NOSTROMO. BBC-TV mini-series, 1996. Claudio Amendola, Paul Brooke, Lothaire Bluteau, Claudia Cardinale, Joaquim de Almeida, Brian Dennehy, Albert Finney, Serena Scott Thomas, Colin Firth, Roberto Escobar. Based on the novel by Joseph Conrad. Director: Alastair Reid.

   Somewhere over the last couple months I found time to watch Undersea Kingdom (Republic, 1936) in which Ray Corrigan battles the tyrant of Atlantis while dressed as a Mardi Gras Queen. It’s done with the usual care Republic lavished on their serials: splendidly tacky sets, ambitious special effects and action action action, but it lacks the energetic stuntwork that usually graced their films of this period, and I only mention it because shortly after seeing this I watched another lengthy tale of internecine warfare in an exotic locale, a 5-hour BBC miniseries from 1996 of Joseph Conrad’s 1904 Nostromo.

   While I was watching it, I re-read the book, which proved to be a rewarding experience as the film adds some clarity to the characters and narrative while the book … well Nostromo is Conrad at his best, which is very good indeed: fights, shooting, hair-breadth escapes and house-to-house street battles, all laid on with surprising thoughtfulness and skill as Conrad makes it happen to people we believe in.

   The mini-series carries this complex plot without dropping it, though they expand on the narrative where Conrad didn’t and rearrange it for clarity, which was probably necessary in the miniseries format. Characters who come on late in the book are introduced earlier in the film to provide for continuity, and sometimes they say baldly what Conrad only hinted at.

   Colin Firth and Serena Scott Thomas as the English couple who form the nucleus of the story acquit themselves quite well, Albert Finney throws in a fine character part as a disreputable doctor (one of Conrad’s finest characters) while Joaquim de Almeida and Roberto Escobar make a daunting pair of villains.

   Only Claudio Amendola, in the title role, disappointed me, and that was probably a personal thing. Conrad wrote the character as a stylish swashbuckler, the kind who would have been played by Doug Fairbanks Sr. in the old days, or perhaps Errol Flynn or Gilbert Roland in Hollywood’s golden age: a man who can leap onto a speeding train, gallop across the plain, and cut buttons off a coat with one sweep of a knife.

   Amendola seems formidable enough, but entirely too serious, as if the producers saw the character’s end and wanted to telegraph it to us early on. As I say though, that’s entirely a personal thing and I didn’t let it spoil my enjoyment of a fine effort that should be more widely available.

Editorial Comment:   The mini-series, for which I have not yet unearthed the exact dates of its first (and only?) run, is available commercially on VHS but not on DVD. For the former, think the $40 range.

PAT McGERR – The Seven Deadly Sisters. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1947. Paperback reprints: Dell 412, mapback edition, 1950; Macfadden 60-364, 1968.

   It begins as a gimmick story, as you may already know, if only by reputation. Sally Bowen and her new husband have just moved to England, and there she receives a letter from a friend back home, expressing her sorrow over the fact that the husband of one of Sally’s aunts died of poison, and that when she was discovered as the murderer, the aunt committed suicide.

   Unfortunately for Sally, she has seven aunts, and between them they have at least that many husbands, and what the friend neglected to mention is what she most desperately needs to know — who was it that was murdered?

   Granted, the situation is contrived. As Sally begins to tell her husband the tangled story of her aunts’ various love affairs, however, with all of them eventually pressured into marriage by the oldest who raised them, often largely for the sake of family honor and “what people would think,” the reader (me!) becomes more and more wrapped up in affairs properly none of his or her business, and more and more fascinated by the kinds of messes people of supposedly good sense and breeding can get themselves caught up in.

   Considering the year that this book was written, I thought that Pat McGerr titillates the reader’s imagination with an amazing amount of scandalous behavior going on. Doris, deeply in love with Tessie’s husband, for example, is the chief culprit — and Bert is not the only husband in her life.

