Sun 21 Feb 2021
An Archived Review by Doug Greene: CLIFFORD KNIGHT – The Affair of the Black Sombrero.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[9] Comments
CLIFFORD KNIGHT – The Affair of the Black Sombrero. Professor Huntoon Rogers #5. Dodd Mead, hardcover, 1939. No paperback edition.
Clifford Knight bad several abilities as an author of detective stories. His writing style, though not exactly scintillating, was several cuts above the average for the 1930s. He had a genuine sense of place and an occasional gift of vivid description. Yet, despite these abilities, Knight was on the whole only a fair writer. He could be fairly good, as with The Affair of the Scarlet Crab and The Affair of the Heavenly Voice; or fairly bad, as with The Affair of the Fainting Butler.
The Affair of the Black Sombrero is simply, well, fair. The major character is a bright young thing named Elsa Chatfield, whom Knight clearly wants us to admire. She represents, Knight tells us, “something eternal in the spirit of American youth.†If that’s true, I’m glad I’m not young any more, for Elsa is utterly insensitive and given to minor cruelties (which Knight probably considers high spirits).
The detective, an English professor named Huntoon Rogers whose connection with university life seems tenuous at best, is interested in the mysterious death of Elsa’s Aunt Kitty a year earlier. But little happens in the first hundred pages of the book except to describe Elsa’s career as a commercial artist. The pace picks up when Rogers is invited to join Elsa’s family on a sailfishing trip to Mexico. The Mexican scenes are well-done, and the description of the fishing itself – resulting in the horrifying death of one of the main characters – is effective. Two more murders occur before Rogers rather haphazardly tosses off the solution, based in part on information never given to the reader.
The Affair of the Black Sombrero indicates why Knight’s books never quite became memorable. He lacked a sense of pace, and his characters never became alive. Although most characters in 1930s detective novels are cardboard, a good writer could trim his cardboard into distinctive shapes. But all of Knight’s paper dolls remain alike. On the other hand he always included enough good scenes and, off and on, enough mystery to make his books mildly entertaining. It’s too bad that he didn’t do more.
The Huntoon Rogers series —
The Affair of the Scarlet Crab. Dodd 1937
The Affair of the Heavenly Voice. Dodd 1937
The Affair at Palm Springs. Dodd 1938
The Affair of the Ginger Lei. Dodd 1938
The Affair of the Black Sombrero. Dodd 1939
The Affair on the Painted Desert. Dodd 1939
The Affair in Death Valley. Dodd 1940
The Affair of the Circus Queen. Dodd 1940
The Affair of the Crimson Gull. Dodd 1941
The Affair of the Skiing Clown. Dodd 1941
The Affair of the Limping Sailor. Dodd 1942
The Affair of the Splintered Heart. Dodd 1942
The Affair of the Fainting Butler. Dodd 1943
The Affair of the Jade Monkey. Dodd 1943
The Affair of the Dead Stranger. Dodd 1944
The Affair of the Corpse Escort. McKay 1946
The Affair of the Golden Buzzard. McKay 1946
The Affair of the Sixth Button. McKay 1947
NOTE: Updated to correctly list Scarlet Crab as the first in the series. (See comments.)
February 21st, 2021 at 8:08 pm
From the criticism I’ve read, this is the standard view of Knight’s work, yet he seems to have been popular enough to get almost 20 books of his published. Anyone know why?
February 21st, 2021 at 8:13 pm
I’ve read two or three of the series, and my opinion agrees almost exactly with Doug’s. Yours is a really good question, Jim. Back when I was seriously bookhunting two or three times a month, I always bought any of Knight’s books when I saw them — perhaps because of the titles! But the stories never quite came up to expectations.
February 21st, 2021 at 9:40 pm
Haphazard is how I would describe even the best of the Knight books and Huntoon Rogers. Some things are obscure for good reasons.
February 22nd, 2021 at 11:49 am
As is often the case, perhaps the author’s creativity was mostly expended oncoming up with great titles!
February 22nd, 2021 at 11:57 am
My laugh for the day. Thanks, Jim!
February 22nd, 2021 at 7:17 pm
I agree with Doug Greene.
This books have much dull material.
But many also have some good settings, good mystery plot and good scenes.
I’ve read 4 of the Huntoon books: Scarlet Crab, Death Valley (the best so far), Limping Sailor (the worst), Fainting Butler (which tries to be screwball comedy).
I THINK Scarlet Crab is actually the first, in the series
February 22nd, 2021 at 7:26 pm
You could be quite right about that, Mike. Hubin uses the convention that when two books come out in the same year, they are listed alphabetically.
I’ll see what I can find on line.
February 22nd, 2021 at 7:28 pm
From an ABE seller about SCARLET CRAB:
“First edition of the author’s scarce first book. Winner of the first Red Badge Mystery Prize, winning out over a field of more than 300 entries.”
I’ll make the change in the review itself, as well as noting it here.
November 30th, 2021 at 2:39 pm
I have this one, will read it in December