JOHN D. MacDONALD – Cinnamon Skin. Harper & Row, hardcover, 1982. Fawcett, paperback, 1983. Reprinted many times since.
As anyone who has read Free Fall in Crimson could have easily predicted, it is Travis McGee’s closest friend, Meyer, who is in dire need of rehabilitation at the beginning of Cinnamon Skin, the twentieth and latest in this best-selling series. McGee lives in a world of constant tragedy, and unfortunately that’s what it takes to snap Meyer out of his year-long doldrums.
Blown out of the water in an ear-shattering explosion, purportedly set off by an unknown group of Chilean terrorists, is Meyer’s boat, the John Maynard Keynes. (Meyer is a world- famous economist, as you may or may not be surprised to learn.)
On board was Meyer’s niece, his only living relative, and her new husband. Readers familiar with life in McGee’s universe will suspect that all is not what it seems, even before the evidence starts coming in.
The murderer’s trail leads to Texas and upstate New York before swooping back down to Mexico, where Meyer and McGee unite their efforts with those of a modern-day Mayan princess in obtaining a final bit of retribution. Their prey is a lady-killer of some duration, who promises not to yield without an all-out struggle.
Most of the action will be found in these final few chapters. Those seeking an epic saga crammed with rugged blood-and-guts action and suspense will have to look`elsewhere. This is a detective story, pure and simple, albeit with a dash more of relentless vigilantism than you’d expect in a more law-abiding sort of adventure.
As if to compensate for the lack of action in the early going, boiled away as it were in the intense Texas sun, there is enough reflective and introspective interaction and byplay between the characters to more than maintain MacDonald’s reputation as America’s number one philosophical myth-master and debunker. JDM often puts into words what the rest of us only feel.
Even if much of the cruder vitality of his younger days is gone, the keen, sharp insights he has into each of his characters are still more than sufficient for them to meet any challenge he presents them with.
Rating: B plus.
— Reprinted from The MYSTERY FANcier, Vol. 6, No. 6, November-December 1982 (somewhat shortened & revised)
ALEXANDER IRVING – Symphony in Two Time. Dodd Mead, hardcover, 1948. No paperback edition.
After murder in the medical school [in Bitter Ending, 1946], Dr. Anthony Post returns in murder with music-some of it good, some of it not. Post is engaged to Paula Taft, pianist and composer, the niece of that grande dame, Mildred Taft-Manning.
Mrs. Taft-Manning is the power behind the Taft Institute and its orchestra, a leader in the W.C.T.U., head of the Brooklyn anti-gambling league, president of the anti-vivisection committee, etc. You get the idea. She is married to a much younger man, another composer, who is poisoned and then apparently plays the piano in the wrong key in a locked room.
Strychnine was available for the poisoning, but the murderer switched to the nicotine that Dr. Post had with him. Later, another person dies of arsenic poisoning.
There arc no sympathetic characters here, just as there were not in Bitter Ending, Irving’s first novel, which I did not particularly enjoy. This one is much more amusing, even though Post may grate on many people’s nerves.
Bibliographic Notes: Alexander Irving was the pen name of Anne Fahrenkopf (1921-2006) and Ruth Fox (1922-1980). Together they wrote only one other work of mystery fiction, a non-Dr. Post novel, Deadline (Dodd Mead, 1947).
A mini-review of Symphony in Two Time from The Saturday Review, 18 September 1948: “Ultra-sophisticated in right sense of word; witty, knowledgeable on music matters, actionful — and semi-quaver disappointing in solution.”
Bill Deeck mentions a locked room in his review, but since the story is not included in Bob Adey’s book on Locked Rooms, it seems doubtful that that aspect of the mystery has any other relevance than that.
SEMINOLE. Universal International, 1953. Rock Hudson, Barbara Hale, Anthony Quinn, Richard Carlson, Hugh O’Brian, Russell Johnson, Lee Marvin, Ralph Moody, James Best. Director: Budd Boetticher.
There’s a sequence in Seminole when U.S. Army officers are seen trudging through the hot, humid, dank Florida swamps in search of Seminoles to expel from their native lands. It’s incredibly gritty and well crafted and hints at a moral darkness in the heart of the soldiers’ commanding officer, a man gone mad by his hatred of Native Americans. To that extent, Seminole is very much part of the western genre, although the story takes place in Florida, not Arizona.