   The solution to the mystery is a knockout, but I think I’d have to admit that the sheer process of sorting through people’s dirty laundry like this could easily become habit-forming.

Previously on this blog:

      Pick Your Victim, reviewed by Marvin Lachman.
      Death in a Million Living Rooms, reviewed by William F. Deeck.

Editorial Comment:   It surprises me more than you, I’m sure, to find this review here, the last of three in a row by Patricia McGerr. After uploading the first two earlier this evening, I went to the garage to continue my every November task of cleaning the garage of its summer accumulation so that Judy can get her car into her side this winter.

   When done repacking and rearranging some boxes of books, I idly picked up one of the copies of old mystery fanzines I’ve been using as sources of material to post here on the blog, when lo and behold, here I found this one.

   Coincidences do happen, happily so, even if this one of the more boring ones I could tell you about, and for that I apologize. Walker Martin asked me earlier if I could include the letter grades with these old reviews. I’m even happier to say that I gave this one an “A plus.”

PATRICIA McGERR – Pick Your Victim. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1946. Paperback reprints: Dell #307, mapback edition, 1949; Macfadden 75-306, 1970.

   While literally thousands of mysteries have been based on the attempt to discover a murderer, Patricia McGerr’s is unique in disclosing the killer at the beginning and challenging detectives (and readers) to select the victim.

   Not content to rely upon an original idea, she followed through, though this was only her first book, to create a mystery that was worthy of its conception. It is small wonder that Barzun and Taylor, who labeled this book a “whodunin,” also called it a masterpiece.

   Pick Your Victim starts in the Aleutians in 1944, where a group of U.S. marines are fighting the “Great Battle of Boredom.” Reading matter is in short supply, and the never-broken rule is that “if there was printing on it, you read it.”

   Thus, a torn piece of newspaper discloses to Pete Robbins, former publicity agent, that his previous boss in Washington, D.C., has been arrested for murder. The name of the victim is missing, although the item states that it was an officer at SUDS (Society for the Uplift of Domestic Service), where Robbins was employed.

   Pete and his fellow marines agree on a sweepstakes with the prize going to the first to guess who was murdered before the news arrives from back home. Playing the role of a GI Scheherazade, Robbins tells his barracks mates about SUDS and his colleagues during his four years at that philanthropic organization.

   McGerr knows Washington, D.C., and the political, economic, and social life of the nation’s capital come alive in her novel. This is an unusually good blend of realism and satire, with the leading characters limned in a manner that makes them believable.

   The story is well plotted, with clues adroitly inserted. Unlike many books that start with splendid gimmicks, Pick Your Victim has an ending that is not a letdown.

   Much of the authenticity in this book undoubtedly came from McGerr’ s employment, from 1937 to 1943, as director of public relations for the American Road Builders Association in Washington. Though never quite matching the success of Pick Your Victim, she has built a writing career in which originality has been the keynote.

   Thus, in her next book, The Seven Deadly Sisters (1947), she leaves the identities of both victim and culprit to be determined when she has her heroine learn, through a letter, that one of her seven aunts has murdered her husband.

   McGerr’s one series character is Selena Mead, a Washington, D.C., society woman who doubles as a counterespionage agent. In addition to appearances in two novels Is There a Traitor in the House? (1964) and Legacy of Danger (1970). Mead is featured in numerous short stories in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.

   Some of her other non-series mysteries are Catch Me If You Can (1948), Murder Is Absurd (1967), and Dangerous Landing (1975).

         ———
   Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007.   Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.

PAT McGERR – Death in a Million Living Rooms. Doubleday Crime Club, US, hardcover, 1951. Paperback reprint: Macfadden 75-281, 1969. Collins Crime Club, UK, hardcover, 1952, as Die Laughing.

   Since television is becoming a big business, Enterprise magazine plans a major takeout on the new medium. A small part of the story is assigned to Melissa Colvin, a researcher. Her interest in TV centers on the announcer of the “Podge O’Neill” program. Convinced he embarrassed her during their college years, she wants to pay him back.

