Mon 9 May 2011
Archived Review: RICHARD FORREST – The Wizard of Death.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[3] Comments
RICHARD FORREST – The Wizard of Death. Bobbs-Merrill, hardcover, 1977. Pocket, paperback, 1978.
Connecticut residents will get a kick out of this inside view of state gubernatorial politics. When the nominee Randolph Llewyn is assassinated at a political rally, it appears that writer Lyon Wentworth’s wife is the next target. Bea Wentworth is a state senator and has a great deal of influence over who the next nominee will be.
The Chamber of Commerce is not likely to be pleased with some of ground covered during the course of the investigation, including the hangouts of several motorcycle clubs lobbying against the helmet bill and the sleazier side Hartford’s massage parlors.
The whole business is pretty unlikely, and one fears that it’s also quite superficial. But it reads quickly, and it is fun at times to indulge your fantasies.
The Bea & Lyon Wentworth series —
A Child’s Garden of Death (n.) Bobbs 1975.
The Wizard of Death (n.) Bobbs 1977.
Death Through the Looking Glass (n.) Bobbs 1978.
Death in the Willows (n.) Holt 1979.
The Death at Yew Corner (n.) Holt 1980.
Death Under the Lilacs (n.) St. Martin’s 1985.
Death on the Mississippi (n.) St. Martin’s 1989.
The Pied Piper of Death (n.) St. Martin’s 1997.
May 10th, 2011 at 11:32 am
There are at least two other books in this series:
Death in the Secret Garden (2005)
Death At King Arthur’s Court (2005)
I was shocked when I found them at a library sale years ago because I thought Richard Forrest had died in the late 1990s. They are published by Severn House – a publisher who in the past primarily sold to libraries though they are opening their catalog to the general public lately.
Forrest dabbled in locked room and impossible crimes and a few of them had the stamp of ingenuity. His first book (a locked room mystery) has two solutions the first of which cleverly employs some recent (for the time) technological advances. Unfortunately, it turns out to be the wrong solution. The real one is rather ho-hum.
Intersting side note: Forrest contributed to a series of books for young readers called “Thumbprint Mysteries.” There are especially written with a controlled vocabulary and I think were designed to help teach beginning adult readers in literacy classes also. I found those in our local Chicago Public Library branch in the adult section, but clearly the books are meant for young and beginning readers. They are prominently marked as such on the covers. Those titles are:
Sign of the Beast (1999)
Sign of Blood (1999)
Sign of Terror (1999)
May 10th, 2011 at 3:53 pm
Richard Forrest died in 2005. I didn’t know about those books that came out that same year from Severn. I imagine they’re ones he wrote but couldn’t get published earlier.
Which sounds bad, but I’m sure lots of so-called midlist mystery writers had the same thing happen to them around the same time, in the late 90s. Contracts were canceled or not renewed with no regard to how good the books were.
I don’t things have really improved ever since. You get an OK for three books, and even if they make money, if they don’t become bestsellers, that’s all the chance you get.
I see Severn House has gone heavily into mystery fiction, so the demand is still there, if only on the part of library borrowers. Severn’s hardcover books seem to be more expensive than other publishers, which is why it was a good thing you found yours at a library sale.
Thanks for reminding me that Forrest did quite a few locked room/impossible crime mysteries. Here are the ones included in Bob Adey’s book:
CHILD’S GARDEN OF DEATH Death by shooting in a locked office.
DEATH AT YEW CORNER Death by suffocation in a locked room.
DEATH ON THE MISSISSIPPI Disappearance of a large houseboat from a stretch of river guarded at each end by a manned bridge.
DEATH THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS Disappearance of a plane seen go into the sea.
I’ve read only the second of these.
According to Hubin those “Sign of” books from 1999 were designed for adults learning to read, and are included in CFIV.
May 11th, 2011 at 2:50 am
I enjoyed reading the non-series paperback originals he wrote under his own name and as Stockton Woods. His first published mystery was WHO KILLED MR GARLAND’S MISTRESS? (Pinnacle 1974), it was nominated for an Edgar in the best paperback original category, the winner being THE CORPSE THAT WALKED by Roy Winsor which I read several years ago. I thought it was nothing special, certainly not an award winner