CBS has announced that the January 14th episode of HAWAII FIVE-0 will let viewers select the ending to a murder mystery. There will be three suspects to vote for live on each coast using twitter. This means the ending on the East Coast could be different from the one the West Coast picks. All three different endings will be available to see on cbs.com afterwards.

Deadline.com

Hollywood Reporter

NOTE: Thanks and a tip of the hat to Michael Shonk for the information above!

MISS FISHER’S MURDER MYSTERIES. Season One, 2012; 13 one-hour episodes; Australian Broadcasting Corporation / Every Cloud Production / Screen Australia / Film Victoria / All3Media. Cast: Essie Davis as Miss Phryne Fisher, Nathan Page as Detective Inspector John “Jack” Robinson, Ashleigh Cummings as Dorothy “Dot” Williams, Hugo Johnstone-Burt as Constable Hugh Collins, Miriam Margolyes as Aunt Prudence, Nicholas Bell as Murdoch Foyle. Based on the Phryne Fisher mystery series by Kerry Greenwood. Executive Producers: Fiona Eagger, Deb Cox, Carole Sklan and Christopher Gist.

   MISS FISHER’S MURDER MYSTERIES is a delightful traditional (not a cozy) mystery series that rivals the British visually and in quality of the production. Reportedly, the series’ budget was $1 million per episode, and it shows. Eleven of the thirteen episodes were adapted from books by Kerry Greenwood, who assisted and supports the TV series.

   The story is set in 1928 Melbourne Australia and the series attention to details of the time and place such as costumes, sets, locations, transportation, language and social customs is as obsessive as AMC’s MAD MEN for 1960s New York.

   The Canadian TV network Knowledge’s website has some interesting video features about the making of this series. You can find these same video extras and more at the YouTube channel phrynefishertv.

   In addition to the engaging mysteries, MISS FISHER takes a serious look at the social issues of the time, but with a sense of adventure and humor that makes the stories enjoyable to watch. The episodes are for mature audiences due to subject matter.

   Most of the episodes feature a stand-alone murder mystery, but there is an arc story running in the background that often surfaces. Phryne grew up in a poor but titled family. While in Phryne’s care, her little sister Jane disappeared, never to be seen again. Murdoch Foyle, the man Phryne blames for Jane’s disappearance, is about to get out of prison after serving his time for abducting another young girl. Phryne has returned to Melbourne after years abroad to make sure Foyle stays in jail until he hangs.

   Phryne is now rich, as all her rich relatives were killed during WW1, but she never forgets her past. Combine with her guilt over what happened to her sister, Phryne often takes on injustice, especially on the side of the lower classes. At the end of the first episode, after she had solved the murder of a rich businessman and stopped a butcher abortionist, Phryne decided to become a licensed PI. She realized she could help others while she searches for answers about her little sister.

   Essie Davis is a wonderful surprise capturing not only the look of the character in the books, but also the essence of The Honourable Miss Phryne (Fry-nee) Fisher, free-spirit, independent, young, beautiful, well dressed (during the series Phryne wore around 150 costumes), rich, female PI. Essie Davis described Phryne as “a cross between Sherlock Holmes in Guy Ritchie style, James Bond, and Wonder Woman.”

   The rest of the cast is equally talented and the characters appealing. Detective Jack Robinson slowly grows to respect Phryne’s ability as a PI, but never stops worrying about her recklessness as an action hero. The chemistry between Davis and Nathan Page is special.

   The romance between Hugh, the naïve young Protestant policeman, and Dot, Phryne’s young companion/maid and devout Catholic, adds a running subplot that can often be humorous while also illustrating the serious conflict between the Protestant and Catholics during this time period.

   Phryne encountered murder mysteries while traveling on a train, dancing in a jazz club, watching Gilbert and Sullivan on stage in Chinatown, a bookstore, and at the Circus. She dealt with drug smugglers, anarchists, Zionists, a ghost, blackmailers, an ancient Egyptian cult and delinquent teenage girls. She can fly a plane, drives a Hispano-Suiza automobile, can handle various weapons including her favorite gold, pearl handle pistol, and can challenge James Bond in number of lovers.

