RICHARD BARTH – Deadly Climate. St. Martin’s, hardcover, 1988. Reprint paperback: Fawcett Crest, 1989.

   The fifth caper for septuagenarian New Yorker Margaret Binton is Deadly Climate, by Richard Barth. Here Margaret wins a $40,000 RV in a raffle, and she and three friends of comparable vintage head for Miami, where they plan to vacation a bit and sell the vehicle.

   On arrival they are rousted from street parking by one of Police Capt. Diamond’s minions. Complaints fall on deaf Diamond ears; he’s more concerned with the cocaine importation industry, flourishing of late. So Margaret and friends turn to good works, giving rides to housebound retirees.

   Curiously, the management of Forstman’s Rest Home won’t let its inhabitants out for a ride. Strangely, those inhabitants seem more prisoners than anything else. But of course none of this could put Margaret and cohorts in deadly danger, none of this could have anything to do with cocaine… Of course not.

   Very enjoyable fun and games.

       The Margaret Binton series:

   The Rag Bag Clan (n.) Dial 1978.

   A Ragged Plot (n.) Dial 1981.
   One Dollar Death (n.) Dial 1982.

   The Condo Kill (n.) Scribner 1985.
   Deadly Climate (n.) St. Martin’s 1988.
   Blood Doesn’t Tell (n.) St. Martin’s 1989.

   Deathics (n.) St. Martin’s 1993.

JOSEPH HONE – The Valley of the Fox. St. Martin’s Press, US, hardcover, 1984. Reprint paperback: Collier, US, 1989. First edition: Secker & Warburg, UK, hardcover, 1982.

   Joseph Hone has written some fine espionage novels — The Oxford Gambit, The Sixth Directorate and The Private Sector — so The Valley of the Fox comes as a surprise.

   Peter Marlow, retired spy featured in the earlier Hone books, marries a beautiful but mysterious widow named Laura whose anthropologist husband was killed in Africa. Laura has a daughter named Clare who doctors have pronounced “autistic” but who holds many surprises.

   Marlow’s life is idyllic until a masked man enters his house and kills Laura and attempts to kill Peter. Marlow, finding out he’s being framed fqr his wife’s murder, flees into the surrounding English countryside. There he meets a bizarre woman named Alice who helps him rescue Clare from the nearby hospital and allows Peter and Clare the run of her strange estate.

   The plot continues to twist and turn as Marlow investigates his dead wife’s past and the deadly secrets Clare holds. This is not an espionage novel in the conventional sense but Hone manages to pull off an off-beat novel about a retired spy in an incredible plot.

   Recommended!

   Bibliography [Taken from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin.]

HONE, JOSEPH. 1937– .
       The Private Sector (n.) H. Hamilton 1971. Peter Marlow.
       The Sixth Directorate (n.) Secker 1975. Peter Marlow.
       The Paris Trap (n.) Secker 1977

       The Flowers of the Forest (n.) Secker 1980. US title: The Oxford Gambit. Peter Marlow.

       The Valley of the Fox (n.) Secker 1982. Peter Marlow.

Hi Steve,

A while ago I asked you about man-on-the-run novels and you and David Vineyard gave me a magnificent reply. I am still working my way through that long list of books and shall be for quite some time! In the process I have already discovered several fine authors whom I had not known of, or read, before.

I have another enquiry that perhaps you and David can help me with. As well as man-on-the-run stories I enjoy reading tales of searches for buried treasures and artefacts. This type of story seems to have made a big comeback in recent years but it’s really the older novels I’m interested in. For example, one that I read a few weeks ago was David Dodge’s Plunder of the Sun, about lost treasure in Peru. Another was Archie Roy’s Deadlight, about a search on the Scottish Island of Arran for buried scientific notes that disclose a new technology.

Of course, once found, the “treasure” can turn out to be a Pandora’s Box, releasing something malicious or vengeful or deadly, and I like these kinds of stories too.

Can you and David, and the readers of your excellent blog, suggest any more such novels?

