Wed 25 Apr 2012
Reviewed by William F. Deeck: Q. PATRICK – Cottage Sinister.
Posted by Steve under Authors , Reviews[16] Comments
William F. Deeck
Q. PATRICK – Cottage Sinister. Roland Swain Co., hardcover, 1931. Popular Library #386, paperback, 1951.
In the village of Crosby-Stourton in a charming cottage called Lady’s Bower lives Mrs. Lubbock with one of her daughters, a nurse. Two other daughters are visiting and die of hyoscine poisoning. A fair number of people had the opportunity, several had the means, but a motive is difficult to find.
Archibald Inge, better known as the Archdeacon because of his resemblance to a Hound of Heaven rather than an earthly sleuth, is brought down from Scotland Yard to investigate. The Archdeacon is “an expert at psychological crimes because he never used his imagination — an adept in motiveless murder because he firmly believed that there was no such thing.” Thus, he was adroit at solving mysteries because he never thought anything mysterious.
Two more deaths occur after the Archdeacon arrives in the village. It is obvious to him near the end of the investigation who did it. Unfortunately, he is mistaken. Still, he should have realized that the motive he attributed to the suspect was nonsensical.
A well-written and amusing mystery, though the clues leave something to be desired. The Archdeacon is a fascinating character.
Bibliographic Notes: The tangle of names behind the “Q. Patrick” pen name is as bad as the mess of cables hidden behind my computer. Most of the books written under that byline were by Richard Wilson Webb and Hugh Callingham Wheeler. Cottage Sinister, along with one other, was written by Webb and Martha Mott Kelley. Two other books were done by Webb in collaboration with Mary Louise Aswell.
At another time and another day, an explanation of where Patrick Quentin and Jonathan Stagge also fit into the picture would be well worth doing, but for now, I’ll let Google do what it does best. While I haven’t checked it for completeness, here is a website that comes up early in the search, is organized very well, and should prove to be helpful to anyone who’s new to the author.
Unless something has slipped by Al Hubin, this was the only appearance of Archibald Inge, the “Archdeacon.”
April 25th, 2012 at 8:21 pm
Apart from THE GRINDLE NIGHTMARE, very dark and gruesome in the extreme (written by Webb and Aswell) and so out of left field for this rotating writing duo, I prefer most of the books Webb wrote with Wheeler. The short stories — none of them collected as far as I know — that appeared in The American Magazine are worth reading for further interesting insights into the evolution from Q Patrick to Patrick Quentin. The plotting, the dialogue, the stories get much better in the 1940s and into the 1950s. Wheeler’s solo efforts as “Patrick Quentin” starting in 1950 include BLACK WIDOW and SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES — two excellent books well worth reading.
I’ve reviewed THE GRINDLE NIGHTMARE and two short stories on my blog: here and here.
April 25th, 2012 at 9:12 pm
Thanks for the links to your blog, John. I remember the earlier one from nearly a year ago. I seem to have missed the more recent one. I really ought to get out more!
I have a copy of GRINDLE — the Ballantine reprint — and I was never enticed to read it. Now I’m even less likely to do so!
I have read one by Jonathan Stagge — only so-so — but the couple by Patrick Quentin about Peter Duluth that I’ve read, I’ve not only enjoyed but was impressed by them. I had the feeling that “Quentin” was trying push the boundaries of detective fiction in the Duluth books, even if only in a small, marginal ways.
Sorry I can’t be more specific than that. Not only are the details not anything more solid than this, I’m not even sure which titles I read.
But as Casey Stengel was supposed to have said, “You could look it up.” I’ll see if I have any notes on them, or even better, maybe even a review posted here that’s temporarily slipped my mind.
April 25th, 2012 at 9:52 pm
OK. I found what I was looking for. My review of PUZZLE FOR PLAYERS, a Peter Duluth mystery, ended with my saying:
“The final scene [is] really a high-powered juggling act on the part of the author, as well as the ultimate in a mind boggling mystery on the part of the reader.”
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=1309
My review of Death My Darling Daughters, by Jonathan Stagge, can be found here:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=574
Other posts in which Quentin (et al.) has come up for review or general discussion can be found by using the Search box in the right hand sidebar. There have been quite a few.
April 26th, 2012 at 2:04 am
I think this is an enjoyable English village mystery, though I could add a few quibbles about the solution.
April 26th, 2012 at 3:54 am
Back in December of 2010, I asked the GAD Yahoo Group to recommend me one or two American detective novels/writers from the Golden Age or from the mold of that period and they were unanimous in their nomination of Patrick Quentin – which eventually turned into an interesting discussion on the men behind that tangle of pennames.
So I began picking up their novels and I understand now why the group had such a high opinion of these writers. Death and the Maiden and Black Widow were among the best mysteries read last year and the former has become one of my all-time favorite detective novels.
