DAVID GIBBINS. Atlantis. Dell, paperback; 1st US printing, September 2006.

      —, Crusader Gold. Bantam, paperback; 1st US printing, September 2007.

   Gibbins is described as a Canadian with a Ph.D. in archaeology from Cambridge, a university lecturer, a “world authority on ancient shipwrecks and sunken cities,” and “currently divid[ing] his time between fieldwork, England and Canada.” He’s also writing adventure novels, but I suppose that goes without saying.

   I have included Gibbins’ professional achievements, only because they are substantially reflected in his fiction as sometimes interminable descriptions of scientific and other data that lend the works some authority (I suppose) but also tend to weigh them down.

   Marine archaeologist Jack Howard works with a team of experts to discover the site of Atlantis and the lost golden menorah of Jerusalem. He is of course up against powerful and unprincipled opponents, and there’s a great deal of derring-do in exotic locations, with Howard and his companions ultimately besting the dastardly villains who dog their every move.

   A more hard-science series than the more romantic adventure series by Paul Christopher, reviewed here not long ago.

   I could trace my affection for this stuff all the way back to my adolescent infatuation with Jack Armstrong and the Don Sturdy series, but that sounds too academic for my present non-academic role. It’s enough to say that, for the nonce, I can’t get enough of these adventure series that keep proliferating, and when you see me setting off on one of these treks, I wouldn’t blame you if you headed in another direction with all due haste.

JOYCE CHRISTMAS – A Better Class of Murder.

Fawcett, paperback original; 1st printing, Dec 2000.

   Question. Did Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple ever appear in a story together? I don’t think so, but I might be wrong. I know that Perry Mason and the detective duo of Bertha Cool and Donald Lam never appeared in the same book. But think about it. Wouldn’t have either one been quite an event? Crossovers like this used to be rare in the comic book field, now it’s so common they do it all the time, even between DC and Marvel, two different publishers and direct competitors, if you will.

   But for mystery fiction, it’s not an everyday occurrence. (*) So to have the first appearance together of Joyce Christmas’s two main characters, Manhattan socialite Lady Margaret Priam (ten previous books) and retired office manager Betty Trenka (four earlier mysteries), well, when it first came out, her fans must have been grabbing the book right off the shelf.

   For me, though, this is the first of either series I’ve read, and it’s (in a word) disappointing. The two characters could not be from two more different worlds, but that’s not the problem. Poirot and Miss Marple are equally opposite in many ways, but just consider the puzzles they might have solved together — I think Agatha Christie could easily have come up with a couple of absolute knockouts. They would have been doozies.

   That’s not the case here. In fact, there’s very little case to be solved, and neither Lady Margaret or Miss Trenka get within 50 miles of the crime itself. Betty Trenka is asked by a neighboring suburbanite, a computer expert by trade, to do another job entirely, one that takes her into New York City, and thus into Lady Margaret’s social set, almost incidentally so. The connection turns out to be a dead woman whose body had been found earlier, back in (further) upstate Connecticut, involved somehow with a missing and essential computer disk.

   As crimes go, this is a rather mild one, and the solution is unravelled more or less perfunctorily, with no further ado or commotion. Lady Margaret has nothing to do but show Betty Trenka around the city, which the latter’s naiveté does make amusing, and perhaps even mildly interesting. All in all, though, what you should expect from this book is a lot more talk than there is action, of which there is none, neither physical nor mental.

COMMENT (*). 06-05-08. It wasn’t true then, and while it may be more true now, crossover appearances between mystery characters still happen only about .01 of 1% percent of the time. Of course in comic books it happens so often that it’s taken for granted, and it’s boring.

         JOYCE CHRISTMAS: A Checklist —

[Expanded upon from her entry in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin. All of her mysteries were published as paperback originals by Fawcett, or in the case of the earlier ones, Fawcett Gold Medal.]

