ROCKWELL KENT – N by E. Brewer & Warren, hardcover, 1930. Blue Ribbon Books, hardcover, 1933. Wesleyan University Press, hardcover, 1996.

   True adventure story told in the form of journal entries from January through September 1929. Each entry is illustrated by original woodcut prints by the author.

   The adventure begins when he agrees to join the three-man crew aboard a wooden sailboat, set to sail from New York Harbor to Greenland by way of Newfoundland and Labrador.

   They make it nearly to the shores of Greenland when:

   â€œWe lay, caught in the angle of a giant step of rock, keel on the tread and starboard side against the riser; held there by wind and sea; held there to lift and pound; to lift so buoyantly on every wave; to drop—crashing our thirteen iron-shod tons on granite. Lift and pound!….A giant sledge hammer striking a granite mountain; a hollow hammer; and within it a man. Picture yourself that man. I stayed below, and was…..set full blown into that pandemonium of force, his world — of wind, storm, snow, rain, hail, lightning and thunder, earthquake and flood, hunger and cold, and the huge terrifying presence of the unknown…..We live less by imagination than despite it.”

   The author, of course, lives to write this tale. The ship is not so lucky. Yet so beautiful to gaze upon “the mountains, at the smoking waterfall, at the dark green lake with wind puffs silvering its plain, at the flowers that fringe the pebbly shore and star the banks” that the sunken sailors can only proclaim that: “It’s right…that we should pay for beautiful things. And being here in this spot, now, is worth traveling a thousand miles for, and all that that has cost us. Maybe we have lived only to be here now.”

   He comes to see the lost ship as a gift: “Only those men who have through shipwreck, drunkenness or chance achieved such a loss have tested freedom; and in a world inclined to tame the wilderness and eliminate the hazards from experience we may well cling to the ancient, high born, salutary privilege of man — of getting, sometimes, drunk.”

   The sublimity on the terrain shakes his very being. “Not until darkness is at hand do I prepare my supper, for even these long days are far too short for all their beauty. Suddenly  — it is now dark — a prolonged, high-pitched barking breaks the stillness; turning my eyes to the sound I see, silhouetted against the sky on the dark ridge of the hillside, a little blue fox. He sticks his sharp nose up at Heaven and for an hour howls away.”

   Fusing with a land where nature still dominates over ‘civilization’, he learns that “Man is less entity than consequence and his being is but a derivation of a less subjective world, a synthesis of what he calls the elements…and thus the elements at work become for man the pattern of his conduct… sunshine and storm, peace and turmoil, lightning and thunder and the quiet interludes…. But in the wilderness invariably peace predominates; and seeing the quiet uneventfulness of lives lived there, their ordered lawlessness, the loveliness and grace of bearing and of look and smile that it so often breeds and fosters we may indeed lament what man has made of man and hold those circumstances of congestion which are called civilization to be less friendly to beauty than opposed to it.”

   It is a strange adventure novel that keeps on going once the adventure ends. And here, the adventure and the propulsion of that narrative thrust drowns with the ship. Yet once the ship sinks, a new experience arises: that of a man forced back to nature. And rather than fighting it, accepting it. Rather than molding the land, letting the land mold him. Like Thoreau were his pond the Atlantic. Were Concord Greenland.

   The prose was difficult for me. It is frequently languorous and liquid, where I prefer the hard rocks that dash experience into shatters, that break everything upon its shores, into arrowheaded shards.

   Yet the name of the ship here was “Direction” — a name of which the author lamented its hubris. And as Direction sinks, the author’s spirits rise in the directionless peace of a pilgrim in reverse, from new world to old primordial lands of Icelandic saga, Native naivete, yearning less for rescue than escape.

   Some of the amazing woodcut images which compliment the narrative and provide more and better adjectives than those found in any thesaurus, can be found here and here

GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES. 20th Century Fox, 1953. Jane Russell, Marilyn Monroe, Charles Coburn, Elliott Reid, Tommy Noonan, George Winslow. Based on the musical comedy by Joseph Fields and Anita Loos. Director: Howard Hawks. Currently streaming online here.

   Especially if the blonde is Marilyn Monroe. Jane Russell is the brunette of the pair, showgirls with two tally opposed ways of  looking for a husband. Lorelei Lee is a golddigger from the word go, while her friend is looking merely for a man.

