PAUL TEMPLE – The Tyler Mystery. Paul Temple #6. Hodder & Stoughton, UK, hardcover, 1957. [In this case, author Paul Temple is the pseudonym of Francis Durbridge & James Douglas Rutherford McConnell.] Reprinted as by Francis Durbridge: Hodder, UK< paperback, 1960. Based on the radio serial Paul Temple and The Tyler Mystery by Francis Durbridge.

   This one happens to involve two writers not known as well on these shores as as they should be, Francis Durbridge was an international rival to Agatha Christie in the mystery genre whose radio and television plays have been adapted in multiple languages and countries and was best known here as the creator of mystery writer/detective Paul Temple and his ex-journalist wife Steve who adventured in sixteen radio serials on the BBC from the thirties on solving crimes in the Nick and Nora manner. Three films and a television series followed in England and several German television serials of the Temple adventures.

   The Temple films are available on the gray market, while most of the Temple radio serials are easily found on YouTube since they are still rebroadcast on BBC radio or can be purchased on DVD. The complete television series can be found easily but requires a multi region player.

   You can find the film of Durbridge’s novel and serial Portrait of Alison with Robert Beatty and Terry Moore fairly easily. A few Durbridge BBC serials are available on YouTube, and several German serials as well.

   Durbridge wrote numerous radio and television series, also creating reporter detective Tim Fraser in two books and a series as well as at least one German movie. Durbridge’s plays were hugely popular in Germany and other Western European countries, with Rossano Brazzi even starring in one Italian serial.

   Douglas Rutherford, who ghosted this Temple novel and East of Algiers for Durbridge is a top flight mystery adventure writer who has been called the Dick Francis of the Grand Prix circuit. His novels tend to be set against Formula 1 racing, Motorcross, and Motor Rally racing and often have drivers as the protagonists. His style is, like Dick Francis and John Anderson (who was to sailing small boats what Rutherford and Francis are to their fields), simple, accessible, and smoothly written featuring solid plotting, believable heroes, suspense, and colorful action.

   The Tyler Mystery opens with the body of a young woman found, the second in two weeks. Paul and Steve have just moved into their new flat with Steve fussing with the ambience of the new place when Sir Graham Forbes and Inspector Vosper show up consulting Temple about the murders. Sir Graham is Temple’s friend and connection to Scotland Yard who was even a suspect in Temple’s first adventure (Send for Paul Temple). Both he and Inspector Vosper have been known to consult with Temple before though reluctantly since there is no controlling him once he gets the scent.

   And Paul and Steve have hardly agreed to help before someone tries to run them off the road in their Humber.

   It all involves a mysterious conspiracy, a bit of smuggling, a horse doping scheme, and evasion of the Inland Revenue, the British tax system, before Temple uncovers the culprits in a classic gathering of the suspects.

   The Tyler Mystery is an entertaining read. Its serial origins can’t help but show, but the cliffhangers are often as not suspenseful and not physical and the joints don’t show too badly.

   Many of the original Temple serials were lost but recreated later for BBC broadcasts. Though Paul Coke was the longest running Paul Temple others included Barry Morse (Lt. Gerard of The Fugitive) and Howard Marion-Crawford (Dr. Watson to Ronald Howard’s Sherlock Holmes on television and Dr. Petrie in Christopher Lee’s Fu Manchu films). Francis Matthews was Temple on television and John Bentley in two of the three films.

   And as one mystery is solved Sir Graham admonishes Steve about their upcoming trip to Rome: “Haven’t you heard that the daughter of an Italian Cabinet Minister has just been kidnapped? I’m pretty sure if your husband goes to Rome…”

   â€œBy, Timothy” (Paul’s favorite exclamation), warm up the radio set. I hear the faint sound of Coronation Scot playing and variations on Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade. Time to settle back with Paul and Steve Temple for another evening of thrills and mystery. It may not be great art, but audiences have been entertained since before the War and still are on radio, in print, on film, and on television.

THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH.  Denzel Washington, Frances McDormand, Bertie Carvel, Alex Hassell, Corey Hawkins, Harry Melling, Kathryn Hunter, Brendan Gleeson.  Screenwriter/Director: Joel Coen.  Based on the play The Tragedie of Macbeth by William Shakespeare. [See also Comment #20.] Currently streaming on AppleTV+.

