My thought is that everything online is only temporary.

   That particular concept was thoroughly tested yesterday. You may not have noticed, but this blog was all but offline for 24 hours beginning Thursday night. Nothing disappeared, thank goodness, but I couldn’t access any of the management tools for the blog, including editing and posting. No one could leave comments, either. (If you tried and failed, please try again.)

   I can’t explain things I don’t really understand myself, so I won’t go into details, but my son-in-law Mark says it was a “database server error.”

   While working our way through that, Mark discovered that there is a new hosting plan scheduled to take effect on March 28, after which certain incompatibilities (which I won’t even try to get into) will mean that all 13 plus years of blogging here on M*F will disappear. There may be an extension of the date, and (who knows) the “incompatibility” issue may be worked out, but in the meantime, I will be doing my best to back up and preserve as many of the thousands of posts as I can.

   If worst comes to worst, I will most certainly start over again. There’s only so much reading and watching I could do without being able to write about it all too, and I know that holds true for the many other contributors to this blog as well.

   And while I’m busy backing up an archive of the “Best of Mystery*File,” regular blogging will go on as usual. Count on it!

ASHLEY GARDNER – Death at Brighton Pavilion. Cpt. Gabriel Lacey #14. JA/AG Publishing, softcover, December 2019. Setting: Regency England.

First Sentence: I woke, or seemed to.

   Captain Gabriel Lacey’s old enemy, Colonel Hamilton Isherwood, has been murdered. Isherwood’s blood is on Lacey’s clothes and a cavalry saber is in Lacey’s hand, and there is a gap in his memory as to what happened. The one person who might know is Clement, a footman, and Isherwood’s son asks for Lacey’s help in identifying his father’s killer. While trying to put the pieces together, Gabriel learns of two Quakers who are missing and promises to make inquiries as to their whereabouts.

   There’s nothing like a good hook; an opening that captures your attention from the very beginning. Having the protagonist come to consciousness in the company of a dead body, a saber in this hand, and the victim’s blood on his clothes accomplishes that goal.

   It’s also nice that new readers need not worry about coming into the series with this 14th book. Gardner does a very good job of introducing each of the characters and establishing their relationships. She also incorporates the intimacy between Lacey and his wife Donata in a way that is lovely, romantic and a bit sexy, but never detailed.

   Gardner creates an excellent sense of place, inviting the reader into the environment in which the characters find themselves. Often, too, she provides bits of history and general information, such as that about Quakers, never overwhelming the story, but enhancing it.

   One likes to read of protagonists who have a strong moral and ethical base, who believe in doing what is just. Lacey is just such a character in spite of the urgings of others. At the same time, he is not perfect and does have a past, yet one of the best traits of Lacey is his humanity; his sense of responsibility. In other words, he is believable.

   Gardner creates an assumption and immediately dispels it carrying one along in the investigation. Her writing draws one back to her books due to her voice; her dialogue and the subtle humor incorporated which is offset by an excellent accounting of grieving– “That was the trouble with death. I too had been brought up to believe we should rejoice that the one we loved was with the lord, but somehow I never could. I could feel only emptiness, the lessening of myself for the absence of that person.”

   Death at Brighton Pavilion is a thoroughly enjoyable period mystery with plenty of twists, action, wonderful period details, and an ending that moves the series forward. As the author says– “Captain Lacey’s adventures continue…”

Rating: Good Plus.

      The Captain Gabriel Lacey series —

1. The Hanover Square Affair (2003)
2. A Regimental Murder (2004)
3. The Glass House (2004)
4. The Sudbury School Murders (2005)
5. A Body in Berkley Square (2005)
6. A Covent Garden Mystery (2006)
7. A Death in Norfolk (2011)
8. A Disappearance in Drury Lane (2013)
9. Murder in Grosvenor Square (2014)
10. The Thames River Murders (2015)
11. The Alexandria Affair (2016)
12. A Mystery at Carlton House (2017)
13. Murder in St. Giles (2018)
14. Death at Brighton Pavilion (2019)

THOMAS BUNN – Closet Bones. John Thomas Ross #1. (***) G. P. Putnam’s Sons. hardcover 1977. No paperback edition.

   The copy on the dust jacket mentions Sam Spade in referring to private detective John Thomas Ross, but the resemblance is closer to Dashiell Hammett’s other detective, the nameless Continental Op. Ross is paunchy, losing his hair and not getting any younger, but yet not easily waylaid by temptation.

