S. S. VAN DINE – The Benson Murder Case. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1926. Hardcover reprints include: A. L. Burt, no date (shown); Gregg Press, 1980. Paperback reprints include: Pocket #333, 1945 (shown); Fawcett Gold Medal T2006, no date (ca.1968); Scribner’s, 1983 (shown).

   Narrator ‘Van’ Van Dine originally met Philo Vance at college and is now not only a close friend but also his full-time legal and financial advisor. He is thus on the spot to record cases in which Vance becomes involved.

   Vance is rich and cultured, possessing many beautiful and rare examples of art and artefacts from various eras and continents. He easily out-Wimseys Wimsey, what with addressing people as ‘Old dear’ and constantly talkin’ ragin’ nonsense, often dropping French or German into conversations with an occasional bit of Latin for variety, not to mention quoting luminaries such as Milton, Longfellow, Cervantes, and Rousseau as well as Spinoza and Descartes. But it’s all a front, of course.

   John Markham, DA for NY County, arrives at Vance’s flat while Van and Vance are discussing business and announces wealthy broker Alvin Benson has been murdered. Alvin’s brother Major Anthony Benson has asked Markham to take charge, and Markham had promised Vance he would take him along on his next important investigation. It seems the authorities were casual about protocol as well as crime scenes, because not only do both Vance and Van tag along but they are also present at several interrogations.

   At one point Vance produces a list of suspects based upon reasoning from available information and physical evidence. The only snag is they are innocent. It is a demonstration of his conviction that “The truth can be learned only by an analysis of the psychological factors of a crime and an application of them to the individual”.

   Who then is the culprit? The actress Muriel St Clair, in whom the dead man had taken more than a passing interest? Her fiance Captain Philip Leacock, he of the hasty temper and jealous disposition? Major Benson, given the brothers did not get along? What about Mrs Anna Platz, Alvin’s housekeeper, who seems to be hiding something, or the precious and impecunious Leander Pfyfe, a close friend of the deceased?

My verdict: Some will find Vance’s insistence on keeping the identity of the murderer secret irritating but given he had it sussed out within an hour or two of visiting the crime scene, one can see why.

   To be fair, he all but takes Markham’s hand and leads him to the culprit. There are clues aplenty, and to my delight the author provided those much-loved and now sadly missed tidbits — a room plan, a character list, and footnotes from Van.

   Although readers may find Vance’s lit’r’y meanderin’s a bit tedious, his explanation of his psychological reasonings are interesting and convincing, although I am still not certain if the author was sending it up or using it as a genuine plot device. All in all, however, a good read with plenty of red herrings to confuse the issue.

      Etext:
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200341h.html

[EDITORIAL COMMENT.]  Mary sent me this review back in September of  ’07, along with a backlog of others. (Sorry, Mary!) I’ll get more of them online here soon, but after posting Bill Loeser’s recent comments about the same book, I thought I ought to pull this one out of the queue and give it some priority, the idea being that two independent views of a book are better than one, and certainly far better than none. (Where else has The Benson Murder Case been reviewed in the last 10 or 20 years?)

   That’s a rhetorical question. You needn’t answer it.

   Based on an overall favorable review in Barzun & Taylor’s A Catalogue of Crime, I read Anne Hocking’s Death Disturbs Mr. Jefferson (1950). Solicitor Jefferson is found dead in bed, and it soon becomes apparent that someone had put a ringer in his bottle of sleeping pills.

   At first, Jefferson seems to be an estimable character – he had no use for people and lives only for his glass collection – but it is discovered that he has been supporting his hobby/habit by blackmail on the basis of documents entrusted to him professionally.

   At this point the reader is all on the side of the murderer. In a good touch, Ms. Hocking has overcome our misplaced running with the hare by making the culprit one of the blackmailees.

   Most of the detection is ordinary policework and elimination of suspects because they aren’t “capable” of the crime. There is little action – even the killer is collared offstage.

   Not bad, not good.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATA: [Taken from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin.]

ANN HOCKING – Death Disturbs Mr. Jefferson. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1950. Geoffrey Bles, UK, hardcover, 1951.

CHIEF INSPECTOR WILLIAM AUSTEN. Author: Anne Hocking, pseudonym of Mona Messer Hocking, (1890-1966).