Thank you in anticipation,     — D.

And here’s David Vineyard’s reply:

Hmm, if you don’t mind I will forget anything past about 1990 so I don’t have to do too many of the Cussler and other types. Here is a quick list and perhaps it can be expanded upon by myself and others. I won’t go back so far as Rider Haggard and Stevenson, and I’ll limit myself to thrillers too.

THE THIRD HOUR by Geoffrey Household

VIVIERO LETTER and THE GOLDEN KEEL by Desmond Bagley

LEVKAS MAN, THE GOLDEN SOAK, and ISVIK by Hammond Innes

TREASURE by A.E. Hotchner

GIRL ON THE RUN by Edward S. Aarons

TROJAN GOLD and HER COUSIN JOHN and the entire Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters

THE SALZBURG CONNECTION by Helen MacInnes

BOY ON A DOLPHIN by David Divine

PLUNDER IN THE SUN, THE RED TASSEL by David Dodge

MURDER IN NEW GUINEA by John Vandercook

GRAIL by Ben Sapir

THE SECRET SCEPTRE and PRISONER OF THE PYRAMID by Francis Gerard

THE GYRTH CHALICE MYSTERY by Margery Allingham

GUARDIAN OF THE TREASURE (aka ISLAND OF TERROR) by Sapper

LIVE AND LET DIE by Ian Fleming

THE ROSE OF TIBET and THE MENNORAH MAN by Lionel Davidson

THE TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE by B. Traven

THE LAST PLACE GOD LEFT by Jack Higgins

THE EYE OF THE TIGER and THE DIAMOND HUNTERS by Wilbur Smith

TWIST OF SAND, RIVER OF DIAMONDS and GRUE OF ICE by Geoffrey Jenkins

BRIDGE OF SAND and BROTHERS OF SILENCE by Frank Gruber

FEAR IS THE KEY by Alistair MacLean

BLACK ORCHID by Nicholas Meyer and Barry Jay Kaplan

THE Q DOCUMENT by James Robert Duncan

THE THIRTEENTH APOSTLE by Eugene Vale

PEKING MAN IS MISSING by Claire Tardashian

THE SAINT AND THE TEMPLAR TREASURE by Leslie Charteris

THE TOMB OF T’SIN by Edgar Wallace

THE GHOUL by Frank King

PRESTER JOHN by John Buchan

QUEST FOR THE SACRED SLIPPER by Sax Rohmer

THE WHITE SAVAGE by Edison Marshall

THE VENUS OF KOMPARA by John Masters

STONES OF ENCHANTMENT by Wyndham Martin (lost world novel featuring Anthony Trent)

THE SAPPHIRE by A.E.W. Mason

TREASURE FOR TREASURE by Justin Scott

TREASURE OF SAINTE-FOY by Macdonald Harris

TREASURE TRAIL by Roland Pertwee

Many of the Doc Savage novels as by Kenneth Robeson

GOLD BAIT by Walt J. Sheldon

MR. RAMOSI by Valentine Williams

GOLD IS WHERE YOU FIND IT by James B. Hendryx

BURNING DAYLIGHT by Jack London

GOLD OF ST. MATTHEW by Duff Hart-Davis

GOLD OF TROY by Robert L. Fish

GOLDEN BUDDHA by Capt. A. O. Pollard

THE GOLDEN SPANIARD by Dennis Wheatley

A DEADLY SHADE OF GOLD by John D. MacDonald

THE RAINBOW TRAIL by John Cunningham

MACKENNA’S GOLD by Will Henry

THE LAST TOMB by John Lange (Michael Crichton)

CONGO by Michael Crichton

APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH by Agatha Christie

THE TREASURE OF MATACUMBE by Robert Louis Taylor

TREASURE by Clive Cussler (and most of the Dirk Pitt novels)