   He’s called on to find a missing playboy, patron of an upstate New York hippie community, who disappears shortly after a sudden marriage. The plot is complicated, the writing is competent and quietly unobtrusive, and all the way through there is a curious lack of intensity or involvement, as if we have read it all before.

   We have.

(***) Most sources call this the first in a series of three books featuring Jack Bodine, another of Thomas Bunn’s private eye creations, but I have one online source that agrees with me, that the PI in this book is indeed John Thomas Ross, his only recorded case. Bunn wrote only the three books. Follow the link to Bodine’s Thrilling Detective webpage.

VILLAIN. MGM, UK/US, 1971. Richard Burton, Ian McShane, Nigel Davenport, Donald Sinden, Fiona Lewis. Based on the novel The Burden of Proof by James Barlow. Director: Michael Tuchner

   Some might find Villain a bit slow. A little too talky. And in some ways, they’d be right. For a gangster movie, Villain does have more than its fair share of quiet moments or social situations in which the main characters are just sitting around talking to one another. But it all has an ultimate purpose; namely, developing a great anti-hero in the form of East End gangster Vic Dakin (Richard Burton).

   Burton portrays Dakin as a man torn between his sociopathy and his tenderness. On the one hand, he’s a gentle soul, a caregiver for his aging mother. On the other, he’s a ruthless scoundrel, ever desperate to remain atop the pecking order. Burton disappears into the role, showcasing his talent as one of the finest British actors of his generation. And with that Welsh accent of his, he really stands out. Dakin is a character that you won’t soon forget.

   Speaking of unforgettable characters, there’s also Dakin’s underling, Wolfe Lissner (Ian McShane). Lissner is a colorful character, far less violent than Dakin and more self-aware. He’s the guy you go to for illicit things: women, men, drugs, whatever. In the movie, his Jewishness gets mentioned more than once. I am wondering whether in the book this was more fully fleshed out. But he seems to represent those hard-edged Yiddish-speaking gangsters of yesteryear; one suspects that his character was likely based on someone in particular or developed as a composite.

   The story? Well, without giving away too much of the plot, let’s just say that Villain is both a character study and a cat-and-mouse police procedural, with a London police inspector close on Dakin’s trail, particularly after a robbery goes awry.

   But it’s not really the plot that drives the film so much as Burton’s presence – his very physicality – and the movie’s seedy, criminal, and cynical atmosphere. For if any movie is drenched in the atmosphere of economically stagnating early 1970s London, it is this one. Watching this movie, one feels not just the dampness and the chilly wind on a sunny day in Brighton, but also the general state of the country. Uncertain, plodding along, wishing for better times.

   That’s where Dakin comes in. He’s not an angry young man. He’s a furious middle-aged man. One who has made the decision that the only way to get ahead in a society that has offered him less than what he thinks he deserves to is to do it illicitly. He’s raw, tough as nails, filled with pride and bluster, and ultimately the victim of his own hubris and propensity toward brutal violence.

EDWARD D. HOCH “The Other Eye.” Short story. Al Darlan #11 & Mike Trapper #1. First published in Crime Wave: World’s Winning Crime Stories 1981, selected by judges for the Swedish Academy of Detection for the Crime Writers’ International Congress (Collins, UK, hardcover, 1981; Fontana, UK, paperback, 1983). Introduction by Desmond Bagley. Reprinted in The New Black Mask No.4, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli & Richard Layman, (HBJ, paperback, 1986).

   Apparently (and inexplicably) “The Other Eye” never appeared in EQMM, where Hoch had a historic run of over 34 consecutive years of having one of his stories included. PI Al Darlan (earlier known as Al Diamond) is talked into taking a partner in this one, a young enthusiastic law school dropout named Mike Trapper. Al is in his 50s, and business is slow, so he allows himself to be talked into it — that and an infusion of cash in the amount of ten thousand dollars.

   In their first case together they are hired by a businessman who seems to followed (or sometimes preceded) by someone pretending to be him, no matter where he goes — even briefly in his own office and at home. Their job is to find out why. What does he have in mind?

   Darlan seems to have the same questions about their client that I did, but he’s too late to prevent a terrible accident from happening, but his deductions do come soon enough to save young Mike from an even worse disaster.

   This is one of a very few of Ed Hoch’s many stories that definitely depends on the protagonist being a private eye, and even more, that the junior partner is young and still wet behind the years. Overall, I’d say it’s in the middle of the pack in terms of Hoch’s overall output, but that still puts it way above average, as compared to the competition, as far as I’m concerned.

