ALAN BRADLEY – Speaking from Among the Bones. Delacorte Press, hardcover, January 2013.

Genre:  Amateur sleuth. Leading character:   Flavia de Luce, 5th in series. Setting:  England, 1950s.

First Sentence:   Blood dripped from the neck of the severed head and fell in a drizzle of red raindrops, clotting into a ruby pool upon the black and white tiles.

   Pre-teen Flavia de Luce is excited about the opening of the 500-year-old tomb of Saint Tancred and is determined to witness the event. However, the first body uncovered, is that of Mr. Collicutt, the church organist — dead, wearing a gas mask. With her skill at chemistry, detection and a little help, Flavia has yet another murder to solve.

   From the beginning, it is clear that Flavia is a delightful, unusual protagonist. She is 14 and wonderfully irreverent. When discussing how to get a bat out of one of the church organ’s pipes, her suggestion is for her sister to “…play Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor? Full throttle. That out to fix the little sod.”

   One cannot help but love her. She is an outsider in her own family. She is brilliant, yet has her insecurities. Her sisters have told her she’s adopted so she collects samples of everyone’s blood to test for matching. Her best friends are Gladys, her bicycle which she anthropomorphizes; and Dogger, the shell-shocked soldier who was with her father during WWII and now works for the family. There is such a wonderful bond between Dogger and Flavia. She is daring, but not fearless.

   It cannot be overlooked that an older man has created such a vibrant, and realistic, young character. In an interview, he talks about how children of that age are undervalued and too much overlooked, yet it’s a wonderful age as they are just on the cusp of adulthood.

   The story is told in first person and Bradley has such a wonderful voice… “Whenever I’m a little blue I think about cyanide, whose color so perfectly reflects my mood.”

   The story is very much character-driven. The series started when Flavia was 11 years old; she is now 14 and we are starting to see her mature. However, those who come
into the series late needn’t worry. Bradley provides sufficient back story for each of the
characters for new readers to know who they are and the relationships between. He also introduces a fascinating new character in the shape of a flora archeologist with a Rolls Royce named Nancy.

   Bradley has a wonderful eye for detail and period. He provides us with a real sense of post-war England, still in the stages of uncertainty about the future. He is also able to make chemistry fascinating.

   Although character drives the story, the plot doesn’t at all suffer for it. We are taken down curious and shadowy paths. We, mistakenly, think we know where we are going, and we’re wrong. We’re given a delightful dessert filled with fascinating tidbits of information, suspense, resolution and a whopping cliffhanger — but not in a bad way — iced with humor and emotion.

   Speaking from Among the Bones lags just a touch in the middle, but finishes with a roar. It is a wonderful book and now ranks among my favorites of the series.

Rating: VG Plus.

      The Flavia de Luce series —

1. The Sweetness At the Bottom of the Pie (2009)

2. The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag (2010)
3. A Red Herring Without Mustard (2011)
4. I Am Half Sick of Shadows (2011)
5. Speaking From Among the Bones (2013)
6. The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches (2014)

JONATHAN VALIN – The Lime Pit. Dodd Mead, hardcover, 1980. Avon, paperback, 1981. Dell, paperback, 1994.

   Somehow Sherlock Holmes is seldom if ever thought of as a private detective. He seems instead to be intellectually above all that, while of course in reality he was never averse to receiving a fee for his services. And so the fact remains that investigators-for-hire have been around for nearly as long as there’s been mystery fiction. It wasn’t until Dashiell Hammett came along, however, with his Sam Spade, the Continental Op and other detectives, that the private eye story was brought down to street level where it belongs, so to speak.

   In degrees of depravity and perversity, here is a book tougher and rougher than any of Hammett’s, by far, but of course you do have to realize that this is several generations of consciousness-raising later. Some of the scenes that occur in the course of Harry Stoner’s search for a missing girl would undoubtedly make a Marquis de Sade at least momentarily queasy.

   Nor is Valin the new Raymond Chandler — the first chapter in particular seems desperately overwritten — but as a more than capable wordsmith he learns quickly. Once begun it’s easy to find yourself vicariously trapped in the grimier depths of Cincinnati’s dingier sections, uncovering with private eye Stoner a hidden underground world of predatory sex and bloodseeking violence.

   Stoner is hired by a dirty old man whose 16-year-old living companion has run away. He has pictures of her, of the kind not sold under counters, but in back rooms only. Harry fears the worst.

