BRAM STOKER – Dracula’s Guest. Published posthumously in the collection Dracula’s Guest and Other Weird Stories (George Routledge & Sons, UK, hardcover, 1914). Reprinted many times including: Weird Tales, December 1927; The Ghouls, edited by Peter Haining (W. H. Allen, UK, hardcover, 1971; Pocket, US, paperback, April 1971); Dracula’s Guest and Other Stories, edited by Victor Ghidalia (Xerox, US, paperback, 1972); Werewolf!, edited by Bill Pronzini (Arbor House, US, hardcover, 1979); The Vampire Archives: The Most Complete Volume of Vampire Tales Ever Published, edited by Otto Penzler (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard / Vintage Books, softcover, 2009); The Big Book of Rogues and Villains, edited by Otto Penzler (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, softcover, October 24 2017). Film: Among others “inspired” by the story, Universal’s film Dracula’s Daughter (1936) was supposedly based on the tale, but nothing of the plot was used.

   It is generally stated and accepted that this story, somewhat complete in itself, was the the first chapter of the original manuscript of Dracula, but deleted for reasons of length. It is told by an unknown narrator, but presumably it was Jonathan Harker who very foolishly ignores the advice of his innkeeper and the coachman of his carriage to get out to investigate on foot a village said to be unholy and abandoned for some 300 years.

   On Walpurgis Night, no less. Needless to say, he soon realizes that he has made a dangerous mistake. Some thoughts. First of all, how modern Stoker’s writing is. This is story that could easily pass as having been written last week, if not yesterday. Secondly, it is wonder how well this story anticipates all those Hammer horror films that came along so many years later.

         BONUS:

   Here are the stories included in the Rogues and Villains anthology:

      THE VICTORIANS

At the Edge of the Crater by L. T. Meade & Robert Eustace
The Episode of the Mexican Seer by Grant Allen
The Body Snatcher by Robert Louis Stevenson
Dracula’s Guest by Bram Stoker
The Narrative of Mr. James Rigby by Arthur Morrison
The Ides of March by E. W. Hornung

   19TH CENTURY AMERICANS

The Story of a Young Robber by Washington Irving
Moon-Face by Jack London
The Shadow of Quong Lung by C. W. Doyle

      THE EDWARDIANS

The Fire of London by Arnold Bennett
Madame Sara by L. T. Meade & Robert Eustace
The Affair of the Man Who Called Himself Hamilton Cleek by Thomas W. Hanshew
The Mysterious Railway Passenger by Maurice Leblan
An Unposted Letter by Newton MacTavish
The Adventure of “The Brain” by Bertram Atkey
The Kailyard Novel by Clifford Ashdown
The Parole of Gevil-Hay by K. & Hesketh Prichard
The Hammerspond Park Burglary by H. G. Wells
The Zayat Kiss by Sax Rohmer

      EARLY 20TH CENTURY AMERICANS

The Infallible Godahl by Frederick Irving Anderson
The Caballero’s Way by O. Henry
Conscience in Art by O. Henry
The Unpublishable Memoirs by A. S. W. Rosenbach
The Universal Covered Carpet Tack Company by George Randolph Chester
Boston Blackie’s Code by Jack Boyle
The Gray Seal by Frank L. Packard
The Dignity of Honest Labor by Percival Pollard
The Eyes of the Countess Gerda by May Edginton
The Willow Walk by Sinclair Lewis
A Retrieved Reformation by O. Henry

      BETWEEN THE WORLD WARS

The Burglar by John Russell
Portrait of a Murderer by Q. Patrick
Karmesin and the Big Flea by Gerald Kersh
The Very Raffles-Like Episode of Castor and Pollux, Diamonds De Luxe by Harry Stephen Keeler
The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell
Four Square Jane by Edgar Wallace
A Fortune in Tin by Edgar Wallace
The Genuine Old Master by David Durham
The Colonel Gives a Party by Everett Rhodes Castle
Footsteps of Fear by Vincent Starrett
The Signed Masterpieces by Frederick Irving Anderson
The Hands of Mr. Ottermole by Thomas Burke
“His Lady” to the Rescue by Bruce Graeme
On Getting an Introduction by Edgar Wallace
The 15 Murderers by Ben Hecht
The Damsel in Distress by Leslie Charteris