   As appears to be usual with comedy teams, one member is the idea person. In this case it’s Scottie, Mrs. Podge O’Neill the first, who discovered Podge, made him what he is today, picked his second wife for him, and rules the program with an iron hand.

   All involved with the program are trying to wrest Podge from Scottie’s control to further their own careers. Since ordinary persuasion isn’t working, a roller-skating “accident” occurs, but it’s merely a temporary setback to Scottie’s reign. Then the sponsor’s product, a beverage, is spiked with nicotine, and a death takes place in full view of the studio and home audience.

   A fair-play mystery that will appeal to readers who enjoy show-business settings, particularly those who are interested in the early television years. Not McGerr’s best work, but still very good, despite The Crime Club most misleadingly putting it in its “Damsel in Distress” category.

Editorial Comment:   For more about Pat(ricia) McGerr (1917-1985), see the review of Pick Your Victim (1946), one of her earlier books, to follow immediately. Please stay tuned!

H. C. BAILEY —

        ● Mr. Fortune Objects. Victor Gollancz, UK, hardcover, 1935. Doubleday Crime Club, US, hardcover, 1935.

        ● Clue for Mr. Fortune. Victor Gollancz, UK, hardcover, 1936. Doubleday Crime Club, US, 1936, as A Clue for Mr. Fortune. Paperback reprint: Pony Book #52, US, 1946.

    Despite his one-time prominence during the Golden Age of the detective story, H. C. Bailey is not that well-known today, outside the community of knowledgeable collectors. Bailey’s tales of the brilliant deductive deeds of his two series detectives, doctor Reggie Fortune and lawyer Joshua Clunk, frequently are first-rate, however.

    Clunk appeared only in novels, Fortune in both short stories and novels. Both then and now, the Reggie Fortune short stories probably were/are Bailey’s most highly regarded achievement in mystery fiction.

    Indeed, Bailey’s American publishers, Doubleday, Doran, confidently (if somewhat inaccurately, as things turned out) declared in 1936: “Few critics or readers will dispute the fact that of living mystery story writers Bailey is one of those most likely to achieve immortality…and few will deny that Reggie Fortune is his greatest creation.”

    There are, I believe, 85 Reggie Fortune short stories, published between 1920 and 1940 — an impressive body of work. If not quite on the level with the Father Brown stories of G. K. Chesterton, they certainly rank high among mystery short stories and are deserving of some sort of reprinting, certainly at the very least a “best of” volume.

    Here I review two strong Reggie Fortune collections from the mid-1930s, Mr. Fortune Objects (1935) and A Clue for Mr. Fortune (1936).

    One of the best Reggie Fortune collections of short fiction is one of the rarest of them all, Mr. Fortune Objects. This volume contains six long stories: “The Broken Toad,” “The Angel’s Eye,” “The Little Finger,” “The Three Bears,” “The Long Dinner” and “The Yellow Slugs.” All are good tales, while three — “Toad,” “Dinner” and “Slugs” — are among Bailey’s very best short works.

    In his day as well as today, the detractors of Reggie Fortune (who included Julian Symons) deemed him a tiresome, precious creation. Reggie’s mannerisms, of which the author often makes a great deal, can be tiring. His speech is telegraphic (like Charlie Chan, who is sparing of pronouns, Reggie is sparing of verbs), affected and arch, he moans and mumbles, and he spends much time fussing over Darius, his blue Persian cat, and his elaborate luncheon and dinner menus. All this is granted.

    Yet Reggie also is a legitimate Great Detective, filled with a fervor, quite remarkable for the period, for justice. This moral fervor comes through strongly in Mr. Fortune Objects, in tales that deal in a mature, thoughtful way with the existence of evil in the world.