   Season One slowly introduced the supporting cast as they entered Phryne’s life, and the season ended with the solution of the mystery of Phryne’s sister. The writing was excellent with strong mysteries, exciting action, and delightful dialogue. In one episode, when asked if she has her gun with her, Phrynee replies, “Not with this dress.”

   The direction was equally well done and makes excellent use of the locations and sets with frequent use of master shots (when the director starts with a wide shot taking in the background and actors, then slowly moves in closer to focus on the actors and action).

   The soundtrack featured a mix of jazz music recordings from the period by artists such as Duke Ellington, Jelly Roll Morton and Paul Whiteman, as well as original music and theme by Greg J. Walker that fitted the time and place perfectly. If you enjoy 20s style jazz, you will want to listen to this series, especially the episode “The Green Mill Murder” set in a danc ehall. The soundtrack is available, but not yet here in America.

   Season One was a success and Season Two is planned. The series has aired in Canada and will air in the UK on Alibi. One can only hope MISS FISHER’S MURDER MYSTERIES will soon make it to America. The series has been released on DVD, but not in the American NTSC format.

   You can (for now) view full episodes at YouTube by searching for “Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries” (complete episodes in parts of fifteen minute or less) or click on the link for the full first episode (until YouTube takes it down) “Cocaine Blues.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aQFTJm3dmE

       ADDITIONAL SOURCES OF INFORMATION:

Australian Broadcasting Corporation website: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/phrynefisher

Book series website: http://www.phrynefisher.com

Interviews with writers and Essie Davis

http://if.com.au/2012/02/22/article/HYTJJLBZTO.html

http://www.fancygoods.com.au/andrew/2012/03/23/interview-deb-cox-on-miss-fishers-murder-mysteries

Asimov, Isaac: Mystery Tune (also: Death Song), in: Show Business Is Murder, edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin Harry Greenberg, Carol-Lynn Waugh, N. Y. 1983
Music: a simple melody. Crime: murder of a piano player.

Brown, Fredric: Murder Set to Music, in: The SAINT Mystery Library # 3, edited by Leslie Charteris, N. Y. 1959 (originally published as “Murder to Music,” in: The Saint Detective Magazine, January 1957)
Music: jazz standards. Crime: murder of an ex-jazz musician.

Chandler, Raymond: The King in Yellow, in: The Simple Art of Murder, Boston 1950; (originally published in Dime Detective Magazine, March 1938)
Music: jam session of “hot music.” Crime: revenge killing of a star trumpet player.

Christie, Agatha: Swan Song, in: The Listerdale Mystery, London 1934; reprinted in: Thomas Godfrey (ed.): Murder at the Opera, London 1989.
Music: opera La Tosca by Puccini. Crime: murder of a baritone.

Cody, Liza: Walking Blues, in: John Harvey (ed.): Blue Lightning, London 1998.
Music: rock music. Crime: overdose of a rockstar.

Deaver, Jeffrey: Nocturne, in: John Harvey (ed.): Blue Lightning, London 1998.
Music: Mozart; Smokey Robinson. Crime: robbery of a Stradivarius.

Gorman, Ed: False Idols, in: Ed Gorman (ed.): The Second Black Lizard Anthology of Crime Fiction, Berkeley 1988.
Music: rock’n’roll, especially Elvis Presley. Crime: murder of an old, nearly forgotten rock’n’roll singer.

Gruber, Frank: Words and Music, in Black Mask 22, No. 12 (March 1940); reprinted in: Frank Gruber: Brass Knuckles, Los Angeles 1966.
Music: a romantic hit-tune. Crime: poisoning of a song-writer.

Harvey, John: Cool Blues, in: John Harvey (ed.): Blue Lightning, London 1998.
Music: jazz, especially Duke Ellington. Crime: a series of thefts against women.

Hoch, Edward D.: The Spy Who Went to the Opera, in: Thomas Godfrey (ed.): Murder at the Opera, London 1989.
Music: opera La Gioconda by Ponchielli. Crime: espionage, attempt with a bomb.

Howard, Clark: Horn Man, in: Ed Gorman (ed.): The Black Lizard Anthology of Crime Fiction, Berkeley 1987.
Music: Traditional Jazz in New Orleans. Crime: murder of two lovers.