THE MESSIAH STONE by Martin Caidin

THE MEDUSA STONE by Jack Du Bruhl

BLOOD ROYAL, BLIND CORNER, SHE FELL AMONG THIEVES, BERRY AND COMPANY by Dornford Yates (many of Yates novels involve some sort of treasure or loot)

THE PINK JUNGLE by Alan Williams

HIS BONES ARE CORAL and THE GOLDEN SALAMANDER by Victor Canning (both films, the former as SHARK by Sam Fuller with Burt Reynolds)

ANY OLD IRON by Anthony Burgess ( a modern family of British Jews are guardians of Excalibur)

APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH by Agatha Christie

THE GOLDEN HOARD by Philip Wylie (when the government called in gold a miser’s hoard becomes the focus of gangsters)

TREASURE OF MATACUMBE by Robert Louis Taylor

MARCHING SANDS and THE GARDEN OF EDEN by Harold Lamb (also some of his shorts from ADVENTURE about Khlit the Cossack deal with the lost treasures of Genghis Khan and the Hashishin)

THE MASK OF FU MANCHU and THE DRUMS OF FU MANCHU by Sax Rohmer

THE SANDS OF KARAKORAM by James Ramsey Ullman

THE MYSTERY OF KHUFU’S TOMB, THE NINE UNKNOWN, THE DEVIL’S GUARD, KING OF THE KHYBER RIFLES, THE IVORY TRAIL by Talbot Mundy

SPHINX by Robin Cook

THE GOLD OF MALABAR by Berkley Mather

THE NAUTICAL CHART by Arturo Perez-Reverte (a recent one, but worth reading)

THE ARROW OF GOLD by Joseph Conrad

IMPERIAL EXPRESS by James Bellah

TERENCE O’ROURKE GENTLEMAN ADVENTURER and THE POOL OF FLAME (both with Terence O’Rourke) by Louis Joseph Vance

THE SECRET OF SAREK, THE COUNTESS CAGLIOSTRO, 813, THE BLOND LADY, THE HOLLOW NEEDLE by Maurice LeBlanc (all Arsene Lupin and most dealing with his quest for the lost treasures of the Kings of France)

THE SPOTTED PANTHER by James Francis Dwyer

THE MATING OF THE BLADES (many titles) by Achmed Abdullah (NIck Romanov, a career Brit solider and the son of an Indian Princess and a Russian aristocrat, author of THE THIEF OF BAGHDAD and the screenplay for LIVES OF THE BENGAL LANCERS)

THE BLUE EYED MANDARIN by Stephen Becker

GOLD OF THE SEVEN SAINTS by Steve Frazee (western)

THE DEEP by Peter Benchley

WHITE WITCH OF THE SOUTH SEAS and ISLAND WHERE TIME STOOD STILL by Dennis Wheatley

JOURNEY TO ORASSIA by Alan Caillou

ZADOK’S TREASURE by Margot Arnold (Toby Glendower mystery)

THE FAMILY TOMB by Michael Gilbert

THE RIDDLE OF SAMPSON by Andrew Garve

THE CUP OF GOLD, THE ETRUSCAN TOMB, THE GREEK AFFAIR by Frank Gruber

THE DANCING MAN by P.M. Hubbard (one of the great thriller writers on any theme)

FIGUREHEAD by Bill Knox (a lost gold ship and a deadly feud on a Scottish island plus a possible monster — one of the Webb Carrick Fisheries Protection Service novel — yes, the Fish Police — also check out his Talos Cord series and as Noah Webster, his Jonathan Gaunt books)

THE CROWN OF COLUMBUS by Louise Edrich and Michael Dorris (good example of the literary version of the treasure hunt)

TARZAN AND THE FORBIDDEN CITY by Edgar Rice Burroughs (search for the ‘Mother of Diamonds’ also known as THE RED STAR OF TARZAN and basis for the serial THE NEW ADVENTURES OF TARZAN serialized on radio)

SEA GOLD by Ian Slater

OUT OF THE DEPTHS by Leonard Holton (Father Bredder on holiday goes scuba diving for treasure and murder)