    In “The Broken Toad” (a brilliant title for a story that first appeared in the October 1934 issue of Windsor Magazine), the arsenic poisoning of a policeman leads Reggie, in his capacity as medical consultant to Scotland Yard, into a remarkable case of suburban dysfunction. Arguably Bailey’s best tale, Toad is suspensefully and vividly told and there is much genuine detection (some having to do, appropriately enough, with food).

    In “The Long Dinner,” a menu and the strange drawing on the back of it lead Reggie into the maze of a diabolical murder scheme. A serious moral question is explored here. Reggie is pretty intuitive here, but the plot is quite interesting. Reggie also reunites with his detective friend from France, who is a good character.

    In “The Yellow Slugs,” one of the better-known Fortune tales (it was anthologized by Dorothy L. Sayers), Bailey delves interestingly into child psychology. Bailey often dealt with threats to children in his works and could sometimes be tiresomely sentimental, but “Slugs” is not overdone in this regard and in fact is rather realistic, modern and dark. Reggie also does some real detective spade work here, rather akin to what one might find in an R. Austin Freeman tale.

    “Toad” and “Slugs” are particularly striking in that they are far removed from the aristocratic country house/quaint village settings so often associated with British Golden Age mystery. Instead, they focus on severe moral dysfunction in more modern-feeling suburban and urban settings.

    The three other tales are worth reading as well, especially “The Angel’s Eye,” which was praised by Jacques Barzun. This one actually is set in an English country house and involves a locked room problem of sorts (though anyone expecting John Dickson Carr will be disappointed).

    Published a year after Mr. Fortune Objects, A Clue for Mr. Fortune is another strong collection of six long stories: “The Torn Stocking,” “The Swimming Pool,” “The Hole in the Parchment,” “The Holy Well,” “The Wistful Goddess” and “The Dead Leaves.”

    None perhaps has the depth of “The Broken Toad,” “The Long Dinner” or “The Yellow Slugs,” but several rank near the top of the Bailey works, being quite clever and entertaining.

    Reggie Fortune is still bountifully bedecked with mannerisms some might fight irritating (he seems to have picked up the habit of quoting extensively in these later tales, though, thankfully he now looks less at people with the wondering eyes of a child), but he seems a mite less precious and more impressive in his role as an instrument of justice.

    The best-known of the Clue tales probably is “The Dead Leaves,” which was anthologized in The Oxford Book of English Detective Stories, but it is not the actual best of the tales in Clue, in my opinion. My favorites are “The Torn Stocking,” “The Hole in the Parchment” and “The Holy Well.”

    With “The Torn Stocking” we again see the exploration of a favorite theme of Bailey’s, that of the consequences of family dysfunction. The milieu is rather shabby urban middle-class. Reggie investigates the seeming suicide (head in the gas oven) of a teenage girl accused of shoplifting, with surprising results. His detective work is quite interesting.

    “The Hole in the Parchment” sees Reggie and wife Joan vacationing in Florence, Italy (a number of the Fortune tales takes place in France, Germany and Italy). There the two become involved in a case involving theft and forgery, quite cleverly done.

    In “The Holy Well,” Bailey gives bravura treatment to a classic detective story device. The story involves murder in rural Cornwall. Both the atmosphere and the plotting are first-rate.

    Both Mr. Fortune Objects and Clue for Mr. Fortune are fine mystery short story collection that merit reprinting for a modern audience.

JULIAN SYMONS – A Three Pipe Problem. Harper & Row, US, hardcover, 1975. Collins Crime Club, UK, hardcover, 1975. Reprints include: Avon, US, pb, 1976; Penguin, US, pb, 1984.

   A Three-Pipe Problem is a very enjoyable book! Symons’ hero is Sheridan Haynes (nicknamed Sher), an actor who portrays Sherlock Holmes in a British TV series that was once popular but is now slipping in the ratings.

   Sher demands absolute fidelity to the Holmes stories, which angers those who want to make the show more attractive to the audience by adding a love interest, etc.

