STEVE MARTINI – Undue Influence. Paul Madriani #3. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, hardcover, 1994. Jove, paperback, 1995. TV Movie: CBS, 1996, with Brian Dennehy as Paul Madriani.

   Martini is one of the biggies now, if not quite as hot as Grisham and Turow, at least in the same league. He’s a lawyer himself, and has been a defense attorney in both civil and criminal cases. Though this billed as a psychological thriller, it’s not that — it’s a courtroom/Big Lawyer book, which I like/don’t like.

   Paul Madriani promised his dead wife that he would watch out for her younger sister, and he’s going to get a chance very soon. He’s watching her fight a particularly nasty child custody battle with her politician ex-husband when a bad situation gets worse. Her ex’s new wife is found murdered, and she and Paul’s sister-in-law have had bitter and public battles.

   Then hard evidence is found linking her with the killing, and she is charged. Paul has no choice but to represent her, though she is uncooperative, and the case against her strong. Things are, of course, not what they seem, but what are they really? Better, or worse?

   There are two or three action scenes in this 450-pager that allow a semi-accurate use of the word “thriller,” I guess, but basically it’s a courtroom novel and a good one. Martini knows how to maintain suspense and interest, and if most of the characterizations tend toward the surface and/or one-dimensional, they’re still more than adequate to the story.

   It’s written to be a best-seller, but of its kind and with all that implies, it’s a decent book. It almost got a full two [stars] but a final plot twist and burst of violence that I thought unnecessary brought it down. He should have left well enough alone, dammit.

Bibliographic Note:   Through 2017 there are now 15 novels and one novella in the Paul Madriani series.

You just never know what you will come across on YouTube. This video features my all time favorite band with my all time favorite female singer:

JUNE NIGHT. Svensk Filmindustri, Sweden, 1940. Original title: Juninatten. Ingrid Bergman, Marianne Löfgren, Lill-Tollie Zellman, Marianne Aminoff, Olof Widgren, Gunnar Sjöberg. Director: Per Lindberg.

   In director Per Lindberg’s June Night, Ingrid Bergman delivers a stellar performance as a rebellious small town Swedish girl trying to break free from her society’s puritanical mores as well as its prurient curiosity into other people’s private lives. Although the movie begins as a crime drama, it soon reveals itself to be more of a drama and trenchant societal critique in the manner of Warner Brothers pre-code films from the early 1930s. Issues of class, social conformity in Swedish society, women working in male dominated professions, and rapidly shifting changes in romantic expectations all take center stage.

   Bergman portrays Kerstin Norbäc, a small town girl of upper middle class origins who has engaged in an illicit affair with a working class sailor. Eventually tired of him and fully cognizant that they have no future together, she laughs at him. In a fury, he shoots her, wounding her severely and forcing her into emergency surgery. But things get even worse, for when she is forced to testify against her assailant, the national press begins a salacious campaign against her. And the local townsfolk aren’t particularly sympathetic to her plight either.

   Stockholm, the big city, offers an escape for her to begin a new life and to take on a wholly new identity. Changing her name to Sara NordanÃ¥, however, doesn’t end all of her problems. She’s faced with new challenges, including those facing young women living on their own and working professional jobs in a big city. As would be expected, her former assailant eventually gets out of jail and comes to Stockholm to confront her and to win her back. And the Swedish press in the form of an intrepid dissolute reporter, an object of scorn in the film, continues to hound her despite her desire to be left alone.

   Although skillfully directed, June Night is nevertheless somewhat stilted in its presentation and plot. There’s a lack of urgency in the film, a lack of passion. The movie very much wants to say something about the role of women in Swedish society, but at the expense of fully fleshing out Bergman’s character. She’s mysterious and individualistic, but we know this more on an intellectual level than on an emotional one.

ISLAND OF LOST SOULS. Paramount Pictures, 1932. Charles Laughton (Dr. Moreau), Richard Arlen, Leila Hyams, Bela Lugosi, Kathleen Burke, Arthur Hohl, Stanley Fields. Screenplay by Waldemar Young & Philip Wylie, based on the novel The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells. Director: Erle C. Kenton.