Irish, William (C. Woolrich): The Dancing Detective, in: The Dancing Detective, Philadelphia 1946 (originally published as “Dime a Dance,” in: Black Mask 20, No. 12 (February 1938)).
Music: jazz standards in a dance mill. Crime: a taxi dancer is strangled to death.

Leonard, Elmore: When the Women Come Out to Dance, in: The Best American Noir of the Century, ed. by James Ellroy & Otto Penzler, Boston, N. Y. 2010 (originally published in: Elmore Leonard: When the Women Come Out to Dance, London 2002).
Music: dance music for strippers, for example Bad Company. Crime: murder of a rich husband.

Mertz, Stephen: Death Blues, in: Ed Gorman (ed.): The Second Black Lizard Anthology of Crime Fiction, Berkeley 1988.
Music: Rhythm&Blues. Crime: attempted murder against a blues veteran.

Moseley, Walter: Blue Lightning, in: John Harvey (ed.): Blue Lightning, London 1998.
Music: blues, played with a trumpet. Crime: shooting of a woman.

Paretsky, Sara: Grace Notes, in: Windy City Blues, N. Y. 1995.
Music: sheet-music by Mozart. Crime: burglary.

Rankin, Ian: Glimmer, in John Harvey (ed.): Blue Lightning, London 1998.
Music: rock music of The Rolling Stones. Crime: killing of a concert-goer.

Reeves, Robert: Danse Macabre, in: Black Mask 23, No. 12 (April 1941); reprinted in: Otto Penzler (ed.): Pulp Fiction The Dames, London 2008.
Music: Swing, torch-songs. Crime: murder of a dance hostess.

Stout, Rex: The Gun with Wings, in: Curtains for Three, N. Y. 1951; reprinted in: Thomas Godfrey (ed.): Murder at the Opera, London 1989.
Music: operas. Crime: killing of a tenor with a revolver.

Underwood, Michael: Death at the Opera, in: Hilary Watson (ed.): Winter’s Crimes, London 1980; reprinted in: Show Business Is Murder, edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin Harry Greenberg, Carol-Lynn Waugh, N. Y. 1983.
Music: operas by Richard Wagner. Crime: murder of a opera-goer.

NOTE: Earlier on this blog: MUSIC AND CRIME: 50 NOVELS, by Josef Hoffmann.

SWORDFISH. 2001. John Travolta, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Don Cheadle, Sam Shepard, Vinnie Jones, Camryn Grimes. Director: Dominic Sena.

   As a recently released felon, famed computer hacker Stanley Jobson (Jackman) is recruited by the beautiful and alluring Ginger (Halle Berry) to work for the mysterious (and ruthless) Gabriel Shear (Travolta). Needing money to help regain custody of his young daughter (Camryn Grimes), Stanley accepts, and during the rest of the movie he learns to regret his decision, many times, over and over again.

   This is one of those movies where you are better off not asking questions and sitting back to enjoy the ride. If, that is, you are not bored with watching someone typing at a keyboard and pretending they are breaking into various money accounts scattered around the world. The less-meaningful (but visually far more spectacular) action that takes place is largely confined to a mini-prologue that works about as well as anything in the movie (with a bank under siege with hostages wired to blow up) and in the last thirty minutes or so, when all of the safety latches are set loose.

   Lots of large-scale explosives going off, in other words. Cars careening around busy city streets and smashing into each other, large guns being fired and causing all kinds of havoc, and tons of other vehicles of several makes and models veering out of control and smashing into tall buildings and on several different levels. That still leaves an hour to fill, which of course does not mean there are not plenty of bad guys willing to do all kinds of bad things in those remaining sixty minutes.

   Travolta and Jackman have the good parts, and both do well in them, with Travolta taking (in my opinion) top honors as a truly Machiavellian mastermind, over the top and subtly clever at the same time. Amazing. (Unfortunately, with the need for pyrotechnics to keep the action crowd happy, “over the top” seems to prevail, more often than not, over common sense.)

   This following statement may seem to be totally contradictory, or maybe it’s just me, but Halle Berry appears too aware of herself to be truly sexy, but those commentators who have described her much-maligned topless scene as “gratuitous” should watch the movie again.