RIPTIDE and ICE LIMIT by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Childs (okay, they are well into the later period but both outstanding)

THAI GOLD by Jason Shoonover ( not the greatest writer in the world, but interesting because the author is a treasure hunter and relic hunter in real life)

Many of Jonathan Gash’s Lovejoy books touch on treasure hunts

TEMPLE TOWER by Sapper aka H.C. McNeile (Bulldog Drummond hunts a treasure and battles a master criminal,Le Bossu, the Hunchback, in France)

THE NAME OF THE ROSE by Umberto Eco

THE CLUB DUMAS by Arturo Reverte-Perez

THE TAKERS by Jerry Ahern (UFO’s, lost Atlantis, the Antarctic — everything but the kitchen sink)

ICEBOUND by Rick Spenser (paperback original series but better written than usual, the VIKING CIPHER series)

THE ABOLITION OF DEATH by James Anderson

MYSTIC WARRIOR by Ryder Jorgenson [NOTE: See Comment #3 for the correction to this entry.]

THE POLLENBERG INHERITANCE by Evelyn Anthony

GRAVE DOUBT by Ivor Baker

THE TEMPLE TREE by David Beatty (gold-carrying plane crashes on a sacred Asian temple)

THE BUCKINGHAM PALACE CONNECTION by Ted Willis

SOLOMON’S QUEST by H. Bedford-Jones writing as Alan Hawkwood. A classic pulp adventure by the King of the Pulps one of the long running John Solomon series about cherubic Cockney businessman and adventurer Solomon — in this one he races to prevent evidence from being produced that could set the Mid-East aflame — namely that Mohammed converted to Christianity… Needless to say not politically correct. Also JOHN SOLOMON SUPER CARGO and many others.

BLACK CORAL by Nancy Ferguson

DAUGHTER OF THE HAWK by C. S. Forester. Englishwoman’s father leads a South American revolution.

THE WIND CHILL FACTOR, THE GLENDOWER LEGACY, ASSASSINI by Thomas Gifford

THE HOLLOW SEA, CLEFT OF STARS by Geoffrey Jenkins

A TASTE FOR DEATH by Peter O’Donnell. Modesty and Willie battle criminals looking for ancient treasure and using slave labor to do it.

THE LABYRINTH MAKERS by Anthony Price

TERROR KEEP by Edgar Wallace — Mr. J.G. Reeder finds love and treasure.

THE DIAMONDS OF LORETA by Ivor Drummond (Sandro, Colly, and Lady Jenny adventure)

SARAH RAYNE – Tower of Silence. Simon & Schuster, UK, softcover, August 2003; reprint edition: Pocket, UK, July 2009.

   Something of a modern Gothic thriller, with long-buried secrets that are teasingly hinted at throughout the novel.

   Selina March has lived by herself in a “remote Scottish hamlet” since the death of her uncle and two aunts, but when she accepts a paying boarder, crime novelist Joanna Saville, her secluded life will be significantly altered.

   Saville has come to interview inmates of Moy, an asylum for the criminally insane. Moy’s most notorious resident is Mary Maskelyne, who, as an adolescent, murdered three people.

   Mary is cunning and resourceful, and when she, predictably, escapes, she sets in motion events that will precipitate buried secrets into the light where long-ago events will finally be brought to a climax and resolved.

      Bibliography [Novels] —

Tower of Silence (2003)
A Dark Dividing (2004)

Roots of Evil (2005)
Spider Light (2007)
The Death Chamber (2007)

Ghost Song (2009)
House of the Lost (2010)
What Lies Beneath (2011)

JO BANNISTER – A Bleeding of Innocents. Frank Shapiro & Liz Graham #1. St. Martin’s Press, US, hardcover, 1993. Macmillan, UK, hc, 1993. Worldwide Library, paperback, 1997.

   Jo Bannister has written other mysteries, and won an EQMM prize, but this is the first of her work that I’ve read. It’s also the first in a new series.

