CHARLES TODD – A False Mirror. Harper; paperback reprint, January 2008. Harper hardcover edition, January 2007.

   Some facts first, some of which you probably know already, but if so, please bear with me. Or not, if you prefer, if your interest in mystery fiction consists more often of espionage thrillers, comic heists and/or high grade private eye dramas, none of which applies here.

   According to Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, “Charles Todd” is the joint pen name of the (I believe) unique mother-and-son writing team of David Charles Todd Watjen & Carolyn L. T. Watjen. A Test of Wills, their first mystery novel, was also the first case solved by Inspector Ian Rutledge of Scotland Yard. The book appeared in 1996, and they’ve averaged close to a novel a year ever since. A False Mirror is their 10th, and Rutledge has appeared in all but one of them, a standalone entitled The Murder Stone.

   From here it gets complicated. As a survivor of World War I (as yet unnumbered in 1919 and the 1920s, when the stories take place), Rutledge carries bitter memories of the conflict wherever he goes. In particular, in his head he hears the voice of Hamish MacLeod, a young Scottish soldier he had executed for refusing to obey orders during the worst of the war. The irony is that Rutledge now knows that given one more day of battle and the bloody onslaught, he would have refused orders to keep fighting on as well.

   Such is the background if not the underlying theme, and for folks like me, who pick up the ninth one as the first one, it takes some time for the explanation to be worked into the opening pages without disrupting the flow of the new tale being told. Hamish acts not only as a nagging conscience, but also as a Watson upon whom Rutledge tests his thoughts and observations, except that this particular (and antagonistic) Watson is not at all interested in telling the tale himself.

   It’s an interesting concept, and the Todds’ books have attracted a lot of attention, including mine, although until now only in terms of curiosity, having not picked one up to read until now. My first reaction: This is a dark and gloomy tale filled with sharply drawn characterizations.

   In the small coastal town of Hampton Regis, a man Rutledge knew not well (and not favorably) in France has taken a woman as a hostage in her home, and he refuses to budge until Rutledge arrives. The man is believed to have attacked the woman’s husband, once of the Foreign Service, and left him near death on the shore.

   Rutledge arrives, and my second reaction is this: Very few detective stories can withstand the weight of nearly 400 pages of small print. Rutledge seems to do a lot, but very little gets done; and what seems as though should have been done as standard procedure seems to get little thought. Such as (primarily) the failure to keep a guard over the badly wounded victim, who disappears into the night soon after he begins to gain consciousness, leaving the doctor’s wife bludgeoned to death.

   The ending – the revelation of the killer’s identity – is equally mismanaged – not badly, but without the sureness (and brilliance) that one expects (and hopes for!) after several nights of intense reading just before bed. (It took me around eight installments averaging fifty pages each.)

   To be more precise, the tale is not strong on fair play detection, although the opportunity’s there. It could have been done. Toward the end an accusing finger is pointed at each of the possible killers in turn, but to do this well, an expert is needed. When the strings trailing from the authors’ hands begin to show, that’s when you’ll know the authors aren’t that kind of expert yet. (Or at least, not this time.)

   On the other hand, I wouldn’t have kept reading if the authors who write as Charles Todd didn’t know people, and knew how to make them come alive, as often in anguish (mental) as they are. Noir? You bet. All the way.

THE WRONG BOX. Salamander Film Corp., UK, 1966. Michael Caine, Nanette Newman, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Ralph Richardson, John Mills, Peter Sellers, Wilfred Lawson, Tony Hancock. Director-producer: Brian Forbes. Based on the book by Robert Louis Stevenson & Lloyd Osbourne. [Osbourne was Stevenson’s stepson.]

   When I was a kid and growing up, I read a lot of Robert Louis Stevenson’s work, as did a lot of kids my age, but I never read The Wrong Box, nor have I rectified that omission any time since. It was published in 1889, which would have made it a contemporary novel instead the period piece it obviously was in 1966.

   So I don’t know, and I’d obviously be guessing, but I imagine that a number of liberties were made to the story — or on the other hand, perhaps not, as the book is described in many places as a “black comedy.” You may or may not recognize the names of some of the players, but on the other hand, you may very well know them better than I do. These are some of the finest British comedians of their era, and there are some who believe that The Wrong Box is the funniest British comedy ever made.

   Personally, I don’t know about that, but sitting here at the computer and typing this off the top of my head, there are some parts here that remember laughing at out loud when I was watching and (this is strange) are even funnier as I think about them now.

   And I’ll get to some of those in a moment. First, though, something about the story. I guess they’re not very common now, but the main item of business that makes the story and keeps it going is a tontine, a legal agreement between a group of individuals that provides for a common total contribution to be bestowed into the hands of the single survivor.

   There’s obviously a lot of material involved in one of these things to power any number of crime stories, which is what allows this movie to be called a mystery movie, but truth be told, looking back in retrospect, there really wasn’t a lot of mystery, nor crime involved.

   Two brothers are the last two survivors in this case, and they have not spoken to each other in over 40 years. Michael Caine is the shy grandson of one; gloriously beautiful Nanette Newman is the niece of the other; and they have admired each other from afar (and through windows) for many years. (The two families live next to each other in attached homes.) One glimpse of Caine’s bare upper arm is enough for the lady to fall solidly in fluttering love.

   There is a mixup between boxes, naturally enough, one containing a body, the other a statuary being returned. There are attempts at murder, funeral carriages galore, fudged death certificates…

… decrepit old butlers, cheerfully loquacious elderly gentlemen who can speak hours on end on almost anything:

   From the book itself, which is online at http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=1585, and repeated very closely in the film:

   I thought the movie was wonderfully rendered for the first hour and 15 minutes, plus or minus five, but by the end the pace had quickened significantly, and I confess that I had become lost with what body was there, who was dead and who was not. I shall have to watch it again; there’s no way around it.

