DOLORES HITCHENS – Fools Gold. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1958. Paperback reprint: Pocket #1239, 1959.

Film: BAND OF OUTSIDERS. Columbia Pictures, 1964. French title: Bande à part. Anna Karina, Danièle Girard, Louisa Colpeyn, Chantal Darget, Sami Frey, Claude Brasseur. Director: Jean-Luc Godard.

   Very similar in vein to Rififi in New York [reviewed here ], there’s Fools Gold, by Dolores Hitchens, a nasty piece of work about a nasty piece of work names Skip, barely graduated from juvenile delinquency, sho has enthralled a cute blonde named Karen and a dim ne’er-do-well named Eddie with whom he hopes to pull a major caper.

   But this thing has wheels within wheels, and when a big-time professional crook gets wind of the deal and decides to hijack it, that’s only the beginning of the complications that ensue.

   I never read any Hitchens before, but I found this quite well done. She has a good feel for letting the characters shape the plot, and she isn’t bothered by a bit of clutter and untidiness as things play out in a nicely cluttered and untidy finale.

   Fools Gold was turned into a rather unlikely film called Bande à part (Band of Outsiders) in 1964 by the legendary and quite mad Jean-Luc Godard, who threw out half the plot but stayed surprisingly faithful to the rest.

   Bande stars Sami Frey, Claude Brasseur and the lovely Anna Karina as the aspiring felons, and it’s played out on actual locations rather than sets, giving the thing that rough, seat-of-the-pants look typical of Godard and perfect for a gritty crime movie.

   There’s also a bit more attention to the characters here. Hitchens’ cast was well-drawn and believable, but — how shall put this? — you know how in pornography, the characters think about sex all the time? Of course you do.

   Well in crime novels the characters are pretty well occupied with crime. So it is in Hitchens’ novel, but not so in Godard’s film, Here, they have their secret thoughts, playful moments and private ambitions. And sometimes they break out of the story just to be young.

   The result is a film worth coming back to: mysterious, exciting, and highly satisfying.

HAKE TALBOT – Rim of the Pit. Bantam, 1965. Originally published by Simon and Schuster, hardcover, 1944. Reprinted several times in other editions.

   This book was chosen by Anthony Boucher for Bantam’s “World’s Great Novels of Detection” series, along with such classics as Christianna Brand’s Green for Danger and Ellery Queen’s Cat of Many Tails. Like those two, this is an excellent book that should be far better known than it is (it was not mentioned by Barzun & Taylor).

   The detective in Rim of the Pit is gambler Rogan Kincaid, who tries to determine a rational explanation of seemingly supernaturally caused murders.

   Many years ago Grimaud Desanat froze to death in the North Woods of New England. His wife Irene, a supposed medium, holds a seance to ask him about some trees he owned. During the seance Desanat appears and terrifies Irene, who is later found inside a locked room brutally murdered

   The question is, who murdered her? Was it another member of the house party or the spirit of Desanat himself acting through another’s body?

   More and more inexplicable events pile up that seem to favor the latter theory, including a second murder that seems to clinch it, but Talbot makes it all come clear in a brilliant ending.

   Talbot wrote only two detective novels, the other being Hangman’s Handyman (1942), which may help to explain why he is so little known today, but Rim of the Pit is a classic of the genre that bears out Boucher’s comparison with such more noted masters of impossible crime as John Dickson Carr and Clayton Rawson.

Editorial Comments:  Both of Talbot’s detective novels have recently been reprinted by Ramble House. Puzzle Doctor, on his/her blog, suggests that Talbot wrote a third, one that was never published and is now presumed lost.

GEORGE HARMON COXE – The Glass Triangle. Alfred A Knopf, hardcover, 1940. Dell #81, paperback, mapback edition, 1945; Dell #522, [1951], mapback. Jonathon Press Mystery #J23, digest pb, [1947]. Contained in Triple Exposure (with The Jade Venus and The Fifth Key), Knopf, hardcover, 1959.