   As a rescuer, Stoner is deliberately not cast in the Travis McGee philosophy/fantasy mold. The job is hopeless, and he knows it, yet he’s idealist enough to continue hunting for those responsible for whatever’s happened to Cindy Ann. His romantic liaison with a waitress named Jo is enjoyable, but it is not likely to continue with the success that Robert Parker’s Spenser has found with Susan Silverman.

   The key intended here instead is realism. The activities taking place in The Lime Pit may not always be wholly appetizing, but they are morbidly fascinating. And while Harry Stoner may be the consummate iconoclast in many regards, he’s still a superb example of the closest thing we have today to a knight in shining armor.

Rating:  A minus.

Editorial Comment:   My review of Final Notice, which you can find here on this blog, includes more discussion of the author and a complete list of the Harry Stoner books, of which The Lime Pit was the first.

MISS FANE’S BABY IS STOLEN. Paramount, 1934. Dorothea Wieck, Alice Brady, Baby Leroy, Burton Churchill, William Frawley, Alan Hale, Spanky McFarland, Dorothy Burgess. Based on the story “Kidnapt” by Rupert Hughes, Cosmopolitan, 10 November 1933. Director: Alexander Hall. Shown at Cinefest 19, Syracuse NY, March 1999.

   German actress Wieck plays a film star whose infant son stolen by surly Hale, nervous LaRue and bored Burgess. Brady plays the spunky farm wife who retrieves the child and escapes the band of inept crooks in as improbable a car chase as you will ever see this side of the Keystone Kops. A minor diversion that was the initial screening of the convention.

ELLIS PETERS – One Corpse Too Many. Morrow, US, hardcover, 1980. First published by Macmillan, UK, hardcover, 1979. Fawcett Crest, US, paperback, 1981; several other reprint editions, in both hardcover and soft.

   For a fine literate change of pace from your standard big city police procedural or private eye yarn, you could do worse than to try this, the latest mystery adventure to be tackled and solved by the 12th century’s answer to Sherlock Holmes, Brother Cadfael of Shrewsbury Abbey.

   Stop and think about it. One of the prime requirements of the detective story is that of bringing the murderer to justice, before both God and man. In the year 1138 who else would there be but a devoutly dedicated monk to carry out such a task?

   Assigned to burial detail after King Stephen’s successful siege of the rebellious Castle Foregate, Cadfael discovers that he cannot account for an extra body among those of ninety-four other condemned prisoners. Without a little urging on his part, it couldn’t be made clearer that the distinction between a murder and an execution would have otherwise escaped the minds of those in power completely.

   The plot is thicker than it seems, romance is determined to bloom even under the worst of conditions, and Cadfael is a solid man of the earth who realizes that God’s will may not always be done as honest men would see fit. He makes an ideal detective.

PostScript.   One Corpse Too Many was the second of the Brother Cadfael mysteries, the first being A Morbid Taste for Bones (1977/78). In an interview conducted by Ellen Nehr in 1991, Ellis Peters revealed that the first book was intended to be a one off, not the beginning of a series that turned out to be 13 books long.

THE WHOLE TOWN’S TALKING. Columbia, 1935. Edward G. Robinson, Jean Arthur, Arthur Hohl, James Donlan, Arthur Byron, Wallace Ford, Donald Meek, Etienne Girardot. Director: John Ford.

   I waited a long time for The Whole Town’s Talking to come out on Video, and then it reminded me of my experiences with Spillane and James Hadley Chase: I wanted to like it a lot, but found myself disappointed,

   The Whole Town’s Talking (not to be confused with People Will Talk or The Talk of the Town) has some impressive credentials indeed: A Gangster/Comedy film with Edward G. Robinson and Jean Arthur, based on a story by W. R. Burnett and directed by none other than John Ford, not shown on television in years, so you can imagine how I looked forward to it.

   Turns out, though, to be an unimaginative little comedy, revolving around a meek clerk, played by Robinson, who resembles a Dillinger-like desperado, also played by Robinson, and the supposedly comic complications this has on his life. There’s a lot of Capra-esque business about poor little Edward G, abused by uncaring bosses and local politicos, and the presence of Jean Arthur pushes it even further into Capra territory.

   The film also features on performances by two supreme milquetoasts of the cinema, Etienne Girardot and Donald Meek, who actually share an all-too-short scene together. Unfortunately, the whole thing revolves around a character who never seems to do very much; the story just sort of moves — slowly — along without him… and without engendering too much interest.