   There is not much to the story. Subtract the singing and dancing, and you’d have an hour or less of plot, which nobody probably pays any attention to anyway. Marilyn steals the show as the really not-so-dumb blonde. She has all the moves in the book.

IAN WATSON “Slow Birds.” Novelette. First published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, June 1983. Reprinted in The Year’s Best Science Fiction: First Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois, and The Best Science Fiction of the Year #13, edited by Terry Carr. Lead story in the collection Slow Birds and Other Stories (Gollancz, UK, hardcover, 1985). Nominated for both Nebula and Hugo awards for Best Novelette of 1983.

   Before starting this review in earnest, a description of the Slow Birds of the title is probably a good idea. The setting isn’t stated, but it appears to a rather cut-off area of perhaps a future United States, but if so, an appreciably altered one. The slow birds are a hazard the small population has learned to live with. They are not alive, far from it. They have tubular metal bodies, rounded in front and tapering to a point in back, about the length of a man and the girth of a horse with small wings used for stabilizing, not for propulsion.

   They appear and disappear at random and fly through the air at a constant speed of three feet per minute at the height of a man’s shoulders. Objects they can push their way through, they do. If they can’t, they bank around them. Graffiti on them identifies them, one from another. Eventually one of two things happen. They vanish on their own, or they explode, leaving a circle of flat glass having a radius of two and half miles on the ground below.

   One way to describe how well the inhabitants of five villages which lie close to each other have adapted is to tell you about the competition has developed between them on Mayday every year: a windsail/skating race on a circle of glass next to one of the villages. Jason Babbidge, the story’s primary protagonist has hopes of prevailing against last year’s winner, but as told in some detail, he fails.

   It’s the detail that matters, not necessarily that he fails. Later the same day, Jason’s younger brother climbs onto one of the slow birds, determined to learn, once and for all, where they go when they vanish, only to appear again later. Does he survive the trip? It takes a lifetime for him to return again, with finally an answer.

   When I started this review I was going to tell you what he learned, but now I have decided not to. You may have some idea what the slow birds and why they do what they do, and I did as well. What I did not expect to happen is to have the story turned inside out in such a cosmic mind-blowing fashion, from the scale of a small annual semi-friendly competition to what I will tell you is the exact opposite.

   If ever after I finished a science fiction story by saying to myself “Wow,” this one was it.

   Five stars.

JOHN BRUNNER – Born Under Mars. Ace G-664, paperback original, 1st printing, [October] 1967. Cover art by John Schoenherr. Reprinted several times. Serialized previously in two parts in Amazing Stories, December 1966–February 1967.

   Ray Mallin is a Martian, and a space pilot whose last voyage brought him to the attention of three factions. After the colonization of Mars, the stars [?] were settled by two spheres of influence: the Bears in the north, the Centaurs in the south. The third group consists of Earthmen and Martians interested in improving the genetic structure of all mankind.

   A stolen baby is the key, and [the way Martian society has developed] provides the means of getting him back again.

   The science is that of sociology, The separate distinct cultures did not form by accident. But because certain traits are dominant in a society, [it should not be assumed that] all members of that society have that same trait.

   The story itself is dreary, reflecting the dreariness of a stagnant Martian culture. Or is sociology itself not particularly interesting? A standard plot with a good point of view.

Rating: ***½

HELEN McCLOY – Who’s Calling? Basil Willing #4. William Morrow, hardcover, 1942, Dell #151, mapback edition [1947]; cover art by Gerald Gregg.

   Dr. Basil Willing, Helen McCloy’s primary (and only) series character appeared in thirteen novels between 1938 and 1980, and at least two short stories. Willing may have the distinction of being the first psychiatrist detective, having a formal connection with the NYPD and perhaps as well with the FBI, and being called upon to help solve cases in which his professional knowledge might come in handy.

   This one begins with a voice on the telephone warning New York night club singer Freda Frey not to accompany her fiancé Archie Cranford down to meet his mother who lives in a small town outside of Washington DC. She goes anyway, in spite of the phone call and in spite of an unspoken hostility from her future mother-in-law, who fears that Archie will settle for less in his life if he marries her.

