HERBERT KERKOW  [VAL LEWTON] – The Fateful Star Murder. Mohawk Press, hardcover, 1931.

   Just about anyone who admires vintage black and white films, in particular those made during the 1940s, is familiar with the name Val Lewton.

   From 1942 to 1946, while head of the horror unit at RKO Pictures, Lewton (born Vladimir Leventon) produced nine memorable films that, despite their low budgets and often lurid, studio-mandated titles, were of considerable quality, including: Cat People and Curse of the Cat People (made even though or possibly because Lewton had a morbid fear and hatred of cats), The Leopard Man, I Walked with a Zombie, and The Seventh Victim.

   Not quite so many aficionados are aware of the fact that Lewton published several novels prior to taking a writing job with MGM in New York and eventually migrating to Hollywood. These appeared under an array of pseudonyms: Cosmo Forbes, Carlos Keith, Herbert Kerkow, and Val Lewton. Most had contemporary settings, at least one was a historical, all were distinguished (if that’s the right word) by their explicit sexual themes, and all are exceedingly scarce.

   Very few people at all, I’ll wager, know that the novel published as by Herbert Kerkow is a detective story. Fortunately, it was Lewton’s only foray into the field. I say fortunately because The Fateful Star Murder is of a distinct alternative bent, though not quite bad enough to join the classic titles at the top, or rather the bottom, level of the pantheon.

   The most interesting thing about this lumbering, disjointed mess of a mystery is its kinky and remarkably graphic (for 1931) sexual content. There are enough lustful elements in its 239 pages to make the stories in the Spicy pulps seem tame by comparison, and to make this reader wonder how the novel managed to escape the wrath and censorship crusades of the era’s blue noses.

   Possibly what saved it was the fact that its publisher, Mohawk Press, was an obscure outfit whose offerings had miniscule printings. (The only other mystery published by Mohawk during its short life was Stuart Palmer’s first and rarest book, the gangster saga Ace of Jades.)

   The “fateful star murder” victim, one Dawn Loyall, is a nymphomaniac who,we are told, is so obsessed and debased that she enjoys sleeping with clients of one of Seaside City’s most notorious whorehouses free of charge. Her nineteen-year-old sister, Sybil, having been deflowered at age 13 by the same sexual predator who deflowered Dawn, is either casually or desperately promiscuous (it isn’t clear which) and in danger of becoming a nympho herself.

   One of the suspects in Dawn’s death by shooting, drowning, and/or poison is the aforementioned sexual predator, a middle-aged politician whose hobby is molesting prepubescent girls. Another suspect is a “cured” sadist who gets his jollies by beating up and burning women of all ages. And one of the nominal protagonists has a girlfriend named Gwenie who operates a whorehouse and is “a queen between the sheets.”

   As if all of this wasn’t enough to satisfy the most prurient reader, there are two gratuitous on-stage sex scenes between Sybil and her newspaperman lover, Maurice Martin, both of which are described in what for its day was explicit detail.

   In the second of these, for good (or bad) measure, Martin coldly and calculatedly interrupts his lovemaking at a crucial moment to accuse Sybil of bumping off her sister.

   The rest of the novel is made up of: Chapters and events that don’t quite connect with one another. Some highly dubious psychological observations and motivations. Ridiculous methods of amateur detection. A questionable explanation of the effects of ricin, the poison extracted from castor beans. The activities of a low-life gangster of (gasp!) Italian extraction, Giacomo the Wop.

   More: A gratuitously poisoned Siamese cat, on the corpse of which the protagonist gleefully performs an autopsy in his office. And some pointless astrological commentary, possibly tossed in to justify the title, for Dawn is said by her mother’s live-in lover to have been“murdered under a fateful star.”

   The autopsy-performing “hero” of the piece is one Luigi Rothmere, an allegedly eminent psychiatrist who thinks nothing of confiding intimate personal details about his patients to anyone who’ll listen, and who predicts Dawn’s violent demise by claiming “the woman who is a spendthrift of her love courts death.”

   He is given to making other “learned” observations throughout, such as this little gem of cerebral insight: “Women are the most savage murderers. Criminology teaches us to look first for a woman when we find that the victim’s body has been brutally mutilated or dismembered.”

   Rothmereis aided in his sleuthing by a pair of newspapermen, neither of whom is introduced until a third of the way through the book. Maurice Martin, Sybil’s lover, a horny columnist who once dreamed of being a “male harlot” so he could have all the women he wanted; and Henry Deal, a dipso reporter so far gone that he needs to consume a quart of brandy in the morning (!) in order to steady his hands so he can tie his tie.

   Dr. Rothmere, Martin, and Deal conduct their investigation by eliminating one suspect after another through mostly illogical reasoning, until only one name is left on the list – the most likely suspect with the least satisfying motive for dispatching Ms. Roundheels.

   Do Rothmere and his cohorts then turn the murderer over to the police for due process? They do not. The good doctor self-righteously knocks off the villain himself to ensure that justice is done, after which his friend, a politically ambitious District Attorney, absolves him of any wrongdoing.

   The pair then collude to officially write off the shooting, drowning, poisoning death of Dawn Loyall as a suicide so as to protect the remaining members of her family.

   And there you have The Fateful Star Murder. An alternative mystery, to be sure. Deserving of only two stars, though, because of a low risibility factor.

   J. F. “John” Norris, whose several posts and many comments you have seen here on this blog over the past couple of months, has begun his own, as of today, and he’s off to a great start. If you’re interested in classic detective fiction and other similar literature from the musty past, I highly recommend it to you — and even if you aren’t!

   Going into more detail about it, he describes his blog as “a foray into the realm of the old-fashioned detective novel, the ghost story and supernatural novel of the Victorian and Edwardian eras, the pulp adventure magazines of the 30s & 40s and similar dusty relics.”

   Along these lines John has already posted reviews of —

The Chinese Parrot – Earl Derr Biggers (1926)
The House of Strange Guests – Nicholas Brady (1932)
Murder on Wheels – Stuart Palmer (1932)
The Saltmarsh Murders – Gladys Mitchell (1932)
The Poison Fly Murder – Harriet Rutland (1940)
The Cut Direct – Alice Tilton (1938)
Death Turns the Tables – John Dickson Carr (1941)

    …but between you and me, I don’t think he can keep up the pace. (He must have storing these up. That’s all I can think of.)

   The full URL is http://prettysinister.blogspot.com/, and you can tell him I sent you.

THE PLOT THICKENS. 1936. James Gleason, ZaSu Pitts, Louise Latimer, Owen Davis Jr., Richard Tucker. Based on a story and characters created by Stuart Palmer. Director: Ben Holmes.

   The role of Hildegarde Withers in this next-to-the-last movie based on her adventures with Inspector Piper was taken over from Edna May Oliver then Helen Broderick by ZaSu Pitts, whose fluttery hands and ways are best taken in small doses. She seems to fit the part, however, given Hollywood’s perspective on the stories.

   This has come up before, and in the meantime I’ve given this some small amount of thought to it — the business of detective stories being made into comedies when converted to the silver screen, especially during the 30s and 40s.

   Maybe it’s because the idea behind the traditional, cozy detective murder mystery is inherently ridiculous to begin with — the established routine of a victim, suspects, clues, questioning, locked rooms, alibis and so on.

   Could it be, when transferred into cinematic terms, the whole entire unlikelihood of the proceedings is amplified into the utterly absurd?

   That’s the question as I’ve reformulated it so far, and I haven’t answered it yet, but why else did so many favorite mystery characters turn into bumbling idiots when portrayed on the screen?

   Or why did their adventures need to “enlivened” by the presence of goofy chauffeurs, clown-like cops or (simply) funny friends? Hard-boiled operatives fared much better. I don’t think Hollywood had a very great opinion of the Ellery Queen’s or Hildegarde Withers(es) of the literary world.

   Which is not to say that I’m bitter — but wouldn’t it have been better to have had Jean Arthur play Pam North than Gracie Allen? Wouldn’t Sara Haden (Andy Hardy’s Aunt Millie) have made a better Hildegarde Withers? (It could have been worse — they might have used Marjorie Main.)

   This not being an ideal world, however, simply the best of all possible ones, we accept what we’re given. As the title indicates, there’s a lot of plot in this one: first of all a murder, with lots of suspects, including a butler and a jealous boy friend. There also turns out to be a stolen emerald in the dead man’s possession, and the whole affair ends up in a museum where the famous Cellini cup is the target of a gigantic gang of thieves.

   Simply terrific stuff!

   James Gleason, as Inspector Oscar Piper, is a pint-sized bantam with an irascible temper and even fouler-smelling cigars. As a detective, well, it’s no wonder he had Miss Withers along to do his thinking for him.