   I do recommend the film to present-day writers and directors who believe that a film cannot be funny without flatulence, bowel movements, lousy language, nor more than a look at a lady’s ankle. None of those here, and all to the better. (I confess that there is one significant scene of nose-picking.)

   And any movie with Nanette Newman in it is worth seeing more than once, no matter the genre nor who else is in it.

REPEAT PERFORMANCE. Eagle-Lion Films, 1947. Louis Hayward, Joan Leslie, Virginia Field, Tom Conway, Richard Basehart, Natalie Schafer, Benay Venuta. Director: Alfred L. Werker; based on the mystery novel of the same title by William O’Farrell.

   William O’Farrell wrote 13 or so crime novels between 1942 and 1962. Toward the end of his career he wrote paperback originals (Dell, Gold Medal, Lancer), but the first one he wrote was Repeat Performance, a hardcover from Houghton Mifflin in 1942. His next book didn’t come out until after the war, in 1948.

   As sometimes happens, it’s the first book that attracts the most attention, and so it was with this book. It was the only one of O’Farrell’s novels that was made into a movie until 1987, when a French company made Dernier été à Tanger, based on The Devil His Due (Doubleday, 1955). O’Farrell does have a handful of TV credits, according to IMDB: Perry Mason, Alfred Hitchcock, and so on, and a TV remake was made of Repeat Performance in 1989, a film entitled Turn Back the Clock, with Connie Sellecca in the leading role.

   In 1947, it was Joan Leslie who was the star, one of a number of leading roles she had for smaller companies like Eagle-Lion, and her career lasted long enough, thanks to television, for her to be given a walk-on role in the remake as a guest at a party. She was full-faced and very pretty without quite being beautiful, but then again your opinion need not necessarily be the same as mine.

   The beginning and end of Repeat Performance is dark and stylish enough for it to be considered in many quarters as a noir film, but without the beginning and end, it is frothy and soap opera-y and very nearly not a crime film at all. It begins with Sheila Paige (Joan Leslie) shooting a man in a Manhattan apartment on New Year’s Eve, then fleeing the scene of the crime through streets crowded and filled with merry-makers.

   The man, as it turns out, was her husband Barney, a failed and now-alcoholic playwright played by Louis Hayward. We don’t know any of the details right away, only that Sheila is frightened and needs help. And on the brink of the New Year, her wish to live the year over again, and to make things come out right, is granted.

   A nice fantasy touch. She remembers the year before, but no one else does, except (gradually) poet William Williams (Richard Basehart, in his first film), a tragically weak creature with hints of self-esteem. Sheila’s husband is not only a lush, but a louse and a womanizer, the woman in this case being an ultra- glamorous British playwright named Paula Costello (Virginia Field).

   Can Sheila live the year over again and make the outcome turn out differently? Can she keep her husband away from Paula by shuffling him off to California? Can she convince William that having Mrs. Shaw (Natalie Schafer) as a patroness, and a controlling one at that, is not likely to be in his best interest?

   You’ll have to watch and see. The fantasy elements give the movie a premise, but otherwise they are not followed up on. The crime element is shoved to the background. It’s always there, mind you, as you watch Sheila relive her life, with differences, but as I say, trim five minutes from both the beginning and the end, and you don’t have a mystery movie at all. And probably not much a story, either, so no, don’t trim it … a mystery film it is.

   Is it noir? Yes, if one aspect of noir films is seeing lives swirl and careen out of control, and another is a dark beginning and (hints are) a dark ending. No, if noir does not involve froth and soap flakes, which too much of this one does.

[UPDATE.] 01-22-08. For those of you conveniently located near San Francisco, Repeat Performance will be the lead-off attraction for this year’s Noir City film festival. Date: Friday, January 25th. Joan Leslie will be in attendance, and after the screening she will be interviewed by festival host Eddie Muller.

   Connecticut, unfortunately, is a mere 3000 miles away, else I’d be there for sure.

EVELYN PAYNE – Held Open for Death

Arcadia House; hardcover; c. 1958.

   The author’s only mystery, nor is it one that’s particularly easy to find. There are two copies online that are both in the $30 range, and one other in Norway for $80 or so. I paid less than either asking price for mine, and – as long as you’re asking me my opinion – neither should you.

   It starts out promising enough, with a heroine sleuth with an unusual occupation for, um, a heroine sleuth: that of real estate agent. There certainly must have been others, before and since, but at the moment, none seem come to mind.    [FOOTNOTE.]

   Tillie Latimer is her name, the locale is El Paso, and truth be told, when the book begins, Tillie’s been a real estate agent for only a couple of weeks. Her first big assignment on her own: holding an open house for the home next door to her mother’s, where Tillie still lives.

   It proves to be a big success, so big that keeping track of incoming visitors proves impossible. This turns out to be a big problem when Granpa Tellfair, aged 89, and father of Miss Sadie, who owns the house, is later found dead in the basement, stabbed to death with a knife still in his back. Strangely enough, he also still has $1000 in his pocket. This is doubly strange. Since time he was once robbed, he never carried more than five dollars with him at a time.

   Tillie had met Granpa during the open house, and as it so happens, while he managed to maintain his well-deserved status as a curmudgeon in his short conversation with her, he was also one of the more likable people who happened to stop by. The question is, who’d kill an old man like this, and why?

