LOUISE PENNY – Glass Houses. Inspector Armand Gamache #13. Minotaur Books, hardcover, August 2017.

First Sentence: “State your name, please.”

   It is a very hot July day in Montreal and Chief Inspector Gamache is testifying in a murder trial. The previous Halloween, a figure in a black robe and mask had stood for several days on the green. It didn’t speak, rarely moved, and finally disappeared. In this book the decisions and actions of Inspector Gamache will impact far more than the people in the courtroom.

   The story opens in a courtroom. What is interesting is that we have no idea as to who is on trial or for what crime they are being tried. Yes, there is a murder, but not until we are a fair way into the story. What we do know is that more is happening than what seems to be— “Maureen Corriveau was new to the bench. … She could have absolutely no idea that she’d drawn the short straw. That a whole lot of unpleasantness was about to come her way.” –The courtroom scenes are very well done and have a tension of their own.

   The more we learn of Gamache, one realizes he is the person one should aspire to be. He is one willing to take great risks that may result in him paying a high price, but necessary to achieve a goal— “’Never lose sight of the goal,’ he said, returning his gaze to his subordinates ‘Never.’” The relationship with his second-in-command and son-in-law, Jean-Guy, is strong and enviable, hasn’t always been smooth, and neither is it here. What it is, is real; human.

   With the story moving back to Three Pines, we meet/are reacquainted with so many wonderful characters. Penny’s characters become real; individuals we would like to know, with whom we’d like to spend time. With each book, we learn a bit more about them and their perspective on life. We come to realize how multi-layered they are. Ruth, for example, for all her eccentricity, is a crone; a sage in the best sense. We are also made aware of the robed figure which projects a decided menace with the imagery of a bell jar being particularly effective— “’I thought it was Death,’ said Armand Gamache.”

   Managing two time periods can be challenging, and often irritating for the reader. Penny manages if flawlessly. Her writing is so visual, it is as though they are film cutaway shots, leaving the reader with no question as to where they are when.

   If one is going to have realistic characters, one must also have excellent, natural-sounding dialogue. Penny often catches one completely off guard with her humor making us laugh such as with the running joke about Jean-Guy’s glasses, or the unexpected comparison— “Jean-Guy and Ruth were much alike, actually, though he’d never, ever tell his son-in-law that he resembled a drunken old woman.” –One of the best instances is also with Jean-Guy regretting not learning meditation. But one should discover his mantra for one’s self.

   The plot is compelling and very current, the story keeps one so involved that losing sleep in order to finish the book is quite likely, and the originality in the story’s structure only adds to the overall quality. There are twists, and important questions which are raised.

   Penny’s books are psychological studies, lessons in philosophy, and labyrinths of courage and the human spirit. They are also civics lessons in the causes of bigotry and the human cost of the drug trade. Penny reminds us of lessons we should have learned but that we are inclined to apply to others rather than ourselves. Her understanding of humankind, its strengths and weaknesses, only adds to the remarkable nature of her writing— “And a conscience is something one cannot escape.”

   Glass Houses is so good there are times one literally finds one has stopped breathing and must consciously catch one’s breath. Even so, Penny never loses sight of the fact that the book is also an excellent, and ultimately highly suspenseful, expertly crafted mystery with twist upon twist upon twist. With this book, Ms. Penny has taken another step forward as one of today’s most remarkable writers. Just when you think she can’t get any better, she does. Just when you think her new book can’t be better than the last, it is. If you’ve not read her before, you really should.

Rating: Excellent.

YOU NEVER CAN TELL. Universal, 1951. Dick Powell, Peggy Dow, Joyce Holden, Charles Drake, Frank Nelson and Flame (the dog.) Written and directed by Lou Breslow.