   Or if not, at least the ending. (Think subtle.)

NEVADA. Paramount, 1927. Gary Cooper, Thelma Todd, William Powell, Philip Strange, Ernie S. Adams, Christian J. Frank, Ivan Christy, Guy Oliver. Based on a novel by Zane Grey. Director: John Waters. Shown at Cinevent 38, Columbus OH, May 2006.

   Gary Cooper is “Nevada,” a wandering cowboy with a tendency to get into trouble, who, with his sidekick Cash Burridge (Ernie S. Adams), seeks refuge on a ranch whose owner’s sister (Thelma Todd) quickly develops an interest in Nevada that’s not welcomed by Clan Dillon, her suitor, played by a polished (as always) William Powell. Ranches in the vicinity are being victimized by cattle rustlers and Nevada goes undercover in an attempt to ferret out the secretive mastermind whose identity is known only to Cawthorne (Ivan Christy), foreman of the ranch owned by Todd’s brother.

   It’s good to see Todd in a leading dramatic role and she and Cooper make a highly combustible pair of lovers. The unmasking of the villain and the rehabilitation of the trouble-prone Nevada come together in a fast-paced climax that wraps up this fine Western drama in a most satisfying fashion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YkqE6dfq9s

   The touch I most enjoyed was a meeting between Nevada and the still unidentified villain, with the villain’s face masked by a light shining into Nevada’s eyes, a nice variation on the masked villains of the ever popular chapter plays of the ’20s and ’30s.

CONSTANCE & GWENYTH LITTLE – Great Black Kanba. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1944. Dell #181, paperback, 1947 [mapback edition]. Rue Morgue Press, softcover, 1988.

   Of all the subgenres in crime fiction, amnesia is my least favorite. The Little sisters here have made me forget — unintentional and probably unfunny joke — that bias with a not too plausible but entertaining story of a young woman who loses her memory after a blow to the head while on an Australian train-called Great Black Kanba, or snake, by the aborigines — in the early days of World War II. Worse, the young woman’s identity is mixed up with another female’s, and she is laid claim to by an odd family containing a blackmailer and perhaps a murderer.

   Apparently the different areas of Australia built different gauge railroad tracks. To travel through Australia meant getting off one train and on to another; each change creates problems for the protagonist. The young woman loses her memory on one train, and on two others some unfortunate people have their throats slit.

   Good fun with a plucky heroine, but don’t look for fair play.

NOTE: For a long insightful commentary on the Little sisters and their approach to mystery fiction — “comic cozies” — check out this page on the Rue Morgue Press website.

THE COUCH. Warner Brothers, 1962. Grant Williams, Shirley Knight, Onslow Stevens, William Leslie, Anne Helm. Screenplay by Robert Bloch, based on a story by Blake Edwards & Owen Crump. Director: Owen Crump.

ROBERT BLOCH – The Couch. Gold Medal s1192, paperback original, based on the film of the same title, 1962.

   I spent last October reading ghost stories and watching old monster movies, as I usually do, and I like to close out a month like that with some Robert Bloch, so this year I picked The Couch, the 1962 Warners film and Bloch’s tie-in novelization (Gold Medal, 1962) of the screenplay he wrote with Blake Edwards and producer/director Owen Crump.

   Which makes me wonder who was responsible for spinning a story out of what is essentially a shaggy-dog joke; imagine the set up: a guy walks down the street, murders a perfect stranger, then hurries to his psychiatrist’s office to talk about his mental problems.

   The film that results could hardly be called stylish, but The Couch has a certain blunt impact I found hard to resist. Director Crump (also a writer and producer in his time, mostly of shorts and TV shows) puts the images on screen with a minimum of fuss—no tricky camera angles or long takes—but with admirable efficiency, probably thanks to cinematographer Harold Stine, who cut his teeth on TV shows like Dick Tracy and Superman.

   As far as the story goes, it’s as fast and simple as the direction, with David, a mental patient just released from Prison, seeing a psychiatrist as a condition of his parole, and passing his time with random killings just before each visit — which probably beats reading old magazines, but still….