    This is vintage Coxe, written while he was still fresh from toiling a decade or more for Black Mask and other pulps. I’ve never been sure why he switched to Kent Murdock as the detective in his early novels, rather than continue with Flashgun Casey, as they tend to blur in my mind into the same character, the tough successful news photographer who continually finds himself involved in murder.

    In this one Murdock introduces the sister of an old friend to a Hollywood crowd in town for a movie premiere, then feels it’s his obligation to protect her when the director, unliked by all, is murdered in his hotel room. There’s no moral consideration involved, just a newspaperman’s curiosity and what he owes on a promise to a friend.

    So, OK, call him medium-boiled. Coxe’s heroes are people who stick up for each other, easily inspire trust and confidence, and who are maybe just a little soft at heart.

    A piece of glass is the only tangible evidence Murdock has after the corpse disappears and his photographic plates are stolen, but only the careful reader will spot the additional clues Coxe slips in. I did name the killer, but that’s about all. The only question left unanswered is why the supremely detestable director was along on the junket in the first place.

GLADYS MITCHELL – The Death-Cap Dancers. St. Martin’s Press, hardcover, 1981. Hardcover reprint: Detective Book Club, 3-in-1 edition. Originally published in the UK: Michael Joseph, hc, 1981. Paperback reprint: PaperJacks, Canada, 1986.

   Of all the many writers of the Golden Age of Detection, Gladys Mitchell’s career lasted longer than most of them. Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley appeared in most of her mystery fiction, with Speedy Death being the first, appearing in 1929, when she was 28. There were some 66 in all, and Dancers clocks in as a mere number 59, some 52 years later, when the author was 80.

   Over the years I can recall reading only one other one, which one I’m not sure, but it was toward the middle of the run and I can remember saying to myself, “My, that was a strange one.” (My review of the book may turn up one of these days, as I go through the old fanzines in which they appeared, and if so and when, I’ll be able to tell you more.)

   This one begins when a threesome of young women (in their 20s) on a rustic vacation together invites a fourth to stay with them in the cabin they’ve rented – the fourth, as chance would have it, being a niece of Dame Bradley.

   Which is of course the connection needed when a series of two murders and one nearly fatal attack on a third member of a traveling troupe of folk singers and players begins to occur. In each case, a deadly mushroom is placed in the victims’ wounds.

   The book is leisurely paced, with a rather minimalist approach to story-telling. Characters are wont to speak in huge chunks of dialogue, for example, with a rather straightforward and simple plot, not annoyingly so, but quite noticeably.

   Mrs. Bradley, a trained psychologist by trade, is not brought physically into the story until about the two-thirds point, presumably to protect her niece and her new friends from being under suspicion by the police. And even though the police have gone on to other suspects, the good lady stays on to give them a hand.

   Not that they especially need it. There is only one suspect who fills the bill, someone whom the rather bland Mrs. Bradley spots right away but refuses to name for unspecified reasons, a state of affairs that eccentric sleuths in the Golden Age were also wont to do.

   A not terribly impressive novel of detection, in other words, but strangely enough I enjoyed the book anyway. Other than Dame Bradley (also strangely enough) the characters are largely lively and vivid and you can tell them apart without a scorecard.

THE BLOOD SHIP. Columbia, 1927. Hobart Bosworth, Jacqueline Logan, Richard Arlen, Walter James, Fred Kohler. Scenario by Fred Myton, based on a novel of Norman Springer. Producer: Harry Cohn; director: George B. Seitz. Shown at Cinecon 44, Hollywood CA, Aug-Sept 2008.

   This plays like a stripped-down version of The Sea Wolf, with a sadistic sea captain, but with none of the philosophical underpinnings of the Jack London novel.

   Bosworth is a discredited Captain who signs on to the ship, which we learn is helmed by Walter James, the man who robbed him of his own ship, and, more importantly, of his wife and daughter. The crew largely consists of hijacked seamen, along with Bosworth and Richard Arlen, a young sailor who catches sight of the daughter James claims as his own and impulsively signs on for the voyage.

   James’ first mate is played by Fred Kohler, who specialized in playing bad guys, and the two run a ship in which brutality and fear reign. With a little quiet time, you can figure out that the girl is the pivotal player, who unites the past crimes and present perilous situation in a way that precipitates the final conflict and resolution.