[UPDATE] 12-08-10.   When I wrote this review, I was unaware of a made-for-TV movie in which Miss Withers (Eve Arden) and Inspector Piper (James Gregory) were also the leading characters. It was A Very Missing Person, based on the novel Hildegarde Withers Makes the Scene by Stuart Palmer and Fletcher Flora. Shown on ABC, 4 March 1972, rumor has it that it was not as good as it might have been.

   And a fact that was totally unknown to me until just now, according to Wikipedia, there was a 1950s TV sitcom pilot entitled “Amazing Miss Withers” that starred Agnes Moorehead and Paul Kelly. It is apparently considered lost, probably forever.

   Steve suggested the title of this one and the theme, so praise — and/or blame — should go to him.

   The chief rule for this is the book in question had to make me laugh: a hearty guffaw, a dry chuckle, a knowing smile — that and that indefinable thing called charm are the chief attributes of the books on this list; and of them, charm is the one that weighed the heaviest.

   Of course being funny is serious business as any comic will tell you, and nothing is harder than being consistently funny at novel length while still producing a discernible plot, actual characters, and a genuine mystery and suspense. All these succeed on that level — or they did for me.

   Taste is always subjective and humor the most subjective of all. For that reason I expect this to promote some argument. That said, some short story and novella collections made the list, and in a few places more than one book by some writers.

   You’ll find some of the usual suspects here, but where I could I went for a less well known title by a less well known writer if it was one I particularly liked. These are favorites and not bests, and I’ve tried for a variety.

    If I have overused the words ‘droll’ and ‘wit’ it is because for me those are far more common qualities in the comic mystery or thriller than belly laughs.

   As always, just because a book is not on the list doesn’t mean I didn’t find it funny or deserving. I’ve avoided books like The Smiling Corpse or The John Riddell Murder Case because they were chiefly satires before they were mysteries.

    Also not on the list many of the soft core series and books like Ted Marks’ “Man From Orgy” or Clyde Allison’s “0008” novels — although many of them were very funny.

   Film novelizations were left off too, though some, like the ones for Gambit, How To Steal a Million, The Notorious Landlady, and On the Double were very well done and funny in their own right. The same for TV-tie-ins. I realize that is arbitrary, but without some arbitrary rules these lists would be so all inclusive as to be meaningless.

   I ended up without a Donald Lam mystery by A. A. Fair, but let it be said the entire series is bright and sprightly, and for my money’s Gardner’s best. Somehow Cleve Adams, Robert Leslie Bellem, Robert Reeves, Kurt Steel, Kelly Roos, Jimmy Starr, Martin Wodehouse, Alice Tilton (though she made it as Phoebe Atwood Taylor), and some other obvious choices didn’t make the list, but that doesn’t mean they did not deserve to. On a different day in a different mood some choices would be different.

   In a few cases time has passed a book by, and what was very funny then is at best mildly humorous now. This included books like The Disentanglers by Andrew Lang.

   Mostly I limited myself to one book by author, but in the case of Stuart Palmer and Craig Rice allowed for a collaborative effort to stand on its own. Many writers such as Palmer, Rice, Fish, Block, and Westlake could easily make up a list of their own.

   I did not forget Thorne Smith’s Did She Fall? I just thought it was poor Smith and a mediocre mystery.

   At the end I have added fifty more without comment.

   As usual an * indicates a film or television adaptation.

   The Light of Day (aka Topkapi) * by Eric Ambler — Any one who knew Ambler’s screen work should have known he had a dry wit, but this took everyone by surprise, although Arthur Abdel Simpson, Ambler’s illegitimate stateless half British half Egyptian pimp and pornographer ‘hero,’ is well within the Ambler tradition. Not as playful as the Jules Dassin film, but in many ways funnier and more suspenseful. Other Ambler’s in a playful mode; Send No More Roses, Dirty Story, A Kind of Anger, and Dr. Frigo. Peter Ustinov, Melina Mercouri (Mrs. Dassin), Maximilian Schell, Robert Morley, and Akim Tamiroff starred.

   Chip Harrison and the Topless Tulip Caper by Lawrence Block — There are too many to choose from by Block, from the exploits of burglar/bookseller Bernie Rhodenbarr to sleepless Evan Tanner, to hit man Keller, but I choose this paperback original because it is as good a portrait of an adolescent in the throws of sexual awakening as anything by Roth or Salinger, and because it is a dead on satire/tribute to Rex Stout and Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. It is also cheerfully dirty minded without a smirk or a snicker — a rarity in any American fiction.

   Rocket to the Morgue by Anthony Boucher — A nun, Sister Ursula, and a harried cop, Terry Marshall, must team up to solve a murder at a convention of science fiction writers. As if that wasn’t enough, the book features savage but affectionate portraits of some of the titans of the science fiction field and a barbed look at early fandom as well as a satisfying mystery plot. Boucher’s Fergus O’Breen mysteries are similar blends of laughs and detection, by a man whose bona fides in the mystery and science fiction field are unquestionable.

   A Case for Three Detectives by Leo Bruce — Discussed here recently. Sgt. Beef, a solid and seemingly plodding policeman shows up three spoofs of famous Golden Age sleuths (Lord Peter, Poirot, and Father Brown) and solves a fine fair play murder along the way by an under acknowledged master of the form. A surprisingly fresh read.

   Huntingtower * by John Buchan — Dickson McCunn is a canny Glasgow grocer who has just retired and wants a little adventure, so he sets out on a walking holiday in Scotland and gets a bit more than he bargained for including a Bolshie poet, a Russian princess, royal jewels, dastardly villains, and a ragtag Boy Scout troop known as the Gorbals Diehards who could give the Dead End Kids and Bowery Boys a run for their money. First of three delightful books about McCunn and the Diehards, If possible catch the BBC radio adaptation (it was also a silent film and adapted at least twice for television). It may remind you a bit of the great Brit comedy Hue and Cry.

   Surprise Package * by Art Buchwald — A less than honest Union Boss gets deported to the tiny island where he was born, and along with his ‘moll’, who proves to be more than he — or anyone — can handle, finds himself scheming to get home, steal the crown from an exiled playboy king, and outwit corrupt police and ruthless thugs trying to take the crown back to his highness now Communist homeland. There’s also a band of patriotic monks in the mix who want the crown for religious reasons. Broad satire, but very funny, and I admit I liked the film much more than most do. Yul Brynner, Mitzi Gaynor, and Noel Coward starred with a script by Harry (Marco Page) Kurnitz.

   The Great Affair by Victor Canning — The title is from a quote by Robert Louis Stevenson ( “The great affair is to travel.”) and Canning, in a rare funny mood, provides an entertaining romp for a somewhat straight laced missionary in Africa who discovers his real talent lies in decidedly less legal and moral pursuits.

   The Arabian Nights Murder by John Dickson Carr — Dr. Fell takes on a case that owes as much to the Marx Brothers as Edgar Allan Poe, and Carr proceeds on a romp of epic proportions that is both very funny and still a fine example of the form. Carr indulges his penchant for the bizarre, the gargantuan Fell’s eccentricities, and Eighteenth Century drolleries, wit, and rambunctiousness so effortlessly you likely won’t care how contrived and unreal it all is. In fact, that is half the fun. We even get Carr’s idea of a sexpot.

   The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton — Nothing dates faster than yesterday’s whimsey, but this bright and allegorical phantasmagorical tale still shines. Poet Gabriel Syme (The Poet and the Lunatics) stumbles on a secret society of anarchists, is recruited by Scotland Yard to infiltrate them, and moves up the organizations ladder through members named for the days of the week until he encounters the leader of the group — Sunday. Just read it, no explanation or description could do it justice. The reading of this on BBC 7 by Geoffrey Palmer (As Time Goes By) was particularly good.

   Arigato by Richard Condon — Captain Huntington is a former RAF hero married to a beautiful American heiress. He also has a few gambling debts his wife is refusing to pay for, so Captain Huntington needs to raise a little money — quick — and has few scruples about doing it. Condon was one of the masters of the sharp observation and the pen as scalpel, and this little book and its companion simply ooze charm and invention. If your prefer him a bit more savage try Whisper of the Axe or closer to home, Prizzi’s Honor — or any of the Prizzi books. Also check out his caper novel The Oldest Confession and his savage Hollywood satire, The Ecstasy Business, about a madman trying to kill a Liz Taylor/Richard Burton pair of movie idols. If you only know him from The Manchurian Candidate, Prizzi’s Honor, or Winter Kills, you have some wonderful reading ahead of you.