   Freda is not the victim of a killer, however. Dead instead is Chalkley Winchester, a long lost cousin of Mrs, Cranford and the fussy kind of a man that reminded me of Truman Capote, say, but several years before the latter’s time.

   Working on a degree is psychiatry himself, it is Archie who calls in Dr. Willing to help the police, an event that doesn’t occur until perhaps a third of the way through the book, and it is his expertise that helps determine that the killer is suffering from a split personality disorder. What may make this mystery unique in the annals of detective fiction is that while Willing nor the police know who the killer is, neither does he or she as well.

   I confess I do not know why the killer was continually referred to as a poltergeist. As I understand the  term, that is a undead spirit which manifests itself by making noises   in the night and throwing crockery against the wall.

   Setting aside most of the psychiatric background of the case as only pleasant background noise,, which I did, this is a well-constructed detective puzzle in which all of pieces fit snugly together at the end, against a backdrop of upper middle-class gentility that not so incidentally is part of the killer’s motivation, a nice touch. Not a work of classic stature, say, but it’s one that will do until one of that magnitude comes along.

   In Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe novel Prisoner’s Base (1952), Archie Goodwin describes his employer as weighing “four thousand ounces” (a possible post-Zeck low of 250 pounds); they reach an impasse over a young woman who refuses to identify herself and offers $50 a day to hide out in the brownstone until June 30.

   This is broken by the arrival of lawyer Perry Helmar, who offers Wolfe $5,000 to find Priscilla Eads, of whom he is the guardian and trustee of her father’s estate, and $10,000 if he produces her by…you guessed it, June 30, when she takes possession on her 25th birthday. One complication is doubt within “a large and successful corporation” about Pris’s inheriting 90% of the stock to take control.

   Another is ex-husband Eric Hagh, who has a document she’d signed granting him half of the property, and Helmar thinks she might be going to Venezuela to see him, so Wolfe — tipped that Archie recognized her photo — says he’ll sleep on it.

   Pris can either match his offer or leave so that Wolfe can accept, giving her a head start; she opts for the latter, and when she is murdered, Cramer comes calling, because Archie’s prints are on her luggage. After Wolfe directs him to “unload,” Cramer reveals that her maid, Margart Fomos, was strangled near her tenement, as was Pris in her apartment, but Wolfe refuses to take it on, absent a paying client and notwithstanding his self-esteem, so Archie undertakes to do so.

   Lon Cohen of the Gazette explains that the stock will now be divided among personnel of the Softdown, Inc. towel and textile business (plus Helmar), where Archie, mistaken for a cop, finds them in conference with stylist Daphne O’Neil. President Jay Luther Brucker; Viola Duday, the former assistant to Nathan Eads; VP/sales manager Bernard Quest; and secretary/treasurer Oliver Pitkin all benefit from the murder, and while Daphne was hired in the decade since Nate’s death, Vi says Pris planned to oust her. As Archie grills them on their alibis, Lt. Rowcliff arrests him for impersonating a cop and takes him downtown, where Skinner has apparently become Commisioner, and replaced as D.A. by Ed Bowen.

   Himself hauled in by the despised Rowcliff as a material witness, Wolfe says he now has a client — Archie — because of his “humane, romantic, and thoroughly admirable [quest], and your callous and churlish treatment of him…”

   Over dinner, Lon says the remaining 10% is owned by Sarah Jaffee, a Korean War widow and friend of Pris whose father had been a Softdown associate; male journalists favor Ollie as a suspect, and females Vi, with at least half certain that Daphne is involved. Sarah tells Archie she declined to help Pris elect a female board of directors, including them and Margaret with Vi as president, and she also refuses to seek an injunction restraining the fivesome from assuming ownership.

   Archie has no better luck with the bereaved Andreas Fomos, but then Attorney Albert M. Irby arrives, representing Hagh and seeking affidavits that Pris had acknowledged signing the document, which Helmar contests.

   Offered 5% of any settlement, Wolfe refuses until he meets Eric, en route from Caracas, which he suggests take place at “a meeting of those concerned.” Grateful to Archie for helping her get past her husband’s death, Sarah does a 180, so Nathaniel Parker takes a $1 retainer until a court is satisfied that the stock was not acquired via murder; this compels an outraged Helmar to convene the suspects at Wolfe’s office, where it is stipulated in advance that Hagh and Irby should be seen, but not heard.