LESLEY ANDRESS – Caper. Putnam, hardcover, 1980. Pocket, paperback, December 1980. Also published as by Lawrence Sanders: Berkley, paperback, 1987.

   Her publisher unhappy about her recent lack-lustre production of mystery thrillers, Jannie Shean, also known as Chuck Thorndyke, Mike Cantrell, and yes, God help us, Brick Wall, among others, faces a crisis in her career. Her books need more reality, she is told. Others tell her they need what you usually don’t find happening in real life. Tidy endings, she is advised. No loose ends.

   In the pursuit and name of reality, she plans her own crime. A jewel heist, complete with a new blonde identity and a crew of several more-than-willing recruits. Events take a sudden expected twist, however, and she’s trapped into pulling it off. The mob gets involved, a dullish sort of book finally becomes exciting, and the chase is on.

   Some moralizing about the freedom of amorality and the forced awareness of a life on the run does not cloud the fact that crime is a serious business, and one not entirely suited nor meant for amateurs. No tidy endings here. By book’s end, the story has gone downhill badly. Running out of gas (figuratively) may be the ultimate realism, perhaps, but I’ve somehow never found it particularly satisfying.

[UPDATE] 06-02-13.   It was not known at the time I wrote this review that Andress was a pen name of Lawrence Sanders. (Note the anagram of his last name!) It was the only book he wrote under this nom-de-plume. Sanders was an extremely popular author in the 1970s, 80s and early 90s, but every library sale I’ve gone to in recent years seems to have had tons of his books on the tables and still unsold at sale’s end.

MURRAY THOMAS – Buzzards Pick the Bones. Longmans Green, UK, hardcover, 1932.

   Five years earlier Tom Carr, on holiday in Wales and walking the Cader Idris range, had come upon a man apparently deranged. One year after that he had been told that a skeleton had been discovered at the point he had encountered the man. Now he has read that another skeleton has been found at the same spot. Neither of the skeletons has been identified.

   With the hope of getting more information about the skeletons, Carr and his friend Stephen go to Wales. In so doing they are probably responsible for yet another corpse, this one freshly made.

   A fairly interesting beginning, with some fine writing about the Welsh mountains, but the murderer, though not his motive, is evident early on and Carr’s falling in love slows down what was never a fast pace. The main saving grace to be found is Rumbold, Carr’s valet, who is not the detective in the novel but definitely could have been. As Rumbold puts it:

   Stephen, who is a poet, theorizes that when historians seek England’s mentality in the early 20th century they will turn to Edgar Wallace and the “fourpenny bloods — the Sexton Blakes and the like.” While I would dispute that, there is something to another of his contentions: “Death is the preoccupation of great minds, a death its relaxation — when served up in stories of detection and mystery.”

      The Inspector Wilkins series —

Buzzards Pick the Bones. Longmans, UK, 1932.
Inspector Wilkins Sees Red. Jenkins, UK, 1934.
Inspector Wilkins Reads the Proofs. Jenkins, UK, 1935.

Below are this summer’s original scripted mystery series with a link to its home page or press release. Any additions are welcomed. Times subject to change.

        JUNE

Sunday 2nd:

THE KILLING – AMC – 9PM

http://www.amctv.com/shows/the-killing

VENTURE BROTHERS –CARTOON NETWORK (Adult Swim) 12 Midnight

http://video.adultswim.com/the-venture-bros

Tuesday, June 4th:

MAIGRET – MHz Worldview International

http://www.mhznetworks.org/series/maigret

Thursday 6th:

BURN NOTICE – USA – 9PM

http://www.usanetwork.com/series/burnnotice

GRACELAND – USA – 10PM

http://www.usanetwork.com/series/graceland

Friday 7th:

CONTINUUM – SYFY – 10PM

http://www.syfy.com/continuum

Saturday 8th:

SINBAD – SYFY – 9PM

http://www.syfy.com/sinbad

Sunday, June 9th:

IRENE HUSS – MHz Worldview International

http://www.mhznetwork.org/series/irene-huss

Monday 10th:

MAJOR CRIMES – TNT – 9PM

http://www.tntdrama.com/series/majorcrimes

KING AND MAXWELL – TNT – 10PM

http://www.tntdrama.com/series/king-and-maxwell

Tuesday 11th:

TWISTED – ABC FAMILY – 9PM

http://beta.abcfamily.go.com/shows/twisted

Friday 14th:

MAGIC CITY – STARZ

http://www.starz.com/originals/magic-city

NTSF: SD: SUV – CARTOON NETWORK (Adult Swim) 12 Midnight

http://video.adultswim.com/ntsfsdsuv/

Saturday 15th:

ZERO HOUR – ABC – 8PM

http://beta.abc.go.com/shows/zero-hour

Sunday 16th:

INSPECTOR LEWIS – PBS – 9PM

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/programs/inspector-lewis

Saturday 22nd:

666 PARK AVENUE – ABC – 9PM

http://beta.abc.go.com/shows/666-park-avenue

Sunday 23rd:

WHODUNNIT – ABC – 9PM – (GAME)

http://beta.abc.go.com/shows/whodunnit

CROSSING LINES – NBC – 9PM

http://www.nbc.com/crossing-lines

COPPER – BBC AMERICA – 10PM

http://www.bbcamerica.com/copper

Tuesday 25th:

RIZZOLI & ISLES – TNT – 9PM

http://www.tntdrama.com/series/rizzoli-and-isles

PERCEPTION – TNT – 10PM

http://www.tntdrama.com/series/perception

Friday 28th:

CULT – CW – 8PM (two episodes a night)

http://www.cwtv.com/shows/cult

Saturday 29th:

DO NO HARM – NBC – 10PM

http://www.nbc.com/do-no-harm

Sunday 30th:

DEXTER – SHOWTIME – 9PM

http://www.sho.com/sho/dexter/home

RAY DONOVAN – SHOWTIME – 10PM

http://www.sho.com/sho/ray-donovan/home

       JULY

Monday 1st:

SIBERIA – NBC – 10PM

http://www.thefutoncritic.com/showatch/siberia

(Press release on right side)

NOTE: this is currently not on NBC.com list of shows. It may have been pulled.

Sunday 7th:

ENDEAVOUR – PBS – 9PM

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/programs/endeavour

Wednesday 10th:

THE BRIDGE – FX – 10PM

http://www.fxnetworks.com/thebridge

Thursday 11th:

ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK – NETFLIX

http://www.thefutoncritic.com/showatch/orange-is-the-new-black

(Press release on right side)

Tuesday 16th:

COVERT AFFAIRS – USA – 9PM

http://www.usanetwork.com/series/covertaffairs

SUITS – USA – 10PM

http://www.usanetwork.com/series/suits

Friday 19th:

BRAQUE – HULU

http://www.hulu.com/braquo

Saturday 20th:

CEDAR COVE – HALLMARK – 8PM

http://www.hallmarkchannel.com/cedarcove

Sunday 28th:

UNFORGETTABLE – CBS – 9PM

http://www.cbs.com/shows/unforgettable

       AUGUST

Saturday 3rd:

HELL ON WHEELS – AMC – 9PM

http://www.amctv.com/shows/hell-on-wheels

Wednesday 7th:

BROADCHURCH – BBC AMERICA – 10PM

http://www.bbcamerica.com/broadchurch

Sunday 11th:

BREAKING BAD – AMC – 9PM

http://www.amctv.com/shows/breaking-bad

LOW WINTER SUN – AMC – 10PM

http://www.amctv.com/shows/low-winter-sun

Monday 12th:

QUICK DRAW – HULU

http://www.hulu.com/quick-draw

Sunday 25:

SILK – PBS – 9PM

http://www.thefutoncritic.com/showatch/silk

(Press release on right side)

       SUMMER (DATE TBA)

STRIKE BACK – CINEMAX

http://www.cinemax.com/strike-back

THE HUNTERS. 20th Century-Fox, 1958. Robert Mitchum, Robert Wagner, Richard Egan, May Britt. Based on a novel by James Salter. Director: Dick Powell.

   Dick Powell, former pretty boy film leading man, directed a Korean War-era actioner about heroism, duty, and self-sacrifice. Unfortunately The Hunters spends far too much time on the ground wallowing in soap opera clichés and not enough in the air.

   Robert Mitchum plays a World War II fighter pilot retread who has volunteered to fly F-86 Sabres against Russian-made (and sometimes Russian-manned) MiG-15’s in what the United Nations and the U.S. State Department wanted to call a “police action” — but, as this movie makes clear, was a war.

   (Then, as now, the rules of engagement [ROE] favored the enemy — if the Red pilots got into trouble, they could always skeedaddle for the border and sanctuary. Just a decade later, American aviators were encumbered with similar limitations in the Vietnam War. At least one pilot in Nam, Col. Jack Broughton, let the world know about it in two books: Thud Ridge and Going Downtown.)

   Gradually, Mitchum falls in love with the wife of one of his subordinates, and she reciprocates. The fact that her husband is a coward at heart and is willing to let Mitchum have her in exchange for a favor almost pushes this film over the top. Only Mitchum’s integrity saves this sticky situation from unadulterated bathos.

   What he does towards the movie’s finale — going that extra mile that honor demands to save the man he’d easily be justified in leaving to the tender mercies of the Communists — elevates his character from merely a superior officer charged with responsibilities to out-and-out hero. His nonchalance after having resolved the dilemma is fun to watch.

   Also nearly over the top is Paul Sawtell’s opening musical score, a riff (or, if you prefer, a rip-off) of Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.” Somehow, though, it seems appropriate.

   Speaking of Wagner, then teen heart throb Robert Wagner steals every scene he’s in as a hot-shot throttle jockey whose recklessness costs the life of his wingman. Once Mitchum straightens him out — with a satisfying punch to the jaw — he becomes more of a menace to the Reds than his own guys.

   The main problem with The Hunters is its tendency to slide into clichés: the love triangle, the eager beaver who’s as much of a threat as the enemy at times, the would-be warrior who’s a coward when you come down to it. A better script coupled with those fine aerial sequences (see, for example, The Bridges at Toko-Ri) would have made this film a winner. The acting is first rate, with everybody convincing in their roles (although I do find May Britt rather weak in that department).

   As it is, if you can get past the sloppy melodrama, you should find The Hunters quite entertaining. If you happen to own the video, watch it through once and the next time fast forward to the flying scenes. They’re easily the best part of the movie.

ROYCE HOWES – The Case of the Copy-Hook Killing. E. P. Dutton, hardcover, 1945.

   Howes started out with a bang as a mystery writer. In the five years between 1935 and 1939 he wrote seven novels, all published by Doubleday and the Crime Club. Then the war came along, and Howes, a newspaperman, did any further writing in the ETO for the Army News Service — information provided, incidentally, by the back flap on the dust jacket. (If you’re like me, you’ll read anything.)

   Both Howes and his leading character, Captain Ben Lucias of the Homicide Squad, returned from the war in 1945. Lucias had been in five of the Crime Club books, but this was the last outing for both of them. Why it was done for Dutton instead of Doubleday, I don’t know, but I can guess. As a mystery, it’s Not Very Good.

   But, a copy-hook? I hear someone asking. A copy-hook is what one of those sharp steel spikes are called that reporters used to use to file their stories on. The scene, naturally enough, is a newspaper office, and it’s the reception clerk who’s been murdered. He was the guy whose job it was to keep the nuts coming in from the street from off the editors’ backs.

   And so Lucias’ ensuing investigation has him busily checking out the crackpots and all the other assorted creeps who saw the dead man last. It’s obvious that Howes knew the type well. He laughs at them, and if his characters reflect his own opinions at all, he despises them as much as they do.

   What is equally obvious is that the solution to the murder has nothing to do with this list of weirdos that Lucias has to work his way through. But downright distasteful, however, is Captain Lucias’ interrogation technique. Slugging a prisoner around in police headquarters is not likely to have been a remarkable occurrence back during the forties, long before today’s attempt at enlightened police procedures had begun to make some headway.

   It’s just that it’s difficult for me to recall it being done by a series character in police uniform before, one supposedly functioning as a competent detective, as well as one trying to maintain the respect of the reader.

     The Captain Ben Lucias series —

Death Dupes a Lady. Doubleday, 1937.

Night of the Garter Murder. Doubleday, 1937.
Murder at Maneuvers, Doubleday, 1938.
Death Rides a Hobby. Doubleday, 1939.
The Nasty Name Murders. Doubleday, 1939.
The Case of the Copy-Hook Killing. Dutton 1945.

   Howes was also the author of two non-series mysteries, Death on the Bridge (Doubleday, 1935) and The Callao Clue (Doubleday, 1936).

PostScript:  From Wikipedia: “Royce Bucknam Howes (January 3, 1901 – March 18, 1973) was a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author who also published a biography of Edgar Guest and a number of crime novels. He worked for the Detroit Free Press from 1927–1966 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1955 for an editorial on the cause of an unauthorized strike by an autoworkers local that idled 45,000 Chrysler workers.”