Ill Deeds Done (n.) Bles 1938 [England]
The Little Victims Play (n.) Bles 1938 [England]
Old Mrs. Fitzgerald (n.) Bles 1939 [England]  US title: Deadly Is the Evil Tongue.
So Many Doors (n.) Bles 1939 [Cyprus]
The Wicked Flee (n.) Bles 1940 [England]
Miss Milverton (n.) Bles 1941 [England]  US title: Poison Is a Bitter Brew
Night’s Candles (n.) Bles 1941 [Cyprus]
One Shall Be Taken (n.) Bles 1942 [England]
Nile Green (n.) Bles 1943 [Cairo]  US title: Death Leaves a Shining Mark.

Six Green Bottles (n.) Bles 1943 [England]
The Vultures Gather (n.) Bles 1945 [England]
Death at the Wedding (n.) Bles 1946 [England]
Prussian Blue (n.) Bles 1947 [England]  US title: The Finishing Touch.
At “The Cedars” (n.) Bles 1949 [England]
Death Disturbs Mr. Jefferson (n.) Bles 1951 [London]
Mediterranean Murder (n.) Evans 1951 [Spain; Ship]  US title: Killing Kin.
The Best Laid Plans (n.) Bles 1952 [England]

There’s Death in the Cup (n.) Evans 1952 [England]
Death Among the Tulips (n.) Allen 1953 [England]
The Evil That Men Do (n.) Allen 1953 [England]
And No One Wept (n.) Allen 1954 [England]

Poison in Paradise (n.) Allen 1955 [England]
A Reason for Murder (n.) Allen 1955 [England]
Murder at Mid-Day (n.) Allen 1956 [Spain]
Relative Murder (n.) Allen 1957 [England]
The Simple Way of Poison (n.) Allen 1957 [Oxford]

Epitaph for a Nurse (n.) Allen 1958 [England]  US title: A Victim Must Be Found.
Poisoned Chalice (n.) Long 1959 [England]
To Cease Upon the Midnight (n.) Long 1959 [England]
The Thin-Spun Life (n.) Long 1960 [England]
Candidates for Murder (n.) Long 1961 [England]
He Had to Die (n.) Long 1962 [England]
Murder Cries Out (n.) Long 1968 [England]

ELIZABETH DALY – Night Walk.

Dell, paperback reprint; Murder Ink series #55; 1st printing, December 1982. Hardcover first edition: Rinehart & Co., 1947. Hardcover reprint: Detective Book Club, 3-in-1 edition, February 1948. Other paperback edition: Berkley F811, 1963.

   A scarce book, relatively speaking. On ABE at the moment there are only 24 copies of all of the various editions combined. The “Murder Ink” series is a nice set to own, by the way. Wouldst that a mass-market publisher would consider doing today a long series of classic detective novels like this one, with a parallel and equally long one presented under the auspices of the “Scene of the Crime” bookshop on the West Coast.

   Authors like Sheila Radley, V. C. Clinton-Baddeley, W. J. Burley, Douglas Clark, Colin Watson, and Patricia Moyes (Murder Ink); and Gladys Mitchell, Anthony Berkeley, Alan Hunter, and Gwendoline Butler (Scene of the Crime). Hardly any of them even in print today.

   I’ll forgo my usual bibliographic discussion of the author, Elizabeth Daly. You can read the preceding review for that. Even though I read The Book of Lion over four years ago, the same kinds of feelings were evoked this afternoon and evening in finishing up Night Walk. A strong sense of nostalgia for the past, quite definitely, but there’s also (as I suspect in all of Daly’s fiction) an unmistakable love of things literary, bookish, and yes, libraries, where a portion of the current book takes place.

   The scene is a small, isolated town in Westchester County, New York, which even though perhaps less than 50 miles from Manhattan, lives (or did in 1947) almost as though in a different, earlier era, and obviously in a far different place. A place where, if a murder occurs, it can be blamed on a tramp. A homicidal maniac, more likely.

   The first four chapters, in fact, do nothing more than to follow the trail of the killer, first to a small scale rest and rehab facility for the rich and well-to-do, then the aforementioned lilbrary, then the local inn, and then and only then, to the home of the Carringtons’, where the senior member, an invalid, is later found dead in his bed.

