Mon 31 Aug 2020
Archived Mystery Review: RICHARD LOCKRIDGE – The Old Die Young.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[9] Comments
RICHARD LOCKRIDGE – The Old Die Young. Nathan Shapiro #12. Lippincott & Crowell, hardcover, 1980. No paperback edition.
In recent weeks a couple of old pros in the world of mystery fiction have shown their fans that they’re both alive and well, which is welcome news indeed. [The second book is by Ngaio Marsh, and it will come up for review in a few days.]
Each has added a creditable entry to the already sizable list of detective novels that have been produced under their names over the past forty years and more. Separately, I hasten to add, and distinctively.
Taking the male member of this pair of famous writers first – a small change of pace, and there’s nothing wrong with that, is there? – Richard Lockridge’s actual collaborator for most of his first fifty-five books was, of course, his first wife, Frances. Together, their most famous creation was the celebrated husband-and-wife sleuthing team, Mr. and Mrs. North. When Frances died in 1963, it meant the end of the Norths as a detective team, alas, but the adventures of some of their other characters have never ceased to appear. This is Richard Lockriddge’s twenty-fifth book as a solo act.
An aptly chosen word, I think. The Lockridge fictional milieu has always been that of Manhattan and the closer suburban environs, but I think that a closer look would show that very often forming the basis for the immediate story has been the Broadway theatre.
And so it is here. The mysterious death of a leading man a little too old for the part he’s playing draws Lieutenant (soon to be Captain) Nathan Shapiro into the world of bright lights and theatrical temperaments so synonymous with life along the Great White Way.
Shapiro I picture as a sad basset hound who, no matter what case he finds himself on, invariably thinks of himself as in over his head. There are no sudden flashes of brilliance that come in the solving of his cases. He does not believe in coincidence. A steady flow of evidence accumulates against the killer.
For all of its brightly crisp dialogue, always a standard Lockridge trademark, and a brief glimpse or two at modern morality, this is a mystery still very much old-fashioned in tone, with little or no action to speak of, but with a good many speaking parts.
Rating: B minus
Bibliographic Update: This was, alas, Richard Lockridge’s final book. He died in 1982.
August 31st, 2020 at 6:01 pm
Thank you for an enlightening review!
The only Nathan Shapiro I’ve read so far is #2 in the series, “Murder and Blueberry Pie (1959). It’s pretty good. I need to read many more.
The Heimrich books are much better than I expected, even though they are much less known than the Norths. They often have both substance and sparkle.
August 31st, 2020 at 6:27 pm
I haven’t read anything by Richard Lockridge, with or without Frances, in a long time, and this review reminded me of how much I miss his/their books. I’ve made myself a promise that I’m going find one and read it this week.
August 31st, 2020 at 7:31 pm
I never read one of the Heimrich novels, but there were several novellas, a couple with Shapiro too I think, and long shorts in EQMM and I always enjoyed them.
I’ve read varying opinions on the contribution of Frances to the actual writing, but general consensus is she was more an influence on the character of Pam than actual writer. Certainly she got no credit on his film work leading me to imagine her role was mostly inspiration and perhaps first reader.
The novellas though were much in line with the North’s in terms of bright dialogue and smart plots.
I’ve been re-reading the North’s in e-book form and enjoying them. Many of them and the Heimrich and Shapiro titles are available, often on sale in the $2 to $3 range, in that form.
August 31st, 2020 at 8:07 pm
I’ve always suspected that Frances was involved with the North books more with inspiration, to use your word, David, and may have done relatively little in the way of actual writing. However they worked together (and I wonder if they ever did any interviews that addressed it), their collaborations always read like sparkling champagne to me. Or the tinkle of ice in chilled martinis.
August 31st, 2020 at 9:01 pm
I agree her influence was obvious, but may not have been actual writing, reading the dialogue I would not be surprised if they had not worked the dialogue out together aloud, and she may well have made suggestions, though I see little change in his style other than abandoning the North’s when she was gone. I imagine the mystery element was mostly his doing as the plots of the later books don’t vary a great deal.
Her contribution to the genre, if only inspiring Pam North, was great and I would never belittle it. Certainly Richard’s best work was what he did with her.
The characters began as a series of NEW YORKER sketches and I would not be surprised if Frances contributed more to those stories than the later novels.
August 31st, 2020 at 11:56 pm
I think the mysteries were screwier, for lack of a better word at the moment, when both Frances and Richard were writing the North books. It’s been too long since I read one to be able to say exactly how, but Pam always seemed to bring out the befuddlement of Lt. Weigand and his assistant on the police force. The plots themselves didn’t change all that much after Frances died, but some of the fun seemed to.
September 1st, 2020 at 11:59 am
In my web article on the Lockridges, I suggest that Nathan Shapiro is a possible inspiration for the TV sleuth Columbo:
http://mikegrost.com/lockridg.htm#Blueberry
There are a number of similarities.
Nathan Shapiro was there first.
Also:
Nathan Shapiro in the 1950’s was actually pioneering in being a Jewish detective who is the central sleuth of his books. It just wasn’t common before him, and Rabbi David Small in the 1960’s.
September 1st, 2020 at 1:11 pm
Thanks for the link, Mike. I hope you don’t mind my posting the relevant passage, re Columbo, which I thought was nicely observed on your part:
” Links to Columbo. Nathan Shapiro anticipates the television detective Columbo, who debuted on