Sat 14 Jan 2017
Reviewed by William F. Deeck: FRANCES NOYES HART – Hide in the Dark.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[5] Comments
William F. Deeck
FRANCES NOYES HART – Hide in the Dark. Doubleday Doran & Co., hardcover, 1929.
Somewhere in Maryland is Lady Court, an old manor house long uninhabited except for the possible ghost of a murderer. On All-Hallows Eve, 1928, the March Hares — four people born in March and claiming to be mad, in s good sense — hold a gathering of spouses and friends to become acquainted and be reacquainted. There are thirteen altogether, a fitting number, if you don’t count the ghost and the memory of another March Hare who had committed suicide on the grounds ten years earlier.
Lots of undertones and overtones here as early-day jet-setters — I guess they are ocean-liner-setters — mingle with the not so successful, the jealous, the emotionally deprived. And then, after the apple bobbing, comes the game called “Hide in the Dark” and murder. All the people in the house had access to the means, most had the opportunity, and many had a motive.
While I didn’t particularly appreciate most of the involved chitchat at the beginning — the list of characters that was provided came in handy here — when the murder occurs, the novel became quite gripping. Forgive the slow beginning; it’s worth struggling through it for the rest of the book.
January 14th, 2017 at 8:21 pm
Based on this review I have just ordered a copy on Amazon.
January 14th, 2017 at 9:14 pm
I’m very much tempted myself. I’ve never read anything by Hart, and this sounds like one to start with. Another possibility is her more famous novel, THE BELLAMY TRIAL, which takes place, I’m told, entirely within a courtroom.
January 15th, 2017 at 7:27 pm
The BELLAMY TRIAL and Stephen Longstreet’s novel THE CRIME were both inspired by the 1920s Hall-Mills murder case in New Jersey. No one was ever convicted for the murders, so like Jack the Ripper, the case has proven fertile ground for speculation. The Hall-Mills trial (1926), like the Scopes Trial a year earlier and the Hauptmann trial in the 1930s, featured a star performer, pig farmer Jane Gibson (dubbed “The Pig Lady” by the ever-sensitive press) who entertained everyone with ever changing accounts of what she witnessed. She gave her trial testimony after being wheeled in the court room on a hospital bed. Now that’s entertainment! I plan to read the Longstreet book this week. Mary Roberts Rinehart was a reporter at Hall-Mills, but I don’t know if she made any fictional use of the material.
January 15th, 2017 at 9:00 pm
I always associated Hart with the Rinehart school, maybe unfairly.
January 16th, 2017 at 3:51 am
Hart wrote so few mysteries — other than BELLAMY, she wrote only one other crime novel, that being THE CROOKED LANE, about which I know nothing — it would seem difficult to place her in any other author’s school. Rinehart would appear to be as close as any, however.