   Gawd, what a great film! Stunning sets, great acting, and a really well-constructed script. The part where Richard Arlen first lands on the Island and Charles Laughton keeps cracking his whip at half-seen things evokes shivers in even the most sophisticated horror-film addicts precisely because it plays on sophistication: the suspicion that someday this obese gargoyle will be without his whip, and the question of what will happen then.

   When the answer to that question comes, it lives right up to every expectation. On reflection, and considering that Erle C. Kenton, who directed this, also helmed House of Frankenstein / Dracula and Salome, Where She Danced, maybe it’s time to re-evaluate him as a potential auteur.

JOHN WALTER PUTRE – A Small and Incidental Murder. Scribner’s, hardcover, 1990. No paperback edition.

   The front cover proclaims this to be “A Mystery Introducing Doll,” but when it’s over, you realize that you still don’t know all that much about Doll. His first name, for example. What it is that he does for a living. He’s a part-time diver, and he’s helped on a murder case before. But that’s it.

   He’s a detective only in the sense of catalyst. Scene: a small island in Chesapeake Bay. A man fighting the encroachment of real estate developers has died in a boat “accident,” and Doll’s real job is to break down the island’s hostility toward outsiders.

   And once he has, the case is solved, a bittersweet victory. Putre is a good writer, so good that his writing sometimes gets in the way. As a result, the story’s a but uneven; not rocky, not entirely smooth. It’s the characters who carry the story.

   Which is a good one. I enjoyed it. If I had any say in the Edgars or any other such awards, this would have my vote for the best mystery of the year, and it’s only March. I can’t imagine a story better than this. Terrific!

[UPDATE] May 6, 2018.   Well, the story didn’t win an Edgar. It probably didn’t get a single vote. Does it deserve the praise I gave it back then? I have no idea. I vaguely remember the character; the story I don’t remember at all.

   There was a second and final book in the series, Death Among the Angels (1991). Al Hubin read and reviewed it (follow the link) but did not find much to say in the way of a recommendation. In fact, quite the opposite.

   As the fate of next season’s pilots are currently being decided, lets take a look at four more failed pilots of the past: PISTOL PETE, ZERO EFFECT, MR. & MRS. SMITH, and ROADBLOCK.

PISTOL PETE. Fox / Castle Rock, 1996, never aired. Writed and Executive Producer: John Swartzwelder. Directed by John Rich. Cast: Steve Kearney as Pistol Pete, Brian Doyle-Murray as the Mayor, Mark Derwin as Deputy Langley.

   The Old West town Abilene is tired of the bad guys killing their sheriffs so the Mayor writes back East and offers the job to Dime Novel hero Pistol Pete. Pistol Pete may be a true crackshot and a fast draw with the gun, but he also is no real Western hero. He is working as the star of a second-rate Wild West Show in New York. Blaming a faulty memory for not remembering his adventures, Pete believes the books stories about him are true. Pete accepts the job as the latest Sheriff in Abilene. The citizens of his new home share Pistol Pete’s belief that his adventures are all true, only the Mayor and Deputy know Pete is a clueless fraud.

   The pilot is funny if you enjoy absurdist comedy. It has never aired and was desperately sought out by comedy writers and fans until the Internet and YouTube rode to the rescue. The reason for PISTOL PETE’s status as cult comedy classic is the creator and executive producer John Swartzwelder.

   Swartzwelder is considered by many comedy writers and fans to be a comedic genius. Among his strongest fans are the writers and producers of THE SIMPSONS. Swartzwelder began writing for THE SIMPSONS in the first season (1990) and would continue until the fifteenth (2003). He would write more SIMPSONS episodes than any other writer (59 plus returning in 2007 to help write the SIMPSON MOVIE). Adding to his legendary status, Swartzwelder is an eccentric who shuns all publicity giving his fellow writers plenty of material to share with the rest of us.

   Here is a great article about the pilot and Swartzwelder. (Antenna Free TV, June 27, 2013, written by Will Harris).

