IAN ALEXANDER – The Disappearance of Archibald Forsyth. Hutchinson & Co., UK, no date stated [1933].

   Back in the printed version of Mystery*File, issue #46, one of the items in Al Hubin’s “Addenda to Crime Fiction IV” columns revealed that Ian Alexander was a previously unknown pen name of Alexander Knox.

   In the very same issue, and totally unconnected with the Hubin entry, Charlie Shibuk mentioned Alexander Knox as one of the actors who appeared in Andre DeToth’s film None Shall Escape. This very remarkable coincidence went unnoticed by me, but naturally Charlie spotted it right away. He added the following information, which appeared in the letter column of M*F 47: “Knox was born in Canada in 1907 and appeared on stage and screen in England and America. He portrayed the title role in Wilson (1944).”

   Not only that, but he was nominated for an Oscar for his performance in that film.

   As for his crime-writing career, this book at hand is the only one Knox wrote as Ian Alexander. In the 70s he wrote two novels included in Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV, both historical adventure novels based on the Canadian wilderness of the late 18th century. As Leonard Blackledge, he wrote one crime novel entitled Behind the Evidence (Hutchinson, 1935), and as John Crozier, he wrote two others: Murder in Public (Hutchinson, 1934) and Kidnapped Again (Hutchinson, 1935)

   Both of the latter two novels featured a character called “Falcon,” who doubtlessly was not the Falcon of movie and radio fame, and created in book form by Drexel Drake in 1936. (Or was it Michael Arlen, in a 1940 short story called “Gay Falcon”? The radio series always credited Drake as creator of the character, who was called Michael Waring; Arlen was always the one stated as creating the fellow in the 1940s movie series: either Gay Lawrence (George Sanders) or Tom Lawrence (Tom Conway).)

   No more digressions, however. The sleuth in The Disappearance of Archibald Forsyth is a very interesting fellow, indeed, and it’s a shame that this was apparently his only case on record. His name is Eagels, he works and has a growing reputation as a private investigator in London, at least with Scotland Yard. He’s also, well, I’m going to do some extensive quoting here, if you don’t object too loudly. From pages 12-13:

   Eagels’ secretary and trusted assistant is Millicent Doe, who also deserves a mention. They make an unusual couple working together. From pages 20-21:

   Question: Is this the first appearance of an American Indian as a detective? How many others are there?

   Here is something else equally striking. Read this, taken from page 72, as Eagels is thinking over the case so far (and yes, I promise to tell you something about that sometime soon as well):

   On page 97, Eagels considers what to do about a butler with an unfortunate habit of listening at doors:

   From pages 102-103 we find a tidbit of understanding about Eagels’ philosophy of human nature:

   I have been thinking about the next quote, whether to include it or not, and I’ve decided, what the hey, let’s go all the way. From pages 126-127:

   Luckily Miss Doe is a forgery expert, among other skills, but Eagels’ outwardly competent and calm facade does not reveal the torment roiling up inside. From pages 230-231:

   There is more. On page 233 Eagels is confronted with an important document that has disappeared from a locked safe:

   There is a lot of confusion that occurs just before the end. A lot of action that goes on that doesn’t seem to have nay meaning – until at length, in Chapter Sixteen, beginning with page 278, all is revealed. That it takes most of ten pages is quite telling. If this is your kind of detective fiction, as it is mine, usually, and yes, it’s probably an acquired taste today, you’re going to wish that this was not the only recorded appearance of detective Eagels.

[UPDATE] 12-28-15.   I didn’t realize how long this review, was. I hope you made it here all the way through to the bottom, but I suppose that on occasion the scroll bar on the right side of your screen does have its uses. If by chance I happen to have intrigued you a little about this book, I regret to tell you that a search online two minutes ago turned up exactly no copies.

   More importantly, however, after writing this review I attempted to answer my own question and started putting together a checklist of Native American detectives in mystery fiction. I haven’t worked on it in ten years, but at the time I think w=it was fairly complete. Take a look, should you be so inclined.

   Please also read the comments. The first is from Jamie Sturgeon, who had some interesting information to report on the two books Knox wrote as John Crozier.

From Wikipedia:

“Eva Marie Cassidy (February 2, 1963 – November 2, 1996) was an American vocalist and guitarist known for her interpretations of jazz, blues, folk, gospel, country, rock and pop classics.”

From her posthumously released CD Somewhere (2008):

“From Dolly Parton’s ‘Coat of Many Colors’ to her own ‘Somewhere,’ Eva covers a wide musical spectrum-country, folk, blues, R&B, western swing, appalachian, celtic, Willie Nelson, Gershwin.”

BONUS: “If I Give My Heart.”

