DECLAN BURKE – Down These Green Streets — Irish Crime Writing in the 21st Century. Liberties Press, trade paperback; available for pre-order, July 28, 2011. Released in Ireland June 7, 2011.

   As a daily visitor to Declan Burke’s must read website, “Crime Always Pays,” I requested and received an ARC of this book for review purposes (and because I wanted to read it).

   Down These Green Streets is a collection of essays, interviews, and short fiction exploring Irish crime fiction by the writers, critics, and academics involved in the genre. Aimed at the casual reader and the devoted fan, there is much for all to enjoy. This is not a book you read in one night unable to stop, though it is about such books. Instead this is a book to savor slowly, a chapter at a time.

   The book begins with editor Declan Burke comments on the recent increase in the public’s interest in the Irish crime genre, followed by Michael Connelly’s Foreword, in which he discusses how American crime writers and Irish crime writers are connected.

   The Introduction by Professor Ian Campbell Ross examines the role the Irish has played in history of crime fiction. Writers who share personal stories about their life, writing and the genre include John Connolly, Cormac Millar, Declan Hughes, Colin Bateman, Gerry O’Carroll, Arlene Hunt, Andrew Nugent, and Neville Thompson.

   Several writers and critics did essays on various subjects: Ruth Dudley Edwards and the life and work of Liam O’Flaherty, Cora Harrison and early Irish law called the Brehon’s Laws, Adrian McKinty and North Ireland crime fiction, Alan Glynn and Irish literary crime novels, Eoin McNamee and the noir aspects of true Irish crimes, Paul Charles and characters in exile, Niamh O’Connor and the public’s interest in true crime.

   More. Gerard Brennan and crime fiction after the IRA and DUP formed a government, Ingrid Black questions Irish pride, Gene Kerrigan and the appeal of crime fiction and the real misery it is based on, Sara Keating and Irish crime theatre, Brian McGilloway and the role the border between North and South plays in the genre, and Tara Brady looks at Irish crime cinema.

   The book includes two interviews: John Banville by Declan Burke and Tana French with Claire Coughlan. The short stories are “Twenty-Five and Out” by Kevin McCarthy, “Inheritance by Jane Casey, “Taken Home” by Alex Barclay, “The Craftsman” by Stuart Neville, and “The Houston Room” by Ken Bruen.

   In the Afterword, Fintan O’Toole discusses Irish crime fiction during the time of Raymond Chandler’s childhood in Waterford and London, and how recent changes in Ireland has given birth to the new Irish crime genre. Further Reading by Professor Ross and Shane Mawe is a short bibliography of Irish crime fiction from 1829 through 2011.

   The people who are creating the new genre of Irish crime fiction are too many and too diverse to contain in just one book, but this book is the perfect beginning. The views here are as varied as the genre itself. Down These Green Streets greatest value is revealing the new Irish crime genre is as much about being Irish as it is about crime.

   Here you will learn about Irish phrases such as “The Troubles” and “Celtic Tiger,” as well as the Irish meaning of the word “ride.” But you will understand more, you will realize the genre may get Americanized, but it will always have the soul of the Irish.

ESTELLE THOMPSON – Hunter in the Dark. Walker, hardcover, first US edition, 1979; paperback, 1984. Robert Hale, UK, hardcover, 1978.

   Philip Blair is blind, and his ego is deeply wounded when a young girl picked up from the bus stop where they both had been waiting is later found murdered.

   With the assistance of his former fiancee, he takes it upon himself to investigate a link to the death of another small girl a short time earlier; he has a theory that he feels the police are too slow in following up on.

   There seems to be a special attraction that mystery readers have toward blind detectives, and Hunter in the Dark is no exception. The story is quiet, low-key, and gently sentimental, laced with a whopping dose of coincidence, but now that Blair’s life is back on the right track, might it not be that amateur private eye work is in his blood?

Rating:   B.