   Henry Gamadge is called in on the behest of a friend who finds himself caught up by accident by the police, a stranger to the area, but with an ulterior motive he’d rather not make public.

   Gamadge, having an in with the police, a friend on the force in the city having put in a good word for him, does his usual low key type of investigation. In fact, the first 100 pages he’s on the job seem to be nothing more than retracing the steps of the killer on the path connecting his (or her) various stops along his way. Nothing seems to escape Gamadge’s attention, however.

   To the reader, though, the lack of a “Watson” is a bit of a frustration, as we see what Gamadge sees, but we do not have access to his thought processes. On the other hand, however, there are none of those “You know my methods,” tossed off to his subordinates as if only to tease us.

   It’s a trade-off, of course, and if I were to read more of Elizabeth Daly, I think I might eventually catch on to the way she includes her clues — all very fair and above board, I might very well make sure you understand.

   What it also means is that it takes the last 18 pages or so for Gamadge to explain all, and ’tis nice, the explanation is, indeed. One wishes perhaps only more stage presence from Clara, otherwise known as Mrs. Gamadge. She comes to Frazer’s Mills only at the end of the book, appearing on only one or maybe two of the pages in the last 18.

   Plotwise, I might mention a small couple of glitches in the summing up or the previous telling of the tale, but they’re so minor, for what good reason, I ask myself now, should I bring them up now? So I won’t, no more than I already have.

ELIZABETH DALY – The Book of the Lion.

Bantam paperback, 1st printing, 1985. Hardcover edition: Rinehart & Co., 1948. Hardcover reprint: Detective Book Club, September 1948. Earlier paperback editions: Bestseller Mystery #112, circa 1949; Berkley F700, circa 1963.

   For a lady who didn’t start writing mysteries until she was in her early 60s, Elizabeth Daly was one of the more prolific author in the 1940s, publishing sixteen adventures of Henry Gamadge, the leading character in each of her books, during the twelve year period beginning in 1940 and ending in 1951.

   It’s doubtful, though, if any but the most dedicated of mystery readers know of her work today. For the volume of work she did, Elizabeth Daly seems to be under-appreciated and all but forgotten. According to Amazon, only one of her books is currently in print: Unexpected Night (Otto Penzler’s Classic American Mystery Library, 1994).

   And I’ll confess that in spite of many opportunities to do so, this is the first of her novels that I’ve read, and I can’t tell you why. In case, you’ll have to take the comments that follow as being based on a sample of size one, no more (and no less).

   What Gamadge does (or did) for a living, precisely, based on this wispy, lightweight bit of mystery, escaped me for a while. He is called upon to look at a collection of letters that might have some value, even though he gently protests that he is not really qualified. He is later described as a graphologist – a handwriting expert – not to mention a noted criminologist (page 41). What he really seems to be, and he has a laboratory to back up this up, is an expert in old and rare books.

   All of which lends a strong literary flavor to the case that follows. The widow of a famed poet and playwright, but not in any financial sense, has the husband’s letters, but before Gamadge can view them, she has them sold and bundled out of her brother-in-law’s house, sight unseen.

   The end of the matter, perhaps, but Gamadge senses there was more to the sale than met the eye. He is proven right, although not in any way the police can follow up on, when the last person the dead man visited before his unsolved death also is found dead, an apparent suicide, and it takes Gamadge’s mild-mannered investigations to bring some closure and finality to the matter.

   Gamadge is the epitome of the genteel, bookish detective, the pure amateur, and he is very clever in the way he figures things out and puts the pieces of the puzzle together – and I still haven’t figured out how he knew what and when nor how.

   “The Book of the Lion,” by the way, would be a fabulous find, if it were ever found – especially in manuscript form as one of the lost books of Chaucer – and that is what piques Gamadge’s interest more than anything else, even if the chances are nearly one hundred percent that it’s a forgery.

   Even if the plot is flimsy and gossamer thin, Daly’s characters are perfectly described, even those the most minor, and she has a sense of humor that can often catch you unaware. Gamadge’s wife Clara, who does not appear often enough in this novel, is a charming young woman who seems to adore Henry.