   Haynes not only longs for the days when Holmes stalked London, but has even insisted on living in the old rooms in Baker street. His obsession with Holmes causes doubts about his sanity, and problems with his wife and co-workers.

   Haynes, in his role of Holmes, becomes gradually more involved in a case known as the Karate Killings, to the consternation of all. He states that Sherlock Holmes could have solved the case, then sets out to do it with the help of a Watson, and some Baker Street Irregulars (actually Traffic Wardens).

   Symons keeps the various strands of his story well in hand until they all come together on a cold and foggy London night, with Haynes/Holmes tracking the Karate Killer.

   Sher Haynes is a sympathetic character and the book, if improbable, is a lot of fun and very well done. Sherlockians should enjoy it.

Bibliographic Note:   Sheridan Haynes made an encore appearance The Kentish Manor Murders (Viking, 1988).

   A funny thing happened on the way to the post …

   Most of you have had your own ISP nightmares so I won’t bore you with mine, but because of the down time between your comments on my Fifty Funny Felonies and my getting back to it, Steve suggested I do a post rather than bury my comments at the end of the original.

   First, I’m gratified with the responses, and the only thing I would point out to any of you is that I warned from the start my choices were subjective and favorites instead of bests. Almost every name everyone mentioned could easily have been on the list, and in some cases nearly were.

   In the end I tended to go with some more offbeat choices and a few certainly more eclectic ones, but only because if you don’t, these lists can easily end up nothing more than a rehash of the same titles; a bit like those AFI 100 Best specials that always end up with Citizen Kane, Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, and The Wizard of Oz in some variation of the top five films.

   Among the writers I was surprised no one brought up were Michael Bond of the Monsieur Pamplemouse books, Robert Barr’s Eugene Valmont stories, Agatha Christie (in Tommy and Tuppence mode), Michael Avallone (who granted was sometimes unintentionally funny — at least I think it was unintentional), and Damon Runyon.

   As Steve pointed out in one of his comments these could easily run to five hundred titles in short order.

   There was one deliberate omission on my part. And please be gentle — but I just don’t like Ross H. Spenser that much. I found it a one joke gimmick that was amusing one time, and after that the books more annoying than clever. Again that is a subjective judgment.

   I didn’t find him.

   That funny.

   Really.

   I probably would have included Robert Barnard, Simon Brett, Colin Watson, or Sarah Cauldwell, but it has been a long time since I read them, and they just weren’t fresh in my mind. As it is I have no excuse for leaving off some of Michael Gilbert, Peter Dickinson, certainly John Mortimer, Jasper fforde, Liz Evans (I even reviewed one of her books), or some of the others. As I said, at different times I might have gone with some different writers.

   In regard to Geoffrey Household, since his favorite form of novel is the picaresque (a la Don Quixote, Candide) and at least one of his short stories was filmed as the delightful British comedy Brandy For the Parson (1952) I was surprised there was any question about including him.

   Many of his short stories (and he did at least four collections of them) are humorous, and there are humorous elements in many of his books. Granted there aren’t a lot of laughs in Rogue Male, Watcher in The Shadows, or Dance of the Dwarfs, but Fellow Passenger, Olura, and The Life and Times of Bernardo Brown are all picaresque tales and there is some rather black humor in A Rough Shoot, A Time to Kill, and The Courtesy of Death.

   Victor Canning and Eric Ambler aren’t generally laugh riots either, but both wrote some comic works. Graham Greene is one of the few writers who was ever tragic and comic at the same time in the same book.

   I was a little surprised no one questioned my choice of Allingham’s Sweet Danger, so I’ll defend it anyway. The opening sequences in the French hotel are as good as anything in a classical farce. That’s the whole defense.

   So there.

   Re Edmund Crispin and why Love Lies Bleeding, I grant it is not as farcical as some of the others, but it is my favorite because it includes one of the great dogs in the literature, a creation of Falstaffian complexity, whose passing may be one of the rare times in any kind of fiction you will be laughing and crying at the same time.

