FRANK C. STRUNK – Jordan’s Showdown. Berkley Jordan #2; Walker, hardcover, 1993.

   This is the second in a series set in Kentucky coal-mining country in the Depression era. I missed the first, Jordan’s Wager (Walker, 1991).

   Berkley Jordan is about 50, and after being defeated in a bid for the Sheriff’s office is working for a lady who runs a poolroom and gambling house. He broke up with his true love after events in the first book, and is feeling a bit down about it.

   The book opens with a hired assassin shooting a miner on his front porch. We don’t know who, or why. The stage is quickly set as we learn that the union is coming to the mining town where Jordan lives, or at least the miners hope it is.

   Jordan is determined to stay neutral, but it’s proving hard. Not only are the miners pressuring him, but the owner of the mining town calls him in and asks him to help in avoiding a possible bloodbath. Jordan remains stubborn, but then the assassin kills again. This time the victim is close to Jordan, and he can remain aloof no longer.

   This is both a regional and historical crime novel (not really a mystery) and Strunk handles both aspects well, evoking the atmosphere of both time and place. He switches viewpoints among Jordan, the killer, and the mine owners, and moves the story along effectively. Union boss John L. Lewis and Kentucky Lieutenant Governor “Happy” Chandler (baseball fans will remember him) make appearances toward the end.

   As I said, it really isn’t a mystery; we know who and why long before the end. It is, however, a well done story with believable characters and an appealing lead. I enjoyed it, and I’d like to read more of Strunk.

Bibliographic Note:   Unfortunately there were no further appearances of Berkley Jordan, only the two books and that was all. Frank C. Strunk did write another novel, though, one that appears in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, and that’s Throwback (Harper, 1996). It also takes place in rural Appalachia, but in the present day. An interview with the author can be found here.

DERYN LAKE – Death in the Valley of Shadows. Allison & Busby, UK, hardcover, November 2003; softcover: November 2004.

Genre:   Historical mystery. Leading character:   John Rawlings; 9th in series. Setting:   England-Georgian period.

First Sentence:   What a morning it had been.

    Apothecary John Rawlings is surprised when a man, Aidan Fenchurch, runs into his shop asking to be hidden from his former mistress. Once the very unpleasant woman is gone, Fenchurch is pleased to hear John also assists Sir John Fielding, magistrate of Bow Street and asks that John keep a document accusing the woman should he suddenly die.

   Fenchurch is murdered on his doorstep that night but his is only the first of many deaths with each new suspect dying before the killer can be identified by John and Bow Street.

   Ms Lake has a clear and wonderful voice and writes with delightful humour. Her descriptions are so visual, you want to pack and go, yet so filled with background information, such as the scene with the salesman for sheaths and cundums, as to make you an informed traveler.

   The details of social behavior and custom, as well as the syntax and cadence of dialogue define the story’s place and time. It is those extra details which enrich the story and add to the experience of reading it.

   John is a character who has grown with the series. No longer a somewhat callow, but talented young man, he is now a mature and very responsible man who has a remarkably understanding wife. I particularly like his honesty to his wife and to himself, as to why he works with Bow Street.

   Joe Jaco, first officer to Sir John Fielding (the Blind Beak), of Bow Street is an intriguing character, and one about whom we learn a bit more with each book. Although the author provides sufficient back story on the principal characters for readers new to the series, I recommend reading the series in order. There is an excellent balance to the story between John’s life with his family and friends, internal musings, medical knowledge and information, and the drama and suspense of the investigation.

   The pacing and flow are very well done, fluctuating between highs and lows. The level of suspense increases to a very dramatic ending. Even the characters comment on the case having a Shakespearean feel in the number of bodies that accumulates. Only toward the end did I begin to suspect the killer.

   I am an admitted fan of this series and this is another very good contribution to it. As I’m reading the series in order, it’s nice to know I’ve many more books ahead.

Rating:   Very Good Plus.