JOHN PAUL JONES. Warner Brothers, 1959. Robert Stack, Marisa Pavan, Charles Coburn (Benjamin Franklin), Erin O’Brien, Bette Davis (Empress Catherine the Great), Macdonald Carey (Patrick Henry), Jean Pierre Aumont (King Louis XVI), David Farrar, Peter Cushing. Director: John Farrow.

   Aside from an exciting naval battle sequence toward the end of the film in which the title character, portrayed by Robert Stack, faces off with Sir Richard Pearson (Peter Cushing) and shouts that he has yet to begun to fight, John Paul Jones is an epic bore. It’s not so much that it’s a poorly constructed film or without a talented coterie of actors as it is that the script is remarkably, almost painfully, lifeless.

   In many ways, the movie, at a running time just over two hours, plods along from scene to scene, many of which are exceptionally abbreviated in nature. Sad to say, but at times this Technicolor film plays less like a fictionalized historical drama than as an educational biopic classroom film. That’s not to say that John Farrow wasn’t a talented director or that he wasn’t capable of creating solid movies worth watching. Unfortunately, John Paul Jones simply isn’t one of his more durable works.

   As far as Robert Stack, he may very well have been perfectly adequate in his portrayal of the Scottish-born Revolutionary War hero, but that just wasn’t enough. There’s something a little too stiff, almost genteel in the manner in which Stack portrays Jones. One could imagine other actors with a little more grit and subdued rage – Kirk Douglas and Jeff Chandler come to mind – in his stead.

   But then again, with a script that plays it safe and never once allows the title character to lose his cool or show some warm-blooded passion, it’s difficult to imagine John Paul Jones as any anything but a meandering daytime cruise to nowhere particularly exciting.

KATHRYN HEISENFELT – Ann Sheridan and the Secret of the Sphinx. Whitman, hardcover, 1943. Illustrated by Henry E. Vallely.

   In this age of the celebrity, we think we have seen everything, but truth is there is nothing new under the celebrity sun when it comes to exploiting fame. Whitman, the people behind the Big Little Book, came up with a series of books for older readers in the 1940‘s, and beyond the usual cowboy stars, and comic strip heroes they carried it one step farther with adventures of Hollywood stars like Shirley Temple, Ginger Rogers, Deanna Durbin, John Payne, and others.

   This one features the Ooompf Girl from Denton, Texas, red-haired Ann Sheridan, who visits her friend Tess Whitehouse at her new beauty salon and soon finds herself up to her pretty neck in a mystery involving a mysterious Egyptian Sphinx cult:

   Of course Ann solves the mystery with help of an attractive young man named Crunch, without the slightest hint of romance, but well within the B movie mystery formula the book falls into.

   The best part of the book are the attractive illustrations by Henry Vallely, the king of the Big Little Book illustrators whose work graced the adventures of the Lone Ranger, Tom Mix, the Green Hornet, and the Big Little Books own superhero, Maximo. His illustrations are outstanding examples of the art, more than can be said of the story.

   Other adventures in this series include Betty Grable and The House With The Iron Shutters, John Payne and the Menace at Hawk’s Nest, Jane Withers and the Phantom Violin, Judy Garland and the Hoodoo Costume, Ann Rutherford and the Key to Nightmare Hall, Ginger Rogers and the Riddle of the Scarlet Cloak, and Deanna Durbin and the Feather of Flame.

   It may strike you almost all of these titles fall into the mystery genre in one way or another. If most are like this they are simple low level reads for slightly older children — eight and up — along the line of Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys or the Rover Boys and Frank Merriwell before them.

   There is a little mystery, a few minor scares, and a bit of action. I grant this one is more collectable than readable, but its worth the effort if only for the handsome Vallely illustrations.

   Looking at Harry Potter, Anthony Horowitz’s Alex Rider, and the Hunger Games we can at least note how young adult literature has improved. We can consider ourselves lucky we don’t have to deal with Justin Beiber and the Jailer’s Daughter or Myley Cyrus and the Obscene Gesture.

FIND THE LADY. Major Pictures/J. Arthur Rank, UK, 1956. Donald Houston, Beverley Brooks, Mervyn Johns, Kay Callard, Maurice Kaufmann, Edwin Richfield, Moray Watson, Ferdy Mayne, Anne Heywood. Director: Charles Saunders.

   I’ve categorized this old obscure British movie as a crime film, but in all honesty, it’s played a lot more for comedy than it is for thrills. To summarize quickly, though: when the starring lady (Beverley Brooks, as a fashion model from London) goes to spend New Year’s Eve with her godmother out in the country, she finds that the old lady has disappeared.

   But before that she has a funny (and perhaps at the time hilarious) encounter with the local doctor (Donald Houston) when their paths cross while their automobiles traverse a watersplash (a shallow ford in a stream) in opposite directions. The end result is the doctor falling face first into the water while the young lady’s car stalls and she has to walk into the local village for help.