   Love Lies Bleeding by Edmund Crispin — Oxford don Gervase Fen gets involved with a missing Shakespearian play, murder, the kidnapping of a little girl, an aged an demented bloodhound, and the usual patented Crispin chasing around in a fine example of what Crispin did best. Crispin, who was composer Robert Bruce Montgomery, wrote the scores for the “Carry On” films among others, and knew his way around comedy and the detective novel. This one wins out over the others for me only for that magnificent senile bloodhound. Almost any of the Crispin books would have made a perfect Ealing comedy.

   Sally in the Alley by Norbert Davis — Carstairs and Doan are a mismatched team of private eyes. Carstairs is a highly bred aristocrat and Doan is a bit of a mutt. Carstairs is also a prize winning Great Dane, who thinks his private eye owner Doan is a bit beneath him. Together they featured in three books and a long short story that show Davis skills at plotting, orchestrating, and amusing. It I choose this one over the others it is mostly because I was married to a Sally.

   The Incredible Schlock Homes by Robert L. Fish — Finding a new Schlock Homes story in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine was always a delight. Overrun with puns, absurdity, and sheer manic energy they are to Holmesian satire what the original was to detective stories. Read them and weep with laughter.

   The Liquidator * by John Gardner — Boysie Oakes is a genial but attractive idiot recruited as chief executioner for the British Secret Service by the loathsome Colonel Mostyn, and forced to hire a Cockney hit man, Charlie Griffin to do his job for him. Boysie’s adventures manage to both thrill, amuse, and postillion the whole James Bond thing — ironic when you recall Gardner ended up replacing Ian Fleming writing the Bond saga. The film starred Rod Taylor, Jill St. John, and Trevor Howard as Mostyn, with Eric Sykes as Griffin.

   The Megstone Plot * by Andrew Garve — A decorated submariner stuck in a desk job at the Admiralty would like to marry a beautiful but mercenary lady, but lacks the money so he sets out to frame himself for treason and then collect big by suing the tabloid press for libel when he is cleared. What could possibly go wrong … A droll book that was an even droller film with James Mason, Vera Miles, and George Sanders as A Touch of Larceny.

   The Devil in Amber by Mark Gatiss — The second outing for bisexual Edwardian artist and spy Lucifer Box, who works for the real British Secret Service, the Royal Academy. Here he is sent to America in the twenties to look into a proto-Fascist group known as the Amber Shirts founded by one Olympus Mons, runs into his hated sister, Pandora, is framed for a shocking murder, and must save a young woman (Agnes Daye) and the world from a plot to literally raise the devil. Gattis is an actor (the BBC sitcom The League of Gentleman) and writer (Doctor Who) who can keep the pages turning and you chuckling, with the most likeable scoundrel since Harry Flashman. Gattiss own five part reading and adaptation of this was recently featured on BBC7.

   The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax * by Dorothy Gilman — Mrs. Pollifax is a well to do widow with grown children who just wants to serve her country — so she volunteers for the CIA. Of course the CIA isn’t interested, but then they have this little problem in Yugoslavia, and Mrs. P. might just prove useful — nothing too dangerous of course — like breaking out of a Yugoslav prison with a wounded American spy and being pursued by the entire army and secret police … First of a long and delightful series of well plotted and ably told adventures all preceding from the simple premise of the entire world underestimating Emily Pollifax. You shouldn’t. Rosalind Russell and Angela Lansbury both essayed the role of Mrs. Pollifax in the film and television versions of this.

   A Thrill A Minute With Jack Albany * by John Godey — Jack Albany is a character actor with the kind of face that keeps him on screen — as a long procession of cheap hoods, tough gangsters, and assorted thugs. So when a criminal mastermind mistakes him for a deadly hitman… Entertaining tale from a writer better known for the suspense novel The Taking of Pelham, One Two Three. This was a Disney film, Never a Dull Moment, with Dick Van Dyke, Dorothy Provine, Edward G. Robinson, Henry Silva, and Joanna Moore.

   No Way to Treat A Lady * by William Goldman — A charming New York homicide cop with a Jewish mother and a shiksa girlfriend, a serial killer with mother issues and a penchant for theatrical disguises — these are the elements of a fine mix of laughs and thrills that was also a memorable film with George Segal, Lee Remick, and Rod Steiger.

   Our Man in Havana * by Graham Greene — Mr. Wormwold is a widower with a teenage daughter, and sells vacuum cleaners in Havana on the eve of the Castro Revolution. What he mostly wants is to make a little money and go home because his teen daughter is a ripe young thing and in Havana her age is even less protection than in the rest of the world, so when a persistent British spy recruits him Mr. Wormwold doesn’t see what harm it could do to have a little extra income — and he doesn’t have to actually spy on anyone — he can just make if all up while padding his expenses. Which is how he becomes the most important agent in the western hemisphere and up to his neck in spies, killers, secret police, and betrayal. Also a notable Carol Reed film with Alec Guiness, Ernie Kovacs, Maureen O’Hara, Noel Coward, and Burl Ives. Sharp satire on politics, spies, sex, and life in general by one of the masters of the form, and you will never look a vacuum cleaner or play chess quite the same again.. For Greene in a humorous vein also try Travels With My Aunt, Lovers Take All, Monsignor Quixote, and Dr Fischer of Geneva or The Bomb Party.

   It Happened In Boston by Russell Greenhan — For more detail see my review. A forger who complains because the old masters keep copying his work gets involved in a deadly plot and goes happily off the cliff taking us with him. To say the least, this book is unique.

   The Thin Man * by Dashiell Hammett — Nick and Nora Charles are the templates for all the bright brittle husband and wife sleuths to come, bantering, detecting, and destroying their livers, all with equal glee. Hammett succeeded at making marriage sexy, and then William Powell and Myrna Loy succeeded at making it effortless. While it is the least of Hammett’s novels it is still a damn good detective story and a refreshingly good read today with the sharp dialogue and Nick’s dry wit both intact. Though in all fairness Hammett himself hit on one of the minor problems when he lamented no one ever invented a more smug pair.

   Just Desserts by Tim Heald — Simon Bognor, that overweight and less than brilliant agent of the Inland Revenue, customs and taxes, has a love of good food, so he doesn’t mind too much when he is asked to look into the murder of a famous chef he knew, even if he is still not sure how he ended up working for the Inland Revenue in the first place. Pretty soon he is overseas on the expense account, attracted to a young lady his fiancee would not approve of, and up to his neck in murder and fraudulent champagne. Yet another fast moving, clever, and funny entry in the entertaining series which began back in Unbecoming Habits with Simon looking into a little truth in labeling problem involving a mysterious group of monks. If you don’t know these discover them.

   Why Shoot a Butler? by Georgette Heyer — A bit of entertaining froth from the mistress of the Regency romance and the creator of sleuths Hannayside and Hemingway, this sprightly comedy mystery reads the way a good British comedy mystery of the era plays on screen. There is a handsome likable hero, an attractive heroine in trouble, a mystery to be solved, a satisfying amount of shooting around in the dark on narrow foggy country roads in low slung roadsters, and a better crime, plot, and solution than is really needed to make it fun. Why shoot a butler? Why not, if the result is this much fun?

   A Fairly Dangerous Thing by Reginald Hill —Joe Askern, who teaches English in a small English village, has a passion for the local stately hall, Averingrett, and comely ladies with well developed bosoms. When he is recruited by a ring of professional thieves, who plan to systematically loot the stately hall, thanks to a call girl named Cynthia who is more than amply endowed in his other area of interest there are bound to be complications. Just how it all ends for the best is a delightful trip that reads like a slightly risque Ealing comedy.

   Fellow Passenger by Geoffrey Household — Household indulges both his skill at chase and pursuit and his penchant for the picaresque in this tale narrated from the Tower of London, by one Claudio Howard-Wolverston, who finds himself trying to extricate himself from a series of increasingly dangerous coincidences that leave him at sea in a dangerous storm and working as an elephant trainer in a circus while trying to maintain his freedom and clear his name. Household’s best mix of the classic elements of his Rogue Male type novel in a lighter vein. Also check out Olura and The Life and Times of Bernardo Brown for more in this mood.

   One Man Show by Michael Innes — Sir John Appleby takes on art crime in this high handed caper that proceeds like The Lavender Hill Mob or The Ladykillers with chuckles, smiles of recognition, and some expertly orchestrated belly laughs. For my money, this may well be Innes’s masterpiece in terms of all the elements of mystery, movement, and humor. The heist and chase is beautifully choreographed. Almost all the Innes novels are droll; try also his non-series novel Candleshoe.