   One of the reported stranger demands by Swartzwelder for the 1996 pilot (for the fall 96-97 season) was that the film crew be from the TV series GUNSMOKE (CBS, 1955-75). There was a serious attempt to honor that request. The director John Rich is remembered today as one of the greatest TV comedy directors of the 60s-70s era (DICK VAN DYKE and ALL IN THE FAMILY), but he also directed several episodes of GUNSMOKE and BONANZA. Producer Kent McCray worked on BONANZA.

   Swartzwelder wanted the feel of old TV and movie Westerns. The plan was for him and his writing friends from THE SIMPSONS to parody Westerns each week.

   Currently Swartzwelder is writing a series of absurdist comedy PI novels and short stories featuring time traveling PI Frank Burly. The self-published books began in 2004 with THE TIME MACHINE DID IT. The tenth in the series and most recent is BURLY GO HOME (2017).

ZERO EFFECT. NBC / Castle Rock / Warner Brothers, 2002, never aired. Writers and Executive Producers: Jake Kasdan and Walon Green. Directed by Jake Kasdan. Cast: Alan Cumming as Daryl Zero, David Julian Hirsh as Jeff Winslow

   The 1998 film is a cult favorite, but I preferred the TV pilot. The movie’s writer and director Jake Kasdan (FREAKS AND GEEKS) also directed and co-wrote the TV pilot. Walon Green (WILD BUNCH) helped Kasdan write and produce the TV pilot.

   The two versions are much alike in style and tone. Both make good use of Daryl Zero writing his memoirs to narrate the action. Zero calls the case in the pilot “The Case of the Billionaire Pervert With a Parking Problem.”

   My central problem with the film was the pace was too slow and at almost two hours the film was too long leaving me often bored. The pilot, seen in this YouTube thirty-eight minute version, forced Kasdan to speed things up.

   A good example is the opening scene where the genius and character of the unseen Daryl Zero is introduced. Both versions reveal exposition by telling the story of one of Zero’s most awe-inspiring cases. The movie had Zero’s assistant and anti-Watson Steve Alto (Ben Stiller) tell the story to a possible client. The scene was long, static and boring. The TV version had people of various types and locations tell excited crowds about the now World famous as well as Greatest Detective Daryl Zero. The camera rarely stopped as the story jumped from one storyteller to the next. This gave the TV version a faster pace from almost the beginning.

   Both versions focused less on the mystery of the crime and more on the mysteries of the characters. In the TV pilot the case revolves around a billionaire’s missing mistress, but the key to the mystery is not where she is but who she and the other characters are.

   Zero is basically the same in the film and TV pilot. Meant as a satire of Sherlock Holmes, Daryl Zero is a brilliant, self-centered, social inept, recluse with a fondness for disguises and music.

   Bill Pullman’s performance in the film as Zero is generally praised, but I prefer Alan Cumming’s Zero. The many faces and behavior of Zero as done by Pullman was too random. He failed to connect it all to Zero. Cumming was hyper sometimes on the edge of hysteria behavior showed Zero inability to deal with people personally. The music producer character Zero plays as he searches for the missing mistress illustrates his understanding of people but the method and over the top producer character is more an extension of Zero than a music producer.

   Zero realizing he needs an assistant, a “face man,” some one to deal with people (there is no Steve Alto in the pilot). He finds a candidate in Chicago. Jeff Winslow is an unhappy defense attorney with a strong sense of justice.

   Jeff’s girlfriend dumps him on the phone while he is in the middle of a frustrating argument with his boss. Jeff gets a phone call from a mysterious voice (Zero) convincing him to quit and go to Los Angeles for a new job.

   Jeff arrives in Los Angeles without even knowing who is hiring him. Zero then puts him through a bizarre series of job interview tests such as the lost luggage test where Zero steals Jeff’s luggage to see how Jeff would respond.

   Jeff is an idealist, with a conscience and a belief in justice. Zero is none of these and tries to teach Jeff the Zero Method, the “obs” – objectivity and observation. Zero solves the case, but it is Jeff that makes sure justice is served.