   As the story proceeds, though, we get more than a loose catalogue of killings as the narrative is pegged to the things David’s shrink (and we the viewers) learn about him and his motives for mayhem. Or maybe what we think are his motives. Or maybe what David thinks are his motives, as the story turns into a tricky game of mental cat-and-mouse: the psychiatrist’s search through David’s psyche mirroring the Police hunt for the killer.

   The acting, like the directing, is generally efficient and unfussy, but Grant Williams (best remembered as The Incredible Shrinking Man) plays the killer with a hysterical charm that adds nicely to the tension; one never knows whether (or when) he’s going to be the All-American Clean-Cut Boy or the Out-of-Control psycho, and he conveys both aspects of the character energetically and artfully enough to make one wish his career had gone further.

   And speaking of the cast, I should add that the perplexed psychiatrist at the center of it all is played by none other than Onslow Stevens. To most folks that is hardly a name to conjure with, but he is known to fans of old monster movies as the last Mad Scientist of Universal’s grand old days, in the delirious House of Dracula, where he contended with Dracula, the Wolf Man and Frankenstein’s Monster, carrying his part with the seriousness proper for a final farewell.

   Moving on to Bloch’s novelization of this, I was impressed that he put more effort into it than it really needed, and came out with a book worth reading in itself. Bloch adds a subtle sexual context to the tale where the movie couldn’t (not in 1962 anyway) and he takes time out to carp about the L.A. traffic and the collapse of civilization in general.

   There are even a couple of eerily prescient bits where Bloch looks into the minds of people hearing about the serial killings and describes reactions—ranging from normal shock to paranoid fantasy — that seem to strangely pre-echo those of today (Events caught up to me as I wrote this.) However much I like Robert Bloch, I never thought of him as a writer for the ages until I read this and reflected sadly on how short a distance we’ve come in fifty years.

PETER DUCHIN & JOHN MORGAN WILSON – Blue Moon. Berkley, paperback reprint; 1st printing, November 2003. Hardcover first edition: Berkley, 2002.

   Peter Duchin, son of famed pianist and bandleader Eddie Duchin, is a bandleader of some renown himself, so when he sits down to play — well, in this case, write a mystery — it certainly comes as no great surprise that his leading protagonist is Philip Damon, famed pianist and bandleader, and son of Archie Damon, leader of one of the most famous high society orchestras of the 30s.

   Write what you know, they always say, and it’s obvious all the way through this name-dropping debut murder mystery novel that Peter Duchin knows whereof he writes. Aided and abetted by his Edgar-winning co-author, John Morgan Wilson, they together turn in a nicely tuned performance.

   The Edgar, by the way, was for a book entitled Simple Justice, the first in Wilson’s noirish Benjamin Justice series, of which there are now five:

         Simple Justice, 1996. [Edgar award, best first mystery]
         Revision of Justice, 1997.
         Justice at Risk, 1999. [Lambda award, best mystery]
         The Limits of Justice, 2000. [Lambda award]
         Blind Eye, October 2003.

   The Justice series is, from what I’ve heard, rather tough and not for the faint of heart, but in Blue Moon, everything is frothier and very much light-hearted. As bubbly (in an early 1960s high society sense) as a murder mystery can get, you might almost say. The name-dropping begins in earnest on page two, and continues throughout the book.

   Appearing on various occasions, many with speaking parts are: Jackie Kennedy, Truman Capote, George Plimpton, Joseph Kraft (and on the west coast) Joe DiMaggio, Herb Caen, Cary Grant, Kim Novak, Carol Channing, Alfred Hitchcock, Willie Mays, Melvin Belli, Dizzy Gillespie, Bill Cosby, Woody Allen, Clint Eastwood, Nina Simone, Gerry Mulligan, and I probably left out many others.

   Nothing like hobnobbing with the stars. And there’s also nothing like the sit-up-and-say-oh-my-gosh effect that occurs on page 35 when the ballroom suddenly goes black, a scream rings out, and when the lights go back on, there is a body lying dead on the floor. When was the last time I read this happening? Ever? Did it happen only in the movies? Someone with a better memory than I will have to come up with the answer.