   Predictable but entertaining.

H. C. BAILEY – The Red Castle Mystery. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1932. First published in the UK as The Red Castle: Ward Lock, hardcover, 1932.

    Introducing (*) lawyer Joshua Clunk, who daringly skirts the edge of the law but, unlike Perry Mason, knowingly takes the cause of the underworld. His problem here is to find the connection between the death of a client, a London fence found face down in the contents of a smashed bottle of leeches, and the disappearance of the ten year old heir to an ancient family castle in Strathland.

    Clunk is an annoying giggler with fluttering hands, addicted to sweets and hymn singing, filled with the kind of religious fervor you would not think compatible with one of his profession.

    Lots of false trails along the way, and ominous hints that people aren’t telling all they know. The great number of shady characters involved tends to overwhelm the plot and in fact produces most of the mystery, one that a good scorecard would help keep straight.

    Good reading on an idle summer’s day. May the quiet misty countryside of the rugged English moors always exist!

(*) It appears I was in error about this. The first Joshua Clunk novel was The Garston Murder Case (its US title), published in 1930. See H. C. Bailey’s Wikipedia entry for more on the author and a long list of the mystery fiction he wrote.

ROBIN FORSYTHE – Missing or Murdered. John Lane/The Bodley Head, UK, hardcover, 1930.

   Not having access to the current CD-Rom edition of Al Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV is a problem at the moment, as I cannot tell you how many detective or thriller novels Robin Forsythe may have written, or whether either of the two primary protagonists in Missing or Murdered ever made another appearance.

   The missing or murdered man is Henry Darnell, Lord Bygrave, the head of some unnamed department in the civil government. He’d gone to a country inn outside of London for a short stay — the White Bear Inn in the village of Hartwood — gone for a walk the next morning, and disappeared.

   Investigating on behalf of Scotland Yard is Inspector Heather. Also on the case in an artist named Algernon Vereker, a “somewhat eccentric young gentleman” who happens to be a trustee and executor of the missing man’s will.

   The book, in its solid old-fashioned way, is full of detective work and nothing but detective work. Most amusing is how Heather and Vereker each tackle the case in their own particular way, and then regale each other with wild reenactments of the crime, some more fanciful than others, some spot on, other far less so.

   All so very fine and good, but tales of detection need to be solidly clued, and if I’m not mistaken (and I did go back to look) one vital clue is not provided to the reader when one of the two detectives took notice of it.

   This violates one of Father Knox’s Rules of Detection, and so does the killer’s identity, or very close to it.

   I’d read another book by Robin Forsythe, if one ever came along again, for otherwise I enjoyed this one immensely, so much so I hate pointing out its flaws, but needs must.

PETER LOVESEY – Upon a Dark Night. Mysterious Press, hardcover, 1998. Soho Crime, trade paperback, 2005. First published in the UK by Little Brown, 1997.

   If my count is correct, this is book five in Lovesey’s ongoing Peter Diamond series, with number 12 (including one book of short stories) coming out in June of this year (Stagestruck).

   The good inspector is in good form in Upon a Dark Night. He’s tough on his staff and subordinates, with DI Julie Hargreaves, his closest assistant, taking the brunt of his crude and unruly ways. She in fact is close enough to steer him away from the occasional pitfalls in his logic and reasoning, assistance for which he very nearly says thank you.

   There are two unusual deaths in Bath in Dark Night, after a long stretch of time during which there have not been any, and both come close to being considered suicides, without Diamond’s input. Those plus an amnesia victim’s mysterious disappearance, a young woman whose awakening from an accident and subsequent problems in rediscovering herself — with the able assistance of fellow social services client, the kleptoholic but very observant Ada Shaftsbury — take up the first third of the book.

   Are these events all connected? I won’t say yes, but I won’t say no either. I will say that one must believe in coincidences in reading books like this one, which is not a problem, no, not really. Coincidences happen all the time.

   I’m less forgiving, though, when it comes to stupid behavior on the part of the villains in the case. Lovesey is a fine and very witty writer when it comes to people and their relationships to each other, and the leisurely pace at the beginning of this novel was more than fine with me.