Directed by Budd Boetticher, best known for his taut western films starring Randolph Scott, Seminole features Rock Hudson as Lt. Lance Caldwell, an upstanding young army officer who believes in peaceful accommodation with the Seminole tribe. At every turn, he is denigrated and opposed by his commanding officer, Major Degan (Richard Carlson), a scheming, duplicitous man consumed with hate and venom.
The Seminoles also have their own internal disputes. The Seminole leader, Osceola (Anthony Quinn in a less than stellar performance), must face down the warmongers among his own people. To no one’s surprise, Osceola and Caldwell have known each other since they were children and are divided not just in political allegiances, but also by their affection for the same woman, Revere Muldoon (Barbara Hale).
Altogether, Seminole is distinguished not so much by its cinematography or acting, but by its humanism. The Seminoles, who aren’t portrayed as mindless warriors, bend over backwards for peace with the U.S. Army. While at times the movie can at times feel just a tad too preachy, it’s nevertheless a welcome reminder that not all Hollywood films from the early 1950s portrayed Native Americans as nothing more than enemies in the way of white settlement. In this Boetticher film, the story is far more complex.
Well, this is it. No more will Mike (Byrden) turn to Reg (Wexford) with a look of bewilderment and/or irritation. At least I’ve seen ger (Rendell[ quoted as saying it’s probably the kast, but these things aren’t chiseled in stone.
The book opens with one of Wexford’s minions, off-duty and taking care of personal business, being fatally shot in a bank robbery. The criminals are not apprehended. Several months later and not too far away, a aged and prominent writer, her husband, and her daughter are killed, and her granddaughter badly wounded, by intruders. Are the crimes connected? What do you think? How? Ah, therein lies the story.
As always, Rendell’s focus is on people rather than clues, and she creates a satisfying group of none-too-attractive ones here with her skewer-like pen. At one point I was ready to indict her for snobbery because of the unremitting unsavoriness of her lower-class characters, and then I realized that no, it’s not just them; just about all of these people are unpleasant (Including Wexford’s actress daughter, but that’s nothing new; she’s been an ass for as long as we‘ve known her).
On my more optimistic days I suspect that Rendell is a misanthrope; mostly I fear she is an accurate observer of the human condition.
Though she is an excellent writer, I am not a real Rendell fan (under either name) apart from the Wexford books; primarily, I expect, because I do not care for the people about whom she writes, or the situations in which she places them.
And really, this is not the best Wexford. I began to suspect much of the outcome far too early, and found the resolution of Wexford’s problems with his besotted daughter(she is such a twit) far too pat Still. even a mediocre Wexford book beats a lot of the tripe being published and shouldn’t be missed — particularly if there are to be no more. Recommended.
— Reprinted from Fireman, Fireman, Save My Books #2, July 1992.
Editorial Update: Barry was not to know, but this was not the last the world saw of Inspector Wexford. I do not know how reliable the rumors were at the time, but the sixteenth in the series, Simisola, came out two years later, followed by eight more. No Man’s Nightingale (2013) is, however, all but certain to be the last. Ms Rendell died earlier this year at the age of 85.
ALAN THOMAS – The Death of Laurence Vining. Benn, UK, hardcover, 1928. Harrap, UK, reprint hardcover, 1931. Lippincott, US, hardcover, 1929. A. L. Burt, US, reprint hardcover, no date stated.
My copy of this hard-to-find locked room mystery is the Harrap reprint, and I see there’s another copy of this same edition offered for sale on the Internet with a $90 asking price. Otherwise you’ll have to come up with $200 and change for one copy I found of each of the Lippincott and Burt editions.
I don’t think it’s worth even the $90, but there are some factors that make it worth talking about. The first I’ve already mentioned. The victim seems to have walked into a London tube station, taken a life down to the platform below, and when the gate opens, he’s found dead, stabbed to death in a way that suicide is out of the question, lying against the side of the compartment.
Another aspect of this book that makes this interesting is that the dead man is a consulting detective who often offers his services to Scotland Yard, Ã la Sherlock Holmes. Laurence Vining is (or was), according to some, the “incarnation of the devil.” He solved his cases with no sympathies for the perpetrators of the crimes, no matter the circumstances they had found themselves in. He lived in a non-compassionate, black and white world, making enemies of nearly everyone whose paths he crossed, including his own servants and limited family.
Dr. Ben Willing, on the other hand, a long time friend of Vining who traveled with him on his cases, is quite the opposite, capable of seeing the human side behind the unfortunates who ran afoul of Vining’s investigations. And of course it feels quite natural for Willing to offer his services to Inspector Widgeon in solving the murder of his long time friend, to which the policeman from Scotland Yard most willingly accepts.