   This movie-fantasy is dumb as a box of puppies, but I liked it anyway. Maybe it’s the loopy concept and the way it plays on movie conventions. After all, Dick Powell had been playing hard-boiled PIs and tough guys for so long his mere presence promised a certain hard-chiseled persona — and here he is as Private Eye Rex Shepherd, a reincarnated dog set to sniff out the guy who poisoned him (shades of D.O.A.) and romancing heiress Peggy Dow in the best Philip Marlowe tradition.

   The story takes way too long to get going, and the humor is on the level of Francis the Talking Mule (also from Universal), but the players take the stale jokes and cliché situations in easy stride, turn on their relaxed charm and rise above it — no, elevate it — to a surprising level. I particularly liked Joyce Holden as Powell’s secretary (formerly a race horse) and Frank Nelson offering one of his patented smug-polite perfs as a police detective dealing with Powell’s PI in a neat turn on the sort of thing Philip Marlowe used to go through.

   Don’t come to You Never Can Tell expecting a lot of laughs, but if you’re looking for an off-beat thing with a certain charm, this is it.

(Give Me That) OLD-TIME DETECTION. Issue #45. Summer 2017. Editor: Arthur Vidro. 34 pages. Published three times a year: Spring, Summer, and Autumn. Sample copy: $6.00 in the US; $10.00 anywhere else.

   We always look forward to the next issue of Old-Time Detection because not only is there always something about detective fiction in it that’s new to us, but also older items that allow us to indulge our weakness for nostalgia, and this issue is no exception.

   Between the covers of this most recent issue you can find: Michael Grost’s best picks of the forties and fifties; Dr. John Curran’s latest about what’s going on in the world of Agatha Christie, including a discussion of an execrable film adaptation (1928) of a Harley Quin story (“an unrecognizable hodgepodge of nonsense”); Martin Edwards’s take on his new book, The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books (“I’ve not confined myself simply to rounding up the usual suspects”).

   More: an Inspector Mallett short short short story by Cyril Hare that hasn’t seen publication for seventy-seven years, with Tony Medawar’s comments on same; Francis M. Nevins’s take on The Leopard Man (1943), a significantly altered filmed version of a Cornell Woolrich novel; J. Randolph Cox’s substantial article (roughly a third of this issue) about Robert Barnard (1936-2013), “a more sophisticated Agatha Christie.”

   And still more: Michael Dirda’s review of a book about Fergus Hume’s famous The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (1886), the one that, profit-wise, got away from him; Charles Shibuk’s list of classic mysteries that deserve reprinting; and thoughtful reviews and commentary from Shibuk, Jon L. Breen, Trudi Harrov, Amnon Kabatchnik, and Arthur Vidro.

   If you’re interested in subscribing to Old-Time Detection, you can contact the editor at Arthur Vidro, Old-Time Detection, 2 Ellery Street, Claremont, New Hampshire 03743 or oldtimedetection@netzero.net.

BENJAMIN SCHUTZ – Mexico Is Forever. Leo Haggerty #6. St. Martin’s, hardcover, 1994. No paperback edition.

   For someone who has won both Shamus and Edgar Awards, Schutz isn’t all that well known. After the traumatic events that took place in A Fistful of Empty, I wondered where he would go with Haggerty, and even if he would. As you can see he has, for at least one more book.

   Leo is carrying on with his private detective agency in Washington, DC, still numbed emotionally from the events of the recent past but making do. His current case involves establishing the (preferably false) identity of a young female claimant to a modestly large estate. He manages to pierce the facade of the beautiful and enigmatic woman, but in doing so finds yet anther wall, and behind this one are secrets that in the bringing to light reach the opposite coast and threaten the lives of not only the woman but Haggerty himself.

   For the most part, I think this is one of the better of the Haggerty books. It is atypically for Schutz non-violent until the end of the book, and features a good bit of realistic detective work that is reminiscent of Joe Gores’ DKA stories. Not too surprisingly. Gores’ characters play bit parts in this story.

   Schutz’s first-person narrative skills are excellent, and his prose is clean and lean. While characterization is brief except for Haggerty and the mysterious woman, it’s adequate to the story, and excellent for the two.

   I’m not quite sure what I think about the ending, though it was certainly interesting, and once again raises questions about where we go from here. I understand that Schutz’s next book is non-Haggerty, so we may have to wait a while for an answer.

     The Leo Haggerty series —

          NOVELS

Embrace the Wolf (1985)

All the Old Bargains (1985)
A Tax in Blood (1987)

The Things We Do For Love (1989)
A Fistful of Empty (1991)
Mexico Is Forever (1994)

          SHORT STORIES

“Mary, Mary, Shut the Door” (1992, Deadly Allies)
“What Goes Around” (1994, Deadly Allies II)
“Lost and Found” (1999, Death Cruise)

          COLLECTION

Mary, Mary, Shut the Door (2005; includes among others the three Haggerty stories above)

POLICE STATION. Syndicated. Official Films / Paramount-Sunset Television Productions, 1959-? Untitled episode (Season 1, #8?). Baynes Barron, Larry Kerr, Henry Beckman, Roy Wright. Guest Cast: Ron Masak, Michael Vandever. Produced, written & directed by Sandy Howard.

   A Dragnet wanna-be that lasted one season of 39 syndicated episodes, of which only one, perhaps two, have managed to survive. It’s not very good, and I’m covering it here only because.

   There are two cases the cops are working on throughout this episode. The first is that of two 16-years-olds who have been killed in a gang war, city not specified. The second, not nearly as serious, is that of a aged female con artist who gratefully promises to quit the racket. Does she? Wait for the ending to see.

   As for the gang war deaths, the cops have two possible suspects, and they play them off each other until they can be sure which one is the one who pulled the trigger. It’s competently done, but not by late 1950s standards, done in by the cheap sets (furnished from a local second-hand furniture store), uninspired camera work, and the mediocre acting by one of the participants.

   I’ve asked Dick Etulain, the author of the following book to tell us more about it. He’s most graciously agreed:

RICHARD W. ETULAIN – Ernest Haycox and the Western. University of Oklahoma Press, hardcover, illustrated, 2017.

   This book attempts to resurrect writer Ernest Haycox as a major figure in the development of the fictional Western. It is not a biography; Haycox’s son, Ernest Haycox, Jr., does that in his smoothly written book On a Silver Desert: The Life of Ernest Haycox (2003). Nor is it primarily a work of literary criticism. That book is available in Stephen L. Tanner, Ernest Haycox (1996).

   Rather, my book is a work of literary history, tracing Haycox’s literary career from its origins in the early 1920s to his death in 1950.

   Born in 1899 and reared in Oregon, Haycox contributed to high school publications and then to college outlets at Reed College (1919-20) and the University of Oregon (1920-23). By graduation, Haycox had published several stories in pulp magazines. Hoping to establish strong links to fictional outlets in the East, Haycox traveled to New York City, where he met editors important to his career in the 1920s. Meeting Jill Marie Chord (also from Oregon) on the train east, they married in New York City but soon returned west to Portland, which would be the Haycox home for the remainder of his life.

   By the end of the 1920s, Haycox was a steady contributor to many pulp magazines, including such stalwarts as Adventure, Short Stories, and Western Story Magazine. In 1928, he published his first full-length serial, which appeared the next year as Free Grass, his first novel. In the opening 1930s, Haycox made his first appearance in Collier’s and remained a steady contributor for almost twenty years.

   Hoping to move to the top of writers of Westerns, Haycox experimented with several new wrinkles to chosen genre. He created reflective protagonists (“Hamlet heroes”) and dark and light heroines (passionate and reserved women).

   Even more important, he began to turn out historical Westerns, infusing his lively fiction with historical backgrounds such as building the transcontinental railroad, fighting Indians in the Southwest, and settling Oregon. His most notable historical Western was Bugles in the Afternoon (1944), a fictional recreation of Gen. George Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

   Immensely successful, Haycox was nonetheless dissatisfied with the restrictions of the Western and entered a period of revolt in the last half-dozen years (1944-50) of his career. Abandoning lucrative serial markets, he set out to write first-rate historical fiction. His best historical novel, The Earthbreakers (1952), appeared two years after his death.