   Damon’s own person demons (sorry, I couldn’t help myself) are also at work here. His wife, to whom he was married only three blissful years, was murdered two years earlier, and the case was never solved. Somehow the two deaths are connected, but how? Not trusting the abilities of a black homicide detective named Hercules Platt, whose name should remind you of some other famous detective, but I digress, Damon decides to do some amateur sleuthing on his own.

   More deaths occur, and Platt proves himself worthy enough to be invited for an encore, both in an upcoming second pairing, Good Morning, Heartache (Berkley, 2003) and on stage, as Platt (surprisingly) has his own amateur sideline as an after-hours and more than competent jazz saxophonist. The detective work is more melodramatic in the closing than I’d prefer, but the period (a mere 40 years ago) is well-evoked, and the overall ambiance is suave, sophisticated and easy going down.

[UPDATE] 12-26-12. Two additional Benjamin Justice novels published since this review was written are Moth And Flame (2004), and Rhapsody in Blood (2006). There seems to have been only the two books in the collaborative Philip Damon series.

   While looking through the Western Story duplicates that I obtained recently, I’ve been involved in that occupation that has driven collectors crazy for generations. Yes, I’m talking about the heartbreaking job of comparing issues to see which copy is the better one. The better condition copy you keep for your own collection and the lesser condition copy eventually finds a new home.

   Why did I use the words “crazy” and “heartbreaking” above? Because sometimes the copies have different flaws that make it almost impossible to choose one issue as the “better” one. For instance, many times I’ve compared the two copies of the same issue and seen a small piece out of the cover of one issue; but the other copy has some spine problems or perhaps the pages look white compared to almost white, meanwhile someone has scribbled on the contents page “VG” and maybe the back cover has been bent or maybe, etc, etc, etc.

   I’m like the horse caught between two bales of hay; I can’t make a decision and so I starve to death. Or in the case of the collector, you keep both issues!

   A while back we were discussing items that we sometimes find inside pulp magazines or comments that a prior owner has written. I’m looking at the June 5, 1920, issue of Western Story and it has a great N.C. Wyeth cover showing a cowboy riding a bucking bronco while two pals cheer him on.

   Unfortunately, a prior owner by the name of Frederick Gutzwiller has chosen to scribble on the cover. He has written his full name plus the date of Sunday June 13, 1920. He has even added the time: 1 PM. In addition, he must have reread the issue more than 10 years later, because he has written June 1931 and June 1932. There also is a stamped date of January 1935.

   Inside, on the contents page he has written beside some of the stories these dates again. In addition he has rated some of the tales with the comments “poor” and “No Good”. One story he particularly hated because on page 49 where the story “Duty” by S.S. Gordon begins, he has written “29th of June 1932” and slammed it with both “Poor” and “No Good”. But wait, he’s not finished. He then puts on the top of every other page the initials “N.G.”, standing for no good.

   Between pages 90 and 91, Mr Gutzwiller, I presume, has tucked a 16 page pamphlet titled, “Cultural Directions for Will’s Pioneer Brand Nursery Stock”. I see the booklet was published in Bismark, North Dakota. At first I had no idea what this booklet was about but upon reading further I found out it all about planting fruits, vegetables, plants, and trees.

   I also have pulps where Mr Gutzwiller has listed on the covers the various prices realized for eggs, vegetables, and livestock. What I find so interesting about all this, is that he made these notations more than 80 or 90 years ago and probably is long dead. Yet he lives on with his name prominently displayed on some old magazines for collectors to puzzle over and wonder about. I guess that is a sort of immortality, more than some of us will ever receive.

   In fact, as soon as I sign off this computer, I’m going to start writing my name, address, and date on the covers of my pulps. I have a lot, so this might take me quite awhile. I can hardly wait to scribble “Walker Martin” on the set of fine condition Planet Stories that I won at the Frank Robinson auction held by Adventure House.

POSTSCRIPT: Today I’ve spent the whole day continuing to compare issues, which I find to be a lot of fun. There is nothing that make me happier than to look at a fine condition Western Story that I just obtained recently and then see that it is about a dozen times better than my old copy which is sort of brittle and faded, just like me!

   Replacing the old, battered copy with the nice condition copy is like being reborn. I feel like a new collector instead of an old one. If I can find hundreds of nice Western Story magazines at this late stage, then what new worlds are waiting to be conquered? Or collected!