MR. AND MRS SMITH. ABC / Regency Television Dutch Oven Production, 2007, never aired. Creator and Executive Producer: Simon Kinberg. Executive Producer: David Bartis. Directer and Executive Producer: Doug Liman. Cast: Jordana Brewster as Mrs. Jane Smith, Martin Henderson as Mr. John Smith, Bridgette Wilson-Sampras as Ann, and Rebecca Mader as Jordan * There were no credits on film. The above credits are from thefutoncritic.com http://www.thefutoncritic.com/devwatch/mr-and-mrs-smith/.

   This TV pilot was based on the movie MR. & MRS. SMITH (2005) that starred Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as a married couple who work as assassins for different spy agencies. Both the film director (Doug Liman) and writer (Simon Kinberg) returned to do this TV pilot.

   Jane and John are married and living in the suburbs of Washington D.C. while they continue their careers as spies/ assassins. Both characters are one dimensional modern day clichés. She is smart, sexy, able to handle herself in a fight, and successful career woman – you know, perfect. He is an idiot, self-centered, uses excessive force and has been fired, you know, clueless.

   Now that he is unemployed John wants Jane to join him as partners in their own spy/killer agency. She is highly respected and employed at the all-woman spy agency Executive Cleaners and resists the idea of a Mr. & Mrs. Smith Spy agency.

   He is worried about their marriage and wants to have a date night. She agrees to the date night to humor him but then has to cancel twice due to work. Her assignment is to stop a terrorist who has a nuclear device. After listening to too much Dr. Phil and the neighborhood ladies gossip, John begins to suspect Jane is cheating on him. This bad sitcom plot causes problems with Jane’s plan to save the world.

   The idea of exploring the challenges of marriage through a marriage of two spies is not bad if it was not done so heavy-handedly. Women are brilliant and men are idiots belong in another type of comedy, not one about marriage that needs both characters to be admirable and both to have flaws.

   The script has its moments and some nice dialog but little action. The direction offers no help to make this pilot exciting or visually interesting. The cast was nice to look at but failed to bring their characters to life.

   The pilot hinted at a future where Mr. and Mrs. Smith are partners as spies and in marriage as they try to keep their secrets and live the normal life among their suburban neighbors. While that sounds like a bad sitcom, it would be better than to suffer through these cardboard characters with trust issues every week.

ROADBLOCK. March 29, 1958. An episode of STUDIO 57 (Dumont 1954-55; syndicate, 1955-58.

   Syndicated pilot for proposed series MOTORCYCLE COP. Teleplay by Frederic Brady. Story by John D. MacDonald. Directed by Earl Bellamy. Cast: Mike Connors as Patrolman Jeff Saunders, John McIntire as Sheriff Sternweister, and Wallace Ford as Sheriff Thomas

   Mike Connors played a special enforcement agent for the California Highway Patrol who was sent on a variety of assignments. This story finds him helping out local sheriffs investigating a deadly bank robbery where one of the robbers’ cars turns out to be the cop’s best witness.

   Based on a short story by John D. MacDonald (“The Homesick Buick” (ELLERY QUEEN MYSTERY magazine, September 1950) ROADBLOCK was turned into just another typical TV crime drama of the 50s. Everything is in black and white, including the characters. The story is slow moving with no surprises. The cast walked through their roles in the simple slow-moving story unburdened by too many twists or much action until a dull car chase at the end.

   IMDb claims the episode (titled “Getaway Car”) originally aired as episode 19 during the fourth season of STUDIO 57 (aka HEINZ STUDIO 57) on March 29, 1958. According to Vincent Terrace “Encyclopedia of Television Pilots” (McFarland), it was meant to be a pilot for a proposed syndicated TV series to be called MOTORCYCLE COP.

   STUDIO 57 was a low budget anthology series that aired on the DuMont network from 1954 through 1955 when the series turned to syndication and lasted until 1958.

   Why pilots sell or fail has always been a mystery. Jake Kasdan (ZERO EFFECT) even did a movie called THE TV SET (2006) about the process.