Editorial Comment:   Previously reviewed on this blog was The Mills of God, the first in author Deryn Lake’s contemporary Rev. Nicholas Lawrence/DI Dominic Tennant series.

   There are now 13 adventures in her series of historical mysteries with 18th century apothecary John Rawlings as the leading character. He teams up with Sir John Fielding, London’s famous blind Bow Street magistrate, in most if not all of them. Covers for these can be seen on the Fantastic Fiction website.

TED ALLBEURY – The Judas Factor. Mysterious Press, US, hardcover, 1987; reprint paperback, 1989. British edition: New English Library, hardcover, 1984.

   Each time I sample Ted Allbeury I am rewarded. The Judas Factor is no exception. Allbeury’s bag is international intrigue, and his view is not all black and white but mostly gray, of men and women doing what they do for their own reasons, with their own ignorances and insights and rationalizations.

   Tad Anders fell out of official favor with his masters in Britain’s S.LS., but they didn’t want to lose him altogether. So they set him up running a disreputable if successful London club, and ask him to take on the odd unofficial job.

   Like extracting a Russian assassin from East Germany. The job is poorly planned and goes awry. In the end, one of the difficulties with unofficial spies is they’re a bit hard to control .

   A solid, spare tale, and Tad and his women are particularly well met.

    Previously reviewed on this blog:

Shadow of Shadows (by George Kelley)
The Reaper (by Steve Lewis)

XANTIPPE – Death Catches Up with Mr. Kluck. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1935. Film: Universal/Crime Club, 1938, as Danger on the Air (with Nan Grey as Christina “Steenie” MacCorkle & Donald Woods as Benjamin Franklin Butts).

   The Mr. Kluck, inventor, owner, and manager of Kluck’s Korjul — “Feeling depressed? Headache? Nervous? Drink Kluck’s Korjul. Lack pep, vitality? How about the sparkle in your eyes? Do you attract the opposite sex? For vim, vitality and vigor, drink Kluck’s Korjul, America’s fastest selling drink. . . ” — is at Radio Forum, Consolidated Broadcasting Company’s new studios, to watch one of his radio programs being produced. Unfortunately, he is a much unloved man, and no one mourns him when he dies in a sponsor’s room.

   Kluck’s death is a complex one, first attributed to a heart attack, then to arsenic, and finally to carbon monoxide poisoning through the ventilating system. Doing the amateur investigating is Benjamin Franklin Butts, with the help of Finny McCorkle, of McCorkle, McCorkle, and Fish, radio productions. Butts has encyclopedic knowledge and Finny writes mystery scripts for radio.

   Xantippe’s view of early radio, its alleged talent, and its programs is delightful and illustrates the saying that the more things change the more they stay the same. Even the footnotes are amusing, as well as being informative. The predictions for what radio might do for good and for harm are especially fascinating.

Editorial Comments: Bill Deeck did not know, or I assume that he would have mentioned it, but the exotically named Xantippe was the pseudonym of Edith Meiser, 1898-1993, herself the writer and producer of many radio programs, including the long-running Sherlock Holmes series, including the one that starred Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce for many years. One online source states that she wrote over 300 radio scripts for the series, far more stories than Sir Arthur did himself!

   Xanthippe (meaning blonde horse in the Greek) was the wife of Socrates and the mother of their three sons. There may be some significance to this.

   A complete listing of the Crime Club movies can be found in this preceding post from not too long ago. Danger on the Air itself has been released on DVD by oldies.com.

BACKGROUND TO DANGER. Warner Brothers, 1943. George Raft, Brenda Marshall, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Osa Massen, Turhan Bey. Screenplay by W. R. Burnett, based on the novel by Eric Ambler (1937). Director: Raoul Walsh.

   I think everyone who watches this movie today wonders who they might have cast in place of George Raft in the leading role. I also think that everyone who watches old movies like this one today wonders how it was that stony-faced George Raft was ever considered a movie star. He’s actually pretty good in this one, but it’s still a mediocre movie.

