Fri 24 Sep 2010
A Review by Mike Grost: BAYNARD KENDRICK – Make Mine Maclain.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[7] Comments
BAYNARD KENDRICK – Make Mine Maclain. William Morrow & Co., hardcover, 1941. No paperback edition.
Make Mine Maclain contains three novellas, all starring blind detective Captain Duncan Maclain. It makes entertaining reading, and is recommended.
1. The Silent Whistle. First publication.
“The Silent Whistle” has a main mystery plot that is somewhat different from Kendrick’s usual approaches. It looks at a nocturnal errand done by the victim, and keeps imagining different explanations of what happened on the errand. These explanations are not masterpieces, but they offer solid ingenuity.
The structure of this main story in “The Silent Whistle” anticipates that of Kendrick’s “5 – 4 = Murderer” (1953):
â— Both have Maclain exploring by himself what turns out to be a murder scene.
â— Both of these sequences are eerily atmospheric; both also are from Maclain’s Point of View, showing how they appear to his senses such as hearing or touch.
â— Both tales eventually offer multiple, alternative explanations to their main events.
“The Silent Whistle” does have some subplot puzzles that are regular Kendrick specialities:
â— The killer manipulates the victim’s behavior through lying phone calls: a variation on the Kendrick standard where the murderer does this through written notes.
â— An alibi subplot is something of a tired old wheeze, used many times before Kendrick.
Elements of the background recall Erle Stanley Gardner:
â— The mystery elements involve driving around S. California: also a frequent source of Gardner puzzles.
â— The victim’s errand involves a complex financial transaction: something Gardner often included to thicken the plot, in his legal mysteries.
â— A lawyer is a character.
The financial transaction has political aspects that I have never seen in any other book, mystery or general.
The trap set by the killer at the end, recalls a bit the one in Cornell Woolrich’s “The Room with Something Wrong” (1938).
2. Melody in Death. First published in The American Magazine, June 1945.
“Melody in Death” (1945) is a not-very-good novella about an opera company, suffering from both dull storytelling and a lack of mystery puzzle ingenuity.
The best mystery subplot involves the song. This is an example of the messages that run through Kendrick. Like others, this one is close to a Dying Message. What it leads to or indicates is also clever. This whole subplot is resolved halfway through the novella.
Kendrick tries for one of his puzzles, where the killer is indicated by being the only person with access to knowledge. Unfortunately, this subplot is a botch. The reasoning is far-fetched. It also has flaws (the victim could have been spreading the information right and left through phone calls, for example).
The basic construction of this puzzle is different from typical in Kendrick. In “Melody in Death,” the claim is that the killer could only have learned something from the victim, just before he killed her, and hence is the murderer: the period just before death was the only time of possible contact between victim and the alleged killer.
If he hadn’t killed her, there would have been no other contact, and he would not have known this information. By contrast, in most Kendrick, there is a piece of general knowledge, shown to have been possessed by whoever did the murder, and it turns out that only one person had the necessary access to the information.
The construction of the puzzle in “Melody in Death” is interesting. One only wishes it had been executed a little better.
There is a suspense finale, something common in Kendrick. This one involves mechanical aspects of an opera house, recalling a bit the mechanical aspects of a hotel building used in the nice finale of The Whistling Hangman. This finale is the second-most-decent feature of “Melody in Death”.
Earlier, the region under the opera stage is discussed, reflecting Kendrick’s interest in underground regions. However, the action of the novella never actually goes under the stage.
3. The Murderer Who Wanted More. First appeared in The American Magazine, January 1944 .
“The Murderer Who Wanted More” is mainly a suspenseful tale about a “woman in jeopardy”. It has a simple whodunit plot, with a solution whose cluing seems to depend entirely on a dubious motive.
Despite its limitations as a detective puzzle, it is a good piece of story telling. The opening suspense sequence, showing a journey taken by the heroine, is especially well done. Most of the rest of the story takes place in the real town of Tottenville, Staten Island, New York.
The tale shows Kendrick’s skill at scene painting. Blind Man’s Bluff, published the previous year, also opens with a woman making a spooky journey in New York City at night.
