Mon 20 May 2019
Stories I’m Reading: ERIC AMBLER “The Case of the Emerald Sky.”
Posted by Steve under Stories I'm Reading[3] Comments
MARTIN H. GREENBERG, Editor – Deadly Doings. Ivy, paperback original; 1st printing, 1989.
#6. ERIC AMBLER “The Case of the Emerald Sky.” Short story. Dr. Jan Czissar #2. First published in The Sketch, 10 July 1940. Reprinted in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, March 1945. Collected in The Waiting for Orders (Mysterious Press, hardcover, 1993; published in the UK as The Story So Far (Weidenfeld, hardcover, 1993) with one story addded).
When Asst. Commissioner Mercer receives the following card, he at first refuses to see the man waiting in his outer office:
Late Prague Police
Now in England, and apparently having plenty of time on his hands, Dr. Czissar has interfered with one of Scotland Yard’s investigations on one previous occasion. That Dr. Czissar was right and Scotland Yard was wrong did not go over well with Asst. Commissioner Mercer, and only a phone call from a superior convinces the letter to let the former in.
There is no action whatsoever in this short concise tale. The two gentlemen discuss the death of a mean man by arsenic poisoning, and at length, after going through all of the various forms of arsenic and how they affect the human body, Dr. Czissar prevails. Scotland Yard was wrong again! Deservedly so. They did a very inadequate job of investigating.
And sad to say, this is not a story I can recommend. It’s lifeless and worse than that, it depends far too greatly on esoteric medical knowledge that no amateur armchair detective in the world could be expected to know. I wish I could be more positive, but I can’t.
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Previously in this Martin Greenberg anthology: WILLIAM CAMPBELL GAULT “Never Marry Murder.”
The Dr. Jan Czissar series —
The Case of the Pinchbeck Locket. The Sketch, July 3 1940
The Case of the Emerald Sky. The Sketch, July 10 1940
The Case of the Cycling Chauffeur. The Sketch, July 17 1940; also as “A Bird in the Treeâ€.
The Case of the Overheated Service Flat. The Sketch, July 24 1940; also as “Case of the Overheated Flatâ€.
The Case of the Drunken Socrates. The Sketch, Julu 31 1940; also as “Case of the Landlady’s Brotherâ€.
The Case of the Gentleman Poet. The Sketch, August 7 1940
May 21st, 2019 at 1:11 am
After a strong start with two classics (COFFIN FOR DIMITRIOS and JOURNEY INTO FEAR) I’m afraid Ambler’s writing became a variable commodity.
May 21st, 2019 at 10:20 am
It’s been a long time since I read them, which would have been in the 1950s, but at the time I remember liking everything he wrote through 1940, except for THE DARK FRONTIER, which was never published in the US until much later. Then there was a long gap until 1951 for Ambler, and for me he never seemed to me to be the same writer. Some books I liked, some I didn’t, but even those I liked were never as good as the pre-war ones.
May 22nd, 2019 at 8:09 pm
His shorts are a mixed bag, and I understand some aren’t fans of many of the post War stories, but he also wrote some of his best works in this era after struggling in the fifties (though THE SCHIRMER INHERITANCE, STATE OF SIEGE, and PASSAGE OF ARMS are quite good). THE LIGHT OF DAY, LEVANTER, DOCTOR FRIGO, SEND NO MORE ROSES, and A KIND OF ANGER are among his best works.