   Lady in the Morgue * by Jonathan Latimer — Bill Crane takes a nap in the morgue (and if you drank like he did you could sleep anywhere too) and wakes up to murder. Meanwhile he’s hunting a missing heiress and two gangsters are fighting over one’s missing wife. Crane, who is the top detective for Colonel Black’s agency teams with his pal Doc Williams and manages to stay one step ahead of the cops while drinking like a fish and indulging in some still fairly racy patter and situations. On top of all the other virtues of this unvirtuous book it is wonderfully written and a damn good detective story with actual clues and deductions. Preston Foster was good as Crane in three cheap but effective Crime Club films with Frank Jenks as Doc. Latimer was likely the raciest writer of the screwball school, with Crane having a penchant for naked ladies unsurpassed until Mike Hammer. If anything The Dead Don’t Care and Red Gardenias are even more screwball and racier, as is his ultra-tough Solomon’s Vineyard.

   The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie — Television’s House, and Bertie Wooster, not to mention Blackadder’s benighted buddy, penned this top notch and laugh out loud funny thriller, about an ex-Special Forces type who tries to do a good turn and ends up battling terrorists and a plot to sell tactical missiles by staging a terrorist atrocity. If that doesn’t sound funny, imagine it narrated in Laurie’s dry acerbic style with just enough sense of the ridiculous to leaven the very real suspense and violent action. I have seldom been as thrilled by a book I laughed out loud out at.

   Out of Sight * by Elmore Leonard — He’s a charming crook escaped from prison and she’s a U.S. Marshall assigned to catch him, of course falling for each other while he tries to elude capture and she tries to bring him in is out of the question. Made into an entertaining film with George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez by Stephen Soderbergh. And yes, I Iike this much better than Get Shorty or Maximum Bob, but both are also very funny.

   The Norths Meet Murder * by Richard and Frances Lockridge — After Nick and Nora Charles Jerry and Pam North are the epitome of the married with murder set. Originating in a series of sketches in The New Yorker, Lockridge combined the Norths with murder and his career was set (by all accounts Frances only contributed her name and Pam’s character). This first one is as good a place as any to dip in. Despite being played by Gracie Allen in their only film, Pam, in the Nora Charles tradition, is one of the sexiest wives in fiction. The cats never bothered me, but you may not be so tolerant. This one as recently commented is also a fine snapshot of the period it was written in. Barbara Britton, from the television series with Richard Denning, was much closer to my idea of Pam North.

   Venus With Pistol by Gavin Lyall — Humor isn’t the first thing you think of in relation to Lyall’s brilliant thrillers, but this one about a dealer in rare and sometimes spurious antique guns who finds himself drawn into a scam of international proportions with a mercenary and amorous princess and some very bad men is both very funny and very exciting. The book was delayed for several months while Lyall experimented to see the trick with the antique gun could actually work.

   Who Is Killing the Great Chef’s of Europe? * by Nan and Ivan Lyons — a beautiful chef and her ex-husband, a gauche American fast food entrepreneur, find themselves as suspects, targets, and sleuths in this sophisticated romp through the best kitchens in Europe as someone is targeting and murdering Europe’s finest chef’s with their own specialties. Could it be the food critic and gourmand who is dying because of all their rich foods he can’t resist? This was made into a charming film with Jacqueline Bissett, George Segal, Robert Morley as the food critic, and various guest stars as the chef’s and a script by Peter Stone (1776, Charade). Re-read and re-viewed recently both are as good as remembered.

   Please Write For Details by John D. MacDonald — Yes, I know most of you would have chosen The Girl, the Gold Watch, and Everything, but this clever con artist scheme has always seemed to me under appreciated as an art colony fraud involves the usual collection of MacDonald characters and who is double crossing whom gets lost in the complications.

   Whiskey Galore * by Compton Mackenzie — A crisis strikes a small Scottish island when the war interferes with their ration of whiskey. Things are getting pretty desperate until a ship laden with the precious stuff is run aground on the nearby rocks. A desperate plan is then unfolded to salvage the cargo, but that is only the start of their problems as the Royal Navy and the excise man both want to know where the whiskey went precipitating a heroic effort by the entire island population to hide the precious cargo. Charming comic novel by a leading literary light who dabbled in spy novels too. Made into one of the funniest British films ever as Whiskey Galore, aka Tight Little Island by the legendary Ealing Studios. No, it isn’t in Hubin, but technically I consider smuggling and evading the police at the least a crime novel. Mackenzie himself has a small role in the film.

   Let’s Kill Uncle * by Rohan O’Grady — a pair of orphans stand to inherit their parents fortune, if they can survive being sent to live with their ex commando uncle in Canada, who in turn stands to inherit if something should happen to them. What are the poor dears to do? Murder comes to mind — more-or-less in self defense. Black comedy made into a decent William Castle film with Nigel Green the homicidal uncle.

   The Penguin Pool Murders * by Stuart Palmer — Spinster schoolteacher Hildegarde Withers is one of the great contributions from the American school of the detective novel, a woman with steel in her backbone as well as her whalebone in her stays, and a fine appreciation for spotting skullduggery after years of teaching children. That her foil Oscar Piper is one of the most likable policemen in the genre just makes it all the better. Then take all those ingredients and add perfection in the horsey face of Dame Edna May Oliver and the Irish weariness of James Gleason, throw in a small penguin named Oscar, who himself became a star, and the result was magic in print and on screen. Some solid detective work too.

   Hugger Mugger in the Louvre by Elliot Paul — Best remembered today for his non-fiction The Last Time I Saw Paris and Life and Death in a Small Spanish Town, Paul was an original humorist whose books about expatriate professor Homer Evans and his gun-toting Montana born girlfriend in a surreal Paris out of a Marx Brothers’ film have to be experienced to be believed. This is the second, after The Murder of Mickey Finn, and finds Paul in even deeper waters. The books started out to be a satire of S. S. Van Dine and Philo Vance, but that went by the wayside before chapter one was over and they took off on their own madcap way. Just fasten your seatbelt and bind up your ribs.

   The People vs. Withers and Malone * by Craig Rice and Stuart Palmer — It’s still not clear who had the idea to team bibulous Chicago lawyer John J. Malone with spinster teacher Hildegarde Withers, but the result was six of the most entertaining novellas in the genre as the two unlikely partners team and make life miserable for murderers and the police, mostly Malone’s foil Captain von Flannagan. One of the novellas came to the screen with decidedly mixed results as Mrs. O’Malley and Mr. Malone. Marjorie Main was miscast and painful as the substitute for Withers, but James Whitmore was Malone in the flesh. The writing is mostly by Palmer, but the two worked so often together as screenwriters it is almost impossible to tell.

   Trial By Fury by Craig Rice — Jake and Helene Justus got out of Chicago during the hot summer for a little trip and of course first thing off the bat they witness a murder and Jake is arrested as a material witness. Enter the cavalry in the person of John J. Malone, who finds himself not only defending Jake, but the local prosecutor. There is a serial killer who never kills the same way twice, bodies buried in cellars, dollar gin, a lynch mob, an exploding bank, a burning madhouse, and Hercules, a dog whose love for Malone and dollar gin are equally pure, and I’m not sure what more you would want in a mystery. The detective work is solid, the characters are American Gothic eccentric, but not too broadly drawn, the motive and murderer are believable, and the final clinch will leave you with a tear in your eye. Hercules gets my vote for the best dog in the genre — sorry, Asta.

   Lazarus #7 by Richard Sale — One critic labeled it a ‘gay Hollywoodian gambol,’ but as James Sandoe pointed out, you should read it anyway. The screwball school as done by a master, as a doctor who specializes in tropical diseases has to figure out why someone is trying to kill him when he arrives in Hollywood. The answer is a stunner saved practically for the last page.

   Red Diamond by Mark Schorr — Red Diamond is a rough tough private eye out of the pulps by way of Mickey Spillane — at least in his day dreams. The rest of the time he is a henpecked cab driver. At least until his wife throws out his precious pulp collection and he suffers a schizophrenic break and thinks he is Red Diamond, private eye. Havoc and hilarity follow as the police, underworld, and medical establishment all try to survive Red’s war on crime. First of a handful of fast paced funny reads.

   The Game of X * by Robert Sheckley — William Martin is an American graduate student in Europe, asked by a friend in intelligence to pose as Agent X. X is a legendary secret agent created by the CIA to act as a general bogeyman to the Russians and since he doesn’t exist he can be anywhere, do anything, and take credit for every coup. Alas for William his one meeting as X goes awry and he finds himself in the middle of the most dangerous mission of X’s career — and sadly William is a complete goof ball. Or is he? Maybe he was really X all along … The Disney film Condorman turns X into a comic book hero and is best forgotten, save that it reunites Michael Crawford and Oliver Reed from Michael Winner’s The Jokers.

   The Trouble With Harry * by Jack Trevor Story — The trouble with Harry is that he is dead and his body keeps turning up. This novel by Story, who also wrote for the Sexton Blake Library among other things, is a bit racier, and a shade darker than Alfred Hitchock’s black comedy, which moves the whole affair to New England, but the essentials are there and on the whole, a delight.