   When the missing woman’s brother-in-law (Mervyn Johns) answers the door, getting back to the kidnapping, for that is what it is from the get-go, he says that she has been taken to a nursing home for seclusion and rest. We, of course, know that something is wrong right away. The old woman’s cane is there, her dog is there, and the replacement “maid” (Kay Callard) looks more like a gangster’s moll than I imagine that any gangster’s moll in the real world ever did. (She’s the one on the far right in the photo above.)

   The young woman and the doctor hit it off very well, and they decide to investigate together. Complicating matters is Miss June Weston’s other suitor (Moray Watson) who comes down from London to add some comedy relief to the proceedings.

   Most of the names I have dropping are totally new to me. I’d have thought, though, that Beverley Brooks (the beautiful brunette above and up at the top crowded into the phone booth with the doctor) would have had a longer career, but she didn’t. This movie, perhaps her only starring role, was the last one of her career.

   But you may noticed Anne Heywood’s name in the credits. She plays the receptionist at the inn (see the photo above) in this, only her second film. She’s very easy on the eyes as well.

JOHN FARR – The Deadly Combo. Ace Double D-301, paperback original, 1958. Bound back-to-back with Murder Isn’t Funny, by J. Harvey Bond.

   Two factors militate against this novel for me: I am not all that fond of the hard-boiled mystery and listening to jazz I find painful. Despite my biases, I must conclude that John Farr, a pseudonym of Jack Webb, has written a dandy novel.

   Mac Stewart. whose position on the Los Angeles police force I don’t quite understand — he’s a plainclothes detective who cruises just like a patrolman — has been a jazz enthusiast since he used to sit in alleys listening to tin pan in a noisy speakeasy. Stewart’s love for the music drew him to Dandy Mullens, a former jazz great, from whom he learned a great deal. When Mullens is found stabbed to death in another alley, Stewart investigates on his own.

   As I said, this is a hard-boiled novel, but Farr often approaches poetry in his writing. particularly when he is dealing with jazz. It’s somewhat fair play, also, though Stewart is helped by the murderer — at least the first one — being not too bright.

Bibliographic Notes:   First of all, the Jack Webb who wrote this book is not the radio-TV-movie actor Jack Webb. There was a lot of confusion about this in the early days of mystery fiction fandom (and elsewhere I’m sure). The Jack Webb who wrote this book was the author of eleven mystery novels under his own name, nine of them with the unlikely sleuthing pair of Father Joseph Shanley and Sammy Golden.

   As John Farr, Webb wrote five more crime and detective novels, two of them with a series character named Cy Clements, about whom I know nothing. The Deadly Combo was Mac Stewart’s only appearance.

JACK LISTON – Man Bait. Dell First Edition B158, paperback original, June 1960.

   Unless you’re collector of paperback books for their covers, you’ve probably never heard of Jack Liston. Man Bait may have been the only book he wrote under that name. But according to his online biography at Bowling Green University, where his literary papers are held — under his real name Ralph Maloney (1927-73) — he wrote six books and “was a contributor of short stories to The Atlantic Monthly and other periodicals. He also wrote documentary film scripts for British television.”

   The only other novel he wrote that’s included in Al Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV, though, is The Nixon Recession Caper (Norton, 1972), which sounds interesting enough, I suppose, but I don’t think it warrants a cover like the one you see above and to the right. It’s truly a work of art, and no wonder. It’s by famed artist Robert Maguire, whose covers invariable featured some of the most beautiful women in the world. (Follow the link and scroll down.)

   Unfortunately neither the title nor the cover are really all that appropriate. Bill Madden, who tells his own story, is a seaman by trade who finds himself in New York City longer than he expected. He’s recovering from an allergic reaction to a bad dose of penicillin, which was designed to cure the clap, and where he got the latter, he declines to say.

   Working as a bartender in a joint across from his hotel is Marcia, she of the “angry apple upthrust breasts,” and before the evening is over, she is up in his hotel room, staying the night. It’s an unusual type of affair. Each in their way is dependent on the other. Love may come into it, but these two are real people, with real concerns and desires, and romance is not really at the top of either of their priorities, not at first, at least.

   Marcia is not at all pretty. Bill describes her as a stringy sort, and he never sees her as attractive. But she knows the city inside and out, including some marginal underworld characters, and by association, some not so marginal. Bill’s other problem, besides hands and feet that swell when he is too active, is that he is a gambler, and gambling is no way to make a living when he can’t get back to his ship at sea.

   He hits bottom on page 110. What else is there to do but try his hand at crime? Up to now, we the reader may not have known where the story is heading, even with an itchy under-the-skin sort of suspense that’s continually been building up, but from this point one, now we know for sure, and there’s no turning back.