   I’m going to be lazy and not spend any time outlining the plot. (You can check it out for yourself via Wikipedia by going here.) All in all, this new movie version follows the main story line exceedingly well. It’s the production values that interested me as I was watching. (I confess that I wasn’t able to follow the dialogue all that well. Except for many often exceptions, Shakespeare’s characters talk a language quite foreign to me. This doesn’t bother me. I can always follow his plays well enough without knowing exactly what they’re saying.)

   My impressions. The movie is in black-and-white. Not many movie are any more, but in this case, it was a good choice; it adds immensely to the sheer eeriness of the tale. All the scenes take place in indoor sets. Nothing was filmed out of doors. The camera shots were taken at all angles and from all distances, with close-ups used whenever needed. Walls and hallways are stark, with very little adornment. Stripped down to its essence, the play’s the thing, to repeat a previously invented phrase.

   All of the performers are excellent. They should take pride in a job well done. I would like to think this filmed version of the play would do well in actual theaters, and that’s where I would love to see it, given the chance to do so. (It’s a film that well deserves a second viewing.) As it is, it’s a good time for streaming services to have been invented, to give movies such as this the opportunity to have the largest possible audiences they deserve.

KERRY GREENWOOD – Death in Daylesford. Phryne Fisher #21. Poisoned Pen Press, hardcover, June 2021. Setting: Australia-1920s.

First Sentence: It was a lazy, late summer’s morning in St. Kilda.

   Miss Phryne Fisher and her ever-loyal maid, Dot, are off to visit the Spa at Hepburn being run for shell-shocked veterans of the Great War. Their visit coincides with the Highland Games, but it is not much of a celebration as people begin dying. And what about the women who have been disappearing? And with Phryne away, her two adopted daughters, Jane and Ruth, along with handyman Tinker, join forces with DS Hugh Collins to solve the murder of the girls’ classmate.

   Ah, the joy of the Honorable Phryne Fisher of 221B, The Esplanade, in Melbourne, Australia in this multi-plot story where all the characters are fully developed and wonderfully realized. Phryne is a strong, independent, character with a view of relationships that is more traditionally male, yet completely accepting— “Phryne made a mental note to the effect that medical opinions stating that women who were same-sex attracted must be neurotic were so much ill-informed drivel.”

   Those new to the series are introduced not only to Phryne and learn of her family history, but meet her current family and those who are associated with her. With the secondary characters, Greenwood cleverly and oh-so-subtly includes a soupçon of doubt as to their honesty.

   Greenwood begins each chapter with an excerpt from a poem or literature, adding a certain grace to the story. She paints verbal pictures; places, things, and most of all, people become three-dimensional through her words. “A generalized sense of doom hung in the atmosphere…  ‘I don’t know how this farm strikes you, Dot, but it’s a little bit too Thomas Hardy for my liking.'”

   This is not a book to read when hungry as even the simplest meal leaves one salivating– “fish, beef, and chicken pies.”— and–  “broccoli has a sauce made of lemon juice, garlic and butter, and the carrots have fresh ginger, sesame seeds and honey. Oh, and butter.'”

   No light, fluffy cozy is this. The murders are numerous, the issues, whether related to the crime being solved by the group in Melbourne, or by Phryne and Dot, are stark. Greenwood makes it clear that issues of today are not new but were relevant in the 1920s as well.

   Death in Daylesford is chock full of mysteries all of which are solved in yet the coziest of manners. There are numerous characters to keep straight, so it’s best to keep each mystery separate in one’s mind. No matter what, it is wonderful to have Phryne and the gang back again.

Rating: VG Plus.

JOE DAKOTA. Universal-International, 1957. Jock Mahoney, Luana Patten, Charles McGraw, Barbara Lawrence, Claude Akins, Lee Van Cleef, Anthony Caruso, Paul Birch. Screenplay: William Talman and Norman Jolley. Director: Richard Bartlett. Currently streaming on Starz.

   When Jock Mahoney’s character rides into the small western town of Arborville, at first he finds it totally deserted. No one in the street. No one in any of the stores. No one anywhere. Until at last he discovers a girl (Luana Patten) sulkily standing near the general store. That she is not forthcoming as to where all the townspeople are is an understatement. Shrugging, he rides off.

   Whereupon he finds the answer. A short way from town all of the men who live there are drilling an oil well. By hand. The women are sitting in the shade at the equivalent of a picnic table, watching. Jock Mahoney’s character asks if he can watch. After some discussion with the man in charge (Charles McGraw), it is agreed that no harm would be done if he did.