   Going hand-in-hand with the mystery, there is also a strong romantic interest for Tillie in the person of Miss Sadie’s son Rick, the “town’s star juvenile delinquent for a few years,” now out of the Army and perhaps on his way to becoming a solid citizen. Nor is Rick the only one who is showing an interest in Tillie. Trying to place the book into its proper category, I am not sure whether the two or three more murders that occur qualify this detective yarn as a cozy or not, but if Agatha Christie’s books are cozies, then so is this one. And after thinking about it some more, I shall happily concede that it is, no matter what.

   I mentioned Agatha Christie. That was a rather unfortunate reference, now that I think about it. While the author is obviously very familiar with the ins and outs of the real estate business, she’s also in over her head in making sure that the story keeps on going in the direction she wants it to. The characters are fun at first, but their lack of depth soon begins to tell. Soon after the halfway point, the many loose strands of the plot get tangled, cluttered and confused, and seemingly beyond repair. In wrapping things up, the author makes it clear she had a goal worthy of the telling in mind. It is the getting there that is the problem.

   Everything that a good mystery should have is in this book. It’s just that the ingredients have been assembled – well, not badly, exactly, and I have not come up with a more positive way of saying this – but by an amateur, in a truest sense of the word. Without a stronger pro at the helm, to come to the point a little more quickly, this is little more than a “nice try” and/or a “might have been.”

[FOOTNOTE.] This is the review that was my springboard into creating a list of all the real estate agents who ever happened to become detectives as part of their occupational duties. Check it out here, a post made back in January of this year.

BRIAN AUGUSTYN – Gotham by Gaslight: An Alternative History of the Batman.

DC Comics; graphic novel; 1st printing, 1989. Script: Brian Augustyn; pencils: Michael Mignola; inks: P. Craig Russell. Introduction by Robert Bloch.

   What it is that makes (and establishes) a cultural icon is difficult if completely impossible to predict, but with plenty of hindsight at our command, it is absolutely certain that both the Batman and Jack the Ripper each and individually most definitely are.

   Did they ever meet? Of course not, but on the other hand, why not? This particular graphic novel (or sophisticated comic book, if you prefer, with sturdy cardstock covers, glossy pages and no ads) was not designated with the “Elseworlds” label, but according the various comic sites on the Internet, it was the first, and it was so successful that an entire series of such novels followed.

   So what is (or are) Elseworlds? Allow me to quote from the equivalent of the DC handbook: “In Elseworlds, heroes are taken from their usual settings and put into strange times and places – some that have existed, and others that can’t, couldn’t or shouldn’t exist. The result is stories that make characters who are as familiar as yesterday seem as fresh as tomorrow.”

   After Robert Bloch’s introduction, supplied just in case an unwary comic book reader does happen to be unfamiliar with Jack the Ripper – and a nice touch, at that – comes a retelling of the origin of the Batman: the holdup man who guns down Bruce Wayne’s parents before his very eyes; the young lad then devoting his life to take up the cause of justice against criminals and the underworld behind a mask, a costume and a long, free-flowing cape. Except this time it is the late 1880s, and this is not the current Batman at all.

   At the same time as Bruce Wayne is taking up his new career, a horrible slayer of prostitutes in London seems to have made his way to Gotham, a city well-known to comic book readers as the home stomping grounds of the Batman, Inspector Gordon and all of the other characters of current legend (and so it appears) no matter what universe they may happen to be in.

   The coincidence in timing is far too obvious for some, and Bruce Wayne, unable to account for his whereabouts and not being home at night, is first confronted, then arrested and convicted of being the Ripper. In his jail cell, going over the piles of documents, photos and other evidence against him, provided by Gordon, not convinced of his guilt, it is Bruce Wayne the detective that spots the clue that will nail the killer, if only he were not scheduled to be executed for the crimes himself in the morning.

   Truthfully, however, while this certainly qualifies Gotham by Gaslight as an entry in Al Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV – it is not there now, but other Batman graphic novels are – the detection, if not minor, is hardly of the fair play variety. In terms of the reader playing detective him- or herself, this is also mere child’s play, as it were, there being only one other suspect and that being one who only appears in one previous panel.

   The attraction here is the small delights provided by viewing the Batman legend from another perspective in an unexpected context – as if with new eyes – and the delightful art from Mignola and Russell. Grays and blues and browns dominate, as well as exquisite details in Victorian-era architecture, wearing apparel and facial foliage.

   You have to be a Batman fan, perhaps – and if you’re not, it’s sure as shouting that I’m not going to make you one – but if you are, this is a sure-fire classic must-read.

[UPDATE] 09-22-07. I’ve reprinted this review, of course, because of the coverage of the original Batman in the previous post. Other than that, there’s been no attempt to rewrite it to make it more of a followup than this. It’s as I wrote it when it first appeared. But as I suggested, though, this particular book now does appear in the Addenda to the Revised CFIV.

MICHAEL Z. LEWIN – Night Cover

Detective Book Club; reprint hardcover, three-in-one edition. First edition hardcover: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976. Paperback reprints: Berkley, January 1980; Perennial Library, 1984; Foul Play Press, September 1995.

   For those who are interested, there is a slew of information about Michael Z. Lewin on his website, located at www.michaelzlewin.com. The first of his novels that I remember reading was one of the first three cases tackled by his private eye character, Albert Samson. I enjoyed them, and maybe I read all three, but the particulars? Right now, I couldn’t tell you.

      Ask the Right Question. Putnam, 1971.
      The Way We Die Now. Putnam, 1973.   [Note: My review appears in the preceding post.]
      The Enemies Within. Knopf, 1974

   A gap of few years was filled in by the book I just read (1976), followed by five other Samson novels, with a hiatus of 13 years between the last two:

      The Silent Salesman. Knopf, 1978.
      Missing Woman. Knopf, 1981.
      Out of Season. Morrow, 1984.
      Called by a Panther. Mysterious Press, 1991.
      Eye Opener. Five Star, 2004.

