.

   Bibliography:   The author’s crime fiction only. Taken from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin.

ASHBY, R(uby) C(onstance Annie).   1899-1966.
      Death on Tiptoe (n.) Hodder 1930.
      Plot Against a Widow (n.) Hodder 1932.
      He Arrived at Dusk (n.) Hodder 1933.
      Out Went the Taper (n.) Hodder 1934.

  As Ruby Ferguson, her married name, she became quite well known as the author of a number of children’s “pony books,” among many other works of fiction. See Wikipedia for more information.

   J. F.’s review of Death on Tiptoe will appear here on this blog soon.

ROY LEWIS – Nothing But Foxes. St. Martin’s, hardcover, 1979. Originally published in England: Collins Crime Club, hardcover, 1977.

    Fox hunts are still immensely popular with the English gentry, but not unexpectedly they’ve also become the target of those who view them as outdated elitist symbols of the not yet achieved social equality they clamor for.

    When just such a young activist is found murdered, his body discovered by the members of a hunting club in full chase, wise politics suggests that Scotland Yard be called in at once.

    Inspector Crow’s usual approach to a murder investigation is a slow and plodding one, as he deliberately takes a cool and dispassionate look at all the evidence before committing himself. Inspired for once, however, by the involved, youthful exuberance of the aspiring young local policeman assisting him, this time he takes a gamble, and he pulls it off.

    Disappointingly, the motive has little to do with hunting foxes.

    The Inspector John Crow series —

A Lover Too Many (1969)
Error of Judgement (1971)
A Secret Singing (1972)
Blood Money (1973)
A Question of Degree (1974)
A Part of Virtue (1975)

Nothing But Foxes (1977)
A Relative Distance (1981)

    Roy Lewis, no relation, and not to be confused with mystery writer Roy Harley Lewis, is not only the author of the eight John Crow mysteries listed above, but 16 books in his Eric Ward series, and 21 crime novels with Arnold Landon as the lead character. Add 12 additional standalones, the most recent being Design for Murder (2010), and you have perhaps one of the more prolific of current writers no one in the US has heard of, without too much exaggeration, I suspect.

JOHN STRALEY – The Curious Eat Themselves. Cecil Younger #2. Soho Press, hardcover, September 1993. Bantam, paperback, June 1995. Soho Crime, trade paperback, July 2006.

   I didn’t read the first Alaskan mystery by John Straley, The Woman Who Married a Bear; it was a conscious avoidance, though I no longer remember why. It sold enough copies that I must have been one of the very few who didn’t, and now he’s written another.

   Straley lives in Alaska, is an investigator for the Public Defender and has his own private investigation business; a pretty good set of qualifications.

   Cecil Younger is an on-again, off-again drunk, an ex-public defender, and a private investigator. He lives in Ketchikan, Alaska, has an autistic roommate, and his erratic life just took a turn for the worse. His ex-girlfriend had sent a friend to him, who wanted him to track down evidence of her rape by some employees of a big mining concern. Now she’s been fished out of the water with her throat cut. He’s immediately warned off the case by a high ranking official, and old friend of his family. And his roommate’s Labrador has died.

   Straley’s book reminds me a little of James Crumley with the alcoholic lead, and the anti-business/environmental orientation, and the flair for describing the wilderness. That’s as far as the comparison goes, because Younger isn’t a macho character, and Straley’s prose hasn’t quite the power of Crumley’s.

   It’s good prose, though, and he obviously has a real feel for the Alaskan country about which he writes. He’s a better plotter than Crumley, too.

   Aside from the exotic locale, the story itself isn’t that different from many other hardboiled private detective stories, but it’s well told, and the various characters are interesting. A few of the business and government people are a tad one-dimensional, but at least you don’t need a scorecard to tell the villains.

   There’s a third in the series already, and I like this one enough that I’ll probably read it. I might even go back and read the first.

      The Cecil Younger series —

1. The Woman Who Married a Bear (1992)

2. The Curious Eat Themselves (1993)
3. The Music of What Happens (1996)

4. Death and the Language of Happiness (1997)
5. The Angels Will Not Care (1998)
6. Cold Water Burning (2001)

Editorial Comment:   Barry seems to have jumped the gun on the forthcoming appearance of the third book. His review was written in 1993, but the third book didn’t appear until 1996.

GEORGE MALCOLM-SMITH —

       ● The Trouble with Fidelity. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1957. Paperback reprint: Dell #999, 1959.

       ● The Lady Finger. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1962. Hardcover reprint: Detective Book Club, 3-in-1 edition, November 1962.