  [UPDATE] 06-14-11.   I wish I could say that I remember this one, but I don’t — only the title is familiar. I believe I was right, though, to say that mystery readers are fond of blind detectives, since (speaking personally) if I had this beside me right now, I’d pick it up to read again without a moment’s hesitation.

   There were, alas, no other tales in which Philip Blair appeared as the detective. Of Estelle Thompson’s output of 16 crime novels between 1961 and 2000 (two of them designated by Hubin as having only marginal crime content), there isn’t a recurring series character to be found. Most were never published in the US, making her work essentially unknown in this country.

[UPDATE #2] 06-15-11.   Thanks to Jamie Sturgeon for providing the cover of the British edition of Hunter in the Dark — the one you see immediately here above and to the right.

[UPDATE #3] 06-16-11.   More from Jamie:

   Here’s a photo of Estelle Thompson, on the back of the UK edition of The Substitute (Hale 1991). The biog on the DW states:

   Of course she had written more than eight novels when The Substitute was published and The Edge of Nowhere was in fact her third novel. I found on the internet a more recent Hale book (Come Home to Danger) which states on the DW more briefly that:

C. J. SANSOM – Heartstone. Mantle, UK, hardcover, 2010. Viking, US, hardcover, January 2011.

Genre:   Historical Mystery. Leading character:  Matthew Shardlake; 5th in series. Setting:   England; 1545.

First Sentence:   The churchyard was peaceful in the summer afternoon.

   Lawyer Matthew Shardlake has been summoned to Queen Catherine Parr, last wife on Henry VIII. A former servant of hers has asked for help investigating claims by her son that his former student, Hugh Curtey, has been mistreated by Hugh’s guardian, Sir Nicholas Hobbey.

   Traveling to Portsmouth with his assistant, Barak, allows Matthew to also investigate the past of Ellen Fettiplace, a young woman committed to Bedlam, but by whom?

   Sansom has gifted his readers with yet another wonderful book filled with historical details. The themes of politics, greed, poverty, conscription, injustice to the less powerful and the cost of war caused by those in power on those who have no choice but must live with the consequences have been repeated through time but here are set in the middle 1500s.

   One of my pleasures in reading historical mysteries is to learn. The Council of Wards was something with which I was not familiar. Most particularly, however, was learning that, but for the stubborn conviction of one woman, England might never have split from Rome.

   I also wish to applaud the UK publisher, Mantle, for a physically beautiful book, from the dust cover and embossed Tudor rose on the hard cover, to the inclusion of color maps, a sewn-in bookmark and, as always, the author notes at the end. In this day of ebooks, such details are greatly appreciated.

   I very much enjoy Sansom’s, and thus his character’s, voice. It has a very conversational tone which immediately drew me into the story, along with the lack of prologue. His characters are somewhat atypical in that Matthew is by no means heroic. He is an interesting, appealing character who can be stubborn, intrusive and somewhat naïve in his trust of others.

   Yet he is also caring and determined in his pursuit of justice. In other words, he is human and fallible. As balance, you have his assistant, Barak, now married and about to be a father. It is nice to see how both characters, individually and in relationship to one another, have grown and developed through the series.

   The plot is interesting and well done, but does get bogged down at times. There is so much history; the story itself becomes a bit lost, although certainly never to a point where I was tempted to stop reading. I was torn between feeling it would have been a much tighter, more compelling story had it been trimmed down, yet knowing I’d have learned and understood much less about the world in which the characters lived.

   Sansom has taken several story lines and woven them together into a fascinating, very good whole. As ever, I am eagerly looking forward to his next book.

Rating:   Very Good.

      The Matthew Shardlake series —

1. Dissolution (2003)

2. Dark Fire (2004)
3. Sovereign (2006)
4. Revelation (2008)
5. Heartstone (2010)

B. J. MORISON – The Martini Effect. Elizabeth Lamb Worthington #5. North Country Press, hardcover, 1992.

   Elizabeth Lamb Worthington is a precocious thirteen-year-old who lives with her grandmother in Boston when not traveling with her globetrotting parents. She has just started prep school on Mount Desert Island, Maine, after having been traumatically rejected by the school of her choice. She’s no stranger to the island, as her Grandmother has a summer home there.