   Pushing the boundaries of the agreement he has just made, Jock Mahoney’s character enters the small shack near where the men are working. This seems to annoy them, and Jock Mahoney’s character winds up in the oil pool next to the drilling site. Covered in black, he unceremoniously leaves. The next we see him, he is taking a bath back in town in their watering trough, with the girl secretly watching.

   As it so happens, Jock Mahoney’s character is looking for an old Indian who calls (or called) himself Joe Dakota. It was his shack there near the oil well, but what he is told is that he sold right to the property just before leaving town.

   If you stop and think about it right about here, you will probably know where the story is going from here, and you’d probably be right. You may even think of another earlier movie with a plot line that would be along the same lines as this one, and you’d be right about that, too.

   It doesn’t mean that this one is not fun to watch, because it is. Nor can it be bad, not with a cast like this, and a storyline that’s clean and efficient and basically well told. Jock Mahoney makes no attempt to overplay his role; quite the opposite. The villain, of course, is Charles McGraw’s character, and Claude Akins and Lee Van Cleef play a pair of local louts for all they’re worth, as only they could.

STEVE LINDLEY “Man Buries Man.” Kubiak #? Novelette. Published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, June 2014. Probably never reprinted.

   Kubiak (no first name known) is an ex-Chicago cop who maintains good relations with the members still on the force or also retired. He also has a long list of contacts who come in handy whenever he needs them, which is rather often, given of course he’s no longer on the job.

   It’s his wife Denise, though, who takes the lead on this one. A downstairs neighbor in the apartment building they live in has noticed that the appearance of an unidentified body found in Belmont Harbor matches the sudden disappearance of a homeless man who until then could be seen everyday sitting on the same bench in the park. He was a gentle man who liked to talk but with whom no one did because, well, of his odor.

   To that end, though, he always had a supply of sausages he’d offer to passers-by. It takes a while for the officer in charge of the body in the bay to agree, but yes, it turns out that he and the homeless man are one in the same. More than that, he’s not interested. Kubiak leaves Denise in charge of her investigation, but soon he’s interested, too.

   It’s a classic casebook of both detective work and footwork by the two, and before long the miscreants in the case, totally convinced they’d gotten away with something, are proven wrong. Nicely done.
   

      The Kubiak series   [as presently known] —

Hallway Dog. AHMM, April 1998
Death Takes Center Stage. AHMM, January/February 2008
Small Favors,. AHMM, March 2011
Man Buries Man. AHMM, June 2014
A Matter of Trust and Surveillance. AHMM, January/February 2019.

● Kubiak’s Daughter, as by Stephen Lindley. Novel. Thomas & Mercer, November 2012.

TALMAGE POWELL – Corpus Delectable. Ed Rivers #5. Pocket Cardinal paperback original; 1st printing, 1964. Prologue Books, softcover, 2012.

   Ed Rivers was a Tampa-based PI who was head agent for the Nationwide Detective Agency’s Southeastern Division. For all intents and purposes, however, he seems to have largely worked on his own, an independent operator but one with the backup of the head company whenever he needs records and other information. He’s a rough-looking fellow, but that seems only to attract good-looking women all the more. He’s also a fellow with a good set of ethics – always above board in everything he does, in spite of the opportunities he’s offered.

   Corpus Delectable takes place during Tampa’s annual Gasparilla Festival, a real event something akin to New Orleans’ Mardi Gras, named after a local early 20th century pirate by the name of José Gaspar. This means that all of Rivers’ investigation takes place against a backdrop of partying, fireworks and people wearing slinky dresses or bushy beards (one to a customer).

   Dead very early on is a girl who calls on Rivers with a case for him before she heads to one of those parties, but on arrival she dies at the foot of his stairs with a knife in her back. Conveniently she had mentioned who was hosting the party, giving Rivers a very handy foot in the door in terms of what follows. Which involves the death of natural causes of a wealthy woman who had fled her native Venezuela along with her son-in-law (a cad) and granddaughter (spoiled), and a hired assassin who has Rivers in his sights, for fear the dead woman told him something.

   It’s a complicated plot, but it goes down smoothly enough. Powell’s writing roots were in the detective pulp magazines, so by 1964, he was a grizzled old pro at this sort of thing. Which somewhat unexpectedly involves a certain amount of detective on Rivers’ part, and all of the clues, save one, fit together rather well. Unless I missed something, the “save one” involves a massive coincidence that paradoxically I might swallow more in real life than I can in fiction. Go figure.
   