   Some Buried Caesar by Rex Stout — a prize bull is murdered. Nero Wolfe must leave the brownstone for the country, and ends up stranded in an open field on a rock with a very angry bull. Do I really have to say anymore? Damn fine bit of detective work too.

   Chinaman’s Chance by Ross Thomas — Artie Wu is the heir to the throne of Imperial China and the partner of Quincy Durant, and they, along with the divinely named Otherguy Overby get drawn into a caper of complexities so intricate only Ross Thomas could have brought it off. If The Maltese Falcon had been a comedy it would have been this book. And it almost brought Thomas the fame and fortune he deserved.

   Texas by the Tail by Jim Thompson — A strain of black humor runs in many of Thompson’s darkest novels, but here he takes on some charming con artists and shows a skill for a light touch that belies his reputation. Perhaps not his best book, but certainly his most surprising, and evidence there was more than met the eye or our expectations if fate had been a bit kinder.

   The Gracie Allen Murder Case (aka Scent of Murder) * by S. S. Van Dine — A stunt, pure and simple, and one that should not have worked, but somehow the comedienne seemed to revitalize Van Dine and Philo Vance, and the result, if not a great mystery, is charming and funny, and Van Dine, who hadn’t shown a great deal in the way of humor before, nails Gracie Allen’s voice and manner of thinking with perfect pitch. Everyone in the movie, including Warren William’s Vance, seemed to enjoy themselves too.

   Winter’s Madness by David Walker — Scottish lord Duncatto had planned a quiet little Christmas holiday with friends and family — complicated by a possible Nazi war criminal, a nymphomaniac with a child prodigy, the mafia, Duncatto’s ripe daughter and even riper wife, some eccentric scientists, a charming android, attempted murder, a shoot out on a private ski run, and James Bond’s idiot fellow agent Tiger Clyde. Snappy satirical farce by the author of the whimsical Wee Geordie and Harry Black and the Tiger. One of my favorite books of all time.

   The Busy Body * by Donald Westlake — – My favorite Westlake comic novel isn’t a Dortmunder caper, but a gangster comedy about a nebbish mobster who dreams of being an accountant, a body that won’t stay buried, and the most incompetent assortment of gangsters in history. The William Castle film with Sid Caesar, Richard Pryor, and Robert Ryan was funny too. I am willing to grant though this my be my favorite because it was my first Westlake.

       — Fifty Without Comment (mostly)

Sweet Danger by Margery Allingham
She Shall Have Murder* by Delano Ames
Tales of the Black Widowers by Isaac Asimov
High Noon at Midnight by Michael Avallone
Homicide For Hannah by Dwight Babcock
The Dorothy Parker Murder Case by George Baxt
The Revenge of Kali Ra by K. K. Beck
Sail a Crooked Ship* by Nathaniel Benchley
A Bullet in the Ballet by Caryl Brahms and S. J. Simon
Green For Danger* by Christianna Brand
Tomorrow is Murder by Carter Brown
Madball by Fredric Brown
Partners in Crime* by Agatha Christie
Penelope* by E.V. Cunningham (Howard Fast)
In the Fog by Richard Harding Davis
The Hog Murders by William De Andrea
Dr. Sam Johnson, Detector by Lillian de la Torre
Dolly and the Bird of Paradise by Dorothy Dunnett
The Man With Bogart’s Face* by Andrew J. Fenady
Blood and Honey by G. G. Fickling
A Graveyard of My Own by Ron Goulart
The Judas Pair by Jonathan Gash
The Limping Goose by Frank Gruber
Cotton Comes to Harlem* by Chester Himes
The Man Who Murdered Goliath by Geoffrey Homes
Siskiyou by Richard Hoyt
Every Little Crook and Nanny* by Evan Hunter
Johnny Havoc Meets Zelda by John Jakes
The Lady in The Car With Glasses and a Gun* by Sebastian Japrisot
Murder on the Yellowbrick Road by Stuart Kaminsky
The Murder of the Marahrajah by H. R. F. Keating
Murder by Latitude by Rufus King
Keystone by Peter Lovesey
Sci Fi by William Marshall
Fletch* by Gregory McDonald
Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen by Charlotte McLeod
The Red House Mystery by A. A. Milne
The Mummy Murder Case by Dermot Morrah
Hard Knocker’s Luck by William Murray
Murder at Horsethief by James O’Hanlon
Puzzle for Wantons by Q. Patrick
The Curse of the Pharaohs by Elizabeth Peters
Dover Two by Joyce Porter
The Kubla Khan Caper by Richard Prather
Silky by Leo Rosten
Something’s Down There by Mickey Spillane (Spillane still Spillane, but in a much lighter hearted mood than normal)
Caroline Miniscule by Andrew Taylor
The Corpse Came C.O.D. by Phoebe Atwood Taylor
Bony and the Kelly Gang by Arthur W. Upfield
The Choirboys* by Joseph Waumbaugh

   If at least one of these doesn’t get a chuckle out of you, you may want to consider a funnybone transplant.

   These are all real detective stories: tales in which a mystery is solved by a detective. Real detective fiction tends to go invisible in modern society, in which many people prefer crime fiction without mystery.

   The list is in chronological order but unfortunately omits many major short story writers: G. K. Chesterton, Jacques Futrelle, H. C. Bailey, Edward D. Hoch, and other greats.

Émile Gaboriau, Le Crime d’Orcival (1866)
Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone (1868)
Israel Zangwill, The Big Bow Mystery (1891)
Anna Katherine Green, The Circular Study (1900)
Edgar Wallace, The Four Just Men (1905)
Cleveland Moffett, Through the Wall (1909)
John T. McIntyre, Ashton-Kirk, Investigator (1910)
R. Austin Freeman, The Eye of Osiris (1911)
E. C. Bentley, Trent’s Last Case (1913)
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Valley of Fear (1914)
Clinton H. Stagg, Silver Sandals (1914)
Johnston McCulley, Who Killed William Drew? (1917)
Octavus Roy Cohen, Six Seconds of Darkness (1918)
Mary Roberts Rinehart & Avery Hopwood, The Bat (1920)
Donald McGibeny, 32 Caliber (1920)
Carolyn Wells, Raspberry Jam (1920)
Freeman Wills Crofts, The Cask (1920)
A. A. Milne, The Red House Mystery (1922)
G. D. H. Cole, The Brooklyn Murders (1923)
Carroll John Daly, The Snarl of the Beast (1927)
Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest (1927)
Horatio Winslow and Leslie Quirk, Into Thin Air (1929)
Samuel Spewack, Murder in the Gilded Cage (1929)
Thomas Kindon, Murder in the Moor (1929)
Mignon G. Eberhart, While the Patient Slept (1930)
Victor L. Whitechurch, Murder at the College / Murder at Exbridge (1932)
Ellery Queen, The Greek Coffin Mystery (1932)
Anthony Abbot, About the Murder of the Circus Queen (1932)
S. S. Van Dine, The Dragon Murder Case (1933)
Helen Reilly, McKee of Centre Street (1933)
Dermot Morrah, The Mummy Case (1933)
Dorothy L. Sayers, The Nine Tailors (1934)
Milton M. Propper, The Divorce Court Murder (1934)
John Dickson Carr, The Three Coffins / The Hollow Man (1935)
Georgette Heyer, Merely Murder / Death in the Stocks (1935)
David Frome, Mr. Pinkerton Has the Clue (1936)
Nigel Morland, The Case of the Rusted Room (1937)
Cyril Hare, Tenant for Death (1937)
Baynard Kendrick, The Whistling Hangman (1937)
Ngaio Marsh, Death in a White Tie (1938)
R. A. J. Walling, The Corpse With the Blue Cravat / The Coroner Doubts
(1938)
Dorothy Cameron Disney, Strawstacks / The Strawstack Murders (1938-1939)
Rex Stout, Some Buried Caesar (1938-1939)
Rufus King, Murder Masks Miami (1939)
Theodora Du Bois, Death Dines Out (1939)
Erle Stanley Gardner, The D.A. Draws a Circle (1939)
Agatha Christie, One Two, Buckle My Shoe / An Overdose of Death (1940)
J. J. Connington, The Four Defences (1940)
Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely (1940)
Frank Gruber, The Laughing Fox (1940)
Anthony Boucher, The Case of the Solid Key (1941)
Stuart Palmer, The Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan (1941)
Kelley Roos, The Frightened Stiff (1942)
Cornell Woolrich, Phantom Lady (1942)
Frances K. Judd, The Mansion of Secrets (1942)
Helen McCloy, The Goblin Market (1943)
Anne Nash, Said With Flowers (1943)
Mabel Seeley, Eleven Came Back (1943)
Norbert Davis, The Mouse in the Mountain (1943)
Robert Reeves, Cellini Smith: Detective (1943)
Hake Talbot, The Rim of the Pit (1944)
John Rhode, The Shadow on the Cliff / The Four-Ply Yarn (1944)
Allan Vaughan Elston & Maurice Beam, Murder by Mandate (1945)
Walter Gibson, Crime Over Casco (1946)
George Harmon Coxe, The Hollow Needle (1948)
Wade Miller, Fatal Step (1948)
Alan Green, What a Body! (1949)
Hal Clement, Needle (1949)
Bruno Fischer, The Angels Fell (1950)
Jack Iams, What Rhymes With Murder? (1950)
Richard Starnes, The Other Body in Grant’s Tomb (1951)
Richard Ellington, Exit for a Dame (1951)
Lawrence G. Blochman, Recipe For Homicide (1952)
Day Keene, Wake Up to Murder (1952)
Isaac Asimov, The Caves of Steel (1953)
Henry Winterfeld, Caius ist ein Dummkopf / Detectives in Togas (1953)
Craig Rice, My Kingdom For a Hearse (1956)
Frances and Richard Lockridge, Voyage into Violence (1956)
Harold Q. Masur, Tall, Dark and Deadly (1956)
James Warren, The Disappearing Corpse (1957)
Seicho Matsumoto, Ten to sen (Point and Lines) (1957)
Michael Avallone, The Crazy Mixed-Up Corpse (1957)
Ed Lacy, Shakedown for Murder (1958)
Lenore Glen Offord, Walking Shadow (1959)
Allen Richards, To Market, To Market (1961)
Christopher Bush, The Case of the Good Employer (1966)
Randall Garrett, Too Many Magicians (1967)
Michael Collins, A Dark Power (1968)
Merle Constiner, The Four from Gila Bend (1968)
Bill Pronzini, Undercurrent (1973)
Nicholas Meyer, The West End Horror (1976)
Thomas Chastain, Vital Statistics (1977)
William L. DeAndrea, Killed in the Ratings (1978)
Clifford B. Hicks, Alvin Fernald, TV Anchorman (1980)
Donald J. Sobol, Angie’s First Case (1981)
Kyotaro Nishimura, Misuteri ressha ga kieta (The Mystery Train
Disappears) (1982)
K. K. Beck, Murder in a Mummy Case (1986)
Jon L. Breen, Touch of the Past (1988)
Stephen Paul Cohen, Island of Steel (1988)
Earl W. Emerson, Black Hearts and Slow Dancing (1988)