The opening journey recalls the long trips in Blood on Lake Louisa. Like them, the journey leads to a discussion of alibis and alternate routes. In both works, this likely reflects the influence of Freeman Wills Crofts.
There is a pleasant contrast in the two works: Blood on Lake Louisa takes place in the warmth of Florida, “The Murderer Who Wanted More” in Staten Island during a winter snow storm. (A journey on the Staten Island ferry also occurs in Frank Sullivan’s comedy gem found in his collection of comic sketches A Pearl in Every Oyster (1938).)
A subplot about the mysterious man in the black overcoat, is simple, but also a nice mystery element. It eventually leads to a plot idea about the background of the man, a Kendrick specialty. Kendrick’s description of the man stresses the elegance of the belted overcoat. Overcoats were among the most festive and swaggering elements of men’s fashion in that era.
The sinister past of Staten Island in Colonial days is discussed. A liberal critique of slavery in that era is brought in. The same year, Dragonwyck (1944), an historical novel by Anya Seton, would look at the sinister anti-democratic regimes of Old New York. The Balcony (1940), a mystery novel by Dorothy Cameron Disney, also looks back at the legacy of slavery.
A good guy character is a Certified Public Accountant in New York. This recalls the interest in finance in Blind Man’s Bluff. We also get a look at financial deals behind World War II war industry work.
September 25th, 2010 at 12:28 am
Kendrick and Maclain are neglected today, which is a shame because I generally admired the series, both for the puzzles and because it tackled the subject of Maclain’s blindness much more realistically than the super human Max Carrados.
As for the novella, I’ve said it before, I think it is probably the ideal length for the form — ideal for both mystery and suspense, and a number of writers did some of their best work at that length.
This is also a reminder what a good source of mystery fiction THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE was. There has been one slim anthology of works published from there, but there was a wealth of good material that first appeared there from some of the biggest names in the industry.
Maclain and Kendrick deserve to be back in print, hopefully this will give someone the idea, and it’s always nice to see a collection like this one of novellas since too often their length precludes their being anthologised as often as they should be.
September 25th, 2010 at 5:00 am
Once again you are introducing me to a writer and protagonist that is new to me.
September 25th, 2010 at 11:00 am
David C.
Do follow the link provided at the tail end of the review. Kendrick wrote a fairly large number of mystery and detective novels, and Mike covers a lot of them on his website, outlining and explaining Kendrick’s writing techniques and major plot elements in considerable detail.
— Steve
September 25th, 2010 at 11:30 am
For 20 years THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE published a mystery novella in every issue. It’s the main source of all those Rex Stout collections, plus books by Kelley Roos, Phoebe Atwood Taylor, Vera Caspary and many others.
AMERICAN MURDERS is an anthology of these novellas, edited by Jon L. Breen and Rita Breen. It contains a full bibliography, and a lengthy history of THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE’s mystery publications.
I love novellas too. Nothing would improve mystery publishing today, more than a law which said every third book had to be a collection of three or four novellas. Novellas are indeed an ideal length for mysteries and science fiction.
September 26th, 2010 at 5:11 pm
I suppose one of us should mention that Kendrick was also a noted champion of disabled veterans, especially the blind, and wrote a mainstream best seller about a blinded vet returning home an adjusting after the war, BRIGHT VICTORY, that became a major film with Arthur Kennedy directed by Mark Robson.
I seem to recall he also had some recognition as a regional writer as well, though of course today he’s best remembered for Maclain and private eye Stan Rice.
September 26th, 2010 at 7:39 pm
So far I’ve only read Kendrick’s mysteries, not his mainstream or historical books. They might be quite interesting.
Thanks to everyone for leaving kind comments!
November 4th, 2011 at 9:36 am
The region he wrote about is Florida. “The Flames of Time” is set when the US was inciting the fires of revolt against Spain, which flamed (get it? get it?) into the East Florida Republic and finally welded Florida into the US.
A movie “Eyes in the Night” was made in 1941. Maclain is called in by his friend Norma after it appears that she might be facing a charge of murdering a cad from her past that had the gall to have designs on her 17-year-old stepdaughter, played by Donna Reed. Well worth seeing.