      THE PULP ERA

After-Dinner Story by William Irish
The Mystery of the Golden Skull by Donald E. Keyhoe
We Are All Dead by Bruno Fischer
Horror Insured by Paul Ernst
A Shock for the Countess by C. S. Montanye
A Shabby Millionaire by Christopher B. Booth
Crimson Shackles by Frederick C. Davis
The Adventure of the Voodoo Moon by Eugene Thomas
The Copper Bowl by George Fielding Eliot

      POST-WORLD WAR 2

The Cat-Woman by Erle Stanley Gardner
The Kid Stacks a Deck by Erle Stanley Gardner
The Theft from the Empty Room by Edward D. Hoch
The Shill by Stephen Marlowe
The Dr. Sherrock Commission by Frank McAuliffe
In Round Figures by Erle Stanley Gardner
The Racket Buster by Erle Stanley Gardner
Sweet Music by Robert L. Fish

      THE MODERNS

The Ehrengraf Experience by Lawrence Block
Quarry’s Luck by Max Allan Collins
The Partnership by David Morrell
Blackburn Sins by Bradley Denton
The Black Spot by Loren D. Estleman
Car Trouble by Jas A. Petrin
Keller on the Spot by Lawrence Block
Boudin Noir by R. T. Lawton
Like a Thief in the Night by Lawrence Block
Too Many Crooks by Donald E. Westlake

BUFFALO BILL IN TOMAHAWK TERRITORY. United Artits, 1952. Clayton Moore, Slim Andrews, Chief Yowlachie, Chief Thundercloud, Sharon Dexter, Eddie Phillips. Written by Sam Neuman and Nat Tanchuck. Directed by Bernard B. Ray.

   The release date is deceptive. Although part of this film was made the same year as High Noon, most of the action interludes — the cattle stampedes, wagon trains, buffalo stampedes and Indian battles — were lifted from old silent films, with sound effects dubbed in.

   It starts, after a time-killing tribute to the Western Pioneers made up of old stock footage, with what I thought was going to be an intriguing premise:

   Buffalo Bill (played by Clayton Moore, of Lone Ranger fame) and his sidekick Cactus (Slim Andrews) hear a wagon train being attacked by Indians and ride off to the rescue. As they join the battle on the side of the emigrants, however, it appears that the expedition is made up entirely of women. Then a closer look reveals that they are all men in women’s clothes!

   As Buffalo Bill and the transvestites bravely shoot down the attackers, Cactus looks askance at the whole affair and, with an admirably straight face, cautions, “Watch yerself, Bill!”

   At this point I thought this might be a really remarkable bit of film history. The unsung story of those who travelled west in search of true freedom to live as they chose, but such was not to be. It quickly develops that the cross-dressers are all soldiers who dressed up that way — possibly at the behest of a very lonely commander; who knows?– to lure out marauding Indians, who, it turns out, are actually local bad men in disguise. So we got bad guys disguised as Indians fighting soldiers dressed as women. Got that?

   What follows is the tired plot of nasty white men fomenting disorder and vexation to steal Indian land, set in a barely watchable movie, although Clayton Moore is rather good as Buffalo Bill, complete with wig, mustache and beard. Like Welles and Olivier, Moore always seemed more authoritative when performing with some facial disguise.

   I also liked the fact that the scriptwriters never bother to tell us just what the Dress-Heavy (Eddie Philips) does for a living. He simply struts about the town in dark hat and fancy suit, obviously a citizen of some local importance, demanding that something be done about all these Indians, then sneaking off to plot and scheme.