   Would it still have been mediocre if Humphrey Bogart (say) had played Raft’s part? Maybe. That and a complete rewrite, that would have helped. As it is, I really think they missed the point of the book.

   Raft plays a guy selling heavy machinery in the Middle East who meets a girl on a train who gives him an envelope filled with stock securities (she says) across the Syrian-Turkish border. Turns out that the contents are photos of maps indicating (falsely) Russia’s plan to invade Turkey.

   Turns out that the Nazis are behind the scheme, and that Sidney Greenstreet is the man who thought it up as a way to drive Turkey away from Russia and into occupation by Germany. Turns out that Peter Lorre and Brenda Marshall are brother and sister (they say) and agents of Russia (again so they say), and it turns out that George Raft’s character is the guy right in the middle of everything.

   Who is who and on which side they are is part of the mystery for a while, but this film is filled far more with talk than it is with action. Greenstreet has to explain his plan several times over, for example, just to make sure (one is allowed to assume) that the audience knows at least what his role is.

   No film with both Greenstreet and Peter Lorre in it is completely bad. In fact, Peter Lorre is the one bright spot in the film, both broodingly mysterious and amusing, and sometimes in the very same scene. Usually the leading female is the bright light for me, but Brenda Marshall is not given very much to do. Too bad.

   They also changed the story. I can’t say that I remember the details of the book, which I last read in the mid-50s, but of course the book was pre-war and the movie takes place while the was is going on. A small but significant change in perspective.

   A bigger change, as I remember it, is that the hero in the book is an innocent who does his best, but when it comes to international politics, he’s in over his head. George Raft’s character – well I won’t tell you a whole lot more. He’s a tough guy who can take what’s dished out to him, but as I say, they really rewrote the part as far as he’s concerned.

   And not for the better.

[UPDATE] 09-17-10.   Mike Grost does an in depth critical analysis of this film on his website, in a page in which he discusses many of director Raoul Walsh’s films — an excellent piece of work!

THE BLACK DOLL. Universal Pictures/Crime Club Productions, Inc., 1938. Donald Woods, Nan Grey, Edgar Kennedy, C. Henry Gordon, Doris Lloyd, John Wray, Addison Richards, Holmes Herbert, William Lundigan, Fred Malatesta. Based on the novel by William Edward Hayes (1936). Director: Phil Karlson. Shown at Cinevent 42, Columbus OH, May 2010.

   The usual excellent program notes failed to include the name of the author of the book, and it was incorrectly listed as by “William Edward Haynes” in the credits on IMDb. Ellen Nehr’s Doubleday Crime Club Compendium provided the correct attribution, as well as a thumbnail sketch of the plot that showed that the film made some attempt to follow the novel.

   I say “some” because it was largely sabotaged by the performance by Edgar Kennedy as bumbling Sheriff Renick. And that’s a point I make with regret, since I’m a great fan of Kennedy, given the proper circumstance for his comedic gifts.

   The film begins promisingly in the remote mansion of recluse Nelson Rood (C. Henry Gordon), who lives with his sister Laura Leland (Doris Lloyd) and her son Rex (William Lundigan). Rood’s relationships with his family are dysfunctional, as he rules his small kingdom with an iron and unforgiving fist.

   The sudden appearance of a child’s toy, the titular black doll, arouses phantoms from his troubled past. When Rood is murdered that night, the police are summoned, with the arrival of Sherlff Renick and his antic crew dissipating the forbidding atmosphere that lent the film some tension and promise in the opening scenes.

   Donald Woods plays the detective Nick Halstead (already on the scene as the boyfriend of Rood’s daughter Marian played by a distraught Nan Grey) with some grace and a dash of humor, as he negotiates the obstacles posed by the sheriff’s ineptitude and those members of the cast who are expected to take the proceedings seriously and form a veritable phalanx of red herrings.

   As I recall, the other films in the Crime Club Series treated their material more seriously, if without enough distinction to make any of them figure in my pantheon of notable crime films.