This is the title track of this Oregon-based singer-songwriter’s 13th CD, Swim (2014). The only one of hers I own is her second one, It’s A Miracle, from 1989.

G. H. TEED – The Mystery of the Film City. Sexton Blake Library #644, (New Series), UK, paperback, 1927. Available online here.

   One of the unique qualities of the British pulps was the scarcity of House Names. There were few Maxwell Grants, Kenneth Robesons, or Brant Houses, to be found. Most work was published under the real names of the writers involved, and even within long running series like the Sexton Blake series, writers had their own unique creations who appeared only in their stories.

   It was quite a cast too, E. S. Brooks’ (aka Berkeley Grey) Waldo the Wonderman (who so out performed Blake he threatened to drive him from his own series), John G. Brandon’s S. M. Pursivale, and a long line of heroes and villains like Secret Service man Granite Grant, Dr. Huxton Rymer, Gunga Dass, Dr. Ferrano, and Zenith the Albino.

   Here we have one of the more popular examples of the form in G. H. Teed’s former Yard man turned super-criminal George Marsden Plummer (lately Sacreel-Drooge, the Lion of the Mountains, chief henchman of Abdel Krim the Lion of the Riffs) and his personal Irma Peterson. Madame Vali Mata-Vali the French actress known as the Bird of Paradise. If you simply imagine George Sanders or Basil Rathbone teamed with Maria Montez you won’t be far off.

   Having recently been bested by Sexton Blake in Morocco and France Plummer is down on his luck and on the run as the book opens, though being Plummer that dire condition is accomplished on Madame Vali’s luxury yacht. the Thetis, while sipping champagne and indulging in his other carnal appetites. Still, he and Madame Vali need a big job, and England and Europe being too hot for them. an offer from a Hollywood producer to the seductive French actress offers a new venue.

   It seems that in not to distant times one Peter J. Constant (“Constant in name, constant by nature…”) proposed to Madame Vali, and being one of the richest men in Hollywood there must be a way the two can cash in. So with Plummer posing as Madame Vali’s manager Senor Machado the two sail West to invade the land of pools, palm trees, and movie stars.

   Things aren’t going to be simple though. Constant is currently on his fourth marriage to one Sonia Vensky, late of Warsaw, now a movie star at the very same studio where Madame Vali has had an offer, and Mrs. Constant is having an affair with her murderously jealous leading man, Paolo Posini. Throw into the mix Constant’s Japanese servant Soto, who Plummer recognizes as a thief and murderer, and the set-up is nearly complete.

   The portly Mr. Constant soon finds himself in deep waters when he renews his acquaintance with Madame Vali. He is willing to do anything for her, including divorcing the current Mrs. Constant. But before he can do that he has to liquidate his assets into bearer bonds he and Madame Vali can take with them to Mexico.

   Sonia and Paolo aren’t having any of that, and with Soto her paid spy in the household she is onto her husband. What she can’t know is that the blackmailed Soto, is now Plummer’s man. With a fortune in bearer bonds at stake Constant wakes up from a drunk at his beach house to find Paolo shot through the head, the gun lying beside him, and the bonds missing.

   Did he kill Paolo in a drunken stupor, or was he the intended victim of a crime gone wrong? The only certainty is the police are hot on his heels for murder. Before turning himself in though, Constant wisely shows up at the luxury suite where Sexton Blake, finishing a case for British clients, is relaxing before leaving Los Angeles for San Francisco. One mention of Madame Vali and Senor Machado and Blake and his young assistant Tinker are on the case.

   This is more pulp than classical detection, and there is a good deal of pleasant melodrama at hand, but there is a good recreation of the crime by Blake, some high handed business worthy of Sherlock Holmes or Philo Vance, a bit of rough stuff, and a fairly exciting chase through the mountains before Madame Vali and Plummer escape to strike another day, and Blake solves the mystery, saves his client, explains it all to friendly L.A. cop Morrison and a jury, and he and Tinker depart with a large fee in hand from a grateful and much wiser Peter J. Constant.