   Talented, ambitious, and driven, Ernest Haycox became a major figure in popular fiction written about the American West. Haycox’s continuing growth, gradual but steady, amply demonstrates an author determined enough to defy popular demands and honest enough to write novels consistent with his changing literary beliefs.

OSMINGTON MILLS – No Match For the Law. Chief Inspector William Baker #3. Geoffrey Bles, UK, hardcover, 1957. No US edition.

   Mr Justice Craven is rather an amusing personality — that is if you don’t have to appear before him as barrister or defendant or plaintiff. In that event, his biting wit might not appeal. And it’s not always comfortable being a member of his family.

   During a cricket match to celebrate St. Geoffrey’s Day. a match that takes place between the ‘law’ — members of the bar — and ‘order’ — local civil officials — Judge Craven, in his 70s and having scored 42, takes a break and drinks a beverage he made himself from a recipe he found in an old book. Three hours later he dies from oxalic poisoning. a rather unpleasant way to go.

   Since there were people about who had no liking for the judge. the police do have some suspects. though because of the circumstances it’s a small list. Later, more information is developed that broadens the field.

   Both the police and the suspects are interesting people. Mills handles characterization well. If there’s a complaint, it is that there are so many characters who are possible suspects that he can’t really do justice to all of them. Chief Inspector Baker of Scotland Yard’s Special Branch is at the cricket match when the judge is poisoned and handles the investigation well, but how was he to know about the joker in the woodpile?

   Purists may cavil and claim that this is not a fair-play novel. Perhaps it isn’t. It is certainly an excellent whodunit.

Bibliographic Notes:   Osmington Mills was the pseudonym of Vivian Collin Brooks, (1922-2002). Besides five other detective novels, he was the author of ten cases for Inspector Baker between 1955 and 1966. Only five of the fifteen have been reprinted in the US.

[UPDATE.]   If you read the comments, you will find that it has been suggested — and confirmed — that Osmington Mills was female, and that all references to her as “he” should be changed to “she.”

MARK PHILLIPS – The Impossibles. Kenneth J. Malone / Psi-Power #2. Pyramid F-875, paperback original; 1st printing, June 1963. Previously serialized in Astounding SF in three parts as “Out Like a Light,” April-June 1960. Reprinted under this title but as by Laurence Janifer & Randall Garrett by Resurrected Press, trade paperback, 2011.

   The first in this series, concocted in high comic fashion by SF writers Laurence Janifer and Randall Garrett, was Braintwister (Pyramid, 1962), in which intrepid FBI agent Ken Malone meets up with a telepathic old lady who thinks she is Queen Elizabeth. The third and last was Supermind (Pyramid, 1963), in which he tangles with … well, you’ll have to tell me, as I haven’t read it yet.

   In this one, though, he meets up with a gang of kids in New York City who … well, I can’t tell you that, since that’s the mystery that Malone is called on to solve. Let me say that it begins with Malone lying flat on his back on a Greenwich Village sidewalk, having been sent to the big city to investigate a series of strange incidents involving red Cadillacs — only Cadillacs, and only red — that are being stolen and taken for joy rides all over the metropolitan area, but with no one being able to see who’s taking them or or even who’s behind the wheel.

   Truth be told, as a novel, The Impossibles is a minor affair, but the pleasure comes from watching Malone tackle the unknown in a wink and a nod sort of way, and then as he tries to explain to others what he comes across. That and passages such as this one, chosen from very early on in the book:

   All in all, a series that’s a lot of fun to read, but there’s no way I could call it essential.

VICTIM. Allied Film Makers, UK, 1961. Dirk Bogarde, Sylvia Syms, Dennis Price, Peter McEnery, Derren Nesbitt, John Barrie, Hilton Edwards, Margaret Diamond. Written by Janet Green and John McCormick. Directed by Basil Dearden.

