Sat 27 Aug 2016
Archived Review: JONATHAN STAGGE – Death, My Darling Daughters.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[6] Comments
JONATHAN STAGGE – Death, My Darling Daughters. Doubleday Crime Club, US, hardcover, 1945. Michael Joseph, UK, hardcover, as Death and the Dear Girls. No paperback edition. Bestseller Mystery B164, digest-sized paperback, 1953. (Thanks to Bill Kelly for the latter information.)
In cool, analytical fashion Stagge methodically bares the dabbling fraudulency underlying the cultural legend pretended to by an ultra respectable New England family. The august Benjamine Hilton was once Vice President of the United States, and two generations later his family still finds delight in dropping names from the political and literary past. Their influence is used in hushing up the mysterious death of the family nanny during a secret scientific conference they are conducting, but their assumption that murder is beneath them is a disastrous one.
The unlikely investigator on the scene is Dr. Westlake, only physician for the small town of Kenmore, but this is not, however, the first case of murder he’s had to deal with. Occasionally great Freudian profundities rear their ugly heads, but as a detective puzzle it’s more than fair. Overall, though, an oversimplified view of life from another age.
Rating: C plus
Bibliographic Notes: “Jonathan Stagge” was one the many tangled pen name/collaborations between Richard Wilson Webb & Hugh Callingham Wheeler (also variously Q. Patrick and Patric Quentin). This is the seventh of nine Dr. Westlake novels published between 1937 and 1949.
August 27th, 2016 at 5:34 pm
Dabbling fraudulency? Sometimes I can only sit back and wonder at the way with words my younger self had, some 38 years ago.
August 28th, 2016 at 7:38 am
Bibliographic Note: This title also was published by Joseph in the UK as Death and the Dear Girls in 1946 and under its own title in 1953 in the US as Bestseller Mystery B 164 in paperback digest format. I don’t knew if the Spivak digest was abridged or not.
August 28th, 2016 at 9:17 am
Thanks, Bill. I’ll add this information to the publishing data for the review. That Bestseller edition is scarce. I didn’t come across it when I was looking for a possible paperback edition. According to the cover, it is unabridged:
http://bookscans.com/Publishers/digest/images/BestsellerB164.jpg
August 29th, 2016 at 7:51 am
Thanks, Steve!
August 29th, 2016 at 3:48 pm
I never took to Stagge or Westlake as I did Patrick and the Duluths. I think it may have been the small town setting and I preferred the brisk smart mouth tone of the Duluth titles.
August 30th, 2016 at 12:02 pm
Jonathan Stagge and Patrick Quentin really do seem like tow different authors.