Editorial Comment: This will do it for today, but I do have one more list to post. David Vineyard sent it to me this morning. It’s a followup to his previous list, consisting of what he calls “100 Important Books From Before the Golden Age.” The cutoff date for these is 1913, which is where his earlier list began. While not all of the books on this new list may be crime fiction, they’re all important to the field. Look for it soon!

H. R. F. KEATING – Crime and Mystery: The 100 Best Books. Carroll & Graf, US, hardcover, November 1987; trade paperback, October 1996. Xanadu, UK, hardcover, 1987.

   H.R.F. Keating proves he is a man after my own heart by compiling a list of the one-hundred best mysteries in Crime and Mystery. One can quarrel with some of Keating’s selections; one always will with any list of “bests.”

   He leaves out R. Austin Freeman, Alice Tilton, and Stuart Palmer because they are not presently available, but they certainly are in the US, thanks to recent reprints. Keating does not include Dick Francis because he only writes stories of “pure suspense.” Yet, Francis includes plenty of crime and mystery in his plots and has even given us a series detective, Sid Halley.

   On the other hand, Keating does not like Nicholas Freeling (I don’t either) but includes him because he is considered “important.” There, Keating should have stuck with his personal taste.

   No one could make up a list of one-hundred books and expect total agreement. What is remarkable about Crime and Mystery is that most of Keating’s selections are remarkably sound, and his two-page essays on each are masterpieces of succinct criticism, with superb use of metaphor. This is an indispensable guide to the literature we like best.

Editorial Comment:   This is the second in a series of reviews in which Marv covered reference works published in 1987, books about the field of mystery and crime fiction. Preceding this one was Son of Gun in Cheek, by Bill Pronzini. You can find it here.

   This is Steve speaking. IPL is the short form of a tongue-twister name of a publishing company called International Polygonics Limited. The man behind the company was Hugh Abramson, and the man behind him, working as a series consultant and helping to choose what books to reprint, was Douglas G. Greene, who’s presently the man in charge of Crippen & Landru, publisher of previously uncollected stories of a long list of mystery writers.

   Together, as the head honchos behind IPL, they put together a long run of paperback mystery reprints, with a soupcon of hardcovers and original novels thrown in. Authors such as John Dickson Carr (and his alter ego Carter Dickson), Margaret Millar, Leslie Charteris, Craig Rice, Clayton Rawson, and George Baxt.

   Should I name more? I can, and easily. Ngaio Marsh, Ellery Queen, Jonathan Latimer, Charlotte Armstrong, E. Richard Johnson, and Stuart Palmer. All of the above, and others, were among those with multiple titles offered.

   Impressed? You should be.

   Among the non-mystery titles IPL published were more than a handful by P. G. Wodehouse.

   Several years ago Victor Berch completed a checklist of all of the IPL titles, and you can see it here on the main Mystery*File website. (Click on the link.)

   Note that it’s long enough that it takes two full pages, with a link on the first taking you to the second. Be sure you find your way to both pages.

   This pair of web pages is still being worked on, which is why the checklist has never been announced officially until now. I have many many cover images to add to it, including back covers, and research into some of the non-mystery books remains to be done.

   But as a checklist of the books themselves, they’re all there, with plenty of cover images already included. It also could use a better introduction and overview of the entire IPL operation, but you can consider this a Preview, with more to come, as soon as I can do it.

   To my mind, this is an extraordinary run of paperbacks, but because of limited distribution of the books, few people are as aware of their existence as they should be. This checklist should help remedy that — or at least Victor and I hope so!

CRAIG RICE – Trial by Fury. Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 1941. Paperback reprints include: Pocket 237, 1st printing, October 1943. Dell D187, Great Mystery Library #2, 1957. International Polygonics, 1991.

   Now married (drunkenly ever after?), Jake and Helen Justus are off on a trip to Wisconsin lake country. Stopping in a rural county courthouse to get a fishing license, they soon encounter murder, naturally enough.

   Jake, hailing as he does from the land of Chicago (gangsters!) is immediately suspected of the crime by the local hick sheriff. Soon he is in jail and the family friend, John J. Malone, that brilliant, sodden defense attorney, is called to the rescue by Helene.

   Malone eventually explains all, after several more killings, an explosion and the formation of a lynch mob, but only with the help of Hercules, a Bloodhound-Great Dane mix and one of the author’s most inspired creations.

   Praised by Anthony Boucher as possibly Rice’s best book, Trial by Fury is quite good. It features some of the standard (and for me shopworn) Rice devices — the idea that drunkenness is inherently hilarious, and that it’s fascinating to read about Helene’s many wardrobe changes — but the portrayal of small-town, pre-WW2 America is original and really enjoyable. (No doubt much of this is drawn from Rice’s own youth?)

   The interaction of her urbanite series characters with the locals is tremendously amusing as well. Perhaps the solution of the mystery doesn’t quite live up to all the involution that preceded it, but all in all, I would say this is one of the finest American detective novels of the Golden Age period (roughly) that I have read.

Previously reviewed on this blog:

      8 Faces at 3 (by Curt Evans)
      Trial By Fury (by David Vineyard)
      People vs. Withers & Malone by Craig Rice & Stuart Palmer (by Bill Pronzini and George Kelley)

    This list of Christmas mysteries, compiled by Caryn Wesner-Early, first appeared in Mystery*File 40, December 2003, and being all of six years old, is surely long out of date by now. Don’t that dissuade you from finding one or more of these to read over the next twelve days or so!