   I particularly liked the following exchange, from page 112. Clara and Henry are talking about the beautifully naive young cousin of the widow who had the letters:

[UPDATE] 07-16-08.   Four and a half years later, and there aren’t any of Elizabeth Daly’s books in print. I’m guessing, but I imagine both she and Henry Gamadge are even less well-known now than they were then. Tastes change, I know, but it’s still a shame.

   And in the “credit where credit is due” department: The cover of the Bestseller edition came from www.bookscans.com, a website with a most worthy goal: to display the covers of every vintage paperback ever published in the US through 1970 or so. I sent Bruce Black, the proprietor, a few he’s missing earlier this week, and if you’re a collector, you might consider doing the same.

[UPDATE] 07-23-08.   Good news! I was in error when I said Daly is no longer in print. See the comment left today by Les Blatt.

GOLD OF THE SEVEN SAINTS. Warner Brothers, 1961. Clint Walker, Roger Moore, Letícia Román, Robert Middleton, Chill Wills, Gene Evans. Based on the novel Desert Guns by Steve Frazee; co-screenwriter: Leigh Brackett. Director: Gordon Douglas.

   Desert Guns was a paperback original (Dell First Edition A135, 1957) which I own and which I really ought to read. For now, this movie that’s based upon it will have to do. Any resemblance between film and book, however, may be (as usual) coincidental.

   But however strong their relationship is in the book, Clint Walker and Roger Moore certainly make a good pair of friends in the movie, a small western epic of an adventure filmed (unfortunately) in black-and-white. Walker plays Jim Rainbolt, the senior of the two fur-trapping partners, while Moore is Shaun Garrett, his protege, so to speak, a young Irish cowboy who’s a bit wet behind the ears, and has a propensity to neither stop talking or (believe it or not) singing throughout the film.

   One reviewer on IMDB claims their relationship borders on the homoerotic, but I don’t know. I guess you have to be looking for subtexts such as this, but if you’re interested in following him up on his claim, you can go read his long post for yourself.

   Which not to say that you cannot find one or the other bare-chested in this film, and at least one of the photos that I’ve found to show you will back me up on this. The two of them make a good team, Clint Walker doing the TV show Cheyenne (1955-1962) at the same time as this movie, and Roger Moore just finishing a run as Beauregarde Maverick on that other Warner Brothers TV western series, but not yet known as The Saint.

   What gets them into trouble in Gold of the Seven Saints is not their fur-trapping activities, but the 250 pounds of gold they’ve come across while doing so. This is a lot of weight to carry around, of course, and while trying to steal a horse while passing by a small town on their way to Seven Saints (the town where they’re headed), Shaun is cornered and buys his way out of trouble (and gains the horse) with a small nugget he’s carrying with him to clinch the deal.

   Which is not a good idea. Almost immediately the two of them are on the run with a gang of thieves on their trail. Gene Evans is McCracken, the villainous leader of the bunch, and hardly anybody played a meaner, tougher western villain than Gene Evans. Chill Wills plays a doctor with an equally villainous thirst for whiskey, and Robert Middleton is a perhaps overly friendly Mexican bandit named Gondora. Both come to the two men’s rescue, or so they say.

   There is only one female role of any consequence in this movie, and that’s Tita (Letícia Román), apparently Gondora’s “ward.” (I did not catch the full details, but Gondora is willing to sell her to the one of the pair who makes the higher offer.)

   Once again it is a pity that a wide screen movie filmed with such spectacular scenery in the background was not done in color. The plot itself is fairly straight-forward. You’ll watch this for the players, all of whom seem to be having a good time.

   As a quick PostScript, I’m probably not the only one who has wondered why Clint Walker did not have a more successful movie career than he did. Perhaps it was just a matter of being typecast as a Western player, and unlike Clint Eastwood, say, he never quite found the role that shifted gears for him.

RICHARD S. WHEELER – The Witness.

Signet, paperback original; 1st printing, July 2000.

   If you’re as old as I am, you might remember radio programs such as Suspense, Inner Sanctum or The Whistler, all of which opened with an all-seeing, all-knowing narrator — The Man in Black, Raymond, or the never named Whistler. These fine gentlemen were never part of the story, or if so, it was seldom, but it was their wry comments that always spurred the listener’s interest onward.