   There’s an interesting, not to mention weird, collection of teachers and students, and the school is still abuzz over the suspicious death by drowning last term of a student with unsavory reputation as a blackmailer. Elizabeth Lamb (use of the second name is mandatory), being nosy and having the deceased’s girl-friend as a bunkmate, finds herself investigating.

   Now this is a cozy. The story gets told in a very leisurely fashion, and for quite a way into the book is more of a young-girl-at-school story than anything else. Which is not to say that it’s boring; I liked the protagonist, and I enjoyed reading about her.

   Morison created an environment and set of characters that seemed real to me, though I hasten to add that the closest I’ve been to a prep school is to drive by one. Having visited the island a couple of times, I had hoped for a little more regional flavor than I found, but after all, it wasn’t meant to be a travelogue.

   Against all odds, I enjoyed it; though I don’t know that I’ll be in a hurry to seek out others in the series.

      The Elizabeth Lamb Worthington series –

1. Champagne and a Gardener, 1982

2. Port and a Star Boarder, 1984
3. Beer and Skittles, 1985

4. The Voyage of the Chianti, 1987
5. The Martini Effect , 1992

Editorial Comments: Both the author and her character are new to me. Says Al Hubin in the Revised Crime Fiction IV about the author: MORISON, B(etty) J(ane), 1924-2001; born in Maine; owned and operated the Criterion Theatre in Bar Harbor, Maine.

   Despite the young age of Elizabeth Lamb, the books appear to be written for adults, but I may be wrong about this. None of the other reviews I’ve found online for the series seem to say, in the same manner that Barry also did not address the issue. (The fact that all of the titles include alcoholic beverages in them may be telling us something.)

●   HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN. Universal, 1944. Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney, John Carradine, J. Carrol Naish, Elena Verdugo, Glenn Strange, Anne Gwynne, Peter Coe, Lionel Atwill, George Zucco, Sig Ruman. Screenplay by Edward T. Lowe, from a story by Curt Siodmak. Director: Erle C. Kenton.

●   THE MUMMY’S CURSE. Universal, 1944. Lon Chaney, Peter Coe, Virginia Christine, Kay Harding, Dennis Moore, Martin Kosleck, Holmes Herbert. Director: Leslie Goodwins.

   House of Frankenstein [recently reviewed here by Walter Albert] and The Mummy’s Curse were originally released on a double bill back in 1944, so I recently watched them back-to-back to get the full event-effect the artists involved must have intended.

   House is generally dismissed as Utter Bosh, though lots of fun, with all the old monsters (mad scientist, hunchback, Dracula, Wolfman and Frankenstein’s monster) and all the old clichés, each trotted out to strut and fret its brief fifteen minutes or so on the screen and then make way for the next: there’s the naïve young couple, suspicious burgermeister, singing gypsies, lost love, obsession, frozen-in-ice and torch-wielding villagers, all played with commendable seriousness by Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney, John Carradine, J. Carol Naish and Lionel Atwill, served up with surprising stylishness by director Earle C. Kenton.

   House of Frankenstein was followed the next year by (wait for it…) House of Dracula (Universal, 1945) the sad swan song of the Monster Movie hey-day, offering the Frankenstein monster, Dracula and the Wolfman, with a Mad Scientist and distaff hunchback tossed in for good measure.

   These movies are two of my guilty pleasures; I know in my head they’re ridiculous, but it thrills my heart to see all the old clichés — and I mean all of them — treated respectfully one last time.

   But there’s something else lurking about House of Frankenstein, something oddly evocative about all the rapid-fire drama played out on moonlit nights: When you’re young, an October night can be a lifetime. You can make a life-long friend, get your heart broken, find God, decide on a career, and get into serious trouble, all of it terribly dramatic, because you’re young.

   And in some delirious way, House of Frankenstein captures this adolescent self-importance and conveys it in suitably lurid tones to anyone who can still hear that faint, defiant cry of lost youth.

