BRIAN FLYNN – The Mystery of the Peacock’s Eye. Anthony Bathurst #3, Hamilton, UK, hardcover, 1928. Macrae-Smith, US, hardcover, 1930. Dean Street Press, trade paperback, October 2019.

   Let me be clear from the beginning: you won’t have to worry about being caught short by Audacity and Adventure in this book, though if you plan to wade through it possessing your soul in patience is a good idea, indeed it may be your only hope.

   The Mystery of the Peacock’s Eye is the third adventure of amateur sleuth Anthony Lotherington Bathurst, whose literary career managed to encompass thirty two volumes of prose, much like that above, between 1927 and 1947 ending in a book Barzun and Taylor called “tripe”.

   Steve Barge, who writes a fine historical and appreciative introduction to this volume discussing Bathurst seems surprised that Brian Flynn, his creator, was never embraced by the Detection Club or the Crime Writers, but frankly only a paragraph or so in it is pretty clear why. Flynn deserves his own volume of Bill Pronzini’s alternative classics (Gun in Cheek, Son of Gun in Cheek).

   That said, his books are fair play mysteries, it’s just there isn’t much at stake in these games. As for Bathurst, having noted that his prospective client writes with a Germanic hand, Bathurst indulges in a very un-Holmesian bit of theorizing: “possibly a German professor who has mislaid his science notebook containing the recipe for diamond-making. That would account for the heavy demands to be made upon my powers of discretion!“. If Holmes indulged in such flights of fancy, Watson spared us them.

   Unlucky for us that has nothing to do with the plot at hand.

   Bathurst is a bit of a cipher. We are told he is attractive, know his parents are Irish, know he is a fine example of the concept of “Mens Sana” (perfection of mind and body, I take it rejected by Nero Wolfe and Gideon Fell), and pretty much sexless.

   Reading about this rather bland superman can make you mourn for the annoyances of Philo Vance or the touchy personality of Roger Sherringham. Flynn talks a better Holmes imitation than he delivers. At least Sapper’s Ronald Standish actually steals some of Holmes brilliant moments of reasoning (along with actual plots).

   Aside from such sterling example of prose as that passage above we have Flynn and Bathurst’s seeming inability to use simple words when there is an obscure one to be found in the dictionary. Here is Mr. Bathurst having breakfast in his rooms at the Hotel Florizel (points to anyone who catches the reference to Robert Louis Stevenson’s own sleuth).

   I grant I can imagine Peter Wimsey or Albert Campion blathering something to Bunter or Lugg along the lines of, “The matutinal coffee-pot is required this morning …” but for the life of me I can’t imagine Sayers or Allingham using the word as their own without satirical point, and this is only the beginning for our boy Anthony, who shows an equal attraction for his creator’s collections of great quotes, which are dropped like bombshells along the difficult path to a solution.

   Despite or because of the nod to Holmes, the book opens well, with a grand ball where the Mr. X from above meets an attractive young lady, Sheila Delaney. A year later Mr. Bathurst at his “matuinal coffee pot” receives a client, none other than the Crown Prince of Clorania (Flynn’s fails pretty utterly at the naming of names business of fictioneering, Clorania is among the worst Ruritanian mythical kingdom names one can imagine, but then Graustark was taken) who is being, like his Bohemian cousin in Conan Doyle, blackmailed over an “affaire” with a young woman who he met at the Hunt Ball at Westhampton a year earlier where Mr. X and Sheila Delaney were so entranced with each other.

   But Mr. Bathurst can’t even begin his investigation until Inspector Richard “Dandy Dick” Bannister (one of several Yard men Bathurst collaborates with over the years), one of “the Big Six at the Yard”, on holiday in Seabourne is called in about the murder of a young woman by prussic acid in a dentist’s chair, a Miss Daphne Carruthers, and Bathurst receives a desperate cable from his client to come to Seabourne as Miss Daphne Carruthers is the young woman the Prince had his “affaire” with.