   In The Witness, it’s western postmaster Horatio Bates, the Observer, who tells this story and makes a small but still significant role in it — the first of others to come, perhaps. Who knows more what goes on in small towns such as Paradise, Colorado, circa 1890, than the man through whose offices all the mail flows?

   Bank accountants are also privy to many secrets, and Daniel Knott is no exception. Amos Burch, the banker, founder of the town and its primary benefactor, is the man who Knott sees late at night, in his office, with a woman, not his wife.

   Knott is promoted, no quid pro quo stated, but it’s certainly understood. But when Amos Burch’s wife seeks a divorce, she needs a witness. And an honest man.

   Burch, being a desperate man, turns to desperate measures. What follows is a small but powerful morality tale, the issues being honor, honesty and justice — and not all of them seem to be compatible with each other.

   It’s also an old-fashioned sort of tale, flawed only by one character’s reaction to an ensuing development, one quite opposite to what I had expected. But given a tiny measure of suspended disbelief, here’s a book that can be read (if not devoured) in an evening’s time.

[UPDATE] 07-15-08. I’m not sure whether a book called Restitution (Signet, 2001) is the next book in the series or not, but it has the same cover design and mentions The Witness on the front cover. Whether there were others, I do not know.

THE MAN INSIDE. Warwick Films/Columbia, 1958. Jack Palance, Anita Ekberg, Nigel Patrick, Anthony Newley, Bonar Colleano, Sid James, Donald Pleasence. Based on the novel by M. E. Chaber. Director & co-screenwriter: John Gilling.

   Jack Palance plays Chaber’s well-traveled insurance investigator Milo March in this black-and-white Cinescope feature from the late 1950s. Considering all of the capital cities in Europe that the film takes place in, not to mention the opening scenes in New York City, I think the film ought to have been in color.

   Especially considering who his co-star was, and I don’t mean Nigel Patrick. The look that Palance gives Anita Ekberg from the bottom of a rooming-house set of stairs, with her at the top looking down, in the tightest-fitting dress you can imagine — well, maybe you can imagine, and no, while black-and-white may cut it in some movies, it does not in this one.

   Reviews for this movie online are few and far between, but they range from “tawdry” to “classic British noir,” and of course the truth (or rather, my opinion) is somewhere around halfway between. (Although it is a crime film, sure enough, it doesn’t really qualify as noir, and if it had been filmed in color, as suggested above, it wouldn’t occur to anyone to call it noir.)

   Story line: A mousy accountant named Sam Carter (played by Nigel Patrick, last seen here in The League of Gentlemen) waits 15 years before finally stealing a near priceless diamond from a Manhattan jewelry dealer, and Milo is the guy the insurance company sets on his trail.

   Complicating matters is that Milo is not the only one after the diamond, and Trudie Hall is one of them, although (according to her) she has a legitimate claim on it. Villainous Martin Lomer (Bonar Colleano) does not, and ever their tracks shall cross.

   From Lisbon, to Madrid (where March picks up an eager-to-please taxidriver assistant, amusingly played by Anthony Newley), to Paris, to London by train — I love movies that take place on trains, and this one’s no exception.

   There is, in fact, to pick up on a word I just used in the last paragraph, as much light humor in this mystery as there is violence, and I enjoyed that as well — the humor, I mean.

   The title of the movie (and of course prior to that, the book) comes from the fact that everyone has two sides to them: the outward one that everyone sees, and the man inside, who finds he cannot resist temptation and if and when given the opportunity, will take immediate action and advantage of it.

   As a small side note, one that I meant to mention above, Nigel Patrick was so well-disguised as the accountant-turned-thief (and then killer), I did not recognize him. With glasses and a mustache, he was that accountant, played to perfection with a capital P.

   Jack Palance’s youthful skull-faced features take some getting used to, as does his Texas accent, but his brash way of approaching matters soon make the unusual casting decision long-forgotten.

   As for Miss Ekberg, in 1958 she was very nearly the Eighth Wonder of the World. No acting ability would have been required, but the modicum she possessed at the time this movie was made was surely enough.

