Sun 1 Oct 2023
Mystery Review: KATHLEEN MOORE KNIGHT – Three of Diamonds.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[5] Comments
KATHLEEN MOORE KNIGHT – Three of Diamonds. Elisha Macomber #15. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1953. Detective Book Club, hardcover, three-in-one edition.
The detective of record in Three of Diamonds is one Elisha Macomber, chairman of the Board of Selectmen of Penberthy Township, Penberthy Island, Massachusetts, a man perhaps in his 70s. Although there is a Chief of Police on the island (think Nantucket), whenever there is a serious crime (murder, for example), he is the one who is charge of the investigation that follows, and over the years, there were quite a few. (See the list below.)
He’s off stage for much of this one, however. The action centers instead around the Crockett family, long time residents of the island, an older woman who lords it over a young sister and brother, both used to living under her thumb all their lives. In a pottery barn out back live a husband and wife, plus a young female assistant, not, as it turns out, all that harmoniously
It is the younger brother Titus, not generally considered to be the smartest whip in the barrel, who finds the body, shot between the eyes. But when others go to find it, the body is gone. At the scene of the “crime,” however, is a playing card. The three of diamonds.
It is difficult to solve a murder, obviously, when there is no body to be identified, if indeed there was a body. Macomber is convinced, however, and does more than due diligence to determine what indeed had happened. The case also involves some recent strangers on the island, who may be connected with some jewel robberies up in Boston,
There is a chapter or two soon before the ending in which all of the participants in the tale spend their time skulking around in the dark, following each other at times, and in at least one instance, one hitting another over the head. The ending itself is one of those all of the suspects together kind of affairs, in which the obvious suspect sits there with Elisha in charge with a entire collection of least likely suspects.
One might suspect that author Kathleen Moore Knight would things index control at this point, but she does not. What follows is a fast-paced mixture of confusion and chaos that could easily boggle your mind, if you were to let it. It is better just to sit back and fasten your seat belts. The ending of this one is a doozie!
The Elisha Macomber series —
Death Blew Out the Match (1935)
The Clue of the Poor Man’s Shilling (1936)
The Wheel That Turned (1936)
Seven Were Veiled (1937)
Acts of Black Night (1938)
The Tainted Token (1938)
Death Came Dancing (1941)
The Trouble At Turkey Hill (1946)
Footbridge to Death (1947)
Bait for Murder (1948)
The Bass Derby Murder (1949)
Death Goes to a Reunion (1952)
Valse Macabre (1952)
Akin to Murder (1953)
Three of Diamonds (1953)
Beauty Is a Beast (1959)
October 2nd, 2023 at 2:29 pm
For all of the books she wrote over a writing career that extended fro 1935 to 1960, Kathleen Moore Knight is, I’m sure, all but forgotten today.
Besides her Elisha Macomber series, she wrote for mysteries about Margot Blair, who was involved with public relations, and 14 stand-alones, many of which took place in the Caribbean or South America.
She also wrote four books as Alan Amos.
Not only is she forgotten, but her books themselves are disappearing. There is, for example, only one copy of THREE OF DIAMONDS offered for sale online, VG in jacket with an asking price of $50 or so.
October 2nd, 2023 at 2:35 pm
For an in depth review of two early Macomber books, and an overview of the series, check this out, on John Norris’s blog:
https://prettysinister.blogspot.com/2014/03/ffb-death-goes-to-reunion-kathleen.html
October 4th, 2023 at 7:16 pm
I have managed to reach a ripe old age without reading Knight, I intend to continue the trend. Just a writer who I never had any desire to read or sample. Most genre histories seem to relegate her to the status of Thayer, Carolyn Wells, and a few other forgotten names whose readership pretty much died with them.
October 4th, 2023 at 8:54 pm
My reading exposure to Knight’s contribution to the world of mystery fiction has been low, but based on what I have read, I wouldn’t put her anywhere near the Wells-Thayer level, which would be third rate at best.
I have come across a review I wrote of a book in Knight’s Margot Blair series in which I said:
“I think it’s a prime example of a ‘second tier’ detective puzzler, from back in the days when the puzzle was the primary reason of existence for mystery stories. The Golden Age, if you will.”
The book was TERROR BY TWILIGHT, and here’s the link:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=19059
October 9th, 2023 at 5:55 pm
EXTRA, EXTRA! A fellow blogger has uncovered an old newspaper interview with Miss Knight, and has transcribed it here:
https://readinggoldenagemysteries.blogspot.com/2021/02/kathleen-moore-knight-1946-interview.html
I think there is more in this interview than has ever been known about her before.