   As for Curse, well, the Mummy movies were the proletarian working dogs of the horror film, slogging their way through a pointless world, and Curse is no exception, despite a memorable few minutes when Princess Ananka resurrects herself from the earth.

   Aside from that, it’s slow, slow going, but I wonder how kids reacted to seeing Peter Coe, a hero in House of Frankenstein, here playing a satanic high priest. Coe was hyped by Universal as the new Charles Boyer, before they lost interest and shunted him into dreck like this, but I have to say he delivers lines like “May the curse of Amon-Ra be upon you,” with an admirably straight face.

VAN SILLER – The Mood for Murder. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1966. Paperback reprint: Curtis, no date [1967?].

   If a mystery writer — in this case, Allan Stewart, author of Death at Dawn, among other books — can’t accept that a young lady with whom he was almost in love has discovered a body, now missing, and has been shot at, who will believe it?

   As a practitioner in this field, surely Stewart knows that all such tales, particularly the most implausible, have a basis in fact and that failure to accept them inevitably leads. to unpleasantness.

   Since Stewart rejects the young lady’s story, a murder by shooting occurs, with the murdered woman possibly being mistaken for the young lady who earlier claimed to be shot at, followed by a murder by threat.

   All of this takes place at an exclusive Florida resort among the well-to-do and beautiful, and the mostly unpleasant. Unlikely coincidences constitute the explanation at the end.

   I may try another of Hilda — if the author’s sex is of interest to anyone — Van Siller’s novels with Allan Stewart to find out if he has learned anything from his profession of mystery writer. I won’t expect to enjoy it.

Bibliographic Notes:   (Hilda) Van Siller, 1911-1982, was the author of 21 crime fiction novels published between 1943 and 1974, most of them for Doubleday’s Crime Club imprint, but a small handful appeared only in British editions. In spite of her sizable output, among authors recently covered on this blog, I believe she qualifies as being among the Top Ten “Most Forgotten.”

      The Alan Stewart series —

A Complete Stranger (n.) Doubleday, US, 1965
The Mood for Murder (n.) Doubleday, US, 1966
The Biltmore Call (n.) Ward, UK, 1967 [no US edition]

FROM PARIS WITH LOVE. Europa Corp., 2010. John Travolta (Charlie Wax), Jonathan Rhys Meyers (James Reece), Kasia Smutniak, Richard Durden. Bing Yin, Amber Rose Revah, Eric Godon, François Bredon. Director: Pierre Morel.

   A movie from the director of Taken, a movie I really liked. In this one, low level intelligence agent James Reece (he does stuff like change the license plates on cars in parking lots) is the only person available to help top agent Charlie Wax (John Travolta with a shaved head) who has just arrived for a special operation in Paris.

   Mostly Reece is a driver, and he is appalled when Wax starts killing massive numbers of people in a HK director John Woo-inspired slow motion ballet. There’s a lot of action, but the first half of the movie left me cold. Travolta, who has a great deal of charm, is a very unlikeable character in this one, and he starts killing people right from the start without our knowing the reason — is there method behind the madness, or has Travolta’s character gone psycho?

   Halfway through the movie turns in another direction and becomes not just a shoot-em-up but a darker thriller — and at that point I started getting drawn in. The last half of the movie is good, and it packs a dark and surprise ending.

   The movie also features a great car chase. In French movies (and even though this movie is in English, it was a French production, with a script by Luc Bresson) they drive really fast, they don’t crank the camera speed to make it look fast like they do in a lot of American TV shows. If you can get through the first half you might like this movie.

Rating:   B minus.

THERE’S ALWAYS A WOMAN. Columbia Pictures, 1938. Joan Blondell, Melvyn Douglas, Mary Astor, Frances Drake, Jerome Cowan, Thurston Hall, Walter Kingsford, Lester Matthews. Screenplay: Gladys Lehman, based on the short story “There’s Always a Woman” by Wilson Collison (American Magazine, Jan 1937). Director: Alexander Hall.