   But whether he’s the town banker, mayor, saloonkeeper, or Amway distributor is never made clear. Like Iago, he is simply a Villain, turning to the dog-heavy at opportune moments and whispering, “Tell the boys to meet me at the hide-out,” before going out to look respectable again. Like the real Buffalo Bill, he is less a person than he is a bit of iconography, and I’m glad the writers had the good judgment not to over-complicate him.

   Now I kinda like this movie, but I should warn discriminating viewers that the producer applied this minimalist concept to the rest of the film. BBiTT is a work of staggering frugality of the sort that can best be appreciated by those of us who love desperate filmmaking for its own sake. Be warned and enjoy!

RICHARD RAYNER – The Devil’s Wind. HarperCollins; hardcover, February 2005. Harper Perennial, paperback, January 2006.

   Richard Rayner, the author of The Devil’s Wind, was born in England, but now lives in Los Angeles, and as in the case of a certain other author (named Chandler, although born in Chicago), it may take someone on the other side of the Atlantic to come to this country to tell us, and show us, what we’re really like.

   Or what we were in the past, as this book does, taking us back to 1956, the time of HUAC; the atom bomb tests in Nevada and the concomitant growth of Las Vegas; Jimmy Hoffa; inherent racism; and jazz. All essential ingredients of a top-notch noirish thriller (filmed in glorious black-and-white?) based on identities: hidden identities, newly created identities; and revenge: subtle and not-so-subtle, and bullets to match.

   And jazz. On pages 193-194, wealthy up-and-coming architect – about to become the new Senator for the state of Nevada – Maurice Valentine (not the name he was born under) is listening to the only record a young black musician ever made:

   The woman. Mallory Walker is a rich man’s daughter and a would-be architect, a field which in the 1950s in which there were very few openings for women. Valentine is married but eminently capable of being seduced, and he finds himself captivated. From page 8:

   She is a force, a whirlwind, someone who knew her well says on page 256. Clever and proud and ruthless and beautiful, Maurice says earlier on page 40. There is also the hot wind that blows across the Nevada desert. The natural wind. There is also the unnatural wind that arises after the flash and colossal boom of the mushroom clouds that can be seen from the top floor of Las Vegas hotels, the wind that causes disasters in more ways than one.

   I also have to tell you about one of the notes I wrote to myself while reading and absorbing everything that was happening as quickly as I could. I suddenly sat up and told myself, less than half way through, and I quote, “I have absolutely no idea where this book is going.”

   Is that adequate as a one-line review? I’d like to think so. I do think so. It’s quite a ride. If anyone were to make a movie of The Devil’s Wind, as written, I’d go to see it in a minute, black-and-white or not.

Bibliographic Notes:   This was the last of four novels written by author Richard Rayner. No movie was made of The Devil’s Wind, but an autobiographical work he wrote entitled L. A. Without a Map (1988), a travelogue of sorts, was made into film of the same title starring Johnny Depp in 1998.

THE DETECTIVE. 20th Century Fox, 1968. Frank Sinatra, Lee Remick, Ralph Meeker, Jack Klugman, Horace McMahon, Lloyd Bochner, William Windom, Tony Musante, Al Freeman Jr. Screenplay by Abby Mann, based on the novel by Roderick Thorp. Director: Gordon Douglas.

   Frank Sinatra puts in a terrific performance as Joe Leland, a hard-nosed, tough New York City detective who lives his life according to his own sense of personal honor. He’s very much the white knight in a corrupt society, one plagued with drug abuse, poverty, and greed. The Detective is an unusually gritty, almost noir, film that isn’t particularly well directed, but is nevertheless worth a look.

   When Leland is tasked with solving a brutal murder of man known to be a homosexual, he must not only race against time to solve the crime if he is to get his promotion, he also needs to be cognizant of the sensitive nature of the case (this is 1968, not 2017). He later learns, however, that the man he sent to the chair for the heinous crime wasn’t the guilty party and that his latest case – the apparent suicide of a businessman at a racetrack – is related to the aforementioned murder. It’s a solid plot that, despite some poor editing choices, all comes together in the end.