   Universal’s Crime Club series:

THE WESTLAND CASE (1937)
THE BLACK DOLL (1938)
THE LADY IN THE MORGUE (1938)
DANGER ON THE AIR (1938)
THE LAST EXPRESS (1938)
THE GAMBLING SHIP (1938)
THE LAST WARNING (1938)
THE MYSTERY OF THE WHITE ROOM (1939)
INSIDE INFORMATION (1939)
HOUSE OF FEAR (1939)
THE WITNESS VANISHES (1939)

[UPDATE] 09-15-10.   For more information on the movies in this series, including the books and stories they were based on, see Comment #3. Not all of the films were based on Crime Club novels.

COLLEGE SCANDAL. Paramount, 1935. Arline Judge, Kent Taylor, Wendy Barrie, William Frawley, Benny Baker, William “Billy” Benedict. Screenplay by Frank Partos, Charles Brackett & Marguerite Roberts, based on a story by Beulah Marie Dix & Bertram Millhauser. Director: Elliott Nugent.

   College Scandal sounds like a story ripped from today’s headlines or a typical 1930s musical with superannuated students indulging in sophomoric capers.

   And in fact, it starts off with Billy Benedict as a manic Mickey Rooney type whipping up a college musical revue. Then we go to the offices of the College Newspaper, where an earnest young editor ponders the ethics of running a story about a handsome teacher dating the campus flirt.

   Everything seems set for a mid-autumn night’s dream of misunderstanding, music and romance, when suddenly the editor turns up poisoned in his own office.

   Whoa! I didn’t see that coming. Nor the hints in the script about the campus flirt’s awkward relationship with her stepfather. Nor a strangling in the middle of a musical number. Or a wrinkle in the plot about death by hazing as College Scandal quickly turns into a fast-paced and quirky mystery that delighted this jaded viewer with every twist.

   No fewer than five writers worked on this (including Billy Wilder’s partner-in-wit Charles Brackett, and Bertram Milhauser, who worked on the Universal Sherlock Holmes series) and they all seem to have added something worthwhile without tripping each other up.

   Staffed with a cast of reliable “B” players, including Wendy Barrie and Kent Taylor, under the slick direction of Elliott Nugent, this turns into a real surprise, and a flick worth checking out.

CAROLYN WELLS – The Umbrella Murder. J. B. Lippincott, US/UK, hardcover, 1931.

   Some enterprising satirist should put Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe in a Carolyn Wells’ mystery novel. Given Chandler’s scathing disdain for the rich and socially connected and Wells’ disproportionate admiration for them, the resulting clash of temperaments would be interesting.

   In 1931, Dashiell Hammett was making the “hardboiled” style appetizing in the United States, but unflappable Carolyn Wells breezed right on in her usual manner, seemingly oblivious to new trends in crime (though, interestingly, she included Hammett stories in her mystery tale anthologies). The Umbrella Murder sees foul death strike at a fashionable Club Spindrift in coastal New Jersey.

    “Neither effort nor expense was spared to make the best and most elaborate beach resort in the country,” reports Wells breathlessly. “The Clubhouse was a gem in itself, and the Casino was another. It was all exclusive, and expensive.”

   You might think that someone is murdered with an umbrella at Club Spindrift, but, ha, if so, Wells has fooled you. It seems that wealthy and beautiful heiress Janet Converse has been dispatched with a poisoned syringe while sitting under a beach umbrella, clad in her gaily striped beach pajamas, this season’s “IT” fashion trend (disappointingly, the splendid art deco dust jacket shows the expired Janet clad in polka dot pajamas — given the amount of time Wells devotes to describing the beach pajamas worn by Janet and the girls in her “crowd,” you would have thought cover artist Irving Politzer would have gotten this detail right!).

   At one time there were about twenty people, all Janet’s crowd, gathered under the umbrella, so I was wondering whether “The Beach Tent Murder” might have been a more accurate title. Hey, you have to occupy yourself somehow when reading a Carolyn Wells mystery (incidentally, the umbrella on the dust jacket simply could not have afforded shelter to that many people).