   A disappointment. After the success of The Thin Man in 1934, there were any number of attempts by Hollywood to cash in on its success, and There’s Always a Woman was one of them.

   Woman, in fact, was intended to be the first in a long series of adventures of PI Bill Reardon (Melvyn Douglas) and his daffy wife Sally (Joan Blondell), but there was only one followup and no more. (I’ll get back to that later.)

   After quitting his job with the D.A.’s office, Bill Reardon starts up his own private eye agency, but business is so bad and in spite of his wife Sally’s encouragement to stick it out a while longer, he decides to stop beating the dead horse and go back to work for the D.A.

   Of course, no sooner does he go out the door but a client walks in. A wealthy society lady (Mary Astor) has a task for the Reardon Agency: to find out if her husband is having an affair with his former paramour, now engaged to another man.

   Sally, you will not be surprised to learn, accepts the case, and not so incidentally, the three hundred dollar retainer that goes with it. (Three hundred dollars paid for a lot of groceries in 1938.)

   When the husband gets murdered, the game is on, but good. Sally is determined to solve the case on her own, while Bill on his part has all the resources of the D.A. (Thurston Hall) for whom he’s now working.

   While it’s a decent enough murder mystery, many viewers may not even notice. What this movie really is is a screwball comedy all the way, with all the stops let out and the battling Reardons in fierce competition from beginning to end – if not all out war.

   And here’s where we came in, and where I begin to quibble and shuffle my feet a little. To my mind, the Reardons are far too antagonistic and aggressive in their struggle to outdo the other, and when I say aggressive, I mean physically.

   There are one or two times when Bill Reardon appears all but certain to rear back and give Sally a punch, and once, after a yank on Sally’s hair that’s a little too fierce, there is a glare in Joan Blondell’s eye in return that definitely does not speak of love.

   It’s been quite a few years from 1938 to now, and I wonder if bringing up today’s attitudes toward spousal abuse as opposed to almost 75 years ago is a point worth mentioning. But while there are scenes in this movie that are funny – how could there not, with bright and sassy Joan Blondell in one of the two primary roles? – most of the humor seems a little too forced for me to give you the full thumbs-up for it which, given the two leading stars, I entirely expected to.

   There was a second movie in the series, There’s That Woman Again, made in 1939, but while Melvyn Douglas returns, Joan Blondell did not; Virginia Bruce played Sally in the sequel. I’ve located a copy, and a look at the second installment of the series will be in order when it arrives.

        #4. COLIN HAIG, by H. Bedford-Jones.

   The Colin Haig stories by H. Bedford-Jones made up a short-run series of six stories published consecutively from the October 7, 1933 issue through the November 11 issue. The stories are narrated by Martin Burke, who is the assistant in charge of Colin Haig’s laboratory in Los Angeles, “unequaled in the country.”

   The series relates the adventures of Colin Haig and his assistant against a priestess of Shiva named Madame Vanderdonk. She is supposedly the possessor of an evil eye, which can kill people and animals. This power is shown in the first story in the series, “The Evil Eye of Bali,” and Colin Haig cannot get anyone to believe him when he relates this fact. However, she has criminal agents who seem to do most of the actual killing by various means.

   I am missing the second story in the series, “The Desert of Death,” but “The Backward Swastika” is the third story, and involves more of the struggle against Madame Vanderdonk. Lieutenant Kelly of the missing persons detail of the local police makes an appearance at the beginning of the story, relating what they know about Madame Vanderdonk’s activities.

   It appears that she is targeting wealthy financiers, stealing their money and causing their deaths. The police have counted ten victims so far, and Kelly tells of a possible eleventh victim named Johansen. Kelly relates all of this information to Burke; Haig has been gone for three days looking for a trail to follow to Madame Vanderdonk based on photographic evidence acquired in the second story.