       The Ed Rivers series –

The Killer Is Mine. Pocket Books, 1959
The Girl’s Number Doesn’t Answer. Pocket Books, 1960
Start Screaming Murder. Permabooks, 1962
With a Madman Behind Me. Permabooks, 1962
Corpus Delectable. Pocket Books, 1964

JOE GORES – Gone, No Forwarding. DKA Associates #3. Random House, hardcover, 1978. Ballantine, paperback, 1981. Mysterious Press, paperback, 1993.

   The specialty of the Dan Kearny Agency is skip-tracing, but when a hearing to remove their license is initiated by a California bureau for consumer affairs, they discover that finding honest people can be just as hard as finding dead-beats.

   This kind of private investigating is rather dull work, but the pace improves considerably as the courtroom maneuvering begins and as it becomes clearer who and what are behind this scheme to get DKA.

   Lots of minor characters to keep straight as the various trails twist through the gamut of all San Francisco has to offer. Remarkably they all stand out as individuals during the brief t1me they are on stage.

Rating: B plus.

   
(Give Me That) OLD-TIME DETECTION. Autumn 2021/Winter 2022. Issue #58. Editor: Arthur Vidro. Old-Time Detection Special Interest Group of American Mensa, Ltd. 36 pages (including covers). Cover image: A Rumpole Christmas.

   This issue of Old-Time Detection continues to maintain the usual high standards for the publication, being replete with perceptive book reviews and features that would be of interest to any mystery fan.

   “Mystery Reviews” by Jon L. Breen has Breen, one of the sharpest detective fiction critics, finding R. D. Rosen’s Strike Three, You’re Dead a most agreeable mix of baseball and amateur detection — “may be,” he says, “the ultimate sports mystery.” For fans of Wall Street mysteries, there’s a “more-than-adequate British equivalent” in David Williams’ Advertise for Treasure.

   In “The Paperback Revolution,” Charles Shibuk covers a lot of classic detective fiction ground with short but pithy assessments of some of the works of Eric Ambler (Journey Into Fear, 1940), Leslie Charteris (The Saint in New York, 1935), Agatha Christie (The Moving Finger, 1942), Joseph Harrington (Blind Spot, 1966, and The Last Doorbell, 1969), Baynard Kendrick (Out of Control, 1945), Ross Macdonald (The Underground Man, 1971), Ngaio Marsh (Overture to Death, 1939), Ellery Queen (There Was an Old Woman, 1943, and Calamity Town, 1942), Dorothy L. Sayers (Murder Must Advertise, 1933), and Rex Stout (The League of Frightened Men, 1935, and The Rubber Band, 1936).

   Dan Magnuson offers us his tribute to the late J. Randolph Cox, not only a close friend but also a Nick Carter expert, and, among other good things, the author of books about Walter Gibson and Flashgun Casey.

   A fine addition to the issue is an “Author Spotlight” by Michael Dirda focusing on Edmund Crispin, more often than not one of the most delightful detective fiction authors of the Golden Age. You’re not likely to find a more comprehensive yet concise essay on Crispin than this one.

   In the “Christie Corner” by Dr. John Curran, the foremost living expert on the works of Agatha Christie, comes news of the publication of a non-Christie book (The Invisible Host, 1930), the plot of which some would say Agatha “borrowed” for And Then There Were None (1939); Curran, however, is more than a little skeptical and offers good reasons for his doubts. Since 2022 marks the 90th anniversary of The Thirteen Problems (USA title: The Tuesday Club Murders), a publisher has decided to “re-imagine” Miss Marple, even commissioning some non-crime writers to do the bloody deed — I mean, give us their interpretations of the character. Curran finishes by briefly noting a computer game featuring Hercule Poirot and yet another scrambled up short story collection “culled from throughout Christie’s career.”

   This issue’s fiction selection is T. S. Stribling’s “The Mystery of the Choir Boy” (EQMM, January 1951), in which Dr. Poggioli gets involved in a scheme meant to hoodwink the public but which culminates in murder.

   “‘Count the Man Down,’ A Nero Wolfe Pilot” by Bruce Dettman illumines the experimentation that Hollywood in the ’50s was performing in adapting well-known — meaning “hopefully it’ll make money since everybody’s heard of it” — quantities to the small screen. Inspired by the huge success of Perry Mason, the producers tried  — and failed — to bring Rex Stout’s famous detective and his “assistant” to life (“pretty much a botched effort”). Only the actor playing Archie gets a thumbs up from Dettman, a rookie thespian who in a few years would become a TV icon.

   “The Life and Death and Life of Sherlock Holmes” by Richard Lederer compactly outlines the career of the Sage of Baker Street and the adience-abience dilemma that confronted his literary creator.

   Then come more in-depth book reviews of John Mortimer’s A Rumpole Christmas (2009), reviewed by Ruth Ordivar, a collection of five stories whose “quality more than makes up for the thin quantity”; Anthony Berkeley’s Murder in the Basement (1932), reviewed by Harv Tudorri, in which Roger Sheringham seeks “to get to the bottom of a problem and to prove it to my own satisfaction”; Agatha Christie’s Crooked House (1949), reviewed by Sheila M. Barrett, a story whose “elements are laid forth as the reader might expect from Christie’s expert hand”; Jon L. Breen’s Listen for the Click (1983), reviewed by Arthur Vidro, a sports/mystery novel that works just right; and Christie’s Murder in the Mews (1937), reviewed by Trudi Harrov, containing four stories that collectively manage to “hit the spot.”

   “The Non-Fiction World of Ed Hoch” has the all-time master of the short detective story “Seeking the First Mystery Magazine,” from possible candidates like Old Cap. Collier Library and voluminous Nick Carter publications in the late 19th century through Detective Story and Mystery Magazine and, of course, Black Mask in the early years of the 20th century. As Hoch tells us, however, designating what was actually the first mystery magazine could come down to a matter of categorization.

   “The Readers Write”: “Thanks for continuing to do this labor of love for all of us who enjoy the Good Old Days!”

   . . . and finally there’s the Puzzle Page—and it’s a doozy.
      ___

   If you’d like to subscribe to Old-Time Detection:

Published three times a year: spring, summer, and autumn. – Sample copy: $6.00 in U.S.; $10.00 anywhere else. – One-year U.S.: $18.00 ($15.00 for Mensans). – One-year overseas: $40.00 (or 25 pounds sterling or 30 euros). – Payment: Checks payable to Arthur Vidro, or cash from any nation, or U.S. postage stamps or PayPal. – Mailing address: Arthur Vidro, editor, Old-Time Detection, 2 Ellery Street, Claremont, New Hampshire 03743.

Web address: vidro@myfairpoint.net

BIZARRE, BIZARRE. Pathé Consortium Cinéma, France, 1937, originally released as Drôle de drame.  Françoise Rosay, Michel Simon, Louis Jouet, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Nadine Vogel, and Jean-Louis Barrault. Screenplay by Jacques Prévert and Marcel Carné, from the novel by J. Storer Clouston. Directed by Marcel Carné.

   A fun and funny farce in the tradition of Arsenic and Old Lace or The Trouble with Harry    —  both of which it predates.

         DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

   Molyneux (Michele Simon) a meek botanist who secretly augments his income by writing crime stories under the name Felix Chapel. First seen at a public lecture given by his cousin,

   Bishop Soper, the most sinister churchman since Claude Frollo, who inveighs against writers of crime novels in general and Felix Chapel in particular.

      Also at the lecture is:

   William Krantz, a serial killer known as “The butcher of butchers” who vows to hunt down and kill Felix Chapel.

   Soper invites himself to dinner at Molyneux’s. Distraught, Molyneux goes home to

   Mme Molyneux (Françoise Rosay) his socially conscious wife, who, for reasons too farcical to recount, decides to fake a disappearance and pose as a servant, along with the remaining maid,

   Eva (Nadine Vogel) who gives Molyneux all the ideas for his books, which she gets from

   Billy, the story-telling milkman.

   Bishop Soper grows suspicious of Mme Molyneux’ absence — particularly as the botanist’s feeble explanations fall apart — and vaults to the conclusion that Molyneux has killed her. Minutes later, the Molyneux house fills with cops, The Missus has booked, and Molyneux and the maid wisely follow suit, leaving only the imaginative milkman for the police to arrest as the botanist/writer becomes the center of a well-publicized manhunt.

   And so it goes, in the best manner of one-damn-thing-after-another: the street fills with mobs demanding blood, the house fills with screwball reporters inventing stories, Molyneux disguises himself as Felix Chapel, Krantz falls in love with Mme Molyneux, he and Chapel get drunk together, Billy seduces Eva…. Bringing Up Baby  (which came out the next year) has nothing on this one!

   I should add that all this is elegantly directed with Marcel Carné’s signature fluid style, sparklingly photographed by Eugen Schüfftan, who later chalked up credits like The Hustler and Eyes Without a Face.

   In short, this is the veritable Mère of screwball comedy, a film of style, wit and imagination, and one not to be missed.