Adamson, Lydia. A Cat in the Manger
Adamson, Lydia. A Cat in the Wings
Adamson, Lydia. Cat on Jingle Bell Rock
Adamson, Lydia. A Cat Under the Mistletoe
Adrian, Jack. Crime at Christmas: A Seasonal Box of Murderous Delights
Alexander, David. Shoot a Sitting Duck
Allen, Garrison et al. Murder Most Merry
Allen, Michael. Spence and the Holiday Murders
Atherton, Nancy. Aunt Dimity’s Christmas
Babson, Marion. The Twelve Deaths of Christmas
Baker, Nikki. Long Goodbye
Barron, Stephanie. Jane and the Wandering Eye
Beaton, M.C. A Highland Christmas
Bernhardt, William. The Midnight Before Christmas
Black, Gavin. A Dragon for Christmas
Blades, Joe and Jeffrey Marks, eds. A Canine Christmas
Blake, Nicholas. The Corpse in the Snowman
Borthwick, J.S. Dude on Arrival
Boylan, Eleanor. Pushing Murder
Braun, Lillian Jackson. The Cat Who Turned On and Off
Braun, Lillian Jackson. The Cat Who Went Into the Closet
Brett, Simon. Christmas Crimes at Puzzle Manor
Cameron, Eleanor. The Mysterious Christmas Shell (children’s)
Cavanna. Betty. The Ghost of Ballyhooly (children’s)
Christian, Mary Blount. Sebastian (Super Sleuth) and the Santa Claus Caper (children’s)
Christie, Agatha. Hercule Poirot’s Christmas (Murder for Christmas, A Holiday for Murder)
Churchill, Jill. A Farewell to Yarns
Churchill, Jill. The Merchant of Menace
Clark, Carol Higgins. Iced
Clark, Mary Higgins. All Through the Night
Clark, Mary Higgins. Silent Night
Clark, Mary and Carol Higgins. Deck the Halls
Constantine, K.C. Upon Some Midnight Clear
Corcoran, Barbara. Mystery on Ice
Cornwell, Patricia. From Potter’s Field
Cornwell, Patricia. Scarpetta’s Winter Table
Cramer, Kathryn and David G. Hartwell (eds.) Christmas Ghosts
Crowleigh, Ann et al. Murder Under the Tree (anthology)
Daheim, Mary. The Alpine Christmas
Daheim, Mary. Nutty As a Fruitcake
Dalby, Richard, ed. Crime for Christmas (anthology)
Dalby, Richard, ed. Mystery for Christmas (anthology)
D’Amato, Barbara. Hard Christmas
Davidson, Diane. Tough Cookie
Daws, Jeanne M. The Body in the Transept
Dawson, Janet. Nobody’s Child
Delaney, Joseph. The Christmas Tree Murders
Dobson, Joanne. Quieter Than Sleep
Douglas, Carole Nelson. Cat in a Golden Garland
Drummond, John Keith. ‘Tis the Season to Be Dying
Duffy, James. The Christmas Gang
Eberhart, Mignon G. Postmark Murder
Egan, Lesley. Crime for Christmas
Elkins, Aaron. A Deceptive Clarity
Emerson, Kathy Lynn. Face Down Upon an Herbal
Erskine, Margaret. House of the Enchantress
Faglia, Leonard and David Richards. 1 Ragged Ridge Road
Fairstein, Linda. The Deadhouse
Farrell, Kathleen. Mistletoe Malice
Ferrars, E.X. Smoke Without Fire
Ferris, Monica. A Stitch In Time
Fletcher, Jessica and Bain, Donald. A Little Yuletide Murder
Fletcher, Jessica and Bain, Donald. Murder She Wrote: Manhattans and Murder
Flynn, Brian. The Murders Near Mapleton
Foley, Rae. Where is Mary Bostwick?
Frazier, Margaret. The Servant’s Tale
Gano, John. Inspector Proby’s Christmas
Godfrey, Thomas, ed. Murder for Christmas (2 vols. – anthology)
Goodman, Jonathan, ed. The Christmas Murders (anthology)
Grafton, Sue. E Is for Evidence
Granger, Anne. A Season for Murder
Greeley, Andrew M. The Bishop and the Three Kings
Greenberg, Martin H., ed. Holmes for the Holidays
Greenberg, Martin H., ed. More Holmes for the Holidays
Greenberg, Martin H. and Carol-Lynn Rossel Waugh, eds. Santa Clues (anthology)
Grimes, Martha. The Man With a Load of Mischief
Gunn, Victor. Death on Shivering Sand
Haddam, Jane. Festival of Deaths (Hanukkah)
Haddam, Jane. Not a Creature Was Stirring
Haddam, Jane. A Stillness in Bethlehem
Hager, Jean. The Last Noel
Hall, Robert Lee. Benjamin Franklin and a Case of Christmas Murder
Hardwick, Richard. The Season to Be Deadly
Hare, Cecil. An English Murder
Harris, Charlaine. Shakespeare’s Christmas
Harris, Lee. The Christmas Night Murder
Hart, Carolyn. Sugarplum Dead
Hart, Ellen. Murder in the Air
Hay, M. Doriel. The Santa Klaus Murder
Heald, Tim, ed. A Classic Christmas Crime (anthology)
Healy, Jeremiah. Right to Die
Hemlin, Tim. A Catered Christmas
Hemlin, Tim. If Wishes Were Horses…
Hess, Joan. A Holly, Jolly Murder
Hess, Joan. O Little Town of Maggody
Heyer, Georgette. Envious Casca
Hirsh, M.E. Dreaming Back
Holland, Isabelle. A Fatal Advent
Holmes for the Holidays (anthology)
Hunter, Fred. Ransome for a Holiday
Hunter, Fred. ‘Tis the Season for Murder: Christmas Crimes
Iams, Jack. Do Not Murder Before Christmas
Innes, Michael. Christmas at Candleshoes
Jaffe, Jody. Chestnut Mare, Beware
Jahn, Michael. Murder on Fifth Avenue
Jordan, Cathleen. A Carol in the Dark
Jordan, Jennifer. Murder Under the Mistletoe
Kane, Henry. A Corpse for Christmas (Homicide at Yuletide)
Keene, Carolyn. A Crime for Christmas (children’s)
Kelner, Toni L.P. Mad As the Dickens
Kelly, Mary C. The Christmas Egg
Kitchin, C.H.B. Crime at Christmas
Koch, Edward I. and Wendy Corsi Staub. Murder on 34th Street
Langton, Jane. The Shortest Day
Lake, M.D. Grave Choices
Lambert, Elisabeth. The Sleeping House Party
Lewin, Michael Z. Family Planning
Lewis, Gogo and Seon Manley, eds. Christmas Ghosts (anthology)
Livingston, Nancy. Quiet Murder
McBain, Ed. And All Through the House
McBain, Ed. Downtown
McBain, Ed. Sadie When She Died
McClure, James. The Gooseberry Fool
McGown, Jill. Murder at the Old Vicarage
McKevett, G.A. Cooked Goose
MacLeod, Charlotte, ed. Christmas Stalkings (anthology)
MacLeod, Charlotte. Convivial Codfish
MacLeod, Charlotte, ed. Mistletoe Mysteries (anthology)
MacLeod, Charlotte. Rest You Merry
Mallowan, Agatha Christie. A Star Over Bethlehem and Other Stories
Manson, Cynthia, ed. Christmas Crimes (anthology)
Manson, Cynthia, ed. Murder Under the Mistletoe (anthology)
Manson, Cynthia, ed. Mystery for Christmas and Other Stories (anthology)
Markham, Marion M. The Christmas Present Mystery (children’s)
Maron, Margaret. Corpus Christmas
Marsh, Carole. Christmas Tree Mystery
Marsh, Ngaio. Tied Up in Tinsel
Meier, Leslie. Christmas Cookie Murder
Meier, Leslie. Mail Order Murder
Meier, Leslie. Mistletoe Murder
Meredith, D.R. Death By Sacrilege
Meredith, David William. The Christmas Card Murders
Meyers, Annette. These Bones Were Made for Dancin’
Miers, Earl. The Christmas Card Murders
Mortimer, John Clifford, ed. Murder at Christmas (anthology)
Moyes, Patricia. Who Killed Father Christmas? and Other Unseasonable Demises
Muller, Marcia. Both Ends of the Night
Muller, Marcia. There’s Nothing to Be Afraid Of
Murder Most Merry (anthology)
Murder Under the Tree (anthology)
Murray, Donna Huston. The Main Line is Murder
Nordan, Robert. Death Beneath the Christmas Tree
O’Marie, Sister Carol Anne. Advent of Dying
O’Marie, Sister Carol Anne. Murder in Ordinary Time
Page, Katherine Hall. Body in the Bouillon
Peters, Ellis. Monk’s Hood
Pulver, Mary Monica. Original Sin
Queen, Ellery. The Finishing Stroke
Raphael, Lev. Burning Down the House
Ray, Robert J. Merry Christmas Murdock
Resnick, Mike and Martin H. Greenberg, eds. Christmas Ghosts (anthology)
Robb, J.D. Holiday in Death
Roberts, Gillain. The Mummers’ Curse
Robinson, Peter. Past Reason Hated
Ruell, Patrick. Red Christmas
Sawyer, Corrine Holt. Ho-Ho Homicide
Serafin, David. Christmas Rising
Shannon, Dell. No Holiday for Murder
Sibley, Celestine. Spider in the Sink
Smith, Barbara Burnett. Mistletoe from Purple Sage
Smith, Barbara Burnett et al. ‘Tis the Season for Murder
Smith, Frank. Fatal Flaw
St. John, Wylly Folk. The Christmas Tree Mystery (children’s)
Trochek, Kathy Hogan. Midnight Clear
Waugh, Carol-Lynn Rossel, ed. The Twelve Crimes of Christmas (anthology)
Weir, Charlene. A Cold Christmas
Welk, Mary V. A Deadly Little Christmas
Williams, David. Murder in Advent
Windsor, Patricia. Christmas Killer
Windsor, Patricia. A Very Weird and Moogly Christmas
Wingfield, R.D. Frost at Christmas
Witting, Clifford. Catt Out of the Bag
Wolzien, Valerie. Deck the Halls with Murder
Wolzien, Valerie. ‘Tis the Season to Be Murdered
Wolzien, Valerie. We Wish You a Merry Murder
Woolley, Catherine. Libby’s Uninvited Guest