   Not a headline you see every day.

   Further complicating things when Bathurst arrives is the fact Miss Daphne Carruthers is still alive, and the young dead woman unknown.

   Not that the average reader needs a lot to make a guess at who the young lady is. “we are in very deep waters, Sir Matthew! ____ _____ has been the victim of one of the most cunning and cold-blooded crimes of the century and it’s going to take me all my time to bring her assassin to justice.”

   Flynn is just off the mark, not quite up to par, neither good enough nor bad enough to really make the effort worthwhile (The “Daily Bugle” continued its bugling.). Flynn falls into the category of British mystery fiction of the Golden Age that was at its very best gold leaf, and at its worst cheap gold paint. In a career that ran to 1947, Flynn never got better, in fact he got worse, because Peacock is probably the best book he wrote.

   Granted Flynn has some talent for interesting mystery set ups, just no delivery, though this one does contain a clever bit of misdirection that is without question the reason it is the best regarded of Flynn’s books. He seems to have admired Christie and tried to plot in her class. The ambition is greater than the delivery, though once in a while he is diverting in the right mood.

   The detection proceeds divided between Banninster and Bathurst, but the former is no real improvement being almost as long winded as Bathurst as demonstrated by his description of his method.

   Huh, seems the proper response to that, though it does have something of a Monty Pythonesque logic to it.

   Bathurst himself happily reassures us about the case:

   I grant Sherlock Holmes was sometimes hard up for an intelligent conversation with poor old Watson, but he never seems to have talked to himself. I’d also point out nothing really happens rapidly in a Bathurst novel.

   In fairness there are some bright moments like this from Sir Matthew Fulgarney.

   More of that would have been welcome though they skate perilously close to self parody, and followed by a phrase too far: “He wheezed hilariously.”

   Several of the Bathurst novels are available at reasonable prices in ebook form, and for fans of the genre they are worth to toe dip to see how you feel about them. In the right mood you might find them more fun than I do, certainly if you approach without my past encounters and preconceptions of Flynn and Bathurst..

   All said and done, Bathurst out-waits the killer (The golden sunshine of July passed into the mellower maturity of August. August in its turn yielded place to the quieter beauty of September and russet-brown October reigned at due season in the latter’s stead.) who makes the mistake he was predicting and the law pounces, a minor improvement over a books worth of plodding (It did not take an overwhelming supply of intelligence to see that the trouble was coming from the Westhamptonshire neighbourhood), and Bathurst receives the praise for a job well done, which is more than can be said for Flynn.

   Approach with caution: Flynn has a typewriter and isn’t afraid to use it as a blunt instument.

FRANK M. ROBINSON “The Girls from Earth.” Novelette. First published in Galaxy SF, January 1952. Illustrations by Emsh (Ed Emshwiller). Reprinted in The Best Science-Fiction Stories: 1953 edited by Everett F. Bleiler & T. E. Dikty (Frederick Fell, hardcover, 1953); and Stories for Tomorrow: An Anthology of Modern Science Fiction edited by William Sloane (Funk & Wagnalls, hardcover, 1954). Radio: Adapted for X Minus One by George Lefferts: NBC, 16 January 1957. Cast: Mandel Kramer, Bob Hastings, John Gibson, Jim Stevens, Dick Hamilton, Phil Sterling. Announcer: Fred Collins. Director: Daniel Sutter.

   This is mostly a story about how mail order brides helped civilize the Old West, only transposed in time and space to mining settlements barely managing to survive on worlds far from Earth. The ratio of men to women in such places is at least 5 to 3. Strangely enough, the ratio of women to men back on Earth also 5 to 3, in reverse.

   There is a problem here waiting to be solved, and the solution is easy. Except for one thing. How, and who, is going to implement it? And how will the contingent of men waiting for their new brides accept them, and vice versa? The details you may read for yourself online here, and probably elsewhere as well. (Follow the link.)

