Sat 16 Nov 2024
Stories I’m Reading: JANICE LAW “The Best Thing for the Liver.”
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Stories I'm Reading[5] Comments
JANICE LAW “The Best Thing for the Liver.” Madame Selina #2 (?). First published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, July/August 2012.
According to the evidence found in this, perhaps the second of the Madame Selina stories. they all take place in either New York City, or as in this particular case, fairly close by, in upstate New York in the spa area around Saratoga.
Due to some notoriety caused in an earlier adventure in which the folks at Tammany Hall were sorely annoyed, Madame Selina and her young assistant, an orphan by the name of Nip Tompkins, decide to take a sudden “vacation” from the big city.
This also places the time of the take as being (well, I’m guessing) perhaps the mid-1800’s. As a medium with quite a following, Madame Selina is doing quite well, and the seances she conducts are quite the rage. There are times, however, when discretion is quite the right route to take.
The story is told by young Nip, and he is rather an observant lad. He notices a young girl, the heir to a large fortune, who appears paler and paler each times he sees her. He wonders, of course, if she is ill. Since this is a mystery story, we the reader are in sync with the rest of the story as it plays out. The even greater pleasure obtained from the tale. however, is in the telling, elaborately fashioned after the times, but without flowing into the excesses of an era now so long ago.
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Note: The online Crime Fiction Index includes the Madame Selina tales, but at this point of time, it is unaware that this story is part of the series. Here’s the list of her adventures, as known so far, with this one inserted in bold as (for now) number two:
The Madame Selina series —
Madame Selina, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine June 2010
The Best Thing for the Liver (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine July/August 2012
A Political Issue, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine September 2013
The Psychic Investigator, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine December 2013
The Irish Boy, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine January/February 2015
The Ghostly Fireman, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine April 2015
The Spiritualist, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine March 2016
The Organ Grinder’s Daughter, (ss) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine July/August 2016
A Fine Nest of Rascals, (nv) Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine July/August 2019
As for the author herself, Janice Law is one of very few mystery writers still producing fiction who are older than I am. Her most recently published work is listed as “Up and Gone,” Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, July/August 2024.
November 17th, 2024 at 12:18 am
Sounds like fun. There have been a few attempts over the years at mediums, crystal ball readers, and mentalist detectives and they are often fun.
November 17th, 2024 at 3:01 pm
You’re right about that, but just thinking about it now, I’m wondering if most of them take place in the past, adding a bit of nostalgic feeling to them. (I could easily be wrong about this.)
November 17th, 2024 at 2:38 pm
I’ve read a few of the Madame Seline stories. Love them. Wish she would write more of them.
November 17th, 2024 at 2:57 pm
I have discovered a more complete list of the Madame Seline stories on ISFDb, to wit:
Madame Selina & Nip Tompkins
Madame Selina (2010) [SF]
The Best Thing for the Liver (2012) [SF]
The Psychic Investigator (2013) [SF]
The Irish Boy (2015) [SF]
The Ghostly Fireman (2015) [SF]
The Dressmaker (2015) [SF]
The Spiritualist (2016) [SF]
The Organ Grinder’s Daughter (2016) [SF]
Votes for Women (2016) [SF]
A Fine Nest of Rascals (2019) [SF]
A Political Issue (2021) [SF]
Madame Selina: The Complete Stories (2021) [C]
That last entry is in ebook form only.
And while it says “complete,” there’s no good reason why Janice Law couldn’t write more of them, though, and I hope she does.
November 18th, 2024 at 4:06 am
Astro was a phony mentalist solving crimes and at the time was contemporary and Dorothy Gilman had a one off taking a break from Mrs. Pollifax about a fortune teller tec that certainly read like the first book in a series.
Most of the ones I can think of were running cons or minor rackets, though I’m sure there were some legitimate fortune-telling tecs too. I would think there would be at least one among the Cozies.
Seances have featured in quite a few mystery novels, usually as a trap for a killer. They were common in the Golden Age (Agatha Christie in THE HALLOWEEN PARTY) and Paul Gallico used one in his second Alexander Hero novel, THE HAND OF MARY CONSTABLE, a spy novel. SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON by Mark McShane is a fine example of the other side of the equation. Anthony Abbott used one in a Thatcher Colt novel though the psychics were phonies.
There was a British series, ZODIAC (I think) that featured a Scotland Yard man who consulted regularly with a young attractive woman astrologer. I think you can find episodes on YouTube. Of course, the best known example recently was CBS THE MENTALIST.