Thu 30 Jul 2020
Archived Review: LUCILLE KALLEN – C. B. Greenfield: The Tanglewood Murders.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Reviews[9] Comments
LUCILLE KALLEN – C. B. Greenfield: The Tanglewood Murders. Wyndham Books, hardcover, 1980. Ballantine, paperback, 1981.
Have you ever noticed how much more you enjoy a mystery novel, say, when the setting is a local one, or one you know? Take, for example, Tanglewood. As everyone in most of New England, at least, must know, Tanglewood is the annual summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a small village and environs nestled up in the lush green hills of the Massachusetts Berkshires, close to the New York border.
An apparent plot against the orchestra seems to be motivated by more than usual resentment lodges against them by the local townspeople, upset by the yearly influx of gawking tourists. Tackling an solving the murder that eventually results, in their second case, are C. B. Greenfield, crusty publisher of a weekly upstate New York newspaper, and his star reporter, Maggie Rome.
It’s Maggie who does the legwork, and Greenfield, although long and lean, who supplies the Nero Wolfian ratiocination. While their combined detective technique lacks polish and remains determinedly amateurish is style, the two sleuths are most decidedly up to the intellectiual challenge of the musical clue left as a dying message – from Ravel’s “Rapsodie Espanole.†That, plus a helpful quote from Shakespeare, and the quiet serenity of one of this country’s most charming corners is quickly restored.
Rating: B plus.
The C. B. Greenfield series –
1. Introducing C. B. Greenfield (1979)
2. The Tanglewood Murder (1980)
3. No Lady in the House (1982)
4. The Piano Bird (1985)
5. A Little Madness (1986)
July 30th, 2020 at 8:35 pm
This sounds less like most modern cozies, and more like the kind of thing Phoebe Atwood Taylor got up to.
July 30th, 2020 at 9:34 pm
No, I don’t remember the books in this series as cozies at all. The emphasis (as I recall) was on solving the cases, complete with legwork, clues and deduction. Reading this old review, I wondered if there was anything between the two lead characters that hinted at a Wolfe-Goodwin relationship. It’s been too long to say so now for sure, but I think there was.
July 30th, 2020 at 11:20 pm
You didn’t mention this …
Lucille Kallen was a comedy writer for Sid Caesar on Your Show Of Shows in the ’50s.
When she aged out of the TV system, she turned to writing mystery novels.
I recognized her name when she started putting out the Greenfield novels; I always wondered why she stopped …
July 31st, 2020 at 9:05 am
Not only was she a comedy writer of YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS, she was the only female writer among them. Why she turned to mystery writing, I do not know. “Aged out” is as good a reason as any. And why she stopped writing mysteries, that’s an even bigger unknown. One guess is, though, that the books stopped selling.
July 31st, 2020 at 6:26 am
Yes, absolutely, I do get more enjoyment out of a book when I know the setting…but only when the author gets it right.
I think I read only the first in the series, and now that you mention it, I do remember talk at the time about it being a wannabe Wolfe-Archie relationship.
July 31st, 2020 at 9:07 am
Re your first paragraph, Jeff, I remember once reading one of Emma Lathen’s about John Putnam Thatcher. It look place in Detroit, and I lived in Ann Arbor at the time, and she (they) had all of the streets and major highways wrong. If that doesn’t take you out of a story, nothing will.
July 31st, 2020 at 12:25 pm
Presumably her history with Sid Caesar means she was the model for Sally Rogers (Rose Marie) on the Dick Van Dyke Show.
July 31st, 2020 at 1:08 pm
I don’t believe there’s much doubt about it.
July 31st, 2020 at 1:46 pm
Lucille Kallen did not age out, but after Your Show of Shows disappearened in 1954, some of the staff went with Ceasar the others with Coca, and Imogene’s show died a natural death after its initial year. Kallen then turned to the mystery novels discussed above.