    In the letter column for Mystery*File 43, Jeff Meyerson added the following:

Agatha Christie, “The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding” (title novella in ss collection)
Agatha Christie, “Christmas Adventure” in While the Light Lasts (apparently the original, shorter version of the above).
Georges Simenon, “Maigret’s Christmas” (title story in ss collection)
Bill Crider, Terence Faherty, Wendi Lee, Aileen Schumacher, Murder, Mayhem and Mistletoe (paperback original; four Christmas-related stories)

    [ Jeff goes on to say: ]

    Caryn should also be aware of a very entertaining pamphlet published in 1982 by Albert Memendez called Mistletoe Malice: The Life and Times of the Christmas Murder Mystery (Silver Spring, MD, Holly Tree Press). The 35 pages goes through various Christmas mysteries and includes a checklist of 89 books, of which about 60 (at fast glance) are not on Caryn’s list. I think the majority of her list is post-1982 titles.

    [ Later. ]   These are the ones not listed on Caryn Wesner-Early’s list in M*F 40. Obviously, most of these are older books, while much of the list in M*F consists of books published since Mistletoe Malice was published in 1982.

Anthony Abbot, About the Murder of a Startled Lady
” ” About the Murder of Geraldine Foster
North Baker, Dead to the World
W. A. Ballinger, A Corpse For Christmas
Charity Blackstock, The Foggy, Foggy Dew
Nicholas Blake, Thou Shell of Death
” ” The Smiler With the Knife
Carter Brown, A Corpse for Christmas
Leo Bruce, Such is Death (Crack of Doom)
W. J. Burley, Death in Willow Pattern
Thomas Chastain, 911
Noel Clad, The Savage
Constance Cornish, Dead of Winter
Alisa Craig (Charlotte MacLeod), Murder Goes Mumming
Joel Dane, The Christmas Tree Murders
Frederick C. Davis, Drag the Dark
Mildred Davis, Tell Them What’s Her Name Called
” ” Three Minutes to Midnight
Spencer Dean, Credit for a Murder
Carter Dickson (John Dickson Carr), The White Priory Murders
“Diplomat”, The Corpse on the White House Lawn
Todd Downing, The Last Trumpet
Francis Duncan, Murder for Christmas
Mary Durham, Keeps Death His Court
Jefferson Farjeon, Mystery in White
Elizabeth X. Ferrars, The Small World of Murder
Ian Fleming, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
Rae Foley, The Hundredth Door
Leslie Ford, The Simple Way of Poison
Roger Gouze, A Quiet Game of Bambu
Dulcie Gray, Dead Giveaway
Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man
Lee Hays, Black Christmas
Edith Howie, Murder for Christmas
John Howlett, The Christmas Spy
Cledwyn Hughes, The Inn Closes For Christmas (He Dared Not Look Behind)
Fergus Hume, The Coin of Edward VII
Alan Hunter, Landed Gently
Michael Innes, A Comedy of Terrors (There Came Both Mist and Snow)
Glenn Kezer, The Queen is Dead
Kathleen Moore Knight, They’re Going to Kill Me
Alfred Lawrence, Columbo: A Christmas Killing
Ted Lewis, Jack Carter’s Law
Richard Lockridge, Dead Run
Miriam Lynch, Crime for Christmas
Ed McBain, The Pusher
” ” Ghosts
Helen McCloy, Two-Thirds of a Ghost
” ” Mr. Splitfoot
” ” Burn This
Anne Nash, Said With Flowers
Stuart Palmer, Omit Flowers
Jack Pearl, Victims
Ellery Queen, The Egyptian Cross Mystery
Patrick Quentin, The Follower
M. P. Rea, Death of an Angel
Jonathan Stagge, The Yellow Taxi
Elizabeth Atwood Taylor, The Cable Car Murder
Laurence Treat, Q as in Quicksand
Charles Marquis Warren, Deadhead

    If your favorite seasonal mystery (or mysteries) is (are) not here, that’s what the comments box is for!

    Peeking ahead at next November’s schedule, I found a bonanza of “Falcon” movies coming up on Turner Classic Movies. Synchronize your calendars!

      Friday November 20

6:00 AM Gay Falcon, The (1942)
   A society sleuth tries to break up an insurance scam. Cast: George Sanders, Wendy Barrie, Gladys Cooper. Dir: Irving Reis. BW-67 mins, TV-G, CC

7:15 AM Date With The Falcon, A (1941)
   The gentleman detective postpones his wedding to find a cache of stolen diamonds. Cast: George Sanders, Wendy Barrie, James Gleason. Dir: Irving Reis. BW-63 mins, TV-G

8:30 AM Falcon Takes Over, The (1942)
   A society sleuth and a lady reporter try to track down a murderous thug’s lost girlfriend. Cast: George Sanders, Lynn Bari, Ward Bond. Dir: Irving Reis. BW-63 mins, TV-G

9:45 AM Falcon’s Brother, The (1942)
   A gentlemanly detective calls on his brother to help him stop the Nazis from assassinating a key diplomat. Cast: George Sanders, Tom Conway, Jane Randolph. Dir: Stanley Logan. BW-63 mins, TV-G. [Screenplay by Craig Rice and Stuart Palmer.]

11:00 AM Falcon Strikes Back, The (1943)
   A society sleuth is framed for murder by criminals running a war-bond racket. Cast: Tom Conway, Harriet Hilliard, Edgar Kennedy. Dir: Edward Dmytryk. BW-66 mins, TV-G

12:15 PM Falcon In Danger, The (1943)
   A society sleuth tracks a lost plane carrying $100,000. Cast: Tom Conway, Jean Brooks, Elaine Shepard. Dir: William Clemens. BW-70 mins, TV-G

1:30 PM Falcon And The Co-Eds, The (1944)
   A society sleuth investigates murder at a girls’ school. Cast: Tom Conway, Jean Brooks, Isabel Jewell. Dir: William Clemens. BW-68 mins, TV-G

2:45 PM Falcon Out West, The (1944)
   A society sleuth turns cowboy to investigate a Texas murder. Cast: Tom Conway, Carole Gallagher, Barbara Hale. Dir: William Clemens. BW-64 mins.

4:00 PM Falcon In Mexico, The (1944)
   A society sleuth travels South of the border to investigate an art dealer’s murder. Cast: Tom Conway, Mona Maris, Martha MacVicar. Dir: William Berke. BW-70 mins, TV-G

5:15 PM Falcon In Hollywood, The (1944)
   A society sleuth tours the movie capital, where he uncovers an actor’s murder. Cast: Tom Conway, Barbara Hale, Sheldon Leonard. Dir: Gordon Douglas. BW-67 mins, TV-G, CC

6:30 PM Falcon In San Francisco, The (1945)
   A society sleuth enlists a little girl’s help in nabbing a mob of silk smugglers. Cast: Tom Conway, Rita Corday, Sharyn Moffett. Dir: Joseph H. Lewis. BW-66 mins, TV-G.

             —

   These, of course, have played many times over on TCM, but if you’ve never seen or taped them before, here’s a great chance to obtain them all at once. There are two more in which Conway appeared, followed by three starring John Calvert. You may have to hunt a while on the collector’s market for some or all of these.

THE FALCON’S ALIBI. (1946, RKO) Tom Conway, Elisha Cook, Jr.

THE FALCON’S ADVENTURE. (1946, RKO) Tom Conway.

THE DEVIL’S CARGO. (1948, Film Classics) John Calvert, Rochelle Hudson, Roscoe Karns, Lyle Talbot, Tom Kennedy, Theodore Van Eltz, Paul Regan

APPOINTMENT WITH MURDER. (1948, Film Classics) John Calvert, Catherine Craig, Lyle Talbot, Jack Reitzzen, Peter Brocco

SEARCH FOR DANGER. (1949, Film Classics) John Calvert, Albert Dekker, Myrna Dell, Douglas Fowley, Ben Welden