   Deciding that Pris must have owed Margaret something big, which he wants, Andy also reconsiders and joins the party; there, Vi identifies Miss Drescher, a superintendent at the factory, as the last proposed director, and Bernie claims that he and Sarah’s father, Arthur Gilliam, were responsible for Softdown’s success.

   They disperse without resolution, but an alarm bell rings in Archie’s head when Sarah calls after dancing at the Flamingo Club with Parker to report her keys missing, and he hastens over, arriving too late. Even more guilt-ridden than before, he puts himself at Cramer’s disposal, since the keys were stolen at the meeting, sitting in on interrogations and even buying Purley fried clams at Louie’s.

   On a brownstone pit stop in between visits to Leonard Street, Archie is surprised to learn that Wolfe has hired Saul, and finally, “flumped,” Skinner suggests replaying the meeting to spot the key-thief and/or deduce a motive, with Saul standing in for Sarah.

   Wolfe flips the script, noting that Margaret was not killed only to obtain the keys to Pris’s apartment, and Sarah, having seen his photo, knew “Hagh” was an impostor and had somehow made him aware of it in the office. In South America, Saul identified him as Siegfried Muecke; having impersonated Hagh — killed in a snow slide — and unaware of the provisions of the will regarding the stock, Muecke strangled each of them because they could expose him…

   A two-part first-season episode of A Nero Wolfe Mystery, the only entry directed by Neill Fearnley, “Prisoner’s Base” (5/13 & 20/01) was adapted by Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin, who shared an Edgar Allan Poe Award nomination for Part 2, and were second only to Sharon Elizabeth Doyle as scenarists.

   It marked Hrant Alianak’s sole appearance as Parker (embodied twice by fellow repertory player George Plimpton in Season 2), and Bill MacDonald’s first in his recurring role of Rowcliff. The closing credits list alternate spellings for several character names (Jaffe, Eades, O’Neill), and Aron Tager, previously seen as Commissioner Bernard Fromm, is amusingly credited as “Commissioner Skinn.”

   The show customarily capitalizes on the comedic potential as Archie (Timothy Hutton), stung by sarcasm regarding a low bank account, retaliates by tearing up his salary check, annoying Wolfe (Maury Chaykin) by disrupting the accounting but sweetening the offer made by Pris (Shauna Black).

   Ron Rifkin, later of “Over My Dead Body” (7/8 & 15/01), guests as Helmar, with the usual suspects — literally — as the Softdown contingent: Bernie (James Tolkan), Vi (Nicky Guadagni), Daphne (Dina Barrington), Ollie (Gary Reineke), and Brucker (David Schurmann). Although appreciative that Archie was so forthcoming about Pris’s visit, Cramer (Bill Smitrovich) can’t resist gloating over their lack of a client.

   This is surpassed by Rowcliff’s glee when arresting Archie, whose insistence that he had only identified himself as “Goodwin. Detective,” and flashed his license, “which no one took the trouble to examine,” triggers his foe’s tell-tale stutter.

   The colloquy with Bowen (Robert Bockstael) — whose door bears the first initial “T.” —  is delicious as Wolfe names his client, excoriates the squirming Rowcliff, and enumerates his hatred of leaving home, being touched, or riding in any kind of vehicle. The dismay of Fritz (Colin Fox), told he must unexpectedly stretch dinner to include Lon (Saul Rubinek), and the badinage over who is in whose debt, as they haggle over the terms of the quid pro quo, are equally droll.

   A self-described “nut,” Sarah (Kari Matchett) never put away her late husband’s hat and coat when he went to war, and couldn’t bring herself to do so once he was reported dead, also keeping a place set for him at the table, so Archie occupies it, and touchingly agrees to take his things to the Salvation Army. Fomos is eliminated, but Part 2 brings onstage Irby (Wayne Best), noting that Eric (Steve Cumyn) rejected a $100,000 settlement, and Parker, with Wolfe listening in as Helmar calls him a “murderer” for sending Pris to her doom. Fearnley generates suspense in Sarah’s darkened apartment, where Archie finds she has lost the titular game, with the phone one base and the elevator outside the other.