   The police force in Castlemere, England is in disarray. A Detective Inspector has been killed and a Detective Sergeant injured in what may have been a hit and run; or may, as the Sergeant believes, been a deliberate murder engineered by a local racketeer.

   Chief Inspector Shapiro brings in an old colleague, DI Liz Graham, to temporarily replace the slain DI, and she is greeted by the shotgun murder of a retirement home nurse. At the same time, she must try to work with the injured Sergeant, a difficult person who had a close relationship with his slain boss, and who is determined to pin the death on the racketeer he suspects.

   I have a predilection for British police stories, and I’m happy to say that this is a pretty good one. It isn’t of John Harvey or Reginald Hill caliber, but it’s competently done and well written. The third person narrative is straightforward, and shifts among the three police officers.

   Characterization is not really in depth, but sharp enough that Graham and the Sergeant are brought to life decently, though Shapiro was less well developed. The plot was the weakest link, but tolerable.

   I did think that the book ran on a bit at the end after the real denouement, with perhaps a little too much talk, but that’s a minor cavil. On limited exposure, I think Bannister fits comfortably in the middle of the pack with which she’s chosen to run.

       The Shapiro & Graham “Castlemere” series —

1. A Bleeding of Innocents (1993)
2. Sins of the Heart (1994) aka Charisma (US)

3. Burning Desires (1995) aka A Taste for Burning (US)

4. No Birds Sing (1996)
5. Broken Lines (1998)
6. The Hireling’s Tale (1999)
7. Changelings (2000)

   Jo Bannister has also written four books in her Dr Clio Rees (Marsh) and Harry Marsh series; two books with Mickey Flynn; two in a series about columnist Primrose “Rosie” Holland; and nine books featuring Brodie Farrell, a woman who “finds things for a living.” She’s also written nine standalone novels, not all of which are crime related.

ANN PARKER – Silver Lies. Poisoned Pen Press, hardcover, September 2003; trade paperback, April 2006.

   A first novel, and for a mystery, it’s a long one, some 420 pages, but for a work of historical fiction, the page count might be about right. It’s 1879, and Leadville is a booming small metropolis in Colorado, the inhabitants of which are afflicted with “ever-present cold, lingering homesickness, and the pangs of silver fever.”

   Inez Stannert is one of the few women in the town, co-owner of a flourishing saloon, and since the town marshal seems to be totally uninterested, she’s also the only person willing to investigate the possible murder of the town’s assayer, who’s been found trampled to death on the frigid muck of a nearby street.

   Adding to Inez’ concerns is her husband, who’s been missing for several months, but the new minister in town seems more than willing to help her forget. The legendary Bat Masterton also makes an appearance, but it’s little more than a cameo, as Inez and the Reverend J.B. Sands end up doing all of the heavy lifting.

   As a mystery, it’s adequate. It works better as a historical novel — life in this rough-and-tumble corner of the world is brought to life quite effectively in two quite opposite and surprising ways: the scenic wonder of 19th century Colorado and the wretched environment it had to have been for anyone actually trying to live there.

   The story in Silver Lies is less effective as far as the romantic elements are concerned, falling prey to some fairly stand-by cliches, and much of the author’s work is undone, paradoxically, by some better-than-average characterization that has to be retrofitted, and abruptly so, to make the rather lurid conclusion work.

   Acceptable, and maybe more so, depending on where your interests lie, but if there’s a paperback forthcoming, you might choose to put it off till then.

Note: This review has been revised slightly since it first appeared in Historical Novels Review.

       The Inez Stannert “Silver Rush Mystery” series —

1. Silver Lies (2003)
2. Iron Ties (2006)

3. Leaden Skies (2009)

KATE ELLIS – The Merchant’s House. Piatkus, UK, hardcover, 1998. St. Martin’s, US, hardcover, 1999.

Genre:   Police procedural. Leading character:  Sgt. Wesley Peterson; 1st in series. Setting:   England.

First Sentence:   The child flung his tricycle aside and toddled, laughing, toward the basking cat.

