MEL ARRIGHI – Alter Ego. St. Martin’s Press, hardcover, 1983. No paperback edition. TV movie: CBS, 1987, as Murder by the Book (with Robert Hays and Catherine Mary Stewart).

   There is reason to believe that Alter Ego was the projected start of a series, curtailed by the author’s death [in 1986].

   It fits into the small subgenre of mysteries in which fictional characters come to life. Arrighi’s Hank Mercer writes about a tough private eye, Biff Deegan, but wants to replace him with a professor who solves his cases by cerebral methods.

   Mercer attempts to convince his reluctant publisher by solving a mystery that presents itself while they are dining; a woman has dropped a matchbook on their table with a scribbled message, “Help Me!”

   Aided by Biff, about whom he hallucinates, Hank gets involved in a case of art smuggling. The premise is more imaginative than its resolution, but Arrighi makes the narrative move at a brisk pace.

JOHN & EMERY BONETT – Dead Lion. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1949. Pocket #738, paperback, 1950. Perennial Library P563, paperback, 1982. White Circle #505, Canada, paperback, 1951 (shown). Original UK edition: M. Joseph, hardcover, 1949.

   John and Felicity Carter Coulson (who write under the names John and Emery Bonett) have collaborated in a fruitful mystery career as well as a marriage. Their official joint debut came with the publication of Dead Lion, a fine example of the post-World War II British mystery.

   Simon Crane comes to Britain to meet his famous uncle — critic, author, and BBC intellectual Cyprian Druse — for the first time. Instead, he finds Druse’s body, his head stuck out a window and his neck bloody and broken.

   It soon becomes clear that many people wished to break Druse’s neck: the many authors he destroyed with his vitriolic criticism, and the many women he seduced, humiliated, and abandoned.

   When Simon finds himself in love with one of his uncle’s embittered conquests, he no longer wishes to play sleuth. Unfortunately, Professor Mandrake does. Mandrake, an anthropologist by trade, had been a BBC colleague of Druse’s. More important, he is a natural-born busybody and student of humanity just waiting for a chance to try his hand at detecting.

   While Simon tries to shield the woman he loves, Mandrake continues to happily meddle, eventually triggering the novel’s tragic conclusion.

   Dead Lion is an exquisitely crafted classical mystery. But besides providing a satisfying puzzle, like its many Golden Age predecessors, this novel also features three-dimensional, modern characters with psychological quirks and motivations.

   With small touches, the authors also manage to convey what life was like in England after the war. Theirs is a classic puzzle with new depth and Professor Mandrake as a lovable series sleuth.

   The fat, homely professor appears in two other books — A Banner for Pegasus (1951) and No Grave for a Lady (1959). Later Bonett novels with a Spanish sleuth and Costa Brava locale are well constructed but lack the charm of the Mandrake mysteries.

         ———
   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.

JOHN & EMERY BONETT – Dead Lion. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1949. Pocket #738, paperback, 1950. Perennial Library P563, paperback, 1982. White Circle #505, Canada, paperback, 1951. Original UK edition: M. Joseph, hardcover, 1949.

   Not only is this the first case that would-be sleuth Professor Mandrake ever worked on, it’s also the first mystery written by the Bonetts (in real life, John & Felicity Coulson). Subsequent books in which Mandrake appears are A Banner For Pegasus (1951; also known as Not In The Script) and No Grave For A Lady (1960).

   I say “would-be sleuth” in this case, because his attempts at solving the death of renowned (and widely hated) literary critic Cyprian Druse, while helpful, fall resoundingly flat instead. He may fare better in later cases — I hope so — but someone else will have to let us both know, since if I’ve read either one, I’ve forgotten.

   The problem here is that Mandrake is working strictly at cross-purposes with the narrator, Simon Crane, the dead man’s nephew, who is the first person to realize that Cyprian’s death was murder, and not an accident, as the police believe. Crane has fallen in love with Mandrake’s chief suspect, the enigmatic but wholly enchanting Marcia Garnett, and so he does his utmost to keep the other man’s attempts at solving the case as ineffective as possible.

   There is very little deduction involved. Persistence and inevitability is all that it takes to reveal the killer, even though more than half the human race would have had a motive, of sorts. What this is, far more than it is a mystery of the traditional type, is a treatise on love and romance.