   As for the aforementioned book in hand, it’s the first title in Lewin’s Lt. Roy (Leroy) Powder series:

      Night Cover. Knopf, 1976.
      Hard Line. Morrow, 1982.
      Late Payments. Morrow, 1986.

   In addition to his own series, however, Samson also makes a small but significant appearance in Night Cover. Al Hubin, in Crime Fiction IV, does not mention Samson as having any role in the other two books, so with no first-hand knowledge of my own, it may be safe to assume that he does not.

   But on the other hand, maybe not. Not only does (Mrs.) Adele Buffington, a probation officer, appear in Night Cover, but she has a solo adventure of her own:

      And Baby Will Fall. Morrow, 1988.

      And not only that, a description I found of this book suggests that in it Adele is Samson’s girl friend, which puts a totally different light on something I was going to mention when I got to the review itself. Now that I think about it, I will anyway, but in any case, some further investigation is going to be needed. What I would like to know is simple. Which series characters are in which books?    [See the UPDATE below.]

   All three are in Night Cover, that much I do know, but there is no doubt that this is Powder’s book. He’s the lieutenant in charge of the Indianapolis police squad’s night squad (Homicide and Robbery), and I confess that I had him pegged wrong from the start. Powder is loud and obnoxious, his private life is a mess (married but not divorced), bullies his subordinates with exactitude, and only occasionally does he allow a hint of solicitude to creep in. Tough love? Maybe. As for civilians, watch out. They’re on their own when they deal with him.

   I also pictured him as somewhat obese, with a sagging belly, caused by too many doughnuts from being out on the streets on too many cases on too many nights.

   And yet. He’s fit enough to be attracted to the aforementioned Adele Buffington, the probation officer for the missing teen-aged girl that Powder is (in desultory fashion) looking for. And (more importantly) she to him.

   You can credit author Michael Z. Lewin for this. Looking back over the first couple of chapters, I can find no reference to Powder’s outward appearance. We learn about him only through what he says and what he does. Which is plenty. Up close and personal – but no physical description.

   In this book he meets private eye Albert Samson for the first time, and they definitely do not get along. If – and this is a big if – if Adele is Samson’s girl friend at the time – it is not so revealed, so I could easily be way out on a limb here, even in bringing it up – it puts a completely different slant on their later interactions, Samson, Powder and Adele. A twist in the plot that only those in the know would know about, if indeed there is anything to know.

   But surely I digress. When a Mao-quoting teen-aged boy comes in with a complaint about his teacher and his (questionable) grading policies, Powder indulges him (surprisingly) for a while. When the boy mentions a girl he knows who seems to have disappeared, Powder asks around and shunts him off to Samson.

   As a police procedural, which is what Night Cover is, there are a small multitude of other cases to be investigated and solved. Powder’s intuition on cases far exceeds those who work under him, to his great disappointment and frustration. Besides the missing girl, a sequence of murders suggests a copy-cat killer at work, requiring a vigorous search through back records to uncover patterns before the culprit(s) is/are nabbed.

   There are parts of this tale which are amusing, if not at times laugh-out-loud funny. Lewin has a knack for understated humor, a wry look at the world that you should experience for yourself. But there’s a serious side of the story as well. As Powder’s life story becomes more and more clear, he finds himself looking at himself and his career with a greater intensity than he ever has before.

   Being able to keep track of series characters in their daily life as they go from book to book is rather common in mystery fiction published today. Watching one change before one’s eyes from the beginning of one book to the end is not so common, neither now nor thirty years ago, when this book was first written.

[UPDATE] November 2005.    I forwarded the review to Mr. Lewin, and received the following replies, interrupted by a question from me:

    “Thanks for letting me know about the review you did of Night Cover, and for paying attention to such a venerable volume.

    “As for your questions, Powder was not in the first three Samson books, but he has appeared in the five later Samson books including the current one, Eye Opener (Five Star, 2004).

    “Adele appeared in Samson’s first seven novels as his woman friend – so she was in her relationship with Samson during Night Cover. I doubt I mentioned it. That was her issue and the book was Powder’s.

    “In the new book Adele appears, but she is no longer Samson’s amour. She also had her own book, And Baby Will Fall (Child Proof in the UK). I think Samson was in that; Powder may have been mentioned.

    “The subsequent Powder novels have included Samson but not, as far as I recall, Adele. Powder has also appeared in another Indianapolis novel, Underdog (Mysterious Press, 1993), and two short stories published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine – “Night Shift” and “911.” The latter was earlier this year.

    “Mind you, I haven’t exactly read the books lately, so if I’ve gotten details wrong here and there, I won’t faint.”

    “As I said earlier, Adele was Samson’s woman friend from the beginning and through the first seven novels. Your concern is that she got close to Powder briefly. Well, Samson might have been upset, at least for a while, if he’d ever known about it, but she would never have told him, and neither would Powder. Adele’s subsequent relationship with and affection for Samson was unchanged; how she handled it or justified it was her business.

    “I might have gone into that more if I’d ever written more books about her but, for various reasons, that didn’t happen and is unlikely to happen now. Depending, of course, on the size of the check you’re offering me to write them. I think it would have to be pretty large…”

MICHAEL Z. LEWIN – The Way We Die Now.

Putnam’s, hardcover, 1973. Paperback reprints: Berkley, 1979; Harper Perennial, 1984; Mysterious Press, June 1991.