   A montage depicts Archie’s efforts as — per Stout — “an informal adjunct of the NYPD,” initially arrested again after he is seen forcing the night man (Jody Racicot) to admit him at gunpoint. At Skinner’s behest, the suspects are gathered for the playback, pre-empted by Wolfe’s “remarks” fingering Muecke, with Saul (Conrad Dunn) confirming that while signing the paper had been Pris’s idea, Hagh himself “was too proud a man to sponge off a woman…”

   Goldberg and Rabkin amend Stout’s ending as Archie’s punch forestalls an attack by Muecke on Wolfe, rather than by Andy on Muecke; they close with him poised to tear up his payment for Wolfe’s services, not Wolfe doing so himself, as in the novel.

         — Copyright © 2023 by Matthew R. Bradley.
   

Up next: The Golden Spiders

Edition cited: Prisoner’s Base: Bantam (1963)

    The final chapter, omitted from most Bantam editions, is thoughtfully provided by the Wolfe Pack, “the official Nero Wolfe literary society,” here.

Online sources:

SHEENA: QUEEN OF THE JUNGLE “Crash in the Jungle.” Syndicated, 01 September 1955 (Season One, Episode One). Irish McCalla (Sheena), Chris Drake (Bob Rayburn), Neal the Chimp. Guest Cast: Claudio Brooks, Rebeca Iturbide. Based on the comic book character created by Will Eisner and Jerry Iger. Directed by Carl K. Hittleman. Currently streaming on YouTube (see below).

   This early syndicated TV series may have been intended for children, but even if so, I’ll bet a lot of adults watched too. Former pin-up model Irish McCalla, while far from being a polished actress, was perfect in the role of Sheena, blonde, athletic (often doing her own stunts in skimpy clothing) and still totally feminine.

   This first episode doesn’t go into the origins of the character, and perhaps the TV series, which lasted for one season of 26 episodes, never did. In this episode a pilot of a small plane survives a fiery crash, but a reel of film of a reclusive native tribe taken by a lady journalist does not. Luckily the film was insured, a fact that does not escape the notice of those investigating the accident.

   At the end of this review is the discussion that Sheena has with them. She does not know what “insurance” is, and the conversation is designed to show her naivete in such matters, which is effective as well as charming. You could say the same thing about the whole production, in spite of its low budget roots, which are showing.

   No matter. Watching this was fun. There was a full-length feature film starring Sheena that came along later, followed by a second syndicated series, both in color with a lot more production values. And yet, while this is the only episode of the earliest version I’ve had a chance to watch, at the moment this is the one I’ve enjoyed the most.

Bob Rayburn: Insurance is like betting. It started out with ships full of cargo, understand?
Andy Howard: Yes! Only the cargo owners bet the ship is going to sink.
Sheena: Why?
Andy Howard: [to Bob] Why?
Bob Rayburn: Because they didn’t want it to sink.
Sheena: Why bet?

Andy Howard: Why, because if it does sink they want to be paid for the cargo.
Sheena: Who pay?
Bob Rayburn: The insurance company.
Sheena: Why?
Bob Rayburn: Why.
Bob Rayburn: [to Andy] You take it, lad.

MICHAEL CANFIELD “We Both Loved Scandies.” Lead story in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, July/August 2023.

   The story begins as a woman is about to leave the small town of Osta in Sweden only to have an inspector from the local police department stop by, one she had not met before. Gradually we learn, largely from long flashbacks, that although we do not not exactly what, something has happened and that in all likelihood (as we can easily guess) it was serious.

   The woman, as it is gradually revealed, had come to Osta with another woman, a traveling companion, on a trip to see where the exploits of her favorite detective character had taken place, and where in fact the author, one Freddie Ek, had lived.

   Any fan of detective mysteries will identify with this immensely, and enjoy puzzling out who the other woman was and what might have happened. As his questions seem to reveal, the inspector seems to know than he actually says. The flashbacks also serve to only skirt around the real reason for his visit.

   It’s a storytelling technique that here, in the case at hand, is very neatly done. It’s only when the story is over might the reader realize how artificial the cat-and-mouse game really was.

   Your enjoyment of this particular tale, told in this particular way, will depend primarily on how forgiving you are, once the tale is told. As for me, I enjoyed it.