   Of movies recently reviewed here on the blog, director John Gillings’s previous one was The Pirates of Blood River (1962). The Man Inside apparently came before the bulk of the ones he did for Hammer.

SARAH STEWART TAYLOR – Judgment of the Grave. St. Martin’s Press: hardcover, June 2005; paperback, August 2006.

   Sweeney St. George, temporarily relieved of her academic teaching duties, pursues her interest in funerary art (mainly gravestones) by relocating to Concord to do primary research on the bizarre headstones carved by a Revolutionary era stonecutter. She finds herself following the trail already opened up by another scholar who’s disappeared and is presumed to be dead.

   I prefer Sweeney in her academic setting, where she seems more at home, but the novel, if somewhat over ingenious in its plotting, is still a pleasing mix of scholarship and murder, both of them natural lures for the always inquisitive protagonist.

ANN WALDRON – Unholy Death in Princeton. Berkley, paperback original, March 2005.

   A novel somewhat in the same vein as the one above. It features a protagonist (McLeod Dulaney) who’s a prizewinning journalist doing research for a biography on an abolitionist newspaperman at Princeton Seminary.

   In comparison with Taylor’s book, however, Waldron’s novel is cluttered with forgettable characters and really awful dialogue, further compromised by a meandering plot and an improbable climax.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATA:

   The Sweeney St. George mysteries:

   The McLeod Dulaney mysteries:

DON VON ELSNER – Just Not Making Mayhem Like They Used To.

Signet S2040; paperback original, December 1961.

   Have you ever read fifty pages into a book late into the evening, look up at the clock, see that it says that it’s one o’clock in the morning, and realize that the last 30 pages haven’t made much sense at all?

   I hate to say it of any book, but that’s what happened to me with this one. It’s not that I was tired, which is what I assumed the next morning, and maybe that’s what you’re thinking too, but no, that wasn’t it. I tried again, on and off, the whole week that followed. I struggled, I skimmed, and I skipped, and if you want to forgo reading the rest of this review for any of the reasons listed, you’d be right. I wouldn’t blame you in the least.

   This is the second recorded adventure of Colonel David Danning, lawyer, bridge player, and judo expert, among other accomplishments. If nothing else, the titles of his cases are designed to catch your attention. Expanded from the author’s entry in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin:

      Those Who Prey Together Slay Together. Signet D1943, June 1961.

      Just Not Making Mayhem Like They Used To. Signet S2020, Dec 1961.
      Don’t Just Stand There, Do Someone. Signet S2134, 1962
      You Can’t Do Business with Murder. Signet S2214, Dec 1962
      Who Says a Corpse Has to Be Dull. Signet G2407, 1963
      Pour a Swindle Through a Loophole. Belmont 92-604, Sept 1964
      Countdown for a Spy. Signet D2829, Jan 1966.

      A Bullet for Your Dreams. Lancer 73-709, 1968.

   Yes, I agree; the originality does tend to tail off toward the end. For the record, Von Elsner’s other mysteries feature Jake Winkman, a professional bridge player who helps out the CIA from time to time:

      How to Succeed at Murder Without Really Trying. Signet 1963. Reprinted as: The Jake of Diamonds. Award, 1967 (not a misprint)
      The Ace of Spies. Award 1966

      The Jack of Hearts. Award 1968

   According to Contemporary Authors, Don Von Elser (1909-1997) was a Life Master of the American Contract Bridge League, which explains why his heroes happen to be expert players too.

   Danning is hired by an underwriters association in Mayhem to find out why so many small businessmen have been committing suicide recently at such an unnatural rate. Danning immediately suspects a gang of blackmailers at work, and he accepts the job. Five months later, he’s still working, with no results to speak of. On page 22: “A vague pattern began to take shape in Danning’s mind.”

   But then, at long last, the logjam breaks. Danning comes across the story of Homer Pettingill, the man whose misadventures were related to the reader in Chapters One and Two, and hold on to reins, honey, we’re off to the races, and the book doesn’t stop until page 142 and the case is closed.