   I grant The Blind Barber is funnier than Arabian Nights, I just happen to like the latter and think it gets less attention than it deserves. If nothing else it is worth reading just to see Carr’s portrait of what he considers a sexpot.

   For that matter a few of the Carter Dickson are probably bigger belly laughs than any of the Fell novels. Sir Henry Merrivale’s summation to the jury in The Judas Window is one of the high points of Carr-ian humor.

   I seriously debated 101 Dalmatians by Dodie Smith, so count yourselves lucky.

   In regard to Jonathan Latimer I don’t disagree with Curt’s points about the necrophilia, sexism, and racist language in Lady in the Morgue, but much of that went part and parcel with the whole screwball school of the hard boiled mystery and many of its proponents like Richard Sale, Norbert Davis, Geoffrey Homes, Cleve Adams (at least in the Rex McBride books), Robert Reeves, Dwight Babcock, and Robert Leslie Bellem worked similar territory.

   Since Latimer didn’t have to deal with pulp prudery he went farther than most and pushed the boundaries, but it’s honest writing, it feels real and not contrived, and “readers were supposed to be shocked.”

   I know that may seem far removed from today’s market where almost nothing is shocking any more (Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho — a black comedy most took seriously — is a rare exception), but once upon a time there were writers who dared to dare us — to shock, titillate, and even challenge us — and Latimer was one of the best, and did within the framework of some first class detective work too.

   I would only point out that Curt’s reaction was exactly what Latimer wanted much as Chandler would use a rough rather black and grim humor to color his stories and novels. Both writers wanted the reader to notice “the tarantula on the angel food cake.” It’s a very American tradition that goes back to Washington Irving and Poe and is notable in Mark Twain. In some ways it is the American literary voice.

   Again, thanks to everyone for the intelligent and cogent comments and additions. The comic mystery too often gets short shrift in the histories of the genre, as if somehow producing genuine laughs and good detection was simple or easy, and I’ve never understood why. It’s far easier to be grim than amusing, and much simpler to perplex a reader than to make him laugh. These responses show that some of us appreciate the effort.

   And on a personal note I find, that while I still appreciate the thrills, puzzles, and scares, the older I get the more I appreciate the ones that made me smile, laugh, or just chuckle in recognition.

GERRY BOYLE – Damaged Goods. Down East Books, hardcover, May 2010.

Genre:   Unlicensed investigator. Leading character: Jack McMorrow; 9th in series. Setting:   Maine.

First Sentence:   I made my way down the trail through the pinewoods toward the house.

    Roxanne, the wife of freelance journalist Jack McMorrow has had a worse-than-usual day at work. A social worker for the state of Maine, she was forced to remove two severely neglected children from the home of a Satanist who is now threatening Roxanne and their daughter.

   In order to facilitate Roxanne leaving her job, Jack looks for more stories he can sell and finds Mindi, a young woman advertising to provide “companionship.” Mindi quickly becomes more than a story and it’s uncertain whether that is going to increase the danger to Jack’s family.

   I’ve missed Boyle’s Jack McMorrow and am very glad to see him back. While Jack, a journalist who isn’t afraid of physical violence, is an interesting character, his neighbor Clair, a Vietnam vet who has lost none of his edge, comes through as the more interesting character, especially when set off by his gentle wife, Mary.

   Jack’s wife, Roxanne, is one I’m not always certain I like, but her reactions are very realistic in view of the situation. The blending of all the characters is very well done.

   Boyle’s love of Maine is apparent as shares with us both the beauty and the problems of Maine. The story is has a good, tight plot and is layered with good suspense which escalates as things progress. The sense of anger and danger is there along with Jack and his friend’s protectiveness. The villain is satisfyingly nasty and while Mindi provides a somewhat unknown quantity element.

   It’s altogether quite well done. Boyle is a very good writer and journalistic background is very apparent. His books are ones I always recommend and I’m always anxious for the next one out.