   The plot also delves deep his personal life. Although he’s a good cop, all is not well at home for Leland. He’s married, but separated. Understandably so, given that his wife, a sociology professor (Lee Remick) is essentially a sex addict and has repeatedly cheated on him. Leland doesn’t much care that she’s going to see a psychiatrist or that she knows she needs to work through her issues. A cheating wife to him is against his personal code of how things are supposed to be between a husband and his wife. So it’s splitsville for the two of them.

   Fortunately, he’s got a buddy in fellow cop, the very Jewish Dave Schoenstein (Jack Klugman) who provides the emotional support he seems to need, but would never ask for. It’s Sinatra and Klugman, along with Ralph Meeker, who portrays a sleazy and corrupt cop, who are really what make the film work.

   Because what doesn’t work in The Detective – and I can’t be emphatic enough on this – is its reliance on flashbacks to tell the story of how Leland and his wife met and how their marriage fell apart. In fact, it may be the single worst use of flashbacks I’ve seen in a movie. Indeed, not ten minutes into the movie, right after the scene in which Leland discovers the mutilated body of the gay socialite, does the film shift to a nearly twenty minute flashback that has nothing to do with the crime. I almost wanted to stop watching. I’m glad I didn’t because the second hour of the movie, the one without flashbacks, is unquestionably superior to the first.

W. J. BURLEY – Wycliffe and the Cycle of Death. Supt. Charles Wycliffe #16. Victor Gollancz, UK, hardcover, 1988. Corgi, UK, paperback, 1991. Doubleday, US, hardcover, 1991. TV movie: Pilot episode of Wycliffe, ITV, UK, 7 August 1993.

   To me this would have been an unlikely choice to begin a possible TV series with, as the story runs slowly (but deep) and does not seem to have much dramatic potential. But perhaps it is typical of the stories in the books, of which there were twenty.

   Dead is the owner of a bookstore in a small town in Cornwall. Living in the house attached are several members of his immediate family, with one brother and in son living in a small house some not far distance away.

   For many years they have maintained a solid front to the world, but the past now seems to be catching up to them and revealing their secrets, at least to the patient mind of Supt. Wycliffe. The dead man’s wife had abandoned her family some years ago, and the death of his mother, so many years later, seems now to have been the catalyst for the murder.

   Unfortunately the list of possible suspects is small. It is clear that someone in the family is responsible, but it takes all of Wycliffe’s expertise in probing into a thick wall of resistance before he can make any headway into the case. Even so, when he finally knows who the killer is, he has no proof, and at least one member of the family will lie, rather than have the truth come out.

   It is a strange way to have a detective novel end, but even so, Wycliffe seems to see that in a way justice is done. He spends a lot of time thinking in this case, walking and contemplating, juggling the facts around and around in his head until at length he is satisfied he knows the truth. I’m happy with the ending, but I wish I could promise you that you’d feel the same way I do about it.

TICKET TO A CRIME. Beacon Productions, 1934. Ralph Graves (PI Clay Holt), Lola Lane, Lois Wilson, James Burke, Charles Ray, Edward Earle, Hy Hoover, John Elliott. Based on the story of the same title by Carroll John Daly (Dime Detective Magazine, Oct 1 1934). Director: Lewis D. Collins.

   According to IMDb, this is the only movie based on the work of one of the most popular pulp fiction writers of his day, Carroll John Daly. He was a pioneer in the rough and tough PI genre, but his crude writing style has relegated him to an all-but-unknown status except to fans of the field.

   Daly’s most famous character was probably a gun-slinging private eye named Race Williams. Equally violent was a hardboiled police cop by the name of Satan Hall, who in his many adventures racked up nearly as many bodies as Williams. PI Clay Holt, the featured protagonist of this movie as well as the story it was based on, had only six recorded cases, four of them for Dime Detective.