   But, anyway, Fleming Stone, you may not be surprised to learn, was on the beach; and he soon is pulled into the case, the locals being jaw-droppingly incompetent. It takes Stone, who has horned in on the autopsy, to discover the “minute puncture” on Janet’s left hip. The Great Detective knows what to do next:

   After this interesting scene, the police are obliged to investigate Janet’s crowd, though they have trouble believing the murderer could be one of those “rollicking youngsters,” naturally popular and beloved by all on account of their good looks, stylish clothes, fine breeding and lavish living.

   As one man avows: “Those girls are as handsome as any I ever saw, and the boys are thoroughbreds.”

   Unfortunately, compounding the disturbing social scandal, a diamond necklace Janet was carrying in a pocket of her beach pajamas (don’t ask) has disappeared, apparently stolen. Worst yet, suspicion starts to center on Janet’s fiancee, Stacpoole Meade, one of the richest of this rich set (his father is Stuyvesant Meade, so that should tell you something).

   Surely a son of Stuyvesant Meade couldn’t be involved in murder and theft?! Thankfully, Stacpoole Meade manages to prove his innocence when he gets murdered too.

   Meanwhile, back at Janet’s home, a mock castle overlooking the beach named Twin Turrets, Janet’s aunt and heir, spinster Jane Winthrop, is having to deal with an apparent apparition haunting one of the aforementioned turrets, demanding the return of its “treasure.” Fortunately Aunt Jane has a staunch friend in her Irish housekeeper, Molly Mulvaney, who, just to make sure the reader knows she is Irish, says things like this:

   Then Aunt Jane disappears, seemingly kidnapped, perhaps murdered. And a distant cousin shows up to claim the estate (assuming Aunt Jane is dead too). And a strange elderly detective, Humphrey Holt, appears on the scene as well, announcing he wants to help Fleming Stone crack the case. Fleming Stone has his hands full with this one!

WARNING: FURTHER DISCUSSION OF THIS SPLENDID LOOPINESS OF THIS TALE NECESSITATES THE INCLUSION OF MAJOR SPOILERS CONCERNING THE SOLUTION

   I’m certain you’ll be amazed as I was to learn that Fleming Stone reveals that Humphrey Holt is really Aunt Jane in disguise! Why did Aunt Jane disappear to do a drag routine? Well, let Aunt Jane explain it herself:

    “[T]he only way I could get Janet’s murderer was to pretend to be a detective and so have an opportunity to investigate. Also, I must pose as a man, for a woman detective is no good, and too, I’d be recognized.”

   So the intrepid Aunt Jane plucked her bushy eyebrows, “had a new double set of false teeth made” (quick work!), “got her hair shingled and thinned out” and had her brother, with whom she was staying, coach her “in the matter of manly action” (I told you, don’t ask). And she was able to fool everyone in town once she returned, except Fleming Stone, of course.

   I’m sure this makes perfect sense to you too.

   The most astounding revelation of all, however, is that the murderer turns out to be Janet’s best friend, that beautiful blonde, Eunice Church. We learn to our horror that Eunice is “almost, if not quite, insane” and that she killed Janet and Stacpoole out of jealously over their engagement. After Eunice dispatches herself with another hypodermic syringe (such handy things), Fleming Stone is left free to explain his brilliant deductions to the surviving characters:

   Wow! Clearly Eunice should have been drowned at birth. Unfortunately for her criminal schemes, she failed to consult Aunt Jane in disguise techniques, and she fell under the the penetrating gaze of Fleming Stone, an obvious student of physiological criminologist Cesare Lombroso.

   How any of this is really fair play detection I don’t see, but apparently Carolyn Wells’ fans were more interested in the details on those smart and fashionable beach pajamas.