   The Nutmeg Indemnity Company employs Lenny Painter to apprehend defalcators unfortunately bonded by that insurance company and to retrieve whatever monies they might have left. In The Trouble with Fidelity, this is going to be a bit difficult, since Homer W. Gillespie has made off with over $500,000 from the Fordyce Management Company and has killed himself.

   Nonetheless, Painter begins backtracking, with the aid of Gumbus, the C.P.A. from the district attorney’s office, and O’Brien, an investigator for the D.A., who never thinks, just turns up stones.

   Gillespie turns out to have been a much more interesting man than appeared on the surface. His embezzlement is a work of art, though his method of concealing it is a bit less so. Following down the money, Painter goes to Newark, Buffalo, Detroit, Boston, and Maine, and discovers some surprising information about Gillespie.

   While the ending is implausible, what leads up to it is excellent. Not a great mind, Painter’s, but he’s very good at what he does.

   When in The Lady Finger the Massasoit National Bank & Trust Company of Boston is robbed of $200,000 during a well-planned heist, claims investigator Otis Minton is sent to that city to pursue the investigation in the hope that at least some of the funds that the Nutmeg Indemnity Company has had to payout can be recovered.

   Although usually one or more steps behind the FBI in their pursuit of the bank robbers, Minton does have one advantage — the lady finger of the title. It seems the robbers, for reasons uncertain, had doused her boyfriend, a hairdresser, with peroxide and placed him under the hair dryer, which did him no good at all. She is miffed, and the reward offered by Indemnity is an added attraction.

   Again Malcolm-Smith has produced an amusing and lively novel.

    Bio-Bibliographic Data:

GEORGE MALCOLM-SMITH, GEORGE, 1901-1984. Living in Connecticut in 1950s; editor of an insurance company periodical.    [Taken from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin.]

      The Square Peg (n.) Doubleday 1952. Reprinted as Mugs, Molls and Dr. Harvey, Graphic #104, pb, 1955.

      The Trouble with Fidelity (n.) Doubleday 1957.
      If a Body Meet a Body (n.) Doubleday 1959.
      The Lady Finger (n.) Doubleday 1962.
      Come Out, Come Out (n.) Doubleday 1965.

   Malcolm-Smith also has a short page on Wikipedia, where it is said that “George Malcolm-Smith was an American novelist and jazz musicologist. A 1925 graduate of Trinity College, he hosted a jazz radio program on WTIC-FM in Hartford, Connecticut for many years.”

ELIZABETH IRONSIDE – The Art of Deception. Felony & Mayhem Press, 1st US edition, softcover, 2009. Originally published in England by Hodder & Stoughton, hardcover, 1998.

   I can’t help but begin with the American publishers’ statement that the books they publish in the “British” category “feature the highly literate, often witty prose that fans of British mystery demand.”

   I hadn’t realized that this was why I read a fairly substantial number of British mysteries, but I will preen my feathers discreetly, trying to pretend that I’m not flattered by the claim.

   To give you some idea of author’s style, here are the opening lines:

   The first-person narrator of this archly comic mystery is Nicholas Ochterlonie, a prim art historian who, suddenly abandoned by his wife, finds himself afloat on a sea of uncertainty. The comforting, safe harbor he thinks he finds in his neighbor, the beautiful and mysterious Julian Bennet, instead turns out to be the beginning of a perilous voyage.

   It’s initially one of discovery, with the often remote yet sometimes passionate Julian alternately exciting and perversely frightening him. The trashing of Julian’s flat by vandals and a street mugging introduce dark notes into the world he marginally shares with her, and her friends, Russians of dubious background, he only tolerates because he hopes they will bring him closer to an understanding of the enigma that she remains to him.

   There’s deception at every level in this artful novel. Nicholas is, of course, undoubtedly deceiving himself as he is deceived by Julian, but prodded by his cousin Prisca at the opening dinner, the novel is his attempt to follow her advice to “come to some kind of understanding of what happened, why it happened, why it happened to you of all people.”

   The reader floats on a surface of contradictions and improbable events, with the novel, in search of explanations, ending with the narrator’s declaration that he will “never tell [Prisca] or anyone” what they want to know.

   And if you are interested in learning more about the the multiple deceptions, I invite you to enter this maze, perhaps at your own peril.

   Bio-Bibliography:

      A Very Private Enterprise (1984)
      The Accomplice (1995)
      Death in the Garden (1995)

      The Art of Deception (1998)
      A Good Death (2000)

   Elizabeth Ironside is/was the pen name of Lady Catherine Manning, wife of Sir David Manning, the British ambassador to the US between 2003 and 2007. Felony & Mayhem Press has recently reprinted all five books, in each case their first US publication.