   I’ve not read any of his adventures, but I can tell you this. The movie is not very good. Not if you want anything resembling an actual detective or mystery story. The plot has something to do with some diamonds that are worth $50,000, but beyond that, I cannot tell you more.

   Most of the just over 60 minutes worth of running time are taken up by (1) Holt suddenly coming to realize that his secretary (Lola Lane), who he hasn’t paid in six weeks, is actually beautiful once she takes her glasses off and dresses up for a gala party he invites her to by default (all of the other entries in his little black book turn him down).

   And (2) the humorously antagonistic byplay between Holt and his former buddy on the police force, Detective Lt. John Aloysius McGinnis (James Burke). Without either (1) or (2), there’d be absolutely nothing to see here. Even so, the movie seems to be far far longer than its actual running time.

MICHAEL CONNELLY – The Wrong Side of Goodbye. Harry Bosch #19. Little Brown, hardcover, November 2016. Grand Central, softcover, May 2017. Vision, mass market paperback, October 2017.

   First Sentence: They charged from the cover of the elephant grass toward the LZ, five of them swarming the slick on both sides, one among them yelling, “Go! Go! Go!”—as if each man needed to be prodded and reminded that these were the most dangerous seconds of their lives.

   Harry Bosch is on leave from the LAPD but has been taken on as a volunteer reserve officer investigating the cold case of a serial rapist for the San Fernando PD. However, working as a private investigator, Bosch has also been hired by an elderly billionaire to find any heirs he may have from when he was a college student. The man’s company very much wants Harry to fail.

   It is interesting that we open with a reminder of the terrible cost of war. Any war. All wars.

   Connelly has such a clear and distinctive voice, part of which is the ever-present sarcastic humour— “You can come back now.” “Good. Any longer and I was going to jump.” She didn’t smile. … “It’s impact-resistant glass,” she said. “It can take the force of a category-five hurricane.” “Good to know,” Bosch said. “And I was only joking.”

   It’s good that we learn the backstory of Bosch’s situation with the LAPD. One thing one never needs worry about is learning the history and/or backstory of people and places. Connelly is very good and providing those, often with an interesting perspective— “Working cold cases had made Bosch proficient in time travel.” –However, one does rather wonder what is the normal rate of an officer clearing murder cases.

   Another of Connelly’s many skills is outlining police procedures, and describing the impact budget reductions has on solving crimes. This is not only informative, but adds a strong element of realism. Even so, Bosch is a character who likes to do things very much his own way.

   It is nice to have Bosch’s half-brother, Mickey Haller, brought into the story. However, there are a lot of coincidences, and the interactions with Bosch’s daughter seemed random and didn’t really add anything to the story. Another rather irritating factor is the constant relating of driving directions, rather as if listing to a GPS. As they are related very factually, they really don’t provide a true sense of place and feel like filler.

   The plot is well done. Connelly balances the two story threads very well. There are good twists, red herrings, and “ah-ha!” moments. The buildup of suspense nicely done, as is the exposure of the killer.

   The Wrong Side of Goodbye is classic Connelly. It’s a satisfying read fans will enjoy.

ROBERT BLOCH “The Cloak.” First published in Unknown, May 1939. First collected in The Opener of the Way (Arkham House, hardcover, 1945). Reprinted many times, including: Dracula’s Guest and Other Stories, edited by Victor Ghidalia (Xerox, paperback, 1972); Magic for Sale, edited by Avram Davidson (Ace, paperback, 1983); Vamps: An Anthology of Female Vampire Stories, edited by Martin H. Greenberg (Daw, paperback, 1987); American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps, edited by Peter Straub (Library of America, hardcover, 2008). Film: Adapted as Part Four of The House That Dripped Blood (Amicus, 1971; reviewed here ).

   The list of places above where this small but obviously effective short story has appeared only scratches the surface, but what’s especially rewarding is seeing it progress from the pages of a 20 cent pulp magazine to a $35 hardcover from the prestigious Library of America.