    A university graduate in archeology and the first black police officer in Tradmouth, DS Wesley Peterson begins his first day at work with a murder. The body of a young woman has been found off a cliff path, the damage to her face rendering her unrecognizable.

   Wesley’s university friend, Neill, is heading a team of archeologists on the site of a 17th century merchant’s house in town when the skeleton of a child is found. A fellow officer is dealing with the mother of a missing toddler who is adamant her son is still alive in spite of a lack of clues.

   Can a clue from the past solve a crime in the present?

   To find a book which is a skillful combination of archeology and police procedure is definitely in my “happy-reader” zone. Ms. Ellis does just that and much more. Although the locations are fictional, I was ready to pack my back and go. Those who are familiar would know the differences, but for those who don’t, the locations are visual and real.

   Not only is there a nice introduction to Wesley, but to all the book’s major characters. One thing particularly refreshing is that the police officers all like one another and work as a team. There is an odd man out, but you don’t feel he’ll be there long. It’s not just the primary characters Ms. Ellis brings to life, but the secondary characters as well. I never had to question who a character was or why there were there.

   It can be a tricky business, bringing together four plot lines, but it works. The information from the 17th century is provided in diary excerpts as chapter headings, while fascinating, does not intrude on the present-day investigations.

   The dig at the merchant’s house plays to Wesley’s background and as an escape from issues at home. The kidnapping is largely the responsibility of another team, and the murdered girl is Wesley’s primary investigation. Yet Ms. Ellis cleverly designates Wesley as the hub which brings together the various spokes of the wheel in a way I didn’t predict until it was revealed.

   The Merchant’s House is a very good police procedural in which the plot unfolds not by flash, but bit-by-bit, following the clues. It is filled with great characters, dialogue, humour, and a plot that kept me reading. Happily there are many more books ahead in this series.

Rating:   Very Good.

       The Wesley Peterson series —

1. The Merchant’s House (1998)
2. The Armada Boy (1999)

3. An Unhallowed Grave (1999)
4. The Funeral Boat (2000)
5. The Bone Garden (2001)
6. A Painted Doom (2002)
7. The Skeleton Room (2003)

8. The Plague Maiden (2004)
9. A Cursed Inheritance (2005)
10. The Marriage Hearse (2006)
11. The Shining Skull (2007)
12. The Blood Pit (2008)

13. A Perfect Death (2009)
14. The Flesh Tailor (2010)
15. The Jackal Man (2011)

Editorial Comment:   LJ, your last sentence seems to be rather an understatement!

  STEVEN SAYLOR – Catilina’s Riddle. St. Martin’s Press, hardcover, October 1993. Reprint paperback: Ivy Books, August 1994. Other reprint editions exist. Roma sub Rosa #3.

   I thought the first of this trilogy, Roman Blood, was the best first novel of 1991, and one of the best of that year, period. I have yet to read the second, Arms of Nemesis.

   Now Gordianus the Finder (the Roman equivalent of a private eye) is Gordianus the Farmer, having inherited a farm in Etruria from an old friend. He is surrounded by that friend’s relatives, who bitterly contested the will but were defeated in the Roman courts by Gordianus’s old acquaintance and employer, Cicero.

   Now Cicero is calling in his marker. He wants Goridianus to allow Catalina, one of Rome’s radical politicians, to occasionally use the farm as a refuge. Not because he’s Catalina’s friend, though; au contraire. He sees this as a way to keep track of his comings and goings. Gordianus reluctantly acquiesces, and thus is drawn into what history was to label the Catiline Conspiracy.

   I remain tremendously impressed by Saylor’s skill at interweaving history and fiction and by his ability as a wordsmith. He has created a memorable character and chronicler in Gordianus, whose portrayal has deepened over the course of the series. He has acquired a larger family in the interim between the first and third books, and they too are finely drawn.

   As I remarked at the end of the first book, Saylor’s love and knowledge of Roman history is evident on every page – as is his own opinion of the various historical personages.