   That’s quite a bit of plot for ninety or so double columned pages. Admittedly we are told far to much, shown too little, and it all goes a bit arch at times. There are one or two uncomfortable moments reflecting attitudes of the times (and mild at that), and the American’s are caricatures, but all things considered it has more than a little charm, as do Blake and especially Madame Vali Mata-Vali and George Marsden Plummer, who you will likely find yourself pulling for despite yourself.

   It’s all done with such aplomb and audacity that it’s hard to fault it as the disposable entertainment it was meant as.

   Three months ago, while writing the column in which I said farewell to my old friend Don Yates, I hinted that one of these days I hoped to devote some attention to H.C. Branson, who lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan and befriended Don when he was growing up in that city. The time has come to realize that hope.

   Henry Clay Branson (1904-1981) was born in Battle Creek, Michigan. He read the Sherlock Holmes stories as a boy, was educated at Princeton and the University of Michigan, and spent a few years in Paris and elsewhere in Europe, reading Philo Vance novels and trying without success to become an expatriate literary figure, before he settled in Ann Arbor.

   According to Don’s entry on him in 20th CENTURY CRIME AND MYSTERY WRITERS (3rd ed. 1991), he “was one of the most familiar of card-holders at the Ann Arbor Public Library, where he withdrew and consumed hundreds of mystery stories.” Whether he was independently wealthy or had a day job I haven’t been able to determine. Once a highly regarded and fairly prominent detective novelist, he’s remembered today, if at all, for having also befriended a young academic born Kenneth Millar but best known as Ross Macdonald.

   According to Tom Nolan’s 1999 biography, Macdonald and Branson remained in touch and exchanged letters regularly until Branson’s death, two years before Macdonald’s own. Our concern here however is not with Macdonald, who’s been the subject of a number of books, but with Branson’s seven detective novels, published between 1941 and 1953 and featuring a bearded, sophisticated former physician and free-lance criminal investigator named John Bent.

   The character never made it to the movies but if he had, for my money the ideal actor to play him would have been Vincent Price—not as he looked in the Forties and early Fifties when the novels first came out but the more mature Price, before he descended into hamminess and schlock horror pictures.

   As we’ll see shortly, Anthony Boucher reviewed most of Branson’s whodunits, first for the San Francisco Chronicle and later for the New York Times, and always praised them to the skies. On whether they’re worth reading and reviving today, opinions differ. Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor in A CATALOGUE OF CRIME (2nd ed. 1989) have positive things to say about all seven. William Deeck concurs in his reviews of several Branson titles for Mystery*File. But Bill Pronzini in 1001 MIDNIGHTS (1986) is nowhere near so enthusiastic, saying: “Branson wrote literate, meticulously plotted (but flawed) novels in which the emphasis is on deep-seated conflicts that have their roots in the dark past.”

   Might the later Lew Archer novels of Ross Macdonald, whom Branson had befriended when both men lived in Ann Arbor, owe their emphasis on the same kinds of conflicts to Branson’s books of the Forties? Perhaps, says Pronzini, but he leaves no doubt about which of the two authors is superior. “There’s a good deal of passion among the characters [but] Bent is a virtual cipher….The writing, while well crafted, is so detached and emotionless that the reader tends to lose interest….Had Branson…been able to make Bent more human and sympathetic, had he injected some passion and vividness into his work, he might have become an important figure in the mystery field.”

   Branson had no desire to explore a different setting in every novel, but on the other hand he couldn’t allow his master criminologist to keep returning to the same part of Michigan in every case. That, said Don Yates, is why “[o]ne is never precisely sure where the action [in a particular novel] is taking place. In his mind, Branson sees all of his stories laid out in and around Battle Creek, Jackson, and Kalamazoo, Michigan.” Sometimes however, as we’ll see, he unintentionally indicates a setting that can’t possibly be the area around Ann Arbor.

   The Branson septet contains certain family resemblances which some might call gaffes and others quirks. The off-trail clues we might have expected from reading early Ellery Queen and writers like Anthony Boucher who were strongly influenced by Queen are conspicuous by their absence, replaced by lengthy speculations about possibilities. The word “perfectly” recurs almost as often as does “replied” in the novels of John Rhode/Miles Burton.