   At this much later date, while the story can still be enjoyed for its more humorous overtones, any larger appeal may only be of historical interest. In 1952 science fiction was just beginning to move away from scientific puzzles to be solved, if not out and out space opera. In their place were coming stories based on situations and dilemmas as they were expected to rise in the future, but on a more personal level. As is the case here.

   In the radio adaptation, streamlined to just over 20 minutes, the implementation of the plan to solve the problem described above is carried out by a couple of con men, hoping to make their fortune by taking off with the money put down of the miners working on Mars before the women from Earth actually arrive. The end result is the same. It’s just gotten to in a slightly different way.

THE FACULTY. Miramax, 1998. Jordana Brewster, Clea DuVall, Laura Harris, Josh Hartnett, Shawn Hatosy, Salma Hayek, Famke Janssen, Piper Laurie, Chris McDonald, Bebe Neuwirth, Robert Patrick, Jon Stewart, Daniel von Bargen, Elijah Wood. Director: Robert Rodriguez.

   High school was not a lot of fun for me back when I had to go, and if this movie is anything like how life in high school was some 40 ears after that, I’m not sure I’d want my kids to go now, another 20 years later, what with ostracizing on social media, body-shaming and other cyber-bullying, all things students my age in the late 50s would probably would have been happy to do if only they’d had the opportunity.

   But as the title suggests, the problem that the students at Herrington High are having in this movie are with the faculty, who are beginning to act stranger and stranger: when the school nerd (Elijah Wood) and the editor-in-chief of the school newspaper and head cheerleader (Jordana Brewster) watching from a closet together see the football coach (Robert Patrick) and another faculty member (Piper Laurie) force a strange small creature into the ear of the school nurse (Salma Hayek) they know something is really seriously wrong.

   Can the entire faculty have been taken over by unhuman aliens? Delilah and Casey join up with a few other similar outcasts, each in their own way, to find out and to warn the police, to no avail. Shades of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers, referenced several times, along with The Breakfast Club, in other words.

   A strong and lengthy list of cast members, including Jon Stewart in a brief role as a biology teacher, and Bebe Neuwirth as the school principal, makes this one work. I have only begun to skim the surface of what I could discuss about this movie, some scenes of which will stay with me for a long time. One might wish that the aliens remain unseen, or at least I did. Alien beings are always more fearsome if you know they’re there, but you can’t see them.

NICK CARTER – Suicide Seat. Charter, paperback original, 1980.

   Nick Carter, Killmaster, has his hands full this time. He’s n the trail of a gang of white slavers who have accidentally made off with the beautiful virgin daughter of a world-powerful OPEC sheik. And on Nick Carter’s trail is an international gang of terrorists who are apparently intent on wiping out every single agent employed by Carter’s secret government organization, AXE. (*)

   Now, unfortunately, AXE itself has been axed, disbanded by some top-level White House worrywarts, and its former director, David Hawk, has disappeared, no one knows where.

   Mexico. New York City. Washington, DC. Monte Carlo. Zurich.

   Mame Ferguson. Angela Negri. Traudl Heitmyer. Lotus Fong.

   By page 111 it was when I really knew I’d had enough. Angie’s been kidnapped again, and Nick Carter’s been left for dead.

   Except.

   He isn’t dead.

   He does have a little bit of a headache, perhaps.

   Personally, I think the guy’s nuts. Back on page 70, after being briefed rather briskly by Senator Lovett about the missing sheiklette, he abruptly heads for the bathroom and climbs for safety down the outside wall of the hotel. From four floors up.

   Why?

   Don’t ask me.

   How the hell would I know.

(*) Offhand, I can’t tell you what AXE stands for, but if you’d really like to know, maybe someone knows and can tell us both.

UPDATE:  Nick Carter in this case was a writer by the name of George Warren, who also wrote two other in the Carter series, along with a small handful of paperback originals from Brandon House, Playboy Press and the like.