This is a unique twist on the Holmes-Watson stories that I don’t recall coming across before. Thomas is no Conan Doyle, but except for having problems adequately explaining the layout of elevators in England in the late 1920s to readers in the US almost 90 years later on, he acquits himself well.
The locked room aspect, I am happy to say, is most cleverly done, but it is so intricately planned that it takes 33 pages and a diagram to explain. Books such as this one are exceedingly fun to read, but one does wonder why a blow on the head on a very dark night wouldn’t do just as well.
Alan Thomas has 16 entries in Al Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV, half of them indicated as having only marginal crime content. Inspector Widgeon appears in one other of them, Death of the Home Secretary (Benn, 1929), and Bob Adey’s book on Locked Room Mysteries includes another in that category by Thomas, The Tremayne Case (Benn, 1929). Both of these titles are equally scarce, but not as pricey as this Vining one.
17 MOMENTS OF SPRING. Gorky Film Studios, USSR, TV Mini-Series, 12 x 70m episodes, 1973. Original title: Semnadtsat mgnoveniy vesny. Vyacheslav Tikonov, Oleg Tabakov, Rotoslav Plyatt, Yekterina Gradova. Narrated by Yefim Kopelyan. Screenplay by Yulian Semyenov, based on his own novel. Director: Tatyana Lioznova.
A man and an elderly lady stand in the wood and discuss the beauty of nature and the glory of spring after a long winter. We are in Germany, outside Berlin in February 1945 in the last days of WWII and it has indeed been a long winter.
The man, Mr. Bolyan, is also Standartenfuherer Otto Von Stirlitz, a decorated and trusted intelligence officer in the SS who has the ears of Walter Shellenberg a popular and important officer with ties to Hitler, the general staff, and Reichmarshall Himmler of the SS. Darkly handsome and Nordic, Stirlitz seems the perfect Nazi and for six years he has been. For six years he has buried his real identity as Colonel Maxim Isayev of Soviet Intelligence while working in German intelligence and rising to an important position in SS intelligence.
So begins the low key Soviet spy drama from 1973 that brought to life the adventures of Stirlitz, the creation of novelist Yulian Semyenov in a twelve part mini-series that rocked Soviet television and popular entertainment to its core. Power shortages happened whenever 17 Moments of Spring aired because ninety percent of television sets in Russia were tuned to Stirlitz’s adventures. Even today Stirlitz jokes are common in post Soviet Russia (and simply don’t translate into English — I tried) mostly drawing on the dour deliberate Stirlitz glacial resolve to show no emotion whatsoever and his plodding ways.
Yulian Semyenov was the Russian Ian Fleming, like his British counterpart a journalist with intelligence ties from the war and well known by his superiors. His creation, known as Stirlitz rather than Isayev, is no James Bond however. Stirlitz is stoic, sexless, dour, brooding, self sacrificing (at one point he sees his wife he has not seen for six years and cannot reveal himself and we are treated to three minutes of baleful sad eyes), and there is precious little violence in his adventures.
That isn’t to say Semyenov was unaware of Fleming and Bond. One of his novels about Stirlitz is called Diamonds for the Revolution of the Proletariat, in which the young Isayev is assigned to find the jewels of the Royal family that have gone missing after their execution and which are needed to fuel the new Soviet Republic, you have to wonder since that Republic certainly wasn’t forever, about the Fleming influence.
Some of the novels were even printed in English, at least one as by Julian Semyenov even getting into an American paperback edition, but far and away 17 Moments of Spring is the best known of his works and Strilitz adventures, covering, as the title suggests, in semi documentary style, seventeen days in early spring 1945 as Strilitz strives to uncover transcripts of talks between the Western allies, England and the United States, with the crumbling panicked Nazi elite, Soviet paranoia under Stalin at least providing the McGuffin for a deliberate but fairly fascinating documentary style spy drama populated with a spate of historical characters on both sides.
The project came into being during the period of detente, when things loosened up considerably and even a James Bond film or two got into the hands of Soviet elites. While there is a clear implication the West is not always up to any good in relation to the Soviets (and that was a two-way street in reality) the real bad guys are the Nazis and it takes a surprisingly soft middle ground stance on the role of the West, certainly giving credit where it is due despite the McGuffin about possible Western double dealing (in truth, by that point the West would not have settled the war with anything but unconditional surrender, but you have to give a spy story it’s McGuffin — nonsense or not — certainly there were those in the West arguing to save what was left of Germany to turn against the Russians). In short, the propaganda isn’t noticeably intrusive.