   Lady Margaret Priam

1. Suddenly in Her Sorbet (1988)
2. Simply to Die for (1989)
3. A Fete Worse Than Death (1990)
4. A Stunning Way to Die (1991)
5. Friend or Faux (1991)
6. It’s Her Funeral (1992)
7. A Perfect Day for Dying (1993)
8. Mourning Gloria (1996)
9. Going Out in Style (1998)
10. Dying Well (2000)

   Betty Trenka

1. This Business Is Murder (1993)
2. Death at Face Value (1995)
3. Downsized to Death (1997)
4. Mood to Murder (1999)

   Lady Margaret Priam & Betty Trenka in tandem

1. A Better Class of Murder (2000)
2. Forged in Blood (2002)

   The following entries will appear shortly in the online Addenda to the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin. The annotations, links and images have been provided by me (Steve) as usual. Note that the bulk of this post is taken up by novelizations and other tie-in’s connected with the BBC television series, Between the Lines.

GRANT, GRAEME. 1961- . Born in Aberdeen, Scotland; occupation: writer. Pseudonym: Tom McGregor, q.v. Under his own name, the author of three novels included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, all novelizations of either a film or television series.

McGREGOR, TOM. Pseudonym of Graeme Grant, 1961- , q.v. Under this pen name, the author of 15 books cited in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, most of them novelizations of various television series, including Cracker, Due South, Kavanagh QC and two for the BBC-TV police drama series Between the Lines. Add/revise series characters in each of the latter two: Complaints Investigation Bureau (Tony Clark, Harry Naylor, Maureen Connell). [The C.I.B. is the department responsible for investigating other police officers.] See also author Diane Pascal for one other novelization of the series.
      The Chill Factor. Warner, UK, pb, 1994. Novelization of the “Between the Lines” BBC-TV series.
      Close Protection. Warner, UK, pb, 1994. Novelization of the “Between the Lines” BBC-TV series.

MANRING, E(RNEST?) H. 1931?-1998? Add as a new author entry.
      _Man Alone. Belmont Tower, pb, 1975. Retitled edition of Steve Douglas of Sleepy Cat Ranch (Belmont, 1971).

      Steve Douglas of Sleepy Cat Ranch. Belmont, pb, 1971. Reprinted as Man Alone (Belmont Tower, 1975). “Steve Douglas could have walked away and let the Mafia goons take over his ranch for their own dirty reasons, but this stubborn wild horse tamer … didn’t take kindly to having city trash telling them what [he] could and couldn’t do.”

PASCAL, DIANE.
   Between the Lines: Breaking Point. Warner, UK, pb, 1993. Setting: Liverpool. Novelization of the BBC-TV police drama series Between the Lines. Add series characters: Complaints Investigation Bureau (Tony Clark, Harry Naylor, Maureen Connell). [The C.I.B. is the department responsible for investigating other police officers.] See also author Tom McGregor for two other novelizations of the series.

NOTE: At the present time, the book below, another tie-in with the BBC-TV series Between the Lines will not be added to the Revised Crime Fiction IV unless supporting evidence in its favor can be found or is provided:

ZUKOWSKA, KRYSTYNA.
   Between the Lines: Tony Clark’s Dossier. Boxtree, UK, pb, 1994. According to a description provided on one website, this book purports to be “a collection of case reports assembled by Clark [a character in the TV series] while he was trying to work out who had been sending him death threats. There [is also] a collection of photographs from the first two seasons, pretending to be from his own photo album.”

   I suspect that the spy-adventure thriller will always be with us. That’s fine when books of this type are as good as Gavin Lyall’s Shooting Script (1966). Using a commercial flier as protagonist, Lyall makes a Caribbean setting and a “banana boat” revolution seem new. He provides the kind of crisp, funny first person narration many authors attempt but at which they seldom succeed.