   Albert Samson is a rather sensitive soul to be a private detective. Not only that, but the only reason that he gets this case is because he’s the cheapest one listed in the Indianapolis telephone directory.

   No wisecracks, please. The key word here is “sensitive”, not “cheap,” and Indianapolis has enough crimes and other divorce work to keep more than a couple of private eyes on the street. This isn’t a divorce case, however. A troubled Viet Nam veteran with a history of psychiatric treatment is in jail, accused of murder. Samson, hired in quiet desperation by the man’s wife, has only one question: With his past record, why was this innocent Childe Ralph hired as an armed guard?

   I liked the homey Midwestern atmosphere, and I liked Albert Samson. However, it seems only fair to point out that his slow, casual approach to the investigation can be awfully frustrating to a reader who has a lot of unanswered questions. Still, it’s the police who are guilty of taking the simple explanation, while Samson’s appraisal of Ralph Tomanek as one of the children of the world convinces both himself and the reader very early on that the job he took as a watchman was but a part of a much broader scheme.

   In short, good characters nicely scaled down to earth, in a plot stretched precariously thin.    [B minus]

  [UPDATE] 09-10-07. I didn’t happen to mention that this was Samson’s second case, the first being Ask the Right Question (Putnam’s, 1971), which was also Lewin’s first mystery novel. Reading through the review right now, almost thirty years later, I can’t say that the story comes back to me any more than what’s there and with no more insight than you can gather for yourself. The phrase “homey Midwestern atmosphere” evokes more feeling in me than any of the specific details. That must mean something, I’ve been telling myself, and I’m sure it does.

   I’ll have more to say about the author, Michael Z. Lewin, in a review I wrote much more recently. If you don’t see it here next, it’ll show up soon.

HUGH CLEVELY – The Case of the Criminal’s Daughter

Sexton Blake Library #323; The Amalgamated Press. Paperback. No date given.

   As it says, this slim (if not flimsy) 64-page digest-sized paperback comes with no bibliographic information, but luckily for those with Internet access, help is just a few keystrokes away. There is a website devoted to all things Sexton Blakian, and where the link will take you, you will discover that this is #323 of the Third Series of the Sexton Blake Library. The stories appeared monthly; this is the one that came out in November, 1954. And the illustrator responsible for the cover art was none other than Reginald (Heade) Webb.

   This being only the first Sexton Blake novel I’ve read in some 20 years, and the second overall, there’s no way I will talk in any general way about the character, nor should I, except to say that he, Sexton Blake, appeared as a character in over 3000 stories written by some 200 authors over a period of well over a century.

   As for Hugh Clevely, well, first of all, he was one of the 200 authors who wrote stories about Sexton Blake, but of course you knew that, or you should have. According to Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV, however, he only wrote 10 other Sexton Blakes, at least in novel form. His overall writing career spanned the years from 1928 to 1955 and includes a list of 35 novels under his own name, one co-written with Edgar Jepson. Only four of these novels have been published in the US.

   As Tod Claymore, he wrote another eight mysteries, all with a series character named Tod Claymore. According to W. O. G. Lofts and Derek Adley’s website The Crime Fighters, “He [Claymore] had been a Wimbledon tennis player and a wing commander during the war, then switched to writing, with detection as a hobby.” Some of these books were imported or published in this country as Penguin paperbacks, the green ones.

   Returning to the books Clevely wrote under his own name, the series characters that appeared in them were Chief Inspector Williams, Maxwell Archer, J. D. Peters, and John Martinson. According to a New York Times review of a film based on one of the Maxwell Archer books, the latter was a “famed fictional private detective whose greatest pleasure in life is to second guess Scotland Yard…” The occupations of the other series characters remain either unknown or quite guessable.

   So Clevely was an experienced mystery writer when he started doing the Sexton Blake books, which were all written toward the end of his career. All eleven of them appeared in the four-year period from1952 to 1955. Does the experience show? It does and as the saying goes, it doesn’t.

   The plot of the case in point, that is to say the book in hand, is a complicated one, and the pace is a lively one, but there’s a considerable amount of what is generically called sloppiness in the details, making you wonder if it were written too fast for a market that didn’t offer very much in compensation.

   The criminal in the title is a circus performer (billed as The Great Costello) who once spent some time in jail, but who now is worth a considerable amount of legitimate money. His brother is a ne’er-do-well who is currently in a jam with some British style hoodlums. Add in the fact that Pat Costello, the acrobat, does not know he has an American daughter, but after his death by misadventure – deliberate – the fact of her existence – and that she is on a schoolgirls’ trip in Europe – means a lot to everyone who’s involved. There is also a not-so-small matter of some missing diamonds, and there (without going into further details) you have the basis for a decent if not overly rousing mystery for private enquiry agent Sexton Blake, his assistant Tinker, and Inspector Fosdyke to solve.

   The details that the author works into the story, a rather pulp-like yarn, help to make the story more of a something than it is, along with a few twists in the tale that I frankly didn’t see coming. It was more than enough for me to start searching out more of the entries in Sexton Blake’s long history, but –

   – some of the details don’t fit, or they clash with other ones. The conversation that Blake has with newspaper journalist Peter Grayson on page 26, for example, makes it seem that he had never heard of the girl Josie Benson before, whereas on page 23 the same two gentleman had a long conversation about the very same girl, and what Grayson should do to contrive to meet her. On page 53 Grayson and the girl are being held captive in a Martello Tower, he in a handcuff that severely restricts his range of motion – yes, that’s the kind of thriller this is – but the handcuff is never mentioned again, nor is there any restriction on his range of motion, when it comes time to attempt an escape.

   And yes, of course, such a point in time does come, and not too soon at that.