   This is less of a mystery than the first, though there is one, dealing with a series of headless corpses that appear on the farm. Mystery included or mystery aside, though, it’s an excellent novel. I can’t imagine you not liking it.

      The Roma sub Rosa series —

1. Roman Blood (1990)
2. Arms of Nemesis (1992)

3. Catilina’s Riddle (1993)
4. The Venus Throw (1995)

5. A Murder On the Appian Way (1996)
6. The House of the Vestals (1997)
7. Rubicon (1999)

8. Last Seen in Massilia (2000)
9. A Mist of Prophecies (2002)
10. The Judgement of Caesar (2004)
11. A Gladiator Dies Only Once (2005)
12. The Triumph of Caesar (2008)

MIGNON WARNER – Speak No Evil. Doubleday Crime Club, US, hardcover, 1985. Robert Hale, UK, hc, 1986. Hardcover reprint: Detective Book Club, 3-in-1 volume, no date given.

   There are some interesting things to be found in Mignon Warner’s mystery bibliography. She was born in Australia but lived primarily in England, and of her eleven books (as of 1994), all take place in the U.K.

   What’s unusual, though, is that several of them appeared in the U.S. before the British edition, and one, Death in Time (1982), was published only in this country. Three early non-series books were published only in England, and are extremely scarce, with (doing a quick search) none presently available on the Internet, at least at the moment. [Update: This is no longer true, but the few copies that are available are pricey.]

   Warner’s series character was Mrs. Edwina Charles, a clairvoyant detective who appeared in eight of the eleven, including Death in Time. Speak No Evil, the one in hand, came close to being the last one, but some nine years later another one appeared. Under what circumstances the curiously titled Exit Mr. Punch (1994) finally was published, with no US edition, I cannot say, and I’d like to know.

   Hubin, by the way, calls this book a paperback in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, but several copies for sale online are described as having dust jackets, so that’s something we now know that he didn’t (until now).

   While I have several of Mrs. Charles earlier adventures, this is the first I’ve read, and besides the actual mystery, she remains also something of a mystery to me. While her given name is actually Adele, she’s revised and adapted her ex-husband’s name, Edwin Charles, for use as her own, even though (on page 26) she considers her marriage to him a very bad mistake. Dating back to the depressing days of “Charles the Third,” she says, there are “names, names of some very important people socially and politically, the publication of which could place them (and her) in very hot water.”

   These people may have been clients in those days, but in any case Eddie Charles has an invisible something he’s holding over her. Which brings us to (at last) the case at hand. When is the last time you read a mystery in which a small-time thief (calling himself Jimmy Valentine) hires a private detective (Mrs. Charles) to investigate the strange death (deemed suicide by the authorities) of a another private detective? The latter, also female, is named Tony Manners.

   In case you missed the connection, Jimmy Valentine was sent by Mrs. Charless former husband, and she considers having to agree to look into Tony’s death a form of blackmail. It’s a first for me, too.

   Also puzzling to me — which is hardly the first time — is — without reading the earlier books in the series — why Mrs. Charles is constantly referred to as a clairvoyante. She doesn’t do anything that even slightly resembles clairvoyeuring until page 163, when a seance is held, which admittedly does help in bringing the case to a close.

   Before then, the search for Ms. Manner’s killer, if indeed it was a murder, is a perfectly ordinary one, in a muddled, rambling sort of fashion. Lots of connections between people whose names come up in the investigation, too many coincidences (Mrs. Charles’s very words on page 70), with lots of false trails for the unwary reader to make their down.

   Great stuff, I thought, even while I was totally mystified. Or while I was being totally and massively misdirected. Sleight-of-hand such as this is rather uncommon, and if that’s the kind of mystery you enjoy, I think you’ll like this one.