   On the other hand, I found Dark Blood, Dark Terror (1965) and Vice Isn’t Private (1966) in Brian Cleeve’s spy series re Sean Ryan to be over-rated. However, the former does provide some insights into the dilemma of modern-day South Africa. It also gives us one hilarious “Typo” when in one of the many violent scenes we read: “Sean … finished the swing of his body with his right fist hooking hard and very low into his groan.”

   I enjoyed William H. Hallahan’s Catch Me: Kill Me (1977), a thriller which won the Edgar as best novel. Still, if this is the best book of any year, we’re in trouble. Though this story of the kidnapping of a defecting Soviet poet “grabs” the reader, it contains gratuitous violence, a lot of padding which reduces the suspense, and a weak, albeit action-filled ending.

   However, Hallahan is one writer who, while using many metaphors, uses them well. Thus, one character says: “Life plays a game – like tennis… And until you die, it just keeps playing to your backhand.”

    Books reviewed or discussed in this installment:

GAVIN LYALL – Shooting Script. Hodder & Stoughton, UK, hc, 1966. Charles Scribner’s Sons, US, hc, 1966. Paperback reprints: Pan, UK, 1968, plus several later printings; Avon V2309, US, 1969.

BRIAN CLEEVE – Dark Blood, Dark Terror. Series character: Sean Ryan. Hammond, UK, hc, 1966. Random House, US, hc, 1965. Paperback reprints: Mayflower, UK, 1968. Lancer 73-543, US, 1967.

—, Vice Isn’t Private. Series character: Sean Ryan. Hammond, UK, hc, 1966; Corgi, UK, pb, 1969, as The Judas Goat. Random House, US, hc, 1966; Lancer 73-621, US, pb, 1967.

WILLIAM H. HALLAHAN – Catch Me: Kill Me. Bobbs-Merrill, US, hc, 1977. Victor Gollancz, UK, hc, 1978. Paperback reprints: Avon, US, 1978; Sphere, UK, 1980.

   I was going to add data about one additional author to the online Addenda this evening, but it’s early morning, and the entry for Kel Richards has already become longer than I’d expected. Perhaps it’s common knowledge and I just hadn’t heard about it before, but the existence of G. K. Chesterton as a series character in a pair of detective novels came as quite a surprise to me, and a pleasant one, at that.

   And of course I now have to see about finding the books. Don’t I?

RICHARDS, KEL(VIN BARRY) 1946- . Noted Australian journalist and radio personality. Among the twelve books included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV are three novels plus one story collection of Sherlock Holmes adventures published in a series of “Tales of Terror” books designed for older children. Other series characters are talk-show host Mark Roman (two novels); Ben Bartholomew, a P.I. in Roman-occupied Palestine, 1st century C. E. (four novels); and G. K. Chesterton (two novels, one post-2000). Additions to the author’s previous entry can be found below; while only Australian editions are listed, some of Richards’ work has been published in the UK. (The Sherlock Holmes link above leads to full summaries of his contributions to the canon.)

      The Curse of the Pharaohs. Beacon, Australia, pb, 1997. SC: Sherlock Holmes. Add setting: Scotland, 1890s.

      Death in Egypt. Beacon, Australia, pb, 1996. Add SC: G. K. Chesterton, the noted British author, to appear later in at least one post-2000 novel. Setting: Egypt; early 20th century. (Add the time period.)

      Footsteps in the Fog and Other Stories. Beacon, Australia, pb, 1999. SC: Sherlock Holmes. Collection of three novelettes. Add setting: England, Scotland; 1890s.

      The Headless Monk. Beacon, Australia, pb, 1997. SC: Sherlock Holmes. Add setting: England (Cornwall); 1890s.

      The Third Blood Stain. Hodder, Australia, pb, 1995. SC: Mark Roman. Add setting: Sydney, Australia. [A young man seeking on-air advice from Roman is later found murdered.]

      The Vampire Serpent. Beacon, Australia, pb, 1997. SC: Sherlock Holmes. Setting: London; 1890s. (Add the time period.)