   Simon Crane is at once obtuse and knowing, unlikable and irresistible, and a detective like no other on record, I’m sure. There is also a great deal of tragedy and pain involved, and in the end, while justice does work its way out, it brings its share of grief as well.

   It may not be obvious, even by now, so if it isn’t, I’m highly recommending this one.

Rating: A minus.

[UPDATE] 10-13-11.   Even though I recommended this one at the time, I don’t remember it at all. (This comes from deliberately trying not to tell too much about the story line back in 1993.)

   That it was reprinted in paperback a couple of times, however, especially later on by Perennial, suggests that my opinion was correct, that Dead Lion is indeed a better than average mystery novel from the 1940s.

   To confirm this, though, I went looking, and I found a second opinion in the first place I looked: 1001 Midnights, with the review coming up next.

JOYCE PORTER – Dover and the Claret Tappers. Foul Play Press, US, hardcover, 1989. W. W. Norton, US, paperback, 1992. Originally published in the UK: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, hardcover, 1976 (shown).

   Foul Play Press has been reissuing Joyce Porter’s mysteries about England’s most stupid, lazy and unmannered copper, Inspector Wilfred Dover. They’ve come now to a 1976 title not previously published here, Dover and the Claret Tappers.

   I read a few of the Dover novels earlier and recall enjoying them, but Dover’s endless incompetencies, preoccupations with stuffing his face and rushing off to lavatories when not otherwise sleeping on the job, here just get tiresome.

   The caper begins when a gang calling themselves the Claret Tappers kidnaps Dover for ransom. Scotland Yard, and especially the long-suffering Sgt. MacGregor, is delighted to have him gone and refuses to pay a ha’penny.

   So Dover is dumped, unharmed, and since he’s made hardly a useful observation while held, the case eventually goes to the back burner. But not for good, because the Tappers aren’t done yet…

Editorial Comment: If you are thinking what I think you’re thing, that that’s one ugly cover, I agree with you 100 percent. It’s no wonder that it wasn’t used in the US edition. But the latter was barely more than plain text on the front. Boring!

ABANDONED. Universal International Pictures, 1949. Dennis O’Keefe, Gale Storm, Marjorie Rambeau, Raymond Burr, Will Kuluva, Jeff Chandler, Meg Randall, Jeanette Nolan, Mike Mazurki. Director: Joseph M. Newman.

   Dennis O’Keefe makes for a good newpaper reporter in Abandoned, and Raymond Burr makes an even better private eye, one definitely on the shady side. Before he became Perry Mason and famous, as we’ve said before on this blog, he was best known for his villainous roles in cheap crime dramas, albeit often weak and shifty ones. His part in this movie, in other words, was tailor made for him.

   So what this is, as you may have guessed, is a cheap crime drama, but is it noir, as it’s often advertised as being? Not with Gale Storm in the leading role, even though the movie’s in black and white, with lots of noirish lighting and noirish dialogue.

   As the sister who died trying to regain her baby from a gang specializing in illegal baby adoptions, calling on Dennis O’Keefe for help, she’s too giggly and perky for the part (think My Little Margie). The ending, after a lot of gunfire and fatal automobile accidents, is also too upbeat for Abandoned to really fall into the noir category.

   But it comes close, indeed it does. And if the entire script had been part of the movie, if as I have a feeling it wasn’t, it would have been a whole lot closer.

   Unanswered by the movie I saw is the question of the two girls’ father, who hired Raymond Burr (the shady PI) in the first place, and the connection with the baby racketeers, whom Burr works for as well.

   And I’m sure I remember a scene in which Gale Storm’s character tells O’Keefe (the reporter) that the reason her sister left home and headed for LA, was because their father wouldn’t leave either one of them alone.

   Neither of these two threads of the story line is followed up on, but at the time this movie was made, all they could probably do is leave hints.

GUILTY AS HELL. Paramount, 1932. Edmund Lowe, Victor McLaglen, Richard Arlen, Adrienne Ames, Henry Stephenson, Elizabeth Patterson. Screenplay by Arthur Kober and Frank Partos, based on the play Riddle Me This by Daniel N. Rubin; photography by Karl Struss. Director: Erie C. Kenton. Shown at Cinevent 40, Columbus OH, May 2008.

   Perennial battling comrades in What Price Glory and its several sequels, Lowe and McLaglen are once again costarred, with Lowe as as a McLaglen-baiting, brash reporter, undercutting police Lt. McLaglen’s murder investigation in an attempt to prove that Richard Arlen did not kill his mistress, wife of a prominent physician played by the cultivated, unflappable Henry Stephenson.

   Richard Arlen is the convicted murderer and Adrienne Ames his sister who believes in his innocence. We see the murder and the framing set-up at the beginning of the film, so there’s no mystery for the audience to solve. Just the pleasure of watching an intricate cat-and-mouse game, with the murderer one step ahead of his pursuers until the final, tense confrontation.

   A fine little crime drama, with the two stars lighting up the screen, with strong contributions by the supporting players, with the possible exception of Richard Arlen, whose lethargic performance Jim Goodrich attributed to miscasting.

This blog passed a plateau yesterday that had never been reached before, not even close. Tuesday was the first day that over 1000 visitors checked in, 1005 in all. The previous high was somewhere just over 800, so you can see what an achievement this was.

A good chunk of the traffic came to read Michael Shonk’s recent article about the 1959-60 season of the Philip Marlowe TV show, but congratulations and thanks go to all of the contributors to this blog. It couldn’t have been done without you!

   I am reprinting this from Fatal Kiss #13 (May 1980), the same issue in which I reported the results of the first annual Top Ten Tec Poll.

   The poll consisted of my listing ten authors whose last names began with either the letter A or B, then requesting respondees to rate them on a scale from 1 to 10. If you were not familiar with an author, then one of three categories were to have applied:

       A = I never intend to read this author
       B = I’d like to read this author but I haven’t yet
       C = I’ve never heard of this author [or no vote]

   There were 42 responses, including my own, from mystery readers scattered all over the world. Here are the results:

Author // Numerical Responses // Average // A — B — C

    Eric Ambler     35     6.83     2 — 3 — 2

    Nicholas Blake     26     6.65     3 — 7 — 6

    Margery Allingham     32     6.00     2 — 6 — 2

    Lawrence Block     23     5.89     1 — 11 — 7

    Earl Derr Biggers     30     5.67     6 — 3 — 3

    Charlotte Armstrong     28     5.29     5 — 6 — 3

    Edgar Box     22     5.28     4 — 11 — 5

    George Bagby     24     4.44     6 — 9 — 3

    Edward S. Aarons     23     4.23     11 — 5 — 3

    Carter Brown     24     3.79     10 — 5 — 3

   One small surprise was the healthy showing of Lawrence Block, obviously not familiar to many people in 1980, but those who’d read him liked what they’d seen. [In 1980, Block had written a sizable list of paperback originals, the first three Matt Scudder books, and the first two “Burglar” novels.]

   As I said at the time, I expected Ambler and Blake to do well, and they did. Aarons and Carter Brown did not do well with female voters, while Allingham and Charlotte Armstrong did not do as well with most male readers. And yes, I knew that Edgar Box was really Gore Vidal.

   Since response was so high, I thought at the time that it was worth doing again. I’ll list the authors I suggested for the next poll, all of whose last names began with “C.” I don’t know if I have the issue in which the results were tabulated, or even if they ever were. I’ll have to do some searching in the garage where most of my back issues are stored.

   If you’d care to record your opinions on the following authors, either in the Comments or by emailing me directly, feel free to do so:

Victor Canning, John Dickson Carr, M. E. Chaber, Raymond Chandler, Leslie Charteris, G. K. Chesterton, Agatha Christie, Manning Coles, James Hadley Chase, Tucker Coe, George Harmon Coxe, Frances Crane, John Creasey, Edmund Crispin, Freeman Wills Croft, Ursula Curtiss.

G. M. MALLIET – Wicked Autumn. St. Martin’s/Minotaur Books, hardcover, September 2011.

   Who doesn’t love a good English village murder (or a “cozy” as these tales often are termed today)? G. M. Malliet, who in 2008 won the Agatha for best first novel for her Death of a Cozy Writer, has triumphantly updated this classic subgenre of English mystery with her fourth novel (the start of a new series), Wicked Autumn. Malliet’s satirical wit is magnificent and her cluing masterly.

   Though in writing Wicked Autumn, Malliet no doubt was inspired by Agatha Christie’s grandmother of village mysteries, The Murder at the Vicarage (1930) — I was also much reminded of, from closer to the present day, Ngaio Marsh’s Grave Mistake (1978) and Robert Barnard’s A Little Local Murder (1976) and The Disposal of the Living (1985) — I have quoted above from a lesser known though first-rate English village mystery by Miles Burton (a pseudonym of Cecil John Charles Street), because I wanted to highlight one of the most delightful aspects of Malliet’s novel, her portrayal of the Women’s Institute of her village, Nether Monkslip (the book is dedicated to the National Federation of Women’s Institutes).

   The machinations within this group — whose overbearing president, Wanda Batton-Smyth, is murdered in the course of the tale—make highly amusing reading. One of the great pleasures, surely, in the English village mystery is the frequently wicked satire (somewhat belying the reputation of these tales as “cozies” that one finds in it. The Miles Burton passage above, for example, is delivered very much with its author’s tongue in his cheek.

   Christie’s brilliant satire in The Murder in the Vicarage — a novel one contemporary reviewer compared to Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford (1851) — is much underappreciated today, but clearly Malliet has learned much from the Great Lady. Malliet’s wickedly barbed writing is an abiding delight throughout Wicked Autumn:

   The women of the village are similarly memorable, especially Wanda Batton-Smythe, a classic murderee. Wanda is so deliciously obnoxious and objectionable we ironically miss her when she’s gone. She’s a brilliant updating of the village battle-axe matron. Other classic types given updates and new life by Malliet are:

    ● Awena Owen, the “New Age” mystic (yes, they had these in the Golden Age mystery too, under different names)

    ● Suzanna Winship, the village vamp

    ● Mrs. Hooser, the something less than smoothly competent housekeeper

    ● Agnes Pitchford, the nosy and keen-minded octogenarian retired schoolmistress (I surely won’t be the only person reminded of Miss Marple and Miss Silver)

    ● Major Batton-Smythe, Wanda’s husband (almost straight out of the pages of a Christie)

    ● Frank Cuthbert, futile local author (self-published)

   Though it is a cliché to say it, a book as delightfully written as Wicked Autumn would be an enjoyable read even without its murder and solution; yet I am pleased to report that Malliet handles this aspect of her tale quite deftly as well. The clues, which are of the textual sort favored by Christie, are close to the level of the great Golden Age Crime Queen herself.

   There also ultimately is some poignancy in Malliet’s handling of the Batton-Smyth family (Malliet’s passage on the cruel difference for many couples between the glittering fantasy of retirement and its drab reality is acute) — proof, if it be needed, that the cozy can offer emotional depth as well as surface charm.

   Indeed, the solution to the murder in Wicked Autumn is rather un-cozy when one thinks about it. Wicked Autumn definitely illustrates W. H. Auden’s view that the murderer in the English village mystery must be cast out in order to restore the village to its state of grace. In this respect, the novel is more aesthetically pure than some of its Golden Age forebears, where murder occasionally is allowed to pass unpunished.

   The detective in the tale is an amateur rather improbably brought in, in classic fashion, to help the police with the investigation: Max Tudor, the local Anglican minister. Max, it seems, used to be MI5. His back story is threaded through the tale. Undoubtedly many readers will find this material of greater interest than I did. (I am of the old school and do not expect my detectives to have interesting back stories.)

   I did enjoy Malliet’s thoughts on the present-day status of the Anglican church, however: “Especially in an age when it was felt the church was circling the drains, some people clung to whatever looked certain and solid, making them less able to handle ambiguity and apparent contradiction.”

   Naturally, Max is handsome, charming, straight and a bachelor; and Malliet cannily opens several romantic possibilities for him in his first novel. No doubt many Malliet fans (of whom there should be increasing numbers after this novel) will enjoy following how Max’s love life develops. For my part, as long as Malliet keeps writing mysteries this amusing, insightful and clever, I will abide even fairly heavy doses of love interest!

Final Note:   I should add that in Wicked Autumn Minotaur Books has produced an extraordinarily attractive book. There is a stunning endpaper map, an apt falling leaf motif running though the pages, and attractive and clear type. In an age where publishing quality often seems increasingly slipshod, Minotaur Books is to be praised along with the author.

PHILIP MARLOWE. ABC-TV. 1959-1960. Tuesday 9:30-10pm(E). Goodson-Todman Production with California National Productions. Created by Raymond Chandler.

“Murder Is a Grave Affair.” March 8, 1960. Written and produced by Gene Wang. Directed by Paul Stewart. Cast: Philip Carey as Philip Marlowe, William Schallert as Police Lieutenant Manny Harris, Gene Nelson as Larry, Jack Weston as Artie, Betsy Jones-Moreland as Marian, Maxine Cooper as Janet. Episode available on DVD: TV GUIDE Presents Master Crime Solvers.

   A young woman in love with Larry, a married movie director, confronts his wife. The wife, Marian tells the girl she won’t stop Larry if he wants a divorce, and then celebrates with her lover. Larry is not happy. The girl means nothing to him, just one of a “hundred.” She threatens to go to the papers. Larry also has to deal with the reaction from his secretary and lover, Janet. But he’s a guy and these things happen.

   The girl turns up dead due to an unvented gas heater. Her friend Artie, who loved her, finds the body. Both he and the girl’s father believe Larry killed her, and Dad hires Philip Marlowe. Marlowe uses the typical TV PI’s method for solving crimes. The suspects are cleared one by one until only one remains who, in a burst of illogic, no hard evidence, and the closing credits fast approaching, confesses.

   Philip Carey could have made a great Marlowe, but the way the character dressed and lived, the fake scar on his cheek, his attitude towards the cops, all of it left Carey playing a character unlike the one Raymond Chandler created.

   Among the few positives, Betsy Jones-Moreland as the wife played the part with an odd amused indifference that was a fresh choice for that type of role. The script featured a brilliant twist that would surprise viewers today.

   On the negative side, the theme music is a forgettable jazz tune with a slight Bossa nova beat, as you can hear from this YouTube clip of the opening credits. There were no noirish elements, even the Day for Night scenes at the graveyard lacked any style or visual substance.

   Take the Philip Marlowe name away and this was just a good TV mystery typical of the time.

   Now, a look at the creation of the series. It began July 1957 when a deal was signed between Raymond Chandler and Goodson-Todman Productions to produce a TV series based on the character Philip Marlowe.

   According to Billboard, July 22, 1957 issue, Chandler would be the series story editor. At this point the pilot was to be filmed in August 1957, Goodson-Todman producing with Screen Gems. Casting had not yet happened nor had the episode length been decided, though the hour-long format was favored. The plan was to sell it to a network for September 1957 (Billboard, July 29, 1957).

   Broadcasting (February 10, 1958) reported the pilot done but not yet sold.

   At one point, Screen Gems dropped out (if it had ever been involved). Broadcasting (December 15, 1958) reported a signed contract between Goodson-Todman and NBC to produce thirty nine episodes “for showing on NBC-TV starting either in April or the fall.”

   This is probably when California National Productions got involved. According to Broadcasting (February 2, 1959), “CNP operates under two sales units. NBC Television Films, which syndicates largely first-run properties, and Victory Program Sales, which handles re-run series.”

   March 26, 1959, Raymond Chandler dies. Was he still involved with the show? I doubt it.

   For some reason the series appeared on ABC not NBC and lasted only (reportedly) twenty six episodes before it was dropped.

   Broadcasting (September 28, 1959) had a review of the first episode. Scroll down and click on 9/28/59 issue and scroll to pages 48 and 50.

   No title for the episode is given and it lists a different producer (William Froug). It gives the air date as September 29, 1959 instead of the currently believed October 6.

   Based on the review, Marlowe is hired in that first episode by a reformed gangster to keep his daughter from running away with a young man. The young man and Marlowe fight. Marlowe wins. A gangster with a grudge against Marlowe’s client helps the kid to take on Marlowe again. Marlowe wins but during the fight the bad guy kidnaps the girl. Marlowe chases. Marlowe and bad guy fight. Marlowe wins and bad guy is killed.

   Time magazine did a cover story “These Gunns For Hire” (October 26, 1959) about the TV detectives of the 1959-60 season. I highly recommend you read the entire article, which you can easily find online.

   According to the article the 1959-60 season had sixty-two series (network and syndicated) featuring “some variation of Cops & Robbers.”

   Also from the article, “Carey has long been an admirer of Chandler’s books, is openly proud of the fact that Chandler told him he would make a great Marlowe. What Chandler (who died in March) would think of the rest of the TV show is not quite so certain.”

   Philip Marlowe is less for the Chandler fan and more for those who enjoy watching even the average TV PI of the late 1950s.

TIP OF THE HAT: To RJ of TV Obscurities for helping me find another online source, the Broadcasting magazine archives.