   It’s one of those stories that begins, more or less, in one of those strange out-of-the-way shops that dot the side streets of the poorer sections of large cities, open for a while and perhaps only to pre-selected customers, only to disappear as mysteriously as they appeared, or to go up in flames, the owners vanished or even destroyed along with it.

   It is Halloween and a man named Henderson is looking for a costume. The shop owner in this case offers him the cloak — not a cloak, but the cloak — and once Henderson puts it one, he is a new man — or is he?

   What he definitely is is the center of attention at the party he attends that night. He is attracted to the neck of his fat host. Most positively attracted to him is a girl dressed as an angel — or is she?

   Told in Robert Bloch’s invariably easy to read writing style, the reader is always one step ahead of the main protagonist, until, that is, he meets the girl above, named Sheila, and once she is met, you are not exactly sure which way the rest of the tale is going to go. You think you do, but you’re not quite sure. Exactly where you should be at this stage of a story well told.

   If ever there were two stalwarts of the English detective novel during the so-called Golden Age, their names were Christopher Bush, whom I talked about last month, and John Rhode (1884-1964). Rhode like Bush was at his best during the Thirties and, for my taste anyway, became all but unreadable soon after World War II. Bush’s wartime novels have never been published in the States but Rhode’s continued to appear over here during the war years, and I happen to have a number of them. Shall we take a dekko at a few?

   DEAD ON THE TRACK (1943) begins with the discovery of a man’s body, mutilated beyond recognition, beside the railroad tracks between the villages of Bockingfold and Filmerham. Apparently the man was dragged to his death by a passing goods train (what we call a freight train), but an autopsy reveals a bullet in the victim’s head. Clothing fragments and other evidence identify him as Alexander Gargrave, a prosperous solicitor from the county town (what we call the county seat) of Wensford.

    Gargrave apparently came by train to the Bockingfold area in response to a letter from his old friend John Cardeston, who denies having written the letter. Evidence builds up against Cardeston and he’s soon found in his home shot to death, apparently a suicide. Ballistic evidence proving that the gun used on him was the same weapon that shot Gargrave strongly suggests that he killed himself out of fear he’d soon be arrested for his friend’s murder.

   Superintendent Hanslet, retired from Scotland Yard but called back to duty because of the wartime shortage of policemen, is summoned to investigate and eventually describes the case to Dr. Priestley, who quickly deciphers the two coded documents involved in the case—one of them apparently taken from a volume of old sermons!—and later identifies the double murderer.

   This is unmistakably a wartime whodunit. Priestley refuses to leave his home in Westbourne Terrace even though several of his neighbors have been bombed out. The blackout forces Hanslet and his local counterpart to drive by night without lights through a howling storm. Food shortages make all too plausible Cardeston’s last meal, which is called vegetable goose and consists of “parsnips and lentils with apple sauce.”

   In his review for the San Francisco Chronicle (2 May 1943) Anthony Boucher passed over these period details, which eighty-odd years later constitute one of the book’s fascinations, and concentrated on the cerebral aspects. “Devotees of ultra-British detection will find a pleasantly solid job (despite dubious statements on ballistics); others beware.”

   Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor in A CATALOGUE OF CRIME (revised edition 1989) say only that “[t]he tale is not helped by an unlikely piece of practical joking.” Something of a slip here: what they’re referring to is not a practical joke but the coding of a new chemical formula potentially worth a fortune and its division into two parts, one of which the discoverer bequeathed to each of the murder victims.

   MEN DIE AT CYPRUS LODGE (1943, US 1944) deals with a house in the village of Troutwich which has been the scene of two deaths — first a prosperous pig butcher in 1897 who may have been poisoned, then a homeopathic doctor just before the outbreak of war who was definitely poisoned. Thanks to weird noises emanating from the house, it has come to be viewed as haunted.

   Then in 1943 it claims its third victim, a local squire and amateur of the occult who’s determined to find out the truth behind Cyprus Lodge but gets scratched with a Rube Goldberg booby-trap device behind a secret panel which is coated with the poison Rhode variously calls aconitine and aconite: the same poison which killed the second victim and perhaps also the first.