CRAIG JOHNSON – Land of the Wolves. Walt Longmre #15. Viking Press, hardcover, September 2019.

First Sentence:   Acknowledgements: Once, as a young man running fence for a rancher up near Dillon, Montana, I found myself stretching barbed wire over a rocky ridge, having ground-tied my horse below because his shod hooves weren’t too fond of the outcropping.

   An unusually large wolf is spotted by Walt. Is it the one suspected of killing sheep from a local herd? When Walt goes to find the herdsman, he found the man’s body and a question as to whether he committed suicide or was murdered. Ranchers want the wolf found and killed. A woman wants it saved as its DNA is unique. Henry Standing Bear believes it may be a messenger. Walt wants to solve the mystery of the herder, especially when another crime is committed.

   For those of us who read everything from the cover page on, the “Acknowledgements” should not be missed. There one will find what is essentially a true, short story as a lead to the actual story.

   Johnson transports readers into the environment of the story with rich, evocative passages and lush writing. Lest you fear he gets too flowery, it is balanced by his dialogue which is audible, natural, and tinged with the humor one has come to expect from this author and these characters. “‘Why is everyone treating me like a Fabergé egg?’ ‘After Mexico, all parties have decided that you need a little more adult supervision.’ … ‘Sancho follows me to the bathroom’ … ‘He’s taking his orders very seriously.'” ” Finally, there are always things one learns such as about ‘predator zones.’

   The element of mysticism, often a part of this series, adds a special touch to the story. Linking the wolf to Virgil White Buffalo, from prior books, and Henry Standing Bear telling about the spiritual relationship between a human and animals is worth considering in these times of environmental destruction.

   What is very interesting is that this is a Walt who is older, slower, still recovering from the injuries of his last case. It is also a slightly more vulnerable Walt, questioning his relationship with his daughter. Although is it hard to imagine in this time, there has always been a running joke about Walt not having a computer. That he finally receives one, due to the wonderful character of Ruby, Walt’s secretary, provides several delightful exchanges.

   Johnson includes fascinating information on a considerable number of topics. While these are interesting and do relate to the plot, after about the third occasion, it does begin to feel as though it is filler.

   Land of Wolves takes us back to Johnson’s earlier books, which is a very good thing, with his trademark humor, dialogue, interesting characters, and excellent plot twists.

Rating:   Good Plus.

PHILIP K. DICK “The Gun.” Short story. First published in Planet Stories, September 1952. First collected in Beyond Lies the Wub (Underwood Miller, hardcover, 1987; volume one of The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick, sold only as a five-volume set.) Also collected in The King of the Elves (Subterranean Press, hardcover, 2011), among others.

   This appears to have been Philip K. Dick’s second published SF story, not including some he had published in a college newspaper. The first also appeared in Planet Stories, that being “Beyond Lies the Wub” in the July 1952 issue. “The Gun” is a minor story, admittedly, a fact reflected by noting that all of its later reprint appearances gave been in collections of his early work and never picked up for a major anthology of any import.

   In 1952 the quality of the stories in Planet Stories was beginning to pick up. Authors like Ray Bradbury and Leigh Brackett had been appearing all through the 40s, but authors such as Poul Anderson, Gordon R. Dickson and Eric Frank Russell were beginning to be added to the mix. (Anderson, for example, had a story in this same issue; see below. Also among his early work, but still a sign of significant improvement.)

   It is not clear whether the devastated planet is Earth or the crew of the spaceship that comes to investigate is from Earth (my sense was it was the latter), but an atomic war had left the planet covered with bare earth or uninhabitable slag. And yet the investigating ship is shot down without warning, from a gun they could not see.

   A veteran SF reader will know right away that the gun is acting on it own, a remnant of two sides fighting each other to the bitter end. They manage to disable to gun so they can safely take off, but a twist in the end suggests that they have made a serious error.