   A host of other characters, sometimes two in the same book, happen to share Bent’s first name. Bent and virtually every other character except the occasional child consume huge quantities of liquor and tobacco. They also smile incessantly, and shrug their shoulders. (That latter phrase always irritated Fred Dannay. “What else can they shrug?” he’d demand to know.) Any music played in the course of a Branson novel is invariably classical chamber music — Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, most of the household names — and there are some nice incidental scenes involving the 78 rpm sets on which such music was bought and played in people’s homes 70-odd years ago.

   The murderer almost invariably escapes facing a judge and jury, either because he (or she) commits suicide, dies accidentally, or is killed in turn. Each of these resemblances pops up several times as we make our way through the seven novels.

   The first pages of I’LL EAT YOU LAST (1941) find Bent driving around the shore of beautiful Lake Badenoch on his way to the area’s Toad Hall, the home of former Senator James Maitland, who is a toad of the first water, having amassed in his decades in the seats of power a fortune of between 50 and 55 million dollars. (In today’s money that would probably make him a billionaire.)

   Maitland has sent for the great investigator because several of his closest relatives — first his sister and her entire family, then his brother, most recently his much younger and promiscuous wife — have suffered apparently accidental deaths within a few months of each other. The old senator has come to be afraid that at least some of the deaths may be part of an elaborate scheme to channel his fortune in certain directions, and that he’s next on the death list.

   Events prove him a true prophet: on the evening of Bent’s arrival, Maitland is fatally shot by a slug from a .22 rifle fired through the window of his lordly library. Bent is a total outsider, but thanks to his reputation as a criminologist he immediately becomes unofficial head of the police team assigned to the murder; another family resemblance in Branson’s novels.

   Among the suspects are Maitland’s few surviving relatives — his intellectual nephew, his distant cousin and factotum, the daughter of a predeceased cousin — and various non-relatives like the odious college president and the members of a fanatical religious cult whose Vatican City is adjacent to the Maitland property. Bent spends most of his time drinking, smoking, and teasing out various possibilities without benefit of substantive clues. Unfortunately the labyrinthine plot he exposes at the climax is vitiated by a radical mistake of law which any interested reader who doesn’t mind my revealing who done it can learn about by clicking here.

   At the end of the first chapter of THE PRICKING THUMB (1942) we are told that the date is Monday, November 24. This is irrelevant to the plot but is still significant for two reasons. First, on the reasonable assumption that the year is 1941, we are less than two weeks away from Sunday, December 7, the day Pearl Harbor was attacked. You’ll find no hint of that earth-shaking event anywhere in the novel.

   Second, the Thursday following the 24th has to be Thanksgiving Day, although Branson treats it as a day just like any other, with nobody even having a turkey dinner. Late in the afternoon of the 24th Bent in his home city receives a visit from old friend Marina Holland, whose much older husband Gouvion has been suffering from some strange illness and has recently had a violent argument with his 20-year-old son by his first marriage.

   The next evening Bent drives from his never identified home base to the town of New Paget and discovers Gouvion shot to death in his study, apparently a suicide. Gouvion’s younger brother arrives at the Holland house and announces that he’s just come from the nearby home of Dr. Brian Calvert, the Holland family physician, with whom according to local gossip Marina was having an affair, and found two more dead bodies: that of Dr. Calvert and Marina herself.

   Apparently Gouvion had shot the other two, then returned to his house and taken his own life. Bent isn’t satisfied and, as is his wont, commandeers the local authorities and takes over the investigation. There are virtually no tangible clues, which is pretty much par for the course in Branson, but by the end of the week Bent has exposed a particularly brutal murderer and scheme. Anthony Boucher left the verb out of the key sentence in his review for the San Francisco Chronicle (20 December 1942) but left no doubt that he was pleased: “Quietly convincing detective and unusually interesting murderer in a solid and rewarding work rare in the American mystery.”

         (To Be Continued)