   Troutwich of course is not within the jurisdiction of Scotland Yard, but the Yard’s Inspector Jimmy Waghorn, temporarily attached to the special investigation branch of the War Office, has been frequenting the village, trying to find out who is collating scraps of information from the nearby military camp and passing them on to Germany, and he takes an unofficial hand in the case, which of course means that it comes up during one of his Saturday night dinners in Dr. Priestley’s house, which still hasn’t been bombed.

   In due course the brother of the squire who was victim number three (if you include the Victorian pig butcher) is himself murdered, not inside Cyprus Lodge but in the alley on which its back door opens, and the cause of death once again is aconite or aconitine. Near trail’s end Priestley explains everything satisfactorily except why the fatal poison has two names.

   This too is definitely a wartime book: a nightly fire watch is kept at Troutwich town hall, and “a depressing array of austerity confections” is displayed in the window of the local tea-shop. “They say that beer’s not rationed,” a publican tells Waghorn, “but in a way it is. My brewers only allow me so much every week, enough for my regular customers and no more. And if the troops [from the adjacent military camp] drink it up, why the others grumble, and small blame to them.”

   There’s even an air raid on the camp — although it’s a one-plane attack described to Waghorn after the event—and a bit of action at the climax as Waghorn collars the enemy spy, whose activities, as you might have suspected, are connected with the murders.

   The wartime ambience is one of the high points of the novel, but Boucher’s review for the Chronicle (11 June 1944) once again passed over that aspect and concentrated on the detection. “At his best, nobody can top Rhode for ingenious murder gadgets and few can top him for meticulous unraveling; he’s very close to his best in this one.”

   Barzun & Taylor in A CATALOGUE OF CRIME are somewhat less enthusiastic, with Taylor calling the book “a bumbling business” although Barzun thought more highly of it. Both seemed to agree, however, that the gimmick for creating the fake supernatural manifestations was “unconvincing.”

   Either Rhode or his English publisher had a tendency to come up with amazingly dishwater titles for some of the Dr. Priestley books. Can you imagine detective novels called VEGETABLE DUCK, THE TELEPHONE CALL or DR. GOODWOOD’S LOCUM? Fortunately for Americans, Rhode’s U.S. publisher changed each of these to more appropriate titles, respectively TOO MANY SUSPECTS, SHADOW OF AN ALIBI and THE AFFAIR OF THE SUBSTITUTE DOCTOR.

   I happen to have a first edition of TOO MANY SUSPECTS (1945), which begins with Mr. Charles Fransham returning to his luxurious flat in London’s Battersea district to find his wife Letitia dead of poisoning. Jimmy Waghorn, back at Scotland Yard as in peacetime, quickly determines that the poison must have been administered in the dinner Mrs. Fransham ate alone, since her husband got a mysterious phone call that took him out of the flat just before mealtime.

   The main course, which both the Franshams would have shared had it not been for that phone call, was a dish apparently common in England but unheard of over here, something called vegetable duck– not to be confused with vegetable goose! –which consists of “a marrow, not too big, stuffed with minced meat [in this case the remains of a leg of mutton] and herbs, and baked whole.”

   The prime suspect of course is Mr. Fransham, who as chance or otherwise would have it was also the prime suspect in the death of Letitia’s wealthy brother back in 1935. Could he have slipped poison into that marrow before their cook served it? He had plenty of motive, for Letitia had saved a great deal of money and died intestate, which means the money is now his.

   Waghorn spends much of the novel meticulously investigating every aspect of the poisoning, with the usual kibitzing by Dr. Priestley after the customary Saturday night dinner at his house. Eventually it becomes apparent that the poisoned marrow came from the village of Newton Soham, about 70 miles from London and the home of Fransham’s son by his first marriage.

