Tue 8 Jul 2008
TMF Review: AUSTIN J. SMALL – The Crimson Death.
Posted by Steve under Pulp Fiction , Reviews[5] Comments
AUSTIN J. SMALL – The Crimson Death.
Lead novel in the pulp magazine Detective Classics, March 1930.
Austin J. Small is not a name well-known in mystery circles today, and all I knew about this story before I started reading it was the typically pulpish lead-in blurb: “Terror stalks at Gairlie” — with all that conjures up about ghosts, haunted castles and the like, but not — as a first impression — as being a “classic.”
But then the Gairlie Rubies are stolen, from a sealed room under observation at all times, and could it be? A locked room mystery that no one else knows about? Is Small going to play it straight? Can he be trusted to play fair with the reader?
The investigation goes on, and doubts begin to creep back in. The Crimson Death strikes, and the first victim is a maid, slain in the library by an invisible killer that streaks her dress with red. Detectives from Scotland Yard are called in — but obviously they’re not at all familiar with anything close to resembling standard police procedural techniques. It’s not enough that the wrong questions are asked, but the answers they do get are often not revealed. Hopes fade fast.
Am I revealing too much, considering the general non-availability of this particular work, to say that Small is more interested in writing science-fiction than an utterly fair detective story? Still, in spite of the frustrating nature of the incompetent investigation, and in spite of the dumb obstacles placed in the way of true love, there is a modicum of quaint naivete to go with the many pulp styled thrills and chills, thus making this sinister mystery not a complete failure.
It comes close, though.
[UPDATE] 07-08-08. I’ve always assumed that this was the magazine version of one of Austin J. Small’s several crime and mystery novels published in hardcover, sometimes under the pen name of “Seamark,” but now that I have the means of checking into it more thoroughly, this is apparently not so.
Which also means that in terms of an appropriate cover image, I’m stumped, for the first time in a long time. In its place, I have an inappropriate one, but it is one in my collection by the same author, and it appears to be the same kind of science-fictional overlap with the world of detective fiction. I’ve never read it, so I could be wrong, and don’t hold me to it.
I no longer even have a copy of the magazine I read this story in. I must have traded it off for something I thought I’d rather have at the time. Little did I know then that I would need it now.
October 18th, 2010 at 5:00 am
I have most of the novels of Seamark (Austin J Small) but have been unable, for many years, to find out anything about the author. There seems to be nothing on record. Can you tell me anything about him? Many thanks.
David
March 14th, 2011 at 7:37 am
I’ve just received my ‘Seamark Omnibus of Thrills’ and, scanning through it, it seems ‘The Crimson Death’ is the same book as ‘The Master Mystery’, a title which is quite easy to obtain. A similar thing happened with Seamark’s ‘Master Voorst’, which was published in ‘Famous Fantastic Mysteries’, April 1952 as ‘The Death Maker’, a phrase used in the story. I wish there was more info available on him, all I know is he died in his early 30s.
February 5th, 2013 at 11:32 am
I recently bought a presentation copy of Small’s first book, “Frozen Gold,” that yielded a few details about his life and career. It’s inscribed to Charlie Hands, a well-respected journalist who worked on the “Daily Mail.” A Google search led me to a book by Bernard Falk from 1937 titled “He Laughed in Fleet Street” that includes a few references to Small (aka Seamark). He was said to have written sporting features for the “Daily Mail” and the book includes these interesting passages:
“As for ” Seamark,” he could write the clock round. Elsewhere than in the office he pretended to be afraid of burglars, and kept a gun next to his writing-pad. When he bought himself a fast American motor-car, nothing would satisfy him but that I should witness its staying powers. Accordingly we took a spin on the Embankment. At the first clear patch he drove in the accelerator with such force that we bounded forward at a rate well over sixty miles an hour. I said, ” What the blazes do you think you’re doing ? ” ” Oh, I’m tickling her up a bit,” was his reassuring answer. At Victoria we were held up by a traffic block, and I took the opportunity to alight, telling Seamark that I preferred he should do the tickling-up alone. Having been a sailor he professed to be always hearing the call of the sea, mostly at hours when ordinary people like myself were sound asleep. If he heard the call of the waves at midnight, he would instruct a motor-car hire depot to send a car round at once, and forthwith be driven to Brighton, where for fully fifteen minutes he would listen to the familiar noise of the surf. Then, happy and refreshed, he would start back. When it was not the call of the sea that was troubling him, it was the call of Paris. That meant taking a friend, usually a free-lance journalist, who, lured by the promise of all expenses paid, would be ready to start in the morning. And when it was neither the call of the sea, nor the call of Paris, it was the call of the boxing-ring, wherein as an amateur he had himself once shone. When Tommy Milligan was training in Scotland, Seamark, being one of the punching volunteers, jumped over the ropes to ” knock hell out of the champion ” and retired with a jab that ought to have damped his enthusiasm for further experiences of a like character. Not a bit of it. Instead he tried hard to persuade a friend to follow his example. That friend wanted his face for a football match the day after, and feebly declined.”
Sean
February 5th, 2013 at 9:53 pm
Great stuff, Sean. Thanks!
April 18th, 2016 at 3:45 pm
Correcting an error, or rather giving the full information:
“Master Vorst”, mentioned by Colin Watts, is spelled with one O, not two.
“Master Vorst” was published by Hutchinson, and later in the same year in the US by Doran under the title “The Death Maker”. Famous Fantastic Mystery, a US pulp, reprinted it in 1952 under the US title. FFM, along with its sister magazine “Fantastic Novels” and later, briefly, “A Merritt Fantasy Magazine”, was a wonderful repository of older fantastic fiction, reprinted and re-introduced to a later generation.