Wed 4 Jan 2012
Reviewed by William F. Deeck: TECH DAVIS – Terror at Compass Lake.
Posted by Steve under Authors , Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Reviews[11] Comments
William F. Deeck
TECH DAVIS – Terror at Compass Lake. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1935.
Occasionally when I am on the fringes of a group of diehard mystery fans — which is about as close as they’ll let me get — the name Tech Davis is mentioned. Then when I am spotted, the subject is immediately changed.
Why this happens I do not know. Oh, I know why I’m allowed only on the fringes; it’s their not wanting me to hear about Davis that baffles me. While Davis is not a good author; he isn’t an exceptionally bad one.
His prose doesn’t elevate, indeed may be said to enervate. His detective, Aubrey Nash, is so bland that I wish he’d been given the one or two idiosyncrasies that I usually deplore in other fictional detectives whose creators can’t seem to make come alive. But he does plot well.
In this novel, the first of three by Davis, Aubrey Nash is asked to come to the wilds of upstate New York to investigate the apparent suicide of a chauffeur — it must be suicide since everyone has a perfect alibi — and the later stabbing death of his employer in a locked room. Nash isn’t interested until he receives a telegram telling him the crime is insoluble and he shouldn’t waste his time with it.
Recommended for locked-room fanciers, and other problem solvers.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mystery fiction by TECH DAVIS, pen name of Edgar Davis (1890-1974). Series character: Aubrey Nash in all.
Terror at Compass Lake. Doubleday, 1935.
Full Fare for a Corpse. Doubleday, 1937.
Murder on Alternate Tuesdays. Doubleday, 1938.
Editorial Comment: Just in case anyone is tempted by Bill’s last line into putting together a complete set of all three Tech Davis mysteries, there are five copies of his books currently listed on ABE. Four of them are of Compass Lake, available at $75 and up, and there’s one of Full Fare, the latter having an asking price of a fairly solid $250.
And not a single copy of Alternate Tuesdays.
UPDATE. 01-08-12. Thanks to Bill Pronzini, I can now show you cover images for all three Tech Davis mysteries, in jacket.
January 5th, 2012 at 5:32 am
Coincidently, I wrung the title of this book and the name of its author through a search engine last week and roamed the online catalogues of (local) book dealers for an easily available copy, but came up short on this one.
I have been doing this, slowly but surely, with every book and writer mentioned in Adey’s Locked Room Murders and this quest hasn’t been entirely unsuccessful. However, it has become clear that I have to order the most interesting titles from book dealers located in the States or Britain. Oh, woe is I!
By the way, if you want to read a review of a good, but completely obscure, locked room mystery, you have to check out the review I posted yesterday over at my blog – and more of them are forthcoming.
January 5th, 2012 at 11:54 am
TomCat
If by an obscure locked room mystery, you mean one like Voetstappen op de trap (Footsteps on the Stairs, 1937), by Willy Corsari, and published only in Dutch, that has to epitomize the word “obscure,” no doubt about it!
Here’s the link: http://moonlight-detective.blogspot.com/2012/01/when-past-wears-us-down.html
If I’m wrong about the book being only in Dutch, let me know. Hubin has no record of it, for one thing, and for another, it sounds like a lot of fun to read, if only one could get one’s hands on one to read.
January 5th, 2012 at 8:40 am
There are no copies of any Tech Davis books in Michigan libraries (where I could borrow them).
And I’ve never seen a copy in any bookstore.
I’ve never read any. And one is sure my history of mystery fiction is poorer for it.
Oh woe is me, too!
January 5th, 2012 at 11:59 am
I have no idea why Tech Davis’s books should be so scarce. They may have have purchased mostly by libraries, which discarded them a long time ago, for lack of space.
My records show that I have all three, packed away with the rest of my Crime Club collection, which of course does me nor anyone else any good, since all I know from that it that they’re shelved in the northeast corner of the basement, but which shelf and which box, I know not more.
January 5th, 2012 at 2:24 pm
Steve,
I also subjected Willy Corsari to an internet search, but the only book that turned up in English was a translation of De man zonder uniform (Man Without Uniform) – one of her psychological novels.
However, this does not necessarily mean that the book was not translated, but just that’s obscure and hard-to get. For example, I found a cover scan of a Danish edition of Het mysterie van de mondscheinsonate (The Mystery of the Moonlight Sonata, 1934) that did not turn up in any of online book catalogue (here’s a link to picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/43997943@N06/4077944791/).
By the way, sorry for derailing this blog post and I wish I had something substantial to add on the work of Tech Davis. Oh, and your basement sounds like a place where an enthusiastic reader could wait out a nuclear winter. 😉
January 6th, 2012 at 10:05 am
Very hard to find book! I remember a couple of years ago one came up for sale on eBay but someone beat me to it. Probably Bill Pronzini. Doesn’t sound like I’m missing much though.
Books in a basement! Has it been damp-proofed? I’m going to have nightmares now of all your scarce titles suffering ignominiously and possibly slowly succumbing to mildew. But I know you must’ve taken care to prevent that. Haven’t you?
January 6th, 2012 at 11:16 am
Yes, you’re quite right. I know the bad reputations basements have, but mine is OK. 99.9% of the time. We had a lot of snow last winter, as you may recall, and in March it all started to melt at once.
We’d had a plumber check out the sump pump the day before — it hadn’t been needed in many years — and it passed inspection just fine, but — well, you know how that goes.
One box of books I’d stupidly forgotten and left sitting on the floor had to be dumped. Pure pulp.
January 6th, 2012 at 11:23 am
John
Replying to the first paragraph of your comment, the photos I added to Bill’s review came from an eBay auction that ended not too long ago, or the page would have disappeared. The book was in slightly shabby condition, with no DJ, and it sold for $50, which is not a bad price, compared with those offered on ABE.
January 8th, 2012 at 1:17 pm
I agree with Bill Deeck’s assessment: Davis’s plotting was excellent, his prose somewhat tedious and verbose. FULL FARE FOR A CORPSE is his best book, I think; at least it’s the only I one I read all the way through without skimming. It’s set on a snowbound train during a howling blizzard and has some effective descriptions of the tense claustrophobic atmosphere inside the cars before and after murder strikes.
July 9th, 2014 at 1:33 pm
I came on this discussion VERY late . I have all 3 Tech Davis books; 2 are Davis’s own copies. One in fact has notes in it by Davis correcting unauthorized changes.
February 12th, 2021 at 11:16 pm
[…] This book was reviewed by Bill Deeck earlier on this blog. Check it out here. (That review includes one of the maps Doug refers to in this […]