            —

    From the author’s “About the Author” Amazon page:

MICHAEL CANFIELD is the author of the crime novels Perfect Likeness, Bad People, and Exhibit A, as well as Red Jacket: A Novel with a Superhero and a horror novel, Pain Thieves. He has published over two dozen mystery, fantasy, sci-fi, horror, stories in Strange Horizons, Spinetingler, Escape Pod, Realms of Fantasy, Talebones, Black Gate, Borderlands, and other places. His novelette “Super-Villains” was reprinted in the prestigious Fantasy: The Best of the Year series, edited by Rich Horton. He divides his time between Seattle and Los Angeles, with frequent side-trips to Vegas.

    This appears to be his first work of short story detective fiction.

DANGEROUS MONEY. Monpgram Pictures, 1946. Sidney Toler (Charlie Chan), Gloria Warren, Victor Sen Young (Jimmy Chan), Rick Vallin, Joseph Crehan. Willie Best. Screenplay by Miriam Kissinger, based on characters created by Earl Derr Biggers. Director: Terry Moore. Currently streaming on YouTube (see below),

   Charlie Chan is en route by boat to Australia, when a treasury agent on the trail of some “hot money” is murdered. With a ship full of suspects, plus two “assistants,” one his number two son, Charlie fuddles around for a while and then nabs the killer.

   I take back the remarks I made about the Mr, Moto series. I think I am an intelligent person, but I didn’t understand anything after the first 15 minutes. I assumed all would be made clear later, but the movie’s over, and here I am, without a clue.

ELLERY QUEEN’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE – June 1967. Overall rating: ***

CORNELL WOOLRICH “Divorce – New York Style.” Serial, part 1 of 2. This story will be reported on in my review of the July 1967 issue. [Note: This installment is only ten pages long.]

GEORGES SIMENON “Inspector Maigret Thinks.” [First published in English in Argosy (UK) December 1961, as “Dead Man’s Barge.”] Two hangings on a barge in the Seine require Maigret’s attention. (3)

GERALD KERSH “A Game Played in the Twilight.” [Reprinted from The Saturday Evening Post, October 10 1959, as “Duel in the Dusk.”] A young Wild Bill Hickok learns how a near-sighted woman avenged the murder of her husband. (2)

EDWARD D. HOCH “The Theft from the Onyx Pool.” Nick Velvet is hired to steal 10,000 gallons of water from a swimming pool. (4) [Note: I reviewed this story separately on this blog here.]

AVRAM DAVIDSON “The Memory Bank.” Attempts to retire an aged clerk fail because of the old man’s memory. (4)

AGATHA CHRISTIE “Ask and You Shall Receive.” [Reprinted from The Royal Magazine, May 1928, as “The Thumb Mark of Saint Peter.” It was later collected in The Tuesday Club Murders.] Miss Marple’s niece is suspected of murdering her husband, and pilocarpine is mistaken for a heap of fish. (3)

MIRIAM SHARMAN “Battle of Wits.” A headmaster is confronted by the father of a student who was expelled. Good moments, but too confused. (3)

COLIN WATSON “Return to Base.” An American returns to an abandoned British air base where a girl had disappeared, Moody, languorous and uninteresting. (2)

ROBERT LADNER, JR. “Choice of Evils.” [Appears in EQMM‘s Department of First Stories- and was the author’s only published work of crime fiction.] The owner of a gas station slowly going bankrupt finds robbery the solution to his problems. (4)

JAMES HOLDING “The Photographer and the Columnist.” Manuel Andradas works out a plan to get all the money due him for working for the Big Ones. [Note: Under the guise of a photographer, Andradas is a professional assassin.] (3)

NEIL MacNEISH “Lament for a Scholar.” [Author’s real name is Norma Schier; an anagram of Michael Innes is used as the stated author.] Pastiche of Sir John Appleby. (0)

MICHAEL INNES “Dead Man’s Shoes.” Novelette. [Reprinted from Lilliput, August/September 1953; later included as the title story of a US hardcover collection.] A young real estate agent has a strange adventure traveling back to London, involving him with a murdered scientist wearing different colored shows. Sir John Appleby is the detective in this story of international espionage. Too clever a plot on the part of a murderer leads to his downfall. (3)