GILBERT CHESTER – The Man Who Wouldn’t Quit.

Sexton Blake Library #74; Amalgamated Press. Paperback. No date stated.

   Once again the Sexton Blake website comes galloping to the rescue. This is #74 of the Third Series, published in June, 1944. The date being in the midst of World War II, and by some reckoning among the darkest days of the war, I wondered how scarce this book (thin, digest-sized, but 100 pages long) might be. I was right. There are no other copies to be found anywhere on the Internet, and while I do apologize, mine’s not for sale.

   Gilbert Chester was the pseudonym of one H. H. Clifford Gibbons (1888-1958), whose total criminous output totaled approximately 100 novels, all but a handful of them Sexton Blakes, either anonymously or under his pen name, beginning in 1923 and continuing on through 1949.

   And if I knew more, I’d tell you, but I don’t, so I’ll get right to the story this time. And what a great first chapter this story has! It’s one that’s designed to grab the reader right in from the start, or maybe I’m just a sucker for stories taking place on trains, beginning with a frightened girl who enters Fenton’s compartment just as the train is leaving the station. She hurriedly tells him that she’s going to bale out before the next stop and furthermore requests that if he’s ever asked, he should say that never saw her.

   From page 4:

       “Forget you’ve ever seen me.”

       “I’m not the type to quit, I assure you.”

       “Then you’re asking for trouble, sure enough. Well, are you going to play up?”

   She jumps, and so (without much hesitation) does he. And of course he has no idea where they are or into what kind of trouble he’s leapt into.

   Chapter Two can hardly compete with this, but it nearly does. Dropped off by the mysterious girl at Professor Barton’s home (where he had been heading) after a short hike and a longish drive in the dark, Fenton (a research scientist) is surprised to find himself in the morning a prisoner, with another young girl holding the key to his cell-like room.

   Chapter Three. We have nearly forgotten about Sexton Blake by this time, speaking collectively for myself alone, but the author hadn’t. Another young lady calls on Blake to solve a problem for her – her bungalow is being tampered with. Someone has been entering and prowling about while she is away. By an invisible man, she claims. No one has seen anyone enter or leave.

   It seems like a minor problem, but Blake takes the case, thinking her recitation too theatrical and wondering what could be behind such a fanciful tale. And of course, there is a surprise in store, and not only to Sexton Blake. On page 22 they discover a body in her locked and sealed home, riddled with lead – the body, that is.

   If some care had been taken, this could have been quite a mystery to unravel, but Blake makes it look easy. With only a cursory examination, Blake suggests a solution – and a rather ingenious one – to Inspector Briggan after he shows up, and of course Blake’s right and I have no idea how he did it. But it certainly is ingenious.

   In any case, no more details from me. You will have a find a copy of this book for yourself, if you’d like to know more. Suffice it to say that the opening three chapters are the best, but Chester certainly makes a more than competent story out of the rest of it.

   Some additional comments, though: Chapter Six is a long, ten-page conversation between two of the characters (already alluded to) which manages to both be informative and entertaining and moves the plot along while at the same time not being a mere recitation of topics and events that each of the two participants already know. It’s a neat trick, if you (as an author) can do it. Try it sometime and see.

   The weakest links in the chain of the narrative are (I sadly acknowledge) Sexton Blake’s own deductions, which consist almost entirely of whole cloth and gauze and mirrors, which is (I also admit) one heck of a way to run a railroad, um, detective novel. The gaps could have been fixed, but it is entirely to Mr. Chester’s credit that the story is still is as enjoyable as it is, even if they weren’t, and they never will be.

HERBERT ADAMS – Death of a Viewer.

Macdonald, UK, hc, 1958.

   Since it was published in the 1950s, Death of a Viewer hangs its toes over the precipice marking the end of the Golden Age period, but what the hay, the Roger Bennion series began in the 1930s so let’s agree this entry is grandfathered into my general area of discussion.

   Captain Oswald Henshaw tells his lovely young wife Sandra their financial resources are gone — but suggests if he sees her in comprising circumstances with Ewen Jones, Member of Parliament for an East London constituency, there could well be financial benefits. Ewen’s father is Lord Bethesda and his stepmother is worth half a million. Naturally they’d want to keep scandal — such as Hensaw bringing an action for alienation of affection against Ewen — from breathing nastily on the family name.

   Major Bennion becomes involved because Ewen lives in one of the houses built by Bennion Senior near the London docks. These homes are intended for disabled servicemen, old age pensioners, and the like and Bennion Senior wishes the better-off MP, who became a tenant due to a loophole, to move out so Lord Bethesda’s elderly gardener can retire and live there.

   Ewen refuses but asks Bennion to visit the family home of Welton Priory “in that charming part of the country where Sussex joins Hampshire.” Several Labour MPs are meeting there that weekend to secretly discuss plans to make the party more Socialist. Bennion’s presence will suggest the gathering is the usual sort of house party — and while he’s there perhaps he’ll persuade Ewen’s father to buy him, Ewen, a house or give him an allowance! The Henshaws will also be attending as Ewen’s guests, and thus the wheels of the plot begin to turn.

   Before too long there are interesting conversations overheard, furtive visits to bedrooms, and fiery political rhetoric that does not go down too well with the MPs. The viewer’s death occurs in a room full of people during a TV play about the Battle of Britain, and with very little to initially go on except a scrap of paper and a house full of suspects Bennion and Scotland Yard’s Superintendent Yeo and Inspector Allenby cooperate to solve the crime.

