Sun 24 Oct 2010
Reviewed by William F. Deeck: CORTLAND FITZSIMMONS & JOHN MULHOLLAND – The Girl in the Cage.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[4] Comments
William F. Deeck
CORTLAND FITZSIMMONS & JOHN MULHOLLAND – The Girl in the Cage. Frederick A Stokes, hardcover, 1939; Grosset & Dunlap, reprint hardcover, no date.
Once again, Cortland Fitzsimmons has taken a sure-fire idea — “the first mystery based on the psychology and deception of the magician’s art” — and turned it into a dud. Referring to the prose style of the ineffable James Corbett, whom it has been claimed I try to emulate, Bill Pronzini has said reading it is “like watching grass grow.”
Well, reading Fitzsimmons is like watching grease congeal. Furthermore, his narrator; a Roman Catholic priest nearing seventy, could be a twenty-year-old college student the way the author portrays him. The other characters are more like tissue paper than cardboard.
Putting on a magic show between films at a theater, Peter King enlists the assistance of a frightened and unprepossessing — she’s not the latter, of course, but you already guessed that –young lady, who then volunteers before King’s stooge can do so to disappear from a cage.
Only later is it discovered that the man sitting in front of her has had a dagger plunged into his neck. Four or five corpses later — tedium caused me to lose count — King spots the multiple murderer through his knowledge of magic.
Daniel Stashower, author of two books featuring magicians, The Ectoplasmic Man and Elephants in the Distance, tells me that Mulholland, a master magician himself, wrote a nonfiction work on magic that was quite readable. Which leads me to deduce that he had no role in this novel other than the magic, none of which, true to his code, he explains.
Bibliographic Data: This collaboration with Fitzsimmons is the only entry for John Mulholland in Al Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV. As Bill Deeck pointed out, he was quite well known in the world of magic and magicians. You can find his MagicPedia page here.
I don’t know how well known Cortland Fitzsimmons (1893-1949) was as a mystery writer, but there are 17 titles to his credit in CFIV between 1930 to 1943. His most famous mystery might be Death on the Diamond (Stokes, 1934), which was also made into a rather bizarre film starring Robert Young as a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals. (Apparently his teammates keep getting bumped off, one by one.)
October 24th, 2010 at 7:54 pm
I came up dry in trying to find a cover image for this one. In fact, I find only two copies of the book itself offered just now for sale online.
If all goes well, though, you will find only one. In spite of Bill’s review, which I expect to be totally accurate, I bought one of the two. Not only was it inscribed by Fitzsimmons, although without a jacket, the price was less than ten dollars.
October 24th, 2010 at 10:35 pm
I have some books by this author, have never read. I believe he also had one of those indomitable nosy spinster detectives, as well as a series of sports mysteries.
October 25th, 2010 at 12:32 pm
I’ve read James Corbett. Grass grows faster.
October 25th, 2010 at 7:58 pm
David
After reading about Corbett as a classic alternative mystery writer several times over, I’ve put together a small collection of his work. I’ve not read any of them yet, but I’m aching to give him a try.
Here’s are some short passages taken from his detective stories, put together by Bill Deeck:
http://www.mysterynet.com/books/testimony/genius/
Curt
Getting back to Fitzsimmons, he had a few series characters; in chronological order, more or less:
Arthur Martinson (2 books)
Ethel Thomas (4 books)
Percy Peacock (2 books)
If one of these is the nosy spinster detective you’re thinking of, my money’s on contestant number two.
— Steve