   What adds a bit of poignancy to the story is the discovery of a hidden horde of material hidden away for safekeeping by one of the two warring sides about their culture. It is this single factor that makes this short take stand out, if only in a small way, hinting that the author may have had a future ahead of him. Which of course he did.

      Other stories in this issue (thanks to ISFDb) —

4 • Evil Out of Onzar • novella by Mark Ganes
30 • Zero Data • novelette by Charles Saphro
46 • The Gun • short story by Philip K. Dick
54 • The Star Plunderer • [Technic History] • novelette by Poul Anderson
70 • Thompson’s Cat • short story by Robert Moore Williams
78 • Big Pill • short story by Raymond Z. Gallun
90 • The Slaves of Venus • novelette by James E. Gunn [as by Edwin James]

LE CORBEAU (THE RAVEN). Continental Films, France, 1943. Pierre Fresnay, Ginette Leclerc, Micheline Francey, and Pierre Larquey. Written & directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot.

THE 13th LETTER. Fox, 1951. Linda Darnell, Charles Boyer, Michael Rennie, and Constance Smith. Screenplay adapted by Howard Koch. Directed by Otto Preminger.

   There’s always some interest in watching a foreign film and its American remake, and when the films in question are the work of two able cineastes like Clouzot and Preminger, the exercise is enjoyable as well.

   Clouzot made Le Corbeau under German occupation (he was later banned for two years from the French film industry for working with the Nazis) and it’s based on a true incident: a series of anonymous letters that tore apart a rural French village and led to riots and a suicide. The 13th Letter, on the other hand, is based on Le Corbeau .

   Thus Corbeau focuses broadly on the Community, while 13th concentrates on stars Michael Rennie and Linda Darnell. Preminger incorporates scenes from the earlier film, of course, but doesn’t slavishly copy them. He and Clouzot both give a few memorable moments to the bit players, allowing them to suggest some complexity, and both directors stand back and give Pierre Larquey/Charles Boyer lots of elbow room as a garrulous old doctor, with pleasing results.

   But perhaps the difference between the films is not so much focus as viewpoint. Preminger’s film is more subjective, urging us to identify with the romantic Hollywood leads, while Corbeau remains taciturn and objective, observing everything at a distance I find typical of Clouzot.

   The wonderful thing is that Preminger’s glossy superficial approach works as well as Clouzot’s hard-edged realism. Both films are easy to watch, and quite engrossing at times. I may have identified more easily with Michael Rennie and Linda Darnell because they spoke English, but both movies hooked me as only a strong story and a capable director can.

   Puss n Boots is an alternative country band from Brooklyn NY. Members are Norah Jones, Sasha Dobson and Catherine Popper.

MIKE FREDMAN – Kisses Leave No Fingerprints. Willie Halliday #2. St. Martin’s Press, US, hardcover, 1980. Originally published in the UK by Paul Elek Publishers, hardcover, 1979. The Black Dahlia Company Limited, UK, softcover, 2013.

   This is a private eye story, but as such, while nothing very much out of the ordinary seems to happen, this definitely not your ordinary private eye sort of story. A great part of his is unquestionably due to the fact that Willie Halliday is a vegetarian, a non-drinker, and a student of Asiatic religions on the side — not exactly your standard sort of private eye.

   Nor does he take on divorce cases as a rule, but he does in this one, and then simply because he finds himself moonstruck in love with the woman who hires him, and thus is easily persuaded. That she cares zip about him is obvious to the reader, but not entirely to Willie, who tells the tale.

   Not many surprises follow, but even so, Fredman nevertheless seems to have neatly captured a haunting, dreamlike essence to the fictional world-wide brotherhood of knight-errants reincarnated in today’s world as private investigatory agents.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC UPDATE :  There was one earlier adventure for Willie Halliday, that being You Can Always Blame the Rain (Elek, 1978; St.Martin’s, 1980). There was never a third.