   As a bit of a warning, though, it may take some patience to get to this point. The downhill spiral the two almost-lovers find themselves in is developed oh-ever-so slowly and carefully. It is in their nature and the flaws in their characters that makes their destiny all the more predetermined and real — painfully so.

   I enjoyed this one. And what the heck. Here’s the cover again:

A PLACE OF ONE’S OWN. 1945. Margaret Lockwood, James Mason, Barbara Mullen, Dennis Price. Screenplay by Brock Williams and Osbert Sitwell, based on the latter’s novel. Directed by Bernard Knowles.

   This quiet little British film is both a ghost story and a murder mystery, but done in such a subtle civilized style minus any melodrama that you might miss that. You shouldn’t. It is a fine subtle film that features fine performances and a strong affecting story.

   James Mason and Barbara Mullen are the Smedhursts, an older couple, he retired from business, who move into a quiet home in the country where they hire Annette, Margaret Lockwood, as a companion who soon becomes like their daughter, and when young Dr. Selbie (Dennis Price) begins to woo her it seems as if all will live happily ever after, but there is something waiting for them that cannot be ignored.

   It seems their lovely home is haunted by the spirit of a young woman who was murdered, her death unsolved, and this restless spirit soon begins to influence Annette, who grows ill, and whose life is soon at stake unless hard headed pragmatic Mr. Smedhurst and young Dr. Selbie can lay the ghost and the murderer with a bit of detective work.

   It is hard to describe how charming and low key this film is, with Mason, at the time labeled the “man women loved to hate” for his sexy dangerous leads in films like The Man in Gray, The Wicked Lady, and The Seventh Veil, heavily made up against type as a practical aging middle class businessman who applies his level head to laying a ghost and saving a young woman. Everyone is good in the film, but it is Mason who carries the weight, and carries it effortlessly.

   This is a charming drama with more than a few touches of gentle humor, far from a thriller, and certainly not scary, but none the less a fine cinematic ghost story that manages to make the haunting quite real while never indulging in the usual trappings of the ghost story.

   A Place of One’s Own may be too low key for some, but I found it an intelligent and entertaining exercise in literate, well acted, and intelligent cinematic storytelling professionally and charmingly presented by all involved. Once you get into it this film will hold you effortlessly to the final scene.

BLAST OF SILENCE. Universal, 1961. Written, directed by and starring Allen Baron. With Molly McCarthy, Larry Tucker and Peter Clune.

   A Christmas movie for noir fans and nostalgia buffs alike, and one that’s hard to forget.

   Back in the late 50s/early 60s — the time of the “New Wave” in France — there were quite a few American film-makers doing meaningful, personal, sometimes daring work on the ragged fringes of Hollywood: Minimalist Westerns like Ride Lonesome and Terror in a Texas Town, off-beat horrors such as Bucket of Blood and The Tingler, and memorable low-budget thrillers like Underworld USA, Murder by Contract and Blast of Silence.

   When I say that viewing Blast of Silence is like watching a bad accident in slow motion, it sounds like a put-down, but there’s really no other way to describe the sick sensation this simple tale evokes: A hit-man arrives in New York at Christmas to carry out a contract that somehow slips out of control. We know what’s going to happen from the first shot, and there’s nothing we can do but watch, in the words of one critic, “a man playing out his role and quietly awaiting his inexorable betrayal.”

   Along the way, there are some really atmospheric moments, striking photography — including location shots of Harlem, 42nd Street and Times Square at Christmas that seem like artifacts now. There are edgy/jovial grown-up Christmas parties, 1960s-style; cold snowless streets decked out for the Holidays; and some really fine acting by performers who shoulda been contenders:

   Larry Tucker is perfectly loathsome as a rat-loving double-crosser, but his only other role of note in the movies is “Pagliacci” in Shock Corridor; Mary McCarthy projects the same sensitive, intelligent femininity she projected in The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery (another neglected treasure from the same period), and as for Allen Baron, his acting has an unforced naturalism about it that matches his writing and direction very effectively indeed.

   As far as the other credits, the only name you’d recognize is Lionel Stander, who does the voice-over narration (oddly, in the 2nd-person) which was written by Waldo Salt, who deserves a footnote here: Salt was blacklisted in the McCarthy era (he is billed here as “Mel Davenport”) but the ordeal seems to have done him some good; his pre-blacklist films are competent but unmemorable things like The Bride Wore Red and The Flame and the Arrow, but afterwards he went on to respected work like Midnight Cowboy, Serpico and Coming Home.

   No such luck for Allen Baron, however. Blast of Silence remains an intriguing but obscure film — and perhaps the bleakest Christmas Movie ever.

      PHOTO GALLERY: