Wed 7 Jan 2009
Archived Review: RICHARD & FRANCES LOCKRIDGE – Murder Within Murder.
Posted by Steve under Authors , Reviews[2] Comments
RICHARD & FRANCES LOCKRIDGE – Murder Within Murder.
Pocket Books, reprint paperback; 1st printing, July 1982. Hardcover edition: J. B. Lippincott, 1946. Hardcover reprint: Detective Book Club [3-in-1 edition], February 1946. Other paperback reprints: Dell 229 [mapback], 1948; Pyramid, October 1965. Trade paperback: Perennial, July 1994.
Based on information obtained from Al Hubin’s Crime Fiction III, this is the 10th of the multi-entertaining series of Mr. & Mrs. North detective novels. There were 26 in all, appearing between 1940 and 1963. When his wife Frances died, Richard Lockridge continued writing for quite a while, but that’s when the curtain fell for the Norths, whose last appearance was Murder by the Book in 1963.
I’m only guessing, but it always seemed to me that the character of Pamela North, the lady with the charmingly and disconcertingly chaotic thought processes, died when Frances did. She was either Pam’s creator or inspiration, or more than likely both, and when she left us, Mr. and Mrs. North went with her.
And while I’m digressing, one thing more. Here’s something’s that always puzzled me. The North books were immensely popular, or so it’s my impression, but they never seemed to be very successful in paperback. Compared with the way the Perry Mason books sold, for example, the adventures of the Norths were left in the dust.
Even though there was a long-running radio series chronicling their adventures, and later a TV series, many of the books were never published in softcover. If it weren’t for the Dollar Mystery Guild, I’m sure I wouldn’t have been able to read each and every one when they came out, and I doubt that I was the only one.
Pressed to describe Pamela North to someone who’s never read one of her excursion in murder and detection, I’d have to say Gracie Allen without the brashness. Assuming that that someone knows who Gracie Allen is. The books themselves are light-hearted without being out-and-out funny. Here’s a quote, from page 143. Lt. Bill Weigand is speaking to Sgt. Mullins, who always thinks the cases in which the Norths get involved become screwy:
“Swell,” Mullins said, looking as if he thought it was swell.
“Yes,” Bill Weigand said, gently. “Yes. You see, Mrs. North thinks she has a new suspect for us.”
“Oh,” Sergeant Mullins said. After he had said it, he left his mouth slightly open.
The first victim is a middle-aged lady, very righteous in manner, who is doing research on a book of several notorious true crimes for North Books, Inc., and the list of suspects is a long one. She controls the purse strings of her late brother’s estate, and she does not approve of either the behavior of her niece and nephew or their habitual need for money.
While a member of the faculty of a small college in Indiana, she disapproved of a fellow teacher’s conduct with a female student, and she said so, loudly. And as she was doing the research on the book on unsolved murders, it’s also possible that she uncovered some facts from the past that greatly displeased someone she perhaps shouldn’t have confronted. Hence the title.
This is my kind of detective novel. All kinds of theories, possibilities, and configurations of other possibilities. The good stuff.
Delicious coincidences also abound, which may turn some people off, but I didn’t mind them at all. Wiegand is a very good policeman, even if he lets the Norths hang around a little too much, and his interview with several suspects in Chapter 8 is a small masterpiece.
Money — or safety — is the root of all murder. I’m paraphrasing from page 68, but it’s true. In retrospect, the solution to the murders is rather obvious. What the Lockridges were able to do more often than not, and they did it again here, is a magician’s trick, to keep what the eyes of the readers are seeing from actually reaching their brains. It’s either that, or I’m awfully thick-headed.
[COMMENT] 01-07-09. When I suggested Gracie Allen as being the ideal person to play Pam North, I think I had completely forgotten the movie in which she actually did
play Pam North. Either that, or I thought my comment “without the brashness” would cover whatever deficiencies in that regard that she might have.
I might have to watch the movie again, but right now, unh-unh, no I don’t think so. After recently watching some of the early 50s TV shows with Barbara Britton, I’m now not so high on Gracie in the part now when I first wrote this review.
Regarding the Norths in paperback, I was struck by the fact that this particular book came out quite a few times in paperback, and maybe you caught that, too. I’ll stick to my assertion that overall the North books did comparatively poorly in paperback, and one of these days I’ll do the research I need to back my statement up.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:52 pm
While mentally I might agree with the idea of Pam North as Gracie Allen, physically I should point out in the vernacular Pam is a babe. Though it is pretty tame there is a strong hint of an active sex life in some of the books (one notably opens with a nude Pam at the dressing table getting ready for a party that a distracted Jerry suddenly would rather skip) which follows in line with the Nick and Nora relationship the series was loosely modeled on.
Lockeridge wrote many screenplays and his skill in constructing plots with the right mix of action and brittle dialogue showed in the North books where suspense usually plays as big a role as mystery — especially when Pam inevitably gets to the killer before Bill Weigand and Sgt. Mullins. Many critics were annoyed by the cats though. They never bothered me, but I know they were a bone of contention with many critcs.
I don’t know why the books never did well in paperback, but I suspect it’s because they were never packaged as a series (at least not until Pyramid in the sixties) the way Perry Mason, Michael Shayne, and others were. You would think the long running radio and TV series would have been a boost to paperback sales, but no one seems to have promoted them that way. They always sold well in hardcover and were certainly hits in libraries. The Lockeridges were among a number of writers who never really did all that much in paperback but had solid hardcover sales — among them Hilary Waugh, Stuart Palmer, and Aaron Marc Stein. Keep in mind it wasn’t until the late sities that Avon did anything in paperback with Sayers Lord Peter. Up to then they were pretty scarce in paperback. The Lockeridges are far from the only writers of the era that would seem under-represented in paper.
As for Florence Lockeridge, after her death Richard never wrote anymore Mr. and Mrs. North books, instead focusing on his Captain Heimrich and other series. I don’t really know how much she contributed to the actual writing, and I don’t think anyone else does, but she was certainly the inspirtation for Pam North. The North’s began as a series of comic sketches in the New Yorker until someone suggested that they should get involved in a murder. After that the deluge. They were certainly the most popular husband and wife team after Nick and Nora, easily outdistancing Patrick Quentin’s Peter and Iris Duluth, Kelly Roos Jeff and Halia Troy, Frances Crane’s Pat and Jean Abbot, Richard Powell’s Arab and Andy Blake, James Fox’s Johnny and Suzy Marshall, or Delano Ames Dagobert and Jane Brown.
February 3rd, 2009 at 5:40 am
First I have no idea why I was spelling Lockridge with an extra “e” — enthusiasm maybe. I was a big fan of the television series with Richard Denning and Barbara Britton (Denning had played Lucille Ball’s husband on radio and likely got the role thanks to that after Lucy decided to go with real hubby Dezi for her TV series), and when I was old enough delighted to find the books. They are well constructed and enjoyable mysteries, with bright brittle dialogue and a strong line of suspense. Of course if you read many of them in a row you may start to wonder why it is Pam always seems to figure out who the killer is when she is alone with him, but they vary the ending well enough it doesn’t matter.
As for their relation to Bill Weigand, they first meet him in The North’s Meet Murder, but soon enough Lockridge had the bright idea of Bill meeting the future Mrs. Weigand through them, and once he is married the four of them stumble onto crimes together.
There were two North series on radio, the second lasting long enough for Denning and Britton to take over the parts they were playing on television. Many episodes of the television series are available on DVD and still fun to watch.
I’m not a fan of the film with Gracie Allen. Her take on Pam is a bit too flighty for me, and while the film works well enough on its own, it isn’t really the Norths. For Gracie in a much better tec film look for The Gracie Allen Murder Case that finds her in fine form playing off Warren William’s Philo Vance (the book has some charm as well).
Considering their popularity the North’s are too little remembered today. The books are well written, the humor holds up well, the plots and solutions are often clever, and Pam North is one of the great creations of the genre. In the forward to The People Vs Withers and Malone, wherein Craig Rice’s John J. Malone and Stuart Palmer’s Hildegarde Withers teamed up, Ellery Queen speculated on other such teams and seemed to hit on one particularly bright idea — Pam North playing “leg-man” to Nero Wolfe. It’s a shame that one was never written.
Though the North’s originated in a series of sketches in The New Yorker, there is only one short story. It was anthologiesd a few years ago, but as far as I know that was it’s only appearance. The books are reprinted once in a while, and I pick up any I might have missed. Hopefully they will be in print again in the near future.