   About 60 pages from the endpoint Charles himself is shot to death in the woods while visiting his son, who inherits the role of prime suspect in the poisoning of Letitia besides being under suspicion in the death of his father. Eventually, after more kibitzing by Dr. Priestley, Waghorn makes an arrest—for, of all things, the theft of a marrow! — and the culprit obligingly confesses every detail of a hugely complex scheme.

   TOO MANY SUSPECTS is one of the finest Rhode novels I’ve read, and I’m delighted to be the owner of a nice first edition. One aspect of it, however, does make me scratch my head. The book was written and published near the end of World War II, and there are a few war references: one character was killed in the Blitz and a couple of others mention that they served as air raid wardens.

   As we know from the journalism of George Orwell and many other sources, England in fact was plagued by rationing and shortages for years after the war, but you’d never guess it from this novel, in which trains run on time, consumer goods flow freely and no one seems to be suffering privations. Take for instance Letitia Fransham’s last meal, which “had consisted of cold salmon and cucumber, vegetable duck with potatoes and gravy, and cheese.” What a real-life Londoner in 1945 wouldn’t have given for such a feast!

   I’ve read many a Dr. Priestley novel over the decades, but the ones I’ve tried to cover here are Rhodes not taken before I started this column. Three is enough. If nothing else, they show what Tony Boucher meant when he described mysteries as (in Hamlet’s words to Polonius about the players) the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time. It’s hard to imagine any other type of fiction with the potential to reveal so vividly the way we lived then.

THE MAN WITH TWO FACES. Warner Brothers, 1934. Edward G. Robinson, Mary Astor, Louis Calhern, Ricardo Cortez, Mae Clarke, David Laundau. Screenplay by Tom Reed & Niven Busch, based on the play The Dark Tower, by George S. Kauffman and Alexander Woolcott. Directed by Archie Mayo.

  THE DARK TOWER. Warner Brothers, UK, 1943. Ben Lyon, Anne Crawford, David Farrar and Herbert Lom. Written by Reginald Purdell and Brock Williams, from the play The Dark Tower, by George S. Kauffman and Alexander Woolcott. Directed by John Harlow.

   Two films based on the same play, and that’s about the only resemblance I can find between them.

   Man with Two Faces features Edward G. Robinson as a pleasantly hammy Broadway actor/director whose sister (Mary Astor) comes under the eerie spell of a palpable con man and Absolute Bounder, played by Louis Calhern. When Calhern threatens to ruin Astor’s life, Eddie decides to kill him and plans to get away with it by doing the deed disguised as a colorful and totally fictitious character based on his theatrical experience.

   The Dark Tower offers Ben Lyon as the American manager of a traveling circus in England who thinks it might be good publicity to put his pretty aerialist under the spell of a seedy hypnotist (played by Herbert Lom with equal parts Charles Boyer and Peter Lorre.) As the spell deepens and grows destructive, Ben realizes he has to put a stop to it … but can’t.

   Archie Mayo’s direction of Man is nothing to write home to Mom about, but it’s more than saved by the Kauffman-Woollcott script and the appropriately over-the-top playing of its leads.

   Louis Calhern is particularly memorable as The Nasty, and the script gives him all sorts of interesting bits. I especially liked the way he carried two rats around with him in a little cage, for the thrill having them at his mercy and because he enjoys seeing the servants scramble to clean out their cage and bring them fresh cheese. There’s also a neat turn by David Landau as a deceptively lackadaisical homicide cop. In all, a film well worth the time.

   Tower takes a bit longer to get things going, and once started, writers Burdell & Williams tend to dawdle a bit, but it fills the time with excellent turns by the supporting staff (I particularly liked Frederick Burtwell and Elsie Wagstaff as a pompous ringmaster and his knowing wife) and offers glistening photography by Otto Heller, who went on to Richard III and The Ipcress File. And the editor here was none other than Terence Fisher, who would helm the horror films that put Hammer Studios on the cinematic map.

   In all, two quite enjoyable films, but for me the best part was seeing how far apart the writers could bend the same material.