   My verdict: Ewen gets on his soapbox and in doing so reminds readers of the unrest in the air in the 1950s, including calls for the abolition of hereditary titles, Church and union reform, disgust at the possibilities of easier divorce, and legalisation of what is quaintly described as the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah. These references will make the legendary Cheltenham colonels who so often write to the editor of The Times weep with joy, but alas they tend to swamp parts of the earlier part of the novel and do not add very much to the plot.

   However, once we get to the actual detecting the story runs along nicely. More than one house guest has what they might see as good reason to act against the deceased, so most of them are suspected at one time or another and the solution roars up after an unexpected twist which certainly caught me by surprise. I reget to say however that on the whole this novel is not one of the best I have read.

Etext: http://gutenberg.net.au

THE ROGER BENNION NOVELS. Taken from Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin. Quite surprisingly, although a few were reprinted in paperback in Canada, none of these were ever published in the US. As you will see, there is some overlap with Adams’ golfing mysteries, as indicated.

# Death Off the Fairway (n.) Collins 1936    (Golf)
# The Old Jew Mystery (n.) Collins 1936
# A Single Hair (n.) Collins 1937
# Black Death (n.) Collins 1938
# The Bluff! (n.) Collins 1938
# The Damned Spot (n.) Collins 1938
# The Nineteenth Hole Mystery (n.) Collins 1939    (Golf)

# The Case of the Stolen Bridegroom (n.) Collins 1940
# The Chief Witness (n.) Collins 1940
# Roger Bennion’s Double (n.) Collins 1941
# Stab in the Back (n.) Collins 1941
# The Araway Oath (n.) Collins 1942

# Signal for Invasion (n.) Collins 1942
# Victory Song (n.) Collins 1943
# Four Winds (n.) Collins 1944
# The Writing on the Wall (n.) Collins 1945

# Welcome Home! (n.) Macdonald 1946
# Diamonds Are Trumps (n.) Macdonald 1947
# Crime Wave at Little Cornford (n.) Macdonald 1948
# One to Play (n.) Macdonald 1949    (Golf)
# The Dean’s Daughters (n.) Macdonald 1950
# The Sleeping Draught (n.) Macdonald 1951
# Exit the Skeleton (n.) Macdonald 1952
# The Spectre in Brown (n.) Macdonald 1953
# Slippery Dick (n.) Macdonald 1954
# The Judas Kiss (n.) Macdonald 1955
# Death on the First Tee (n.) Macdonald 1957    (Golf)
# Death of a Viewer (n.) Macdonald 1958

JOHN CREASEY – Double for the Toff.

Popular Library, paperback reprint; no date stated, but circa 1972. Hardcover editions: Hodder & Stoughton (UK), 1959. Walker (US), 1965. UK paperback editions: Hodder/Coronet, 1963,1973; Sphere, 1967. Earlier US paperback edition: Pyramid R-1221, Aug 1965.

   I’ll make no attempt here to do a general bibliographic discussion of John Creasey and the multitude of mysteries he produced. While that will have to wait for another time, this is certainly the place. As for the Toff, in real life Richard Rollison, I don’t believe it was ever a matter of a secret identity, only an honorific nomenclature.

   England seems to have had a long history of gentleman adventurers that did not seem to ever have been as popular in the United States as they were over there. The Toff, like Simon Templar, aka the Saint, before him (adventures recorded by Leslie Charteris), was merely another in a lengthy line of swashbucklers, figuratively speaking.

   And again, someone else may be better to write the history of such British adventurers, although again, this is certainly the place. In fact what I know about the Toff is minimal, but of course I will tell you what I know anyway.

   Let’s begin with a list of the books. These are in more or less the order in which they appeared in England. A hyphen (-) indicates the lack of an US edition. A star (*) means that there was one. A double star (**) indicates that the first US edition was a paperback. Alternate US titles are also included, if first appearances. (Thanks to Al Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV for most of this information.)

Introducing the Toff. 1938. (-)
The Toff Goes On. 1939. (-)
The Toff Steps Out. 1939. (-)
Here Comes the Toff. 1940. (*) 1967.
The Toff Breaks In. 1940. (-)
Salute the Toff. 1941. (*) 1971.
The Toff Proceeds. 1941. (*) 1968.
The Toff Goes to Market. 1942. (*) 1967.
The Toff Is Back. 1942. (*) 1974.
The Toff on the Trail. 1942. (-)
Accuse the Toff. 1943. (*) 1975.
The Toff Among the Millions. 1943. (*) 1976.
The Toff and the Curate. 1944. (*) 1969.
The Toff and the Great Illusion. 1944. (*) 1967.
Feathers for the Toff. 1945. (*) 1970.
The Toff and the Lady. 1946. (*) 1975.
Hammer the Toff. 1947. (-)
The Toff on Ice. 1947. (** – Poison for the Toff) 1965.
The Toff and Old Harry. 1948. (*) 1970.
The Toff in Town. 1948. (*) 1977.
The Toff Takes Shares. 1948. (*) 1972.

The Toff on Board. 1949. (*) 1973.
Fool the Toff. 1950. (*) 1966.
Kill the Toff. 1950. (*) 1966.
A Knife for the Toff. 1951. (**) 1964.
The Toff Goes Gay. 1951. (* – A Mask for the Toff) 1966.
Hunt the Toff. 1952. (*) 1969.
Call the Toff. 1953. (*) 1969.
Murder Out of the Past. 1953. (-)
The Toff Down Under. 1953. (*) 1969.
The Toff at Butlin’s. 1954. (*) 1976.
The Toff at the Fair. 1954. (*) 1968.
A Six for the Toff. 1955. (*) 1969.
The Toff and the Deep Blue Sea. 1955. (*) 1967.
Make-Up for the Toff. 1956. (*) 1967.
The Toff in New York. 1956. (**) 1964.
Model for the Toff. 1957. (**) 1965.
The Toff on Fire. 1957. (*) 1966.
The Toff and the Stolen Tresses. 1958. (*) 1965.
The Toff on the Farm. 1958. (*) 1964.
A Doll for the Toff. 1959. (*) 1965.
Double for the Toff. 1959. (*) 1965.
The Toff and the Runaway Bride. 1959. (*) 1964.
A Rocket for the Toff. 1960. (**) 1964.
The Toff and the Kidnapped Child. 1960. (*) 1965.
Follow the Toff. 1961. (*) 1967.