       The Mrs. Edwina Charles series —

1. A Nice Way to Die. Hale 1976.
2. The Tarot Murders. Hale 1978.

3. Death in Time. Doubleday 1982.
4. The Girl Who Was Clairvoyant. Hale 1983.
5. Devil’s Knell. Hale 1984.

6. Illusion. Hale 1985.
7. Speak No Evil. Hale 1986.
8. Exit Mr. Punch. Breese 1994.

[UPDATE] 08-19-10.   I don’t know about you, but I’m intrigued by my own review. I have to confess that I do not remember this book — only that I read it, and in the Detective Book Club edition — but that last paragraph I wrote is a clincher. I’ll have to read it again.

   I don’t think either the author or her series character was ever very well-known, and I’m sure both are quite forgotten now.

[UPDATE #2] Later the same day. Here’s some intriguing news from British mystery bookseller Jamie Sturgeon:

Hi Steve,

There are two more Edwina Charles books by Mignon Warner – The Devil’s Hand and The Tarot Reading – both published by Robert Hale in 2008

http://www.halebooks.com/display.asp?K=9780709086215&pge=hale&st2=not+67351&sort=sort_date%2Fd&sf1=Keyword&sf2=lcode&x=20&st1=warner&y=10&m=1&dc=2

Regards,

Jamie

    Me again. This is intriguing news. I wonder where these books came from. Is Mignon Warner actively writing again? There are no dates for her in CFIV, so at the moment she’s very much a woman of mystery.

    (To see details of the second book, you have to follow the link in the first page of two that the one above sends you to.)

[UPDATE #2] 09-12-10.   I’ve postponed saying anything until/unless I had a more definitive answer, but based on an online plot description, Jamie and I now suspect that The Devil’s Hand is a retitled reprint of Devil’s Knell, and therefore it’s a good possibility that The Tarot Reading is the same for The Tarot Murders.

LENORE GLEN OFFORD – The Smiling Tiger. Duell Sloan & Pearce, hardcover, 1949. Hardcover reprint: Unicorn Mystery Book Club, December 1949. Paperback: Harlequin #159, Canada, 1952.

   Although Todd McKinnon, who writes fictional short stories based on true cases, is having a writing slump, he is not interested in the tale presented to him by Hugh Hartlein. According to Hartlein, someone in Beyond-Truth, a cult opposed to any marriage that will produce children since the world is shortly to end, is bumping off its members who disobey that tenet.

   Since some of the bumpees are Hildegarde Latham, Harriet Withers, and Grace Vane, McKinnon naturally is not duped.

   Still he does take an interest in the leader of the cult. When Hartlein either commits suicide or is murdered by means of an inhaler containing crystalline cyanide, McKinnon gets somewhat involved. Later, after his wife, Georgine, is threatened, he takes the whole matter very seriously.

   Another fine novel by Offord.

Bio-Bibliographic Data:   Besides being a mystery writer, although not a prolific one, Lenore Glen Offord (1905-1991) was, I have discovered online, the long time mystery critic for the San Francisco Chronicle (1950-1982). She and the newspaper received the Mystery Writers of America Edgar award for best criticism in 1952.

   Mike Grost has a lengthy commentary of several of her books on his Classic Mystery and Detection website. (He has placed her in the Mary Roberts Rinehart school of mystery fiction.)

    Crime Novels:     [Taken from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin]

# Murder on Russian Hill (n.) Macrae-Smith 1938 [Bill Hastings; Coco Hastings; San Francisco, CA]

# The 9 Dark Hours (n.) Duell 1941 [San Francisco, CA]
# Clues to Burn (n.) Duell 1942 [Bill Hastings; Coco Hastings; Idaho]
# Skeleton Key (n.) Duell 1943 [Todd McKinnon; San Francisco, CA]

# The Glass Mask (n.) Duell 1944 [Todd McKinnon; California]
# My True Love Lies (n.) Duell 1947 [San Francisco, CA]
# The Smiling Tiger (n.) Duell 1949 [Todd McKinnon; California]
# Walking Shadow (n.) Simon 1959 [Todd McKinnon; Oregon; Theatre]