WILDING, PHILIP. Add as a new author entry.
      Murder with Merit. Banner, UK, pb, 1959. Setting: London. Leading character: PI Nick Crane. [Crane comes to the rescue of a beautiful blonde whose sadistic husband is found with a knife in his back.]

HOLLYWOOD MYSTERY. Fanchon Royal Pictures, 1934. Originally released as Hollywood Hoodlum. June Clyde, Frank Albertson, José Crespo, Tenen Holtz, John Davidson. Directed by B. Reeves “Breezy” Eason.

   It is a mystery – if for the sake of the review, for this and nothing else – why bottom of the barrel movies like this exist and are distributed on DVD, and films that people really want to see are either available only through collector-to-collector conditions or cannot be found at all.

   At least it’s short, just over 50 minutes long, and at least the people making it seemed to be having a good time doing so. As hinted at above, there is very little mystery to this strictly Grade D movie, only the fact that the head of publicity for a small time movie outfit (Frank Albertson) gets the grand idea of persuading a director of a gangster film (John Davidson) to hire a real gangster as its star.

   Only thing is, the gangster (José Crespo) is no gangster, but the guy he socks in a nightclub really is. Much hilarity results, or it was supposed to have, and even so, it might have, if the plot really made any sense.

   I should of course mention June Clyde, who plays the leading lady in the film within the film. Like Frank Albertson and some of the other players, she had a long career in movies and TV, but as a bright spot on any of their careers, this wasn’t it.

   One additional warning: On the DVD you can easily find of this movie, the picture is so poorly cropped that in one scene with two people at either end of a table, you see the table but neither party to the right or left of the screen. It made me smile as much as anything I saw, and I’m almost embarrassed to say I saw any of it. Or that I’m writing this review of it.

ANDREA PICKINS – The Hired Hero .

Signet, paperback; c.1999; 1st pr., June 1999.

   The mystery in this regency romance is not of the detective variety. It’s more of a spy or adventure thriller, with plenty in romance department as well, but more of that later.

   The father of Lady Caroline Talcott, who is a bit of a tomboy (or harridan, if you will), is off fighting Napoleon, and the papers he sends to his daughter, to be delivered to London, are vital to the war effort. But when the messenger with the parcel collapses and dies on Caroline’s front doorstep, she is the only one who can complete the task. Waylaid on the way (hmm) by an unknown assailant, she reluctantly enlists the assistance of the dissolute Earl of Davenport. Unknown to her, however, the gentleman with the bad reputation is dead, and the new earl is the dead man’s twin brother.

   She hires him anyway — he is dreadfully in need of money — hence the title. Caroline is not only a great horseback rider, she is also a crack shot with a pistol and a terrific boatsperson, all of which come into play. The romance between the two also begins to grow in intensity, but in fits and starts.

   This is a fine, fine adventure, with an underlying feminist theme that (for the most part) makes it largely unlikely, given the time period, but the narrow escapes and the near misses certainly provide a lot of fun.

[UPDATE] 06-02-08. Yes, once again this is a book that’s in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin. Even though The Hired Hero was billed and sold as a Regency Romance, there’s always the possibility of overlap into “our” field, no matter the primary genre, and this is a prime example.

   Of the dozen such Regency Romances written by Andrea Pickins, I’ll concede, however — that being the primary pen name used by real author Andrea DaRef — this is the only one which could be really considered for inclusion in CFIV. See her website for covers of them all.

   But of her recent historical romances, taking place in very much the same era, the following trilogy might be prime candidates as having sufficient criminous content to also be invited in, save for one fact: they’ve all been published after CFIV‘s cut-off date of the year 2000, or will be. All are also adventures of various members of “Mrs. Merlin’s Academy for Select Young Ladies, a secret school for Hellion Heroes.”