Rating:  Good Plus.

       The Jack McMorrow series

1. Deadline (1993)

2. Bloodline (1995)
3. Lifeline (1996)
4. Potshot (1997)
5. Borderline (1998)
6. Cover Story (1999)

7. Pretty Dead (2003)
8. Home Body (2004)
9. Damaged Goods (2010)

    Also by Gerry Boyle: The Brandon Blake mysteries

1. Port City Shakedown (2009)

   Visit the author’s blog here.

THE COMING OF AMOS. Cinema Corp. of America/PRC, 1925. Rod La Rocque, Jetta Goudal, Noah Beery, Richard Carle, Arthur Hoyt, Trixie Friganza, Clarence Burton.

Screen adaptation: James Ashmore Creelman & Garrett Fort from the novel by William J. Locke. Director: Paul Sloane; producer Cecil B. DeMille. Shown at Cinevent 42, Columbus OH, May 2010.

   This is the perfect Saturday matinee movie, with a climax in an island castle where the heroine (Jetta Goudal) is imprisoned by her villainous husband Ramón Garcia (Noah Beery) in a basement rapidly filling with water.

   With a Russian Princess and a noted portrait painter (the hero’s uncle) figuring in the cast, and a ’20s jet set crew of party-loving characters, there’s ample reason to crowd the screen with lavish sets and fantastic costumes, especially when an important scene takes place during a joyous carnival.

   The hero is naive but persistent, the heroine beautiful and constantly in peril, and the smirking villain doing everything but twirl his nonexistent moustache.

   There are touches of humor throughout, with some witty satire, the sharpest of which is the portrayal of two French policiers as consummate bureaucrats, stopping every other minute as they lead the “chase” into Garcia’s lair to take notes of the information they’re being given.

   This is a matinee film for adults, but the kid in the fun-loving viewer will have a grand time, too.

Editorial Comment: This film is available on DVD, but be aware that two of the three reviewers on Amazon disagree noticeably as to the quality of the print.

   It has often been surmised by the critics and historians of detective fiction that had the word “detective” been in use in 1841 when Poe’s “The Murders In the Rue Morgue” appeared in the April issue of Graham’s Magazine, Poe might have used that word to describe his character, G. Auguste Dupin.

    In fact, John Ball in his essay “Murder At Large” in The Mystery Story (Del Mar, CA., 1976) states the following:

    This concept had probably been fostered by the fact that the earliest recorded use of the word cited by the Oxford English Dictionary places it in Chamber’s Edinburgh Journal, vol. XII, p.54 of the March 4, 1843 issue

    However, the use of the word “detective” can be documented to have appeared in print before the example given by the Oxford English Dictionary. I first encountered an earlier use in The Examiner #1787 (April 30, 1842), pp. 283-284, which is hereby produced in part:

    The article goes on to expound the inefficiencies of the metropolitan police in the handling of this case, and towards the end states that “we think quite enough has been given to prove that the existing system of police is not a detective one, and that unless some most important alterations are made by the appointment of a detective police, or an improvement in the system, the perpetrators of crimes, however horrid and revolting in their nature, will in nine cases out of ten, escape the hands of justice.”

    Although this use of the word detective only pushed the date back by not quite a year, it was not enough to warrant a claim that Poe could have used the word.

    My next encounter with the word would prove that it could have been used by Poe. It is in the form of a letter to the editor of The Times (London), May 30, 1840, p. 6; and the entire letter is hereby reproduced because of its importance not only to show that the word was in existence at this early time, but it lays the groundwork for the formation of a “detective police” force:

    Thus, it is evident that the word detective did exist in print prior to 1841 and may well have been used in everyday parlance prior to the example given above.

    (*) This is in reference to the David Good case (1842), details of which can be found in Martin Fido’s Murder Guide to London (Chicago, 1990), as well as in Colin Wilson’s Encyclopedia of Murder (New York, 1962).