   This is gripping and unusual: A film with a Cause that doesn’t pound a drum or beat its chest, content to make its case with a taut, involving, thriller-style story.

   Peter McEnery opens the film as a young man on the run from the law, desperately seeking help from a rather odd circle of acquaintances who either can’t do much or reject him outright, including Dirk Bogarde as a rising and happily married barrister, who threatens to call the Police if McEnery bothers him again.

   This sets the tone for a noirish chase film, sustained even after McEnery gets busted and kills himself in Jail, which is when Dirk learns McEnery was being blackmailed for illegal homosexual activit — and died trying to protect him. Filled with grief and anger, he resolves to go after the blackmailers responsible for the death of a man whose only crime was loving him.

   Of course it’s not all that simple, not for a married man, and to their credit the makers of this film give due regard to the emotional conflicts of his wife (Sylvia Sims) without slowing the pace a bit. In fact, we very quickly get the idea that Dirk is up against something big and very nasty. There’s a sinister blind man who overhears the gossip at a crypto-gay bar and plots to make “collections;” a well-dressed habitué who seems to keep a sharp eye on everyone there, and a beefy young man on a motorcycle who just enjoys breaking things.

   Faced with massive odds, Bogarde pushes through the seamy underworld with only his wits and his own resolve for support, and in a nice bit of understated irony finds himself shunned by the people he’s trying to help—just as he dismissed McEnery early on.

   Along the way we get a bit of social commentary from sympathetic players who deplore the laws against homosexual conduct (this is 1961 remember), but they don’t stop the action to make speeches about it, and toward the end, writers Green & McCormick (a married couple with some fine films to their credit) indulge in a delightful bit of misdirection before confronting Bogarde and the viewer with the evil genius behind the blackmail racket.

   And it’s here where Victim really excels. I won’t reveal the surprise, but the identities and motives of the “Gang” but they really ring true, adding a frisson of personal insight to a film that was already a dandy noir thriller. Catch this one.

THE MASTER OF BALLANTRAE. Warner Brothers, 1953. Errol Flynn, Roger Livesey, Anthony Steel, Beatrice Campbell, Yvonne Furneaux, Felix Aylmer, Mervyn Johns. Screenplay: Herb Meadow, based on the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson. Director: William Keighley.

   I didn’t go into this one with the highest of expectations. After all, the Errol Flynn of the 1950s was a far cry from his earlier more exuberant self. Similarly, while I can appreciate costumers for what they primarily are – escapist entertainment – I can’t say that I find many of them to be among my favorite movies. Still, with a script loosely adapted from Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel of the same name, there were reasons to be hopeful that this feature would surpass some of Flynn’s other movies from the same era.

   So consider me pleasantly surprised. For The Master of Ballantrae happens to be an entertaining, fun, and thrilling adventure film that has something to offer everyone apart from the most jaded cynic. Flynn, despite being significantly older and heavier than he was when he portrayed Robin Hood, is in top form. He’s charming, daring, and yes, has a thing for a lady. Or ladies.

   Flynn portrays Jamie Durie, the titular Master of Ballantrae. He’s a Scottish nobleman who decides to fight for the Scottish side in the Jacobite rebellion. It’s also the losing side.

   Forced into exile in the West Indies along with his right-hand man, Irishman Colonel Francis Burke (Roger Livesey), Jamie plans his return to Scotland wherein he will seek revenge for his brother Henry’s (Anthony Steel) alleged betrayal. He also has his mind set on reuniting with his fiancée, Lady Allison.

   Although the plot is rather formulaic and predictable, it nevertheless moves forward at a steady pace. Flynn’s character is a totally likable rogue, one the audience will be rooting for throughout his many escapades. As I said, it’s a fun escapist adventure that benefits greatly from its own location photography, especially in the Scottish Highlands.