Vyacheslav Tikhonov as Stirlitz and Oleg Tabakov as Shellenberg are the stand out performances here, a subtle cat-and-mouse game underway as Stirlitz falls under suspicion and the inevitable end of the Reich puts every nerve on edge as rats either try to desert the sinking ship or fanatics refuse to see the truth. Shellenberg is presented as a charming ruthless Nazi who nonetheless sees the writing on the wall and that it is increasing late to save anything including his own neck.
While Semyenov and Stirlitz are pretty much it for Cold War Soviet spy fiction from Russia for something livelier, you might seek out the adventures of Boris Stolitzy, a smart charming hard drinking and womanizing KGB agent whose Cold War adventures were penned by a Finnish writer and who bore a resemblance to later 007 outings in that his adventures never really seemed to pit him against the West. Since the fall of the Soviet Union mystery and thriller fiction is somewhat livelier than before with writers like Boris Akkunin, but still far from well known here.
Currently BBC 4 Extra is airing The Soviet James Bond, a half hour documentary about Semyenov and Stirlitz, and the complete series of 17 Moments of Spring can be seen on YouTube with English subtitles. It’s worth watching one episode just to see how the other side did it, and in its quiet way it is surprisingly like a John Le Carre tale crossed with early spy dramas like The House on 92nd Street and Walk East on Beacon Street. Actually it is considerably less leftist than Le Carre to be brutally honest resembling one of those politically uneasy WWII flag-wavers where the Soviets are reluctantly embraced as Allies.
APACHE DRUMS. Universal International, 1951. Stephen McNally, Coleen Gray, Willard Parker, Arthur Shields, James Griffith, Armando Silvestre, James Best and Clarence Muse. Written by David Chandler, from “Stand at Spanish Boot†by Harry Brown (as stated in the credits; no record of publication known). Produced by Val Lewton. Directed by Hugo Fregonese.
The last film and only Western of a legendary producer, this is more Val Lewton’s film than director Fregonese’s or writer Chandler’s. The whole approach — a mostly-unseen menace and gradually growing tension, punctuated by moments of shock and horror — harks back to classics like The Seventh Victim and I Walked with a Zombie.
Which is a good thing, because as a Western, it ain’t much. Director Hugo Fregonese (Man in the Attic, Savage Pampas, etc.) was always a reliable craftsman, but not much more. In his hands, the fights, chases etc. are capably done but strangely unexciting. What makes Apache Drums memorable is Lewton’s feel for the characters and their growing sense of entrapment.
And the characters are a well-realized lot. Stephen McNally headlines as a raffish gambler run out of town, who returns to warn the disbelieving townsfolk of imminent danger; Coleen Gray, memorable in Red River and The Killing, shows genuine indecision about her feelings for him, while Willard Parker projects stolid blandness as the thudding voice of authority.
In the supporting cast, Arthur Shields plays yet another reverend, but more complex than usual this time, subject to serious errors of judgment balanced by acts of courage. James Griffith is fine as a smarter-than-usual cavalry officer, and Clarence Muse brings real dignity and pathos to a small part — as he always did.
The solid characterizations keep Apache Drums watchable, even in the dull stretches, and when the scary parts come, with the townspeople trapped in an old church, unable to see the drum-beating attackers till they leap in from overhead like harpies, the tension really ratchets up. And there’s a truly nightmarish bit toward the end with Willard Parker a captive of the Apaches, locked outside the church, unseen from inside, screaming at everyone not to let him in!
I guess Val Lewton will always be remembered for those remarkable films at RKO, but Apache Drums is a fitting, if minor, coda to a great career.
I, MONSTER. Amicus Productions, 1971. Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Mike Raven, Richard Hurndall, Susan Jameson. Director: Stephen Weeks.
There are moments in I, Monster, an Amicus film based on and inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde where Christopher Lee is at the absolute top of his game.
One early scene in particular comes to mind immediately. It’s when his character, the psychologist Charles Marlowe, scalpel in his hand, cradles one of his lab rats and eerily mimics the rat’s facial expressions. Of course, at that point, Marlowe (Lee) isn’t all Marlowe. He’s also Marlowe’s alter ego, the barbaric Edward Blake.
And that’s by far the best thing that I, Monster has going for it: Lee in a dual role as Marlowe/Blake, wherein the famed British actor gets to demonstrate just how well he can portray screen villains.
Unfortunately, however, this lesser known entry in Lee’s vast filmography suffers from a decidedly mediocre, if not tedious, script that does little to keep the viewer fully engaged with the story.