   One thing I will say in this tale’s favor: Eunice’s hiding place for the stolen diamond necklace (well of course she perpetrated that too — heck, if she hadn’t been stopped cold by Fleming Stone, we probably would be reading about “Eunice and Clyde” today) is quite clever, and reminds me of certain stunts by Dorothy L. Sayers and John Dickson Carr (an adolescent admirer of Miss Wells). I won’t spoil that part!

   The rest is purest Gun in Cheek material. The reader is warned.

Editorial Comment: One of the books by Carolyn Wells that Curt has reported back on in recent weeks, and much more favorably, was The Furthest Fury. You can read his review here.

BERNARD KNIGHT – The Poisoned Chalice. Pocket, UK, softcover, 1998. Several reprint editions.

Genre:   Historical mystery. Leading character:  Sir John de Wolf; 2nd in series. Setting:   England-Middle Ages/1194.

First Sentence:   The chamber was almost in darkness.

   Sir John de Wolf’s life has challenges enough with a cold, social-climbing wife and her brother, the power-hungry Sheriff. He now has to solve crimes against women in Medieval Exeter: the betrothed daughter of a wealthy merchant has been raped, and the betrothed daughter of a local noble has died of a botched abortion.

   While signs point to the town’s silversmith, John must find the guilty person without the two families killing each other or the Sheriff hanging the wrong person.

   It is always a good start when an author includes Author’s Notes, a map and a glossary at the start of an historical mystery. It reveals what license the author has taken, defines the locale and saves me running to the Internet.

   More than that, from the very beginning, it brings the book to life. What wonderful characters have been created by Knight. Sir John, his bodyguard Gywn of Polruan and his clerk Thomas de Peyne are a wonderful, not completely harmonious, combination.

   Then you have John and his relationship with his wife. I am normally opposed to a protagonist having a mistress, but I’m willing to make an exception here. You empathize with John’s frustrations and cheer his constant struggle to enforce the law.

   Knight takes us deep into the 12th century, making it come to life without ever glorifying it. These were hard times and people with hard lives, poor sanitation, the demands of taxation and eternal political wrangling. The legal process was in formation yet laws would change with the kings. I always appreciate an author who can educate and entertain me simultaneously.

   The story is well plotted with plenty of intrigue, conflict and drama. The mystery is definitely there and the killer well concealed. The ending felt abrupt and slightly unsatisfying, which is why my rating is lower than it might have been. Even so, the author’s voice and the principal characters make this a captivating series. I look forward to reading the next book.

Rating: Good Plus.

Bibliographic Comments: The Poisoned Chalice is the second of now fourteen books in this “Crowner John” series, the most recent being A Plague of Heretics (2010).

   Knight has recently also begun a second series of detective novels, this one taking place in the mid-1950s. The leading character is these, with two having appears so far, is Dr Richard Pryor, a forensic pathologist. (The author himself is a well-known forensics expert.)

   For more information on the Bernard Knight and both his fiction and non-fiction, check out his website, located here.

HAROLD ADAMS – The Man Who Met the Train. Mysterious Press, hardcover, 1988. Paperback reprint: 1989.

   The latest of Harold Adams’ tales of Carl Wilcox and 1930s South Dakota is The Man Who Met the Train (1988). Wilcox is driving his Model T around the small towns of his area when he comes upon a car accident and rescues a survivor, a four-year-old girl.

   He reports the accident to the police in Toquevllle, where the town’s judge hires him to look into the crash. This involves Carl with local muscle-bound youngsters, who take offense at him, with the town’s beauty, which enrages further inhabitants, and with the death a year earlier of Ellsworth Ellison.

   Ellison was brilliant and continuously drunk; one day he walked into the side of a train and died. Now, as Wilcox stirs things up, nothing seems accidental any longer.

   Evocative and engaging, as usual with this series.

Bibliographic Note: The Man Who Met the Train is the seventh of sixteen novels featuring itinerant handyman and incidental solver of crimes Carl Wilcox. The final one appeared in 1999. A complete list and cover images of many of them can be found on the Fantastic Fiction website.