ELIZABETH PETERS – The Night of Four Hundred Rabbits. Tor, paperback, 1989. First published by Dodd Mead, hardcover, 1971. Also reprinted by Dell, paperback, 1972, and Avon, paperback, 2002.

   Elizabeth Peters is a hot author right now. There aren’t man others writers whose books are being dug up from 15 years ago to be reprinted, and for the first time, so far as I can tell. [Not so. Dell did a paperback edition in 1972.] Sad to say, however, the book in question is not one of her better ones.

   It’s about the drug culture of the 70s, a generation ago, taking place in Mexico, where a girl is trying to find her father. Some things stay the same, but others do not. The story may have have all the mysterious ingredients it needs, but [case in pint] still be relic of the past.

        —

PostScript: Thinking a bit more about this, I think it’s the books of the 60s and 70s which are beginning to show their age the most. I can read a mystery taking place in the 30s or 40s with very little problem, but here this book is less thhn 20 years old, and it’s already starting to creak.

   The same is true with movies. I tried to watch one of the Shaft pictures a month or so ago, and it was embarrassing. There’s nothing more dead than a fad that’s past its prime.

  ARTHUR LEO ZAGAT “Crawling Madness.” Novelette. First published in Terror Tales, March 1935. Reprinted in Zombies! Zombies! Zombies!, edited by Otto Penzler (Black Lizard, softcover, 2011) and in Famous Fantastic Mysteries, Fall 2016, edited by Matt Moring (Altus Press, softcover).

   Ann and Bob Travers are newlyweds who are heading for Bob’s new job located somewhere out west. He has a new formula for extracting gold from otherwise tapped out mines, and he’s anxious to try it and find out how well it works. Driving along in their car, they are sideswiped off the road by a truck filled with crazed, terrified miners speeding madly off in the opposite direction.

   Their car is wrecked, and Bob’s ankle is broken. What is she to do? Luckily the mine is only a short distance away. It can’t be totally deserted, can it? Well, no, not exactly. Nearing the mine, she is confronted on all side by creeping emaciated men, crawling on their stomachs closer and closer…

   Thus begins “Crawling Madness,” a story that once started, just doesn’t stop. A stranger who claims to be the foreman frightens off Ann’s attackers, but there is something about his Satanic visage that she just doesn’t trust. It’s then a cat and mouse game all the way, in shelter and out, in the mine and out, then trapped in one of the furthermost caverns, always with the threat of unspeakable horror from the monstrously disfigured creatures lurking just beyond the only small sources of light she has.

   This is the stuff of nightmares, no doubt about it, but of course it ends happily, with an explanation that actually works (I think), and most surprisingly at the very end, the equivalent of a PSA about the need for more safety regulations in mines all across the country.

VERONICA STALLWOOD – Oxford Exit. Kate Ivory #2. Scribner, US, hardcover, 1995. Np US paperback edition. First published in the UK by Macmillan, 1994.

   Yet another author new to me. Stallwood was born in London and lives in Oxford, where she has worked at the Bodelian and Lincoln College libraries. The first book in this series is Death and the Oxford Box.

   Kate Ivory is a struggling romance novelist who has experience with computers and library cataloguing. She is called on by a friend to help investigate a possible series of thefts from the Oxford University Library System, and after agreeing is plugged into the system as a roving cataloger and consultant.

   Shady doings are afoot, all right, and Kate discovers that a young library assistant who was murdered in the recent past may have stumbled across them also, What seemed to be a relatively safe assignment now takes on a darker hue.

   Were this an American book, I’d call it a cozy, but given how I’ve defined those I think I’d be doing this an injustice. I like Stallwood’s prose, and I like her characters, an dI like the milieu. She tells her story by interleaving chapters told from the viewpoints of Kate and the anonymous murderer, and I thought she made unusually good use of the device.

   Secondary characters were also well done. It’s a type of book that British authors do exceptionally well, and Stallwood does this reputation no harm.

       The Kate Ivory series —

1. Death and the Oxford Box (1993)
2. Oxford Exit (1994)
3. Oxford Mourning (1995)
4. Oxford Fall (1996)
5. Oxford Knot (1998)
6. Oxford Blue (1998)
7. Oxford Shift (1999)
8. Oxford Shadows (2000)
9. Oxford Double (2001)
10. Oxford Proof (2002)
11. Oxford Remains (2004)
12. Oxford Letters (2005)
13. Oxford Menace (2008)
14. Oxford Ransom (2011)

MORAY DALTON – The Body in the Road. Hermann Glide #1. Sampson Low, UK, hardcover, 1931. Harper & Brothers, US, hardcover, 1930. Black Cat Detective #8, US, digest-sized paperback, 1944, Dean Street Press, UK, trade paperback, 2019; introduction by Curtis Evans.