My review of Death and the Maiden:
http://moonlight-detective.blogspot.com/2011/05/student-body.html
My review of Black Widow:
http://moonlight-detective.blogspot.com/2011/05/puzzle-for-plotters.html
April 26th, 2012 at 11:04 am
TomCat
Great reviews! It isn’t always easy to write reviews of mysteries you really like. At least it isn’t for me. It’s not difficult to point out the shortcomings a particular book might have, but to say exactly how and why one works as well as it does, a lot more insight is needed.
I especially liked this paragraph from your comments on DEATH AND THE MAIDEN:
“On a final note, I have to say that Patrick Quentin has impressed me as a mature equivalent of Ellery Queen. Quentin’s detective stories boost the same complex, multi-layered plots and clueing as Ellery Queen, but their tone was more serious, their themes darker and they were simply better at creating characters.”
Nicely said!
April 26th, 2012 at 9:50 am
I’ve read only one Stagge – THE STARS SPELL DEATH. Apart from the terrific beginning I didn’t like it at all. Had some good detection and original plot ideas like a message encoded in an astrological chart. The big drawback is Westlake’s daughter Dawn. She got on my nerves. That he always called her “Brat” and never by her name bothered me moreso than the way Robert Young called his youngest daughter Kitten on “Father Knows Best”. Dawn’s only twelve or maybe younger (I made a note in my reading log that she was not a teen) and speaks like one of those precocious children we see on TV in sit-coms all the time. “Wise” beyond her years. She even drives his car in one scene. I guess some readers might find that kind of thing cute. After the corpse that was supposed to be Westlake is identified and the chart message is discovered the whole thing turned into a espionage tale that seemed really forced and crowded with old movie clichés: the hero is tied up and held captive while one villain beats him and another rants about their plans in page long monologues. Tiresome stuff to me.
April 26th, 2012 at 10:55 am
I’ve read a number of Stagge novels. I like them mostly, though the plots are hit and miss. I like the country settings. I think The Scarlet Circle was probably my favorite. I liked Turn of the Table too.
They’re can be hard to find, with some, like the Yellow Taxi prohibitively expensive, at least in English.
As I recall, Westlake calls his daughter “brat” in some of the earlier ones but not the later ones. I don’t find her all that precocious. I thought she was at the age where she she’s still in her childhood while she tries to learn/pretend to be an adult.
April 26th, 2012 at 10:57 am
Curt, in Comment #4
Bill Deeck was often a master of understatement. When he said in summary that “the clues leave something to be desired,” I had a feeling that he meant it.
Your quibbles do a lot to convince me ever more!
April 26th, 2012 at 11:13 am
J.F. and Mark
I find someone calling his daughter “brat” somewhat annoying myself. Said as affectionately as Robert Young called his daughter “kitten,” it still has a 40s and 50s feeling to it that seems way outdated today.
I don’t remember the term being used in the Stagge book I read and reviewed (link above) but while Dawn was in it, I also said she didn’t have much of a role.
April 27th, 2012 at 2:59 am
I feel kind of the same way about Carr characters in the 20th century calling their putative girlfriends “wench.”
April 27th, 2012 at 9:30 am
A point well worth making, Curt!
April 30th, 2012 at 12:03 pm
Well, now you’ve done it! While I’ve had a number of Q. Patrick and Patrick Quentin, and even the odd Jonathan Stagge titles on my shelves for years I’ve never read one. That will soon change as I went to the basement and pulled off a handful. I recall reading an article many years ago in which the authors tried to classify and distinguish among Patrick, Quentin and Stagge books as though each series was written by a different persona.
Among the titles I selected was The Grindle Nightmare.
April 30th, 2012 at 1:34 pm
That’s what this blog is good for, if nothing else: Getting books off shelves. I hope you’ll report back on the results!
May 2nd, 2012 at 2:35 am
Steve,
I hope you won’t mind me dumping another link in this comment section, but this review and subsequent comments inspired me to take a look at Suspicious Circumstances.
http://moonlight-detective.blogspot.com/2012/04/stars-grow-dimmer.html
Warning: the review ends on a slightly unrelated rant. 🙂
May 2nd, 2012 at 12:10 pm
TomCat
I enjoyed both the review and the rant!
I wish I’ve read more of the Quentin/Q.Patrick books myself. I’d like to be able to say exactly why their detective fiction was never as popular or well known as Ellery Queen’s. I know there’s a large amount of variability in their books, but if you want “realism” in your detective fiction, the Quentin/Q.Patrick books can’t be beat, as far as I can tell from the ones I have read.
Are they better than the EQ books in the latter’s middle and later period, when the two cousins were going with the times and trying to make their books more “real” than the pure puzzle novels they were writing in the 30s? Based on the evidence I’ve read with my own eyes, I’m hesitating but I think I might have to say yes.
— Steve