   Charles Hunter, one of Madame Vanderdonk’s murderous agents, appears for the first time in this story and uses a fake Haig letter to lure Burke into a trap, where he finds Johansen. He also meets Madame Vanderdonk, who talks to him. She attempts to manipulate him, but it doesn’t work, as Haig and Lieutenant Kelly arrive in time to rescue the two men. Madame Vanderdonk flees in her car.

   In the fourth story, “Circles of Doom,” Burke receives a telephone call from a Professor Malvolio, whose real name is Van Steen. He is a professional hypnotist. Van Steen is asking for information about Madame Vanderdonk. He promises to come and see Colin Haig, but never arrives. He then calls Haig and asks him to come to see him.

   Haig arrives to find Van Steen dead by means of poison and Van Steen’s daughter present. Haig and his assistant, with the aid of the police (including Lieutenant Kelly), investigate the situation and discover much information, including a good deal about one of their nemesis’s agents, Charles Hunter (first seen in the third story).

   However, Hunter is dead from an accident by poisoning by the time they reach him. Another dead end for Haig, but he has an idea she has her headquarters is in the desert around Palm Springs, and plans to search for her.

   The fifth story, “Footsteps of Death,” opens with Lieutenant Kelly saying he can’t help them in their fight against Madame Vanderdonk outside the city limits of Los Angeles. His superiors don’t believe in the evil eye.

   Shortly thereafter, another attempt is made upon the lives of Colin Haig and Martin Burke. This impels them to immediately start the search for Madame Vanderdonk’s desert lair. After searching in the heat for quite a while, they stumble upon a dying man whose last words indicate he knows the woman for whom they are searching.

   They then search outward from that spot. Martin Burke finds woman’s hideout and is captured. He undergoes another session with Madame Vanderdonk as she attempts to win him over to her cause. He soon escapes, and finds Colin Haig nearby.

   Haig wants to go for help and return to attack the dwelling. Somehow, to me this sounds too simple to expect her to stay there and wait for him to return. On to the final part of the story.

   In the sixth and last story in the series, “The Niche of Horror,” Colin Haig manages to get himself captured by Madame Vanderdonk. With this series, it was only a matter of time. He manages to escape the evil eye of the madame by sabotaging her base of operations and ending her reign of terror.

   This quick, short series of stories did not leave much time for readers to have to wait for each installment in the ongoing story. With the series preplanned and an ending provided, I don’t see why there wasn’t a sequel to it. That is, assuming the series was well received by the readers. It had plenty of action.

       The Colin Haig series by H. Bedford-Jones:

The Evil Eye of Bali     October 7, 1933
The Desert of Death     October 14, 1933
The Backward Swastika     October 21, 1933
Circles of Doom     October 28, 1933
Footsteps of Death     November 4, 1933
The Niche of Horror     November 11, 1933

HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN. Universal, 1944. Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney, John Carradine, J. Carrol Naish, Elena Verdugo, Glenn Strange, Anne Gwynne, Peter Coe, Lionel Atwill, George Zucco, Sig Ruman. Screenplay by Edward T. Lowe, from a story by Curt Siodmak; Jack Pierce, makeup; Hans Salter, music; George Robinson, photography. Director: Erle C. Kenton. Shown at Cinecon 44, Hollywood CA, Aug-Sept 2008.

   This film is neither rare nor one of the great Universal horror films. It was scheduled for the convention appearance of Elena Verdugo, who played a gypsy girl, but is probably best remembered for her role as the office nurse on the long-running Dr. Welby TV series that starred Robert Young.

   However, the opportunity to see the cast that included almost all of the major (and minor) actors in the Universal horror films in a 35mm print was something of a treat. Karloff is a doctor who wants to revive the Frankenstein monster, Chaney reprises his famous role as the Wolfman, Carradine makes an honorable stab at Dracula, and Glenn Strange plays the Monster, with J. Carrol Naish as the hunchback assistant to Karloff who has promised to transplant his brain into a young, handsome body in return for his services.

   The film isn’t scary, but it’s handsomely produced, and Verdugo talked prettily about her career after the screening, although nothing particularly memorable came to light.