   Moray Dalton was the working byline of Katherine Dalton Renoir, the British author of 29 mysteries published between 1924 and 1951. If you live in the US, you can be forgiven if you’ve never heard of her. Only three of her books have ever been published in the country, including this one (but how it happened to be published here a year before the British edition, I have no idea).

   It looks as though, however, if sales do well, that the folks at Dean Street Press are doing their best to be sure readers in this country can easily get their hands on them. Five were published last year and five more will be published in March. This is a totally unexpectedly bonanza for fans of obscure detective fiction from the Golden Age of Detection.

   I caution you, though, on the basis of this, the first of her work I’ve read, that any comparison to the contemporary authors of her time, those who are still well known today, are well in the favor of the latter. Dalton’s approach to both dialogue and storytelling are both rather unfocused and naive.

   The following excerpt comes from page four of the Dean Street edition. Two young women who have just met as musical performers at the same cafe, are talking:

   Vivian is living with n older woman who has acted as her guardian since she was young, and who has kept her under her very strict eye for all that time. It is no wonder she wishes to rebel, and finally she does, and in fact she decides to go into partnership with Linda on setting up a small tea shop together.

   Until, that is, the day they find the titular body in the road, that of a small dog that has been badly injured. They go off in opposite directions to obtain help, but Vivian is never to be seen again. And who is accused but Linda. Luckily for her, the new Lord Harringdon in the area has met her and has taken more than a liking to her.

   The case against Linda is flimsy, to say the least, but the local police are inexplicably set on their case against her. Lord Harringdon also investigates, but in his mind it is the strange doctor with stranger patients and medical staff that gets all of his attention. Finally, about 45 pages from the end, he hires Hermann Glide, a frail-looking private eye in London who resembles (at first appearance) “a monkey on a barrel organ.”

   Glide is not given many pages to do his work, and in fact we see very little of it, but he does his job, and as it turns out in the end, he did it perhaps a little too well. I’ll not say more about that, but it is one of the more interesting thing I can hint at in terms of the detective work that is done.

   Overall then, I’m glad I read this book, and I plan to read more of Moray Dalton’s work. As for you, though, unless you’re really a devout fan of old traditional detective novels, I’d recommend this on to you only if you’ve run out of other (and more solidly constructed) ones to read.

       The Hermann Glide series —

The Body in the Road (1930/31)
The Night of Fear (1931)
Death in the Cup (1932)

U. S. ANDERSEN – Hard and Fast. Steve Lawson #1. Popular Library Eagle Book EB-72, paperback original, 1956.

   This has the distinction of being written entirely in the Present Tense. Which is the only difference between it and a thousand other hard-boiled PI books from the 1950s & 60s.

   But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

   Hard and Fast observes the traditions of the HBPI with scrupulous care: The beautiful client with something to hide; the gangster with a phalanx of ineffectual tough guys; the too-helpful lawyer; the frightened witness who turns up dead after promising to tell all; dubious cops and willing dames…. Plus bloody fights, fragile clues, fast chases and swift seductions, all packed in a hundred and fifty-some pages and wrapped in a gaudy cover, this is by way of being the distilled essence of its genre.

   The story? Well as if anyone cares, wealthy Ann Wertzer hires PI Steve Lawson to dig up divorce dirt on her husband, “Wild Bill” Wertzer, a businessman with some shady connections and dangerous associates. Before they can even discuss the case, Lawson has traded punches with a couple of hired goons and Wertzer has turned up dead in an obviously staged “suicide” with Ann the equally obvious suspect.

   What follows is the standard product, with optional accessories itemized above. But it’s done with the professionalism of a craftsman proud of his work. The metaphors are well-strung:

   The fights are brutal, the pacing sure, and the ending completely unsurprising. This is a writer who knows his stuff and is not ashamed of showing it off.

   Which jolts me a bit. Andersen was the author of a best-selling and very serious book about Positive Thinking, Evolution, and the Law of Attraction, read by luminaries like Elvis Presley and Wayne Dyer, and for him to put his own name on a gaudy paperback like Hard and Fast bespeaks a certain amount of conviction — even courage — that surprised me even when the book itself did not.