The Toff and the Teds. 1961. (* – The Toff and theToughs) 1968.
Leave It to the Toff. 1963. (**) 1964.
The Toff and the Spider. 1965. (*) 1966.
The Toff in Wax. 1966. (*) 1966.
A Bundle for the Toff. 1967. (*) 1968.
Stars for the Toff. 1968. (*) 1968.
The Toff and the Golden Boy. 1969. (*) 1969.
The Toff and the Fallen Angels. 1970. (*) 1970.
Vote for the Toff. 1971. (*) 1971.
The Toff and the Trip-Trip-Triplets. 1972. (*) 1972.
The Toff and the Terrified Taxman. 1973. (*) 1973.
The Toff and the Sleepy Cowboy. 1974. (*) 1975.
The Toff and the Crooked Copper. 1977. (-)

   There was even a three-act play in which the Toff was a leading character: “The Toff.” UK, 1963.

   Creasey died in 1973, so the final three books had been written and were still awaiting publication when he passed away. The Toff was popular enough in England that when his publisher (Hodder & Stoughton) ran out of Toff books to sell, they hired William Vivian Butler to write a very last one: The Toff and the Dead Man’s Finger (1978; no US publication).

   Besides three books of his own, Butler also wrote the final five Commander George Gideon novels, Gideon being Creasey’s Scotland Yard detective whose adventures he wrote as J. J. Marric.

   In creating this list of Toff books, there are several things I discovered that I hadn’t known before. First, I didn’t realize how many of the books were published in the US. If that were the question, the answer would be “almost all of them.” I also didn’t realize that the Toff was introduced to American readers in paperback form when Pyramid published a number of them in 1964-65, even though I purchased my copies when they did. They must have done quite well, since Walker soon took over and all of the rest of them came out in hardcover first. (Paperback editions of the Toff stories that appeared from Lancer and Popular Library were all reprints, although occasionally they altered the titles to suit editorial or marketing whims. These are not noted in the list above.)

   I also suspect (but so far I have not investigated) that the early Toff books were revised and/or updated when published in this country. I understand that it was a common habit for Creasey to revise his books for whatever his current market might be, and I do not expect the Toff books to have been an exception to this general rule.

   A little Googlizing on the Internet reveals that the Toff first appeared in the two-penny weekly The Thriller in 1933, so the gent with a bent for crime was really around for quite a long while. (As a useful frame of reference, the Saint first appeared in the novel Meet — The Tiger! in 1928, while several of his earliest short story cases were told in The Thriller in the years from 1929 to 1931. Simon Templar, once again, was there first, in other words.)

   The issue shown is #422, March 6, 1937, and includes the Toff story “The Man Who Knew.”

   On the same website as above, but on another page, is a description of the Toff’s first book-length adventure, Introducing the Toff:

   This seems to have come from the back cover of a recent British paperback edition, which perhaps explains the confusion over the date, but other than that, this blurb typifies exactly what I would have imagined the Toff’s early adventures to have been like.

   Returning to the book at hand, however, one can certainly read it without knowing all of the baggage that earlier stories might have brought along. One does get the sense that many of the secondary cast has been around for a while, but just as Della Street and Paul Drake were with Perry from the beginning, you can pick one of Erle Stanley Gardner’s books from the last 1960s as the first one in the series you read and not miss a beat.

   Creasey does not do a lot in terms of describing Richard Rollison. I made a few notes as I went along: he’s very handsome, a head taller than average, and in admirable physical condition. That’s about it. He’s on good terms with Scotland Yard, with Superintendent Bill Grice, apparently an old friend and only a semi-antagonist, willing to give the Toff a free hand whenever he sees a reason for it.

   The title comes from the fact that the Toff is handed two separate cases almost at one time, and after mulling over the possibilities, he decides he can handle both of them. Are they two separate cases? The reader knows better, but only the better reader will figure out how they are related before the Toff does.

   Which is due to two factors, the first being that even though this is a pretty good detective story, Creasey is determined to tell it as if it were a thriller, with lots of action and close calls for the Toff and his friends before it is over, and doing his best to keep the reader’s eyes away from the clues. The second factor is that the time table of events is wrong, or at least, let’s put it this way. The Toff’s reactions and apparent enlightenment on page 174 do not seem to match up with his deductions. In particular, please take note of his explanation to Grice on page 187 why he did something on page 168, well before he learned what he did that put the connections together on page, yes, 174.

   Inconsistencies are something you may have to learn to put up with when you read Creasey. On page 14 it is impossible to read the registration number on a motor-cycle, but on page 51 the Toff somehow knows that the motor-cycle had false number-plates. On pages 120-121 two men (bad guys) who have been gassed suddenly turn into three.

   Things like these used to drive me nutty when I was younger. I try not to let them any more. The book could have (and should have) been better. But taken as a given that you have to put your mind into a lower gear when you read his tales, Creasey was certainly a grand storyteller, with (as it turns out) a kind and sentimental streak in his books (or in this one, at least) a yard wide.