The Spy Wore Silk. Forever, paperback original, June 2007. “On her first assignment, the resourceful Siena is charged with sniffing out a Napoleonic spy while posing as a courtesan in search of a new protector.”

Seduced by a Spy. Forever, paperback original, March 2008. “Shannon is the most daring of ‘Merlin Maidens.’ Her assignment: stop the fiendishly cruel assassin who is targeting a top British ballistics expert’s family.”

The Scarlet Spy. Forever, paperback original, October 2008. “The most ladylike of ‘Merlin’s Maidens,’ Sofia possesses a natural grace and grandeur to go along with her deadly arsenal of martial skills — which makes her the perfect choice for undertaking a dangerous dance of deception through the highest circles of London Society.”

JULIETTE LEIGH – The Fifth Proposal.

Zebra, paperback original; 1st printing, July 1999.

   Detective mysteries come concealed in the strangest places. This one, for example, was published as a regency romance, and if you didn’t look closely when it first came out, you probably missed it.

   When Shelby Falcon is summoned to her dear grandfather’s home after learning that he’s gravely ill, she doesn’t know it, but she’s about to become an heiress. Or so he announces, with all the other family members circled around him. In his own mind, though, he has no intentions of dying yet.

   Someone intends to change those intentions, however, and a series of suspicious and potentially fatal accidents begins to happen to the old gentleman. Shelby suspects one of her four cousins, all debtors and heavily in need of money. Another possible perpetrator is the mysterious Gill, whom she’s never seen before, the old man’s new companion and bodyguard.

   As the story goes on, the four cousins in turn make proposals of marriage to Shelby — ah, you do know where this is going, don’t you?

   Well, it is a regency romance, after all. Frothy and light, with only the mystery of Colonel Falcon’s unknown assailant to give it a little added substance. The historical period is adequately evoked, at least within my limited experience in such things, but the dialogue (at times) seems a trifle forced to me, and (if this makes sense) artificially created to fit the time period.

   PS. It all ends well.

[UPDATE] 06-01-08. And in case you were wondering this as well, yes, the book above is in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, and in fact, here’s the complete entry for the author, under two names. (Not all of her books were mysteries. Others were Regency Romances only, and are not listed below.)

LEIGH, JULIETTE. Pseudonym of Dawn Aldridge Poore, 1941- .

      The Fifth Proposal (Zebra, 1999, pb) [England; 1800s]
      Sherry’s Comet (Zebra, 1998, pb) [England; 1800s]

POORE, DAWN ALDRIDGE. 1941- . Pseudonym: Juliette Leigh. Series Character: Rozanne Sydney, in all.

      The Brighton Burglar (Zebra, 1993, pb) [England; 1800s] “When it comes to unsolved crimes and unmatched hearts, Miss Roxanne Sydney is on the case! When Miss Sydney’s late father leaves her with a bed-ridden estate and three younger sisters to marry off, the unsinkable Roxanne decides to keep her family afloat by taking in boarders. But opening her home to strangers becomes a dangerous enterprise indeed when Roxanne finds herself embroiled in the current Brighton mystery: Someone is stealing valuable painting from the wealthy country estates…”

      The Cairo Cats (New York & London: Zebra, 1994, pb) [London; 1800s]. “Miss Roxanne Sydney travels to London to attend a wedding, and when one of her two exotic cat statues–artifacts from her father’s Egyptian travels–is stolen, she has a mystery on her hands.”

      The Mummy’s Mirror (Zebra, 1995, pb) [Egypt; 1800s] “With her three sisters finally wed, Miss Roxanne Sydney is free to pursue her favorite pastime: a mystery! Accompanied by Miss Flora Rowe, her poor but proper traveling companion, Roxanne is off to uncover the grandest of all mysteries, the land of Egypt. […] …something decidedly odd is going on between the pyramids and the burning sands. And a missing mirror will soon turn the desert into perilous territory for a genteel detective in distress…and in danger of losing her heart!”