Even worse, as much as it pains me to say this, Peter Cushing’s presence in the film is just underwhelming. Sure, it’s great to see Lee and Cushing go at each other in the final sequence. But it’s simply not enough to make I, Monster more of a missed opportunity rather than the cult film it might have been.
GEORGE A. BIRMINGHAM – The Hymn Tune Mystery. Metheun, UK, hardcover, 1930; Bobbs Merrill, US, hardcover, 1931.
As the Dean of Carminster Cathedral is seeking solace in the Cathedral from his daughter’s harassment, the not-abstemious organist is playing, and playing well. Then the drink apparently catches up with him, and he collapses head first on the keyboard. Or so the Dean supposes, until it is discovered that the organist had fallen backwards, struck his head, and died from a heart attack.
Feeling guilty and suspected of becoming senile by his daughter and the Archdeacon, the Dean takes to his bed, otherwise the inquest might have had a different outcome. But things begin to heat up when the representative (Special) of the Harpsichord Company arrives seeking a musical manuscript that doesn’t appear to exist, and when the organist’s girlfriend, described by the Dean’s butler as “a young person” — and we know what that means — ostensibly comes hunting the letters she wrote to the organist.
Fortunately, the young precentor, the Rev. John Dennis, is somewhat alert and not a respecter of authority. He aids the police and breaks the musical cryptogram in a delightfully amusing novel.
Bibliographic Notes: George Birmingham was the pen name of James Owen Hannay, (1865-1950), and the author of 19 books and story collections listed in Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin. Many of these are indicated as only borderline criminous, however.
In Catalogue of Crime, Barzun and Taylor describe this book as “a delight” with “intelligence, humor, character and prose in equipoise,” with Inspector Smallways eventually taking over the case, apparently his only appearance in print.
Another book, Wild Justice, they describe as a “straightforward English country house murder,” even though they hasten to point out that it actually takes place in Ireland.
Editorial Thanks: You may have noticed that Bill Deeck’s reviews are back. I’d run out of my own supply of them, but thanks to Richard Moore, who has provided me hard copies of pages from his stack of back issues of Mystery Readers Journal; and especially to Janet Rudolph, editor and publisher of MRJ for 30 years now, who has given me permission to reprint Bill’s reviews from her zine, which I highly recommend to you (see the link above), I’m sure I’m supplied now through the end of this year.
RICHARD N. SMITH – Death Be Nimble. Signet, paperback original; 1st printing, February 1967.
Here’s a book I’ve had since just about forever. I may have even purchased it new, but it would have been a long time ago, so I’m not so certain about that. It’s a private eye novel, so I’ve always meant to read it, and when a spare copy came along and I had it hand, I decided that its turn had finally come.
I don’t know, but back in 1967 I might have liked this book, but reading and finishing it these past couple of nights, just before going to sleep, I can find nothing in of interest in it to tell you about, other than of course that it’s a private eye novel.
His name is John Kincaid, and he works in the Boston area. He’s by a anonymous client who send him an invitation (along with $500 in cash) to a fancy party at a Yacht Club. He is, after all, known as the Boston area’s “society detective.” There he meets a good-looking redhead, who mysteriously disappears on him just before the wife of the man hosting the affair is found floating in the harbor. Somehow he also finds a small fortune in jewelry in his pocket. He immediately throws it overboard. Wouldn’t you?
So, OK, the opening is not all that bad. He never meets the person who sent him the invitation, but he’s hired the next day by the husband of the woman who fell or was pushed overboard. Kincaid assumes that what the man really wants him to do is frame his wife’s brother for the killing
After that there follows nothing but a series of dumb PI cliches; to wit: the brother-in-law objects to Kincaid hanging around; a gangster and his goons beat Kincaid up; Kincaid narrowly misses death from some adulterated suntan lotion; the previous mentioned redhead runs hot and cold before declaring her love for him; Kincaid is taken for a ride, but instead opens the car door, jumps out, and turns the table on the previously mentioned goons; and the real killer comes after Kincaid with a gun, but Kincaid turns the table on the killer…
Sorry. Maybe I’ve told you more than you want to know. None of the characters are given any motivation as to why they do anything, and Kincaid himself is nothing more than the person telling the story, without a whit of anything interesting to say about himself.
This was his only adventure to ever have been published. I probably wouldn’t have cared for it back in 1967 either.
Devoted to mystery and detective fiction — the books, the films, the authors, and those who read, watch, collect and make annotated lists of them. All uncredited posts are by me, Steve Lewis.