   The rushed and overly active way in which Dark Night concludes, however, I found less satisfying, at least in comparison.

FRANK GRUBER – The French Key Mystery. Farrar & Rinehart, hardcover, 1940. Paperback reprints include: Avon Murder of the Month #4, 1942; Avon #91, 1946, both as The French Key Mystery. Jonathan Press J89, [1957], as Once Over Deadly. Belmont L92-592, 1964. Film: Republic, 1946 (story & screenplay by Frank Gruber).

   Frank Gruber was a mainstay of the pulps, grinding out over 600,000 words a year for many years. In 1940 he turned out this, his first detective novel, in a week, and it was a big success (a film was made with Albert Dekker and Mike Masurki).

   It is the first of fourteen books with quick-thinking, fast-talking Johnny Fletcher, the world’s greatest book salesman, and his brawny sidekick, Sam Cragg. Fletcher and Cragg are locked out of their hotel room for non-payment of the bill; when they climb in through the window of the next room they find a dead body in their bed clutching an extremely valuable gold coin in his hand.

   From then on it’s one fast moving complication after another, as Fletcher must clear himself of murder, find the real killer, and solve the mystery of the coin. Despite a few improbabilities of plot, French Key is pulp writing at its best, with a briskly moving plot, breezy dialogue, and lots of action.

   It also offers an interesting picture of New York in 1939, when a nickel could buy a hamburger at a greasy spoon, as well as a ride on a subway, and a suite at the Waldorf went for as little as twenty-five dollars a day.

ROBERT LEE HALL – Exit Sherlock Holmes. Scribner’s, hardcover, 1977. Playboy Press, paperback, 1979.

   Now it can be told. The famous retirement as a beekeeper on the Sussex Downs was but a pretense, part of Sherlock Holmes’ strategy employed against his nemesis of evil, the notorious Professor Moriarty, who not surprisingly also did not perish at Reichenbach Falls.

   In all the cases previously recorded for us, Watson never reveals much information about the early years of his famous friend. In fact, for most of their life together he never greatly inquired.

   However, in the great detective’s finally days Watson finally learned the whole story. Through a legacy left him by his grandmother, a tin box of Watson’s writings stored away until year, Robert Lee Hall now claims to be able to reveal the truth.

   Watson has the spotlight for most of the book, for Holmes has mysteriously disappeared during the growing international crisis foreshadowing World War I. With the able assistance of the now adult Wiggins, he does quite well as a detective, discovering for the first time Holmes’ secret laboratory and the other deceptions perpetrated by Holmes over the years.

   Loose ends from many tales are deftly tied together, and all the mystery surrounding the life of Sherlock Holmes is magnificently cleared away by the revelations preceding the final confrontation scene in this book, revelations which, I promise you, are designed to test your imagination to the utmost.

   A must for Holmesians, but if it makes any difference, I didn’t believe a word of it. Nor could I put it down.

[UPDATE] 04-19-11.   I don’t know if it should be surprising, but at this point in time, nearly 33 years after writing this review, I have no idea what the revelations were that I referred to in that next-to-last paragraph.

   This was one of the first mystery novels able to use Sherlock Holmes as a character without the Doyle estate’s permission (as I understand it). Although I may have missed a few, here are a few earlier ones:

Ellery Queen [Paul W. Fairman], A Study in Terror, Lancer, 1966.
Michael & Mollie Hardwick, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Mayflower (UK), 1970.
Nicholas Meyer, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, Dutton, 1974.
Philip José Farmer, The Adventure of the Peerless Peer, Aspen, 1974.
Frank Thomas, Sherlock Holmes Bridge Detective Returns, Thomas, 1975.
Don R. Bensen, Sherlock Holmes in New York, Ballantine, 1976.
Richard L. Boyer, The Giant Rat of Sumatra, Warner, 1976.
Nicholas Meyer, The West End Horror, Dutton, 1976.
Austin Mitchelson & Nicholas Utechin, The Earthquake Machine, Belmont, 1976
    ”     ”     Hellbirds, Belmont, 1976.

   After this, though, the deluge.