      The Secret Scroll (Zebra, 1993, pb) [England; 1800s] “When an invaluable ancient scroll vanishes on the eve of her sister’s wedding, Miss Roxanne Sydney looks among the visitors at the Sydney estate to find the culprit.”

PAUL CHRISTOPHER – Rembrandt’s Ghost.

Signet, paperback original, 2007.

   It’s been a while since I’ve read a really good adventure novel, with a search for a fabulous treasure, an island that’s concealed in uncharted seas, and with “ruthless adversaries” pursuing an archaeologist and her newly acquired relative and co-heir to the ends of the earth (i.e., those uncharted waters in the South Pacific).

   I suspect that fans of the TV series Lost might enjoy this book, but so would pixilated armchair adventurers eager to find a legendary island like the one in King Kong, and anyone who finds the novels of James Rollins and Clive Cussler to be guilty pleasures and is longing for something a bit more grounded in believable characters and without the fate of civilization hanging in the balance.

   This is number three in a series that began with Michelangelo’s Notebook and The Lucifer Gospel, and is promised to continue in 2008 with The Cortez Mask.

   I’ve since read The Lucifer Gospel (Onyx, 2006), which is perhaps even nuttier, with a lost gospel, fallen angels, and Nazi fanatics (yes, I know that’s a redundant expression), culminating in a grand chase and flight sequence in a cavernous maze in a remote area of Illinois where the last Keeper of the Lucifer Gospel is sequestered with his incalculably precious manuscript.

R. AUSTIN FREEMAN – The Cat’s Eye.

Hodder & Stoughton, UK, hc, 1923. Dodd-Mead & Co, US, hc, 1927. House of Stratus, UK, softcover, 2001.

   Dr Jervis [Dr Thorndyke’s usual Watson] being away advising on a case in New York, Robert Anstey, KC, narrates the mystery of The Cat’s Eye as the complicated affair unfolds.

   Anstey is crossing Hampstead Heath one night when, just after a man runs past him, he hears a woman crying for help in the other direction. He finds her in time to see her knocked down and her attacker get away.

   The mysterious woman has been stabbed and Anstey carries her to a nearby house to seek aid. Just as he arrives, he hears the terrified housekeeper Mrs Benham calling the police, for her master Andrew Drayton has been murdered in his small private museum of inscribed objects — lace bobbins, ornaments, jewelry, and the like.

   The dead man is the brother of Sir Lawrence Drayton, a neighbour of Anstey’s in the Temple as well as an acquaintance of Dr John Thorndyke, who is brought in to investigate while the police pursue their own enquiries. Anstey has acted as Thorndyke’s leading counsel for years and, in order to provide him with useful evidence, takes — illegally, one would think — two pieces of fingerprinted broken glass away from the crime scene.

   The injured woman, Winifred Blake, is an artist who lives with her younger brother and would-be architect Percy in (you have guessed it) Jacob Street. Miss Blake is interested in inscribed jewels and had visited Drayton that evening to look at his collection, having read a magazine article about it. She had hardly entered the house when he was shot in another room, and in foolishly trying to follow a man escaping from the scene was herself assaulted. Evidence shows two criminals were involved and that certain items of jewelry have been stolen.

   The plot then thickens into a rich stew whose ingredients include Biblical verses with no apparent relation to each other, a good luck charm made from a porcupine ant-eater bone, a strand of blue hair, spectacles which allow the wearer to see what is happening behind him, and a mystery within a mystery.

   My verdict: A particularly rich plot featuring a dash of romance, with clues realised to be in plain sight once the reader knows the solution.

   The novel also includes some interesting asides, such as an explanation of how Scotland Yard’s Habitual Criminals Registry compares hundreds of fingerprint records kept on cards when seeking matches to a particular set of dabs. The preface mentions a particular incident, identical to one that happened in real life, was already in a chapter written some time before the actual event occurred.

      Etext: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks07/0700841.txt