Thu 22 Oct 2009
A 1001 MIDNIGHTS review: ANTHONY ABBOT – About the Murder of the Clergyman’s Mistress.
Posted by Steve under 1001 Midnights , Reviews[6] Comments
by Francis M. Nevins:
ANTHONY ABBOT – About the Murder of the Clergyman’s Mistress. Covici Friede, US, hardcover, 1931. UK title: The Crime of the Century, Collins, hc, 1931. Also published as: Murder of the Clergyman’s Mistress. Popular Library #286, 1950.
Fulton Oursler is best remembered as a magazine editor, for Liberty in the 1930s and Reader’s Digest in the late Forties and as the author of the religioso blockbuster The Greatest Story Ever Told (1949). But in younger days he also contributed to the mystery genre, using the by-line Anthony Abbot for eight detective novels starring New York City police commissioner Thatcher Colt.
The format of the first six is clearly borrowed from S. S. Van Dine’s Philo Vance series. Each title falls into rigid About the Murder of pattern; Colt is portrayed as wealthy mandarin intellectual; his cases are narrated and signed by his faithful male secretary; his familiars include a stupid district attorney, a crusty medical examiner, and dignified butler; the novels tend to begin with a body found under bizarre circumstances, with strange clues pointing to a host of suspects; the investigation is punctuated by conferences at which, in the spirit of Socratic debate, the detectives offer alternative reconstructions of the crime; and a second murder usually takes place about two-thirds of the way through the book.
Like those of the young Ellery Queen, Abbot’s variations on the Van Dine framework are better written and characterized and somewhat livelier than the Philo Vance books themselves, although Abbot unfortunately followed Van Dine in declining to play fair with the reader.
The second and perhaps best in the Thatcher Colt series was About the Murder of the Clergyman’s Mistress, which like many Van Dine novels was based on a famous true crime. In this version of the Hall-Mills case of the 1920s the bodies of a respected Episcopal minister and of a beautiful singer in his choir are found floating down the East River in a rowboat.
Colt quickly takes over personal command of the investigation, with a huge assortment of peculiar clues — nine dumbbells, a bloody-pawed cat, Chinese sumach leaf, a bag of dulse — implicating various members of the minister’s and the singer’s households.
Staying in full control of a stupendously complex plot, Abbot also treats us to vivid glimpses of early-1930s New York and to a sardonic portrait of the WASP clergy.
Most of the Thatcher Colt novels are cut from the same pattern, including About the Murder of Geraldine Foster (1930), which launched the series; About the Murder of the Circus Queen (1932), with its background of a circus playing Madison Square Garden; and About the Murder of a Startled Lady (1935), with its intimations of the occult.
The last two Anthony Abbot titles, The Creeps (1939) and The Shudders (1943), lack Van Dine elements and are believed to have been ghosted by another writer.
———
Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007. Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.
Editorial Comment: The other writer has been tentatively identified as Oscar Schisgall. See the comment following the previous review.
October 22nd, 2009 at 8:56 pm
I like the Colt books a good deal more than these reviews might suggest, but agree with many of the criticisms.
Colt was based in part on Teddy Roosevelt, himself former Commissioner of the New York Police, and it is not surprising that the actor who probably played the part best in the films was Sidney Blackmer, who aside from villains, was somewhat stereotyped as TR. Adolph Menjou played the role too, and while the film wasn’t particularly faithful it had its moments. Since Colt was something of a clothes horse Menjou was also well cast.
At least, unlike Van Dine, Abbott didn’t always introduce the killer on the same page in every book.
As for why Abbott farmed out the last two Colt’s — and why he wrote them at all — the simplest explanation would seem to be a contractual obligation with the publisher, though there is no way of knowing if that is true. By the time of the last two books Oursler may simply have not had time to write the books. He was at the height of his popularity and his fame when the last books were written.
Incidentally I found the last two Colt books highly entertaining despite their flaws, but if you aren’t a fan of Van Dine or at least the early EQ’s chances are your tolerance for Colt is going to be low in either incarnation.
Mike Grost has some good comments on Abbott and the virtues of the better Colt books at his site. It gives another point of view on an interesting writer.
October 23rd, 2009 at 6:49 am
I thought the first two Colts were quite good, though the first bogged down with this while third degree section which got rather tiresome. Good, complex puzzle, however, actually better than any of the Vane Dines in those terms, except perhaps for The Kennel Murder Case.
Great pb cover for Mistress. As I recall there actually is a scene like that, though was the woman quite that dishy?
October 23rd, 2009 at 1:30 pm
David —
You’re quite right about Mike Grost and his comments and other observations about the Anthony Abbot novels.
Here’s the link to the relevant pages of his website:
http://mikegrost.com/abbott.htm#Abbot
Curt —
I was wondering how long before someone commented on the paperback cover. Dishy is the right word for her!
— Steve
October 23rd, 2009 at 2:03 pm
David and Steve,
Thanks for the kind comments!
Abbot is a writer whose best books deserve revival. Hope this MYSTERY*FILE forum will help bring Abbot new readers.
October 23rd, 2009 at 11:04 pm
Mike G., I read your writing on Abbot too, it’s always nice to have that site to turn to for info on overlooked writers.
October 24th, 2009 at 4:52 am
If that’s the clergyman’s mistress on the paperback cover the books other title, Crime of the Century, makes more sense.
I’ll second (or third) all the calls for Abbott’s being revived. He’s certainly unjustly forgotten, and well worth reviving.