   Assisting Danning are his adoring secretary Nell Sheridan, who has to prod him into taking cases to boost his disposition; Dr. Greta Nevin of UCLA, who possesses the longest and loveliest legs of any psychology professor in the world; his son Bob, whom he calls Duke, and vice versa, and who looks exactly like him; and a whole agency of private detectives at his continuous beck and call.

   As I type this, it’s beginning to dawn on me that I may have simply been in the wrong mood to read this book, but here’s what is it that goes wrong, as far as I’ve been able to decide, humorous approach prevailing or not.

   Danning’s case is built upon nothing but coincidence and guesswork. Two guys in a hotel chosen at random might be the pair of con men that they’re looking for – of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world – and yes, they are the ones they’re looking for, a silly escapade with the married folks in the room next door notwithstanding.

   I’ve have thought they’d have investigated the mechanics of the crime and the actual way it was pulled off, but no, no questions are asked along those lines, save very obliquely. But after all of the fancy scheming to get the goods on the bad guys – I skimmed a lot here – it turns out in the recap and the explanations at the end, it all depends on guess what? The mechanics of the crime and the actual way it was pulled off.

   Which you’ve got to read to believe. I don’t, not even for a minute. There’s a good chance that you’ll disagree with me on any or all of this, but I have a hunch that you won’t.

    …We are often reminded that it is not polite for critics to discuss who did it or how. I say that, if we are going to write criticism – which I define as discussion of strengths and failings of books and authors – of detective fiction, the who and how are exactly what we should be writing about. To the extent the means and/or the murderer is memorable, the book is memorable – as detective fiction …

   In the interest of space and weight, I recently took along a paperback copy of S. S. Van Dine’s The Benson Murder Case (1926) to the laundromat rather than some hard cover book higher on my reading list. This is the public’s introduction to Vance, and Vance’s first exposure to detection which came to overshadow various connoisseurships and collecting interests among his hobbies.

   In it he gives long disquisitions on the superiority of psychological to physical evidence, which, while boring, are at least better than the parade of esoteric trivia he later became infamous for. Vance does make a good and important psychological deduction in the early going; that the vain and lecherous Alvin Benson could have been murdered only by a male intimate because he wouldn’t have granted an interview to a woman or a mere acquaintance while not wearing his toupee and false teeth.

   Having done so, Vance permits and occasionally abets his foil District Attorney Markham to harass the innocent suspects, who had conveniently grouped themselves in the neighborhood of Benson’s house on the fatal night like Christmas carolers, for the middle 3/4 of the book, merely remarking from time to time, “Markham, you’re going at it the wrong way.”

   Markham endures this amateur criticism in silence with only one outburst in the middle of the book and list of suspects, inquiring as to what the right way might be. Vance replies to this effect, “You wouldn’t understand,” and the inquisition goes on until only one person remains uncleared (i.e. heretofore unsuspected).

   Then, with the aid of a bit of illegal entry, Vance deftly breaks that gentleman’s alibi, forces his confession, and sits back to await the plaudits of the dumbfounded official investigators. Based on this book, Philo Vance doesn’t deserve “a kick in the pance,” just avoidance. (This is one author about whom Thomson’s opinion and mine are at great variance.)

   Two minor points. One of the suspects, a supercilious fop almost in Vance’s class, is presented as a caricature to be ridiculed. Van Dine was sailing very close to the wind here. New York City buffs will be interested to learn that at the time of writing, Sutton Place/York Avenue was more prosaically known as Avenue A.

FOOTNOTE: H. Douglas Thomson, referred to at one point in this review, was the author of Masters of Mystery: A Study of the Detective Story (Dover, 1978; originally Collins, UK, 1931). E. F. Bleiler called it “the first English-language work devoted to serious criticism and history of the detective story.”

BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATA:

  S. S. VAN DINE – The Benson Murder Case. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1926. Hardcover reprints include: A. L. Burt, no date (shown); Gregg Press, 1980. Paperback reprints include: Pocket #333, 1945 (shown); Fawcett Gold Medal T2006, no date (ca.1968); Scribner’s, 1983 (shown).

[UPDATE] 07-18-08.   I’ve just posted another review of The Benson Murder Case, this one by Mary Reed, not in reply, but written independently by her and sent to me late last year. (I’ve just pulled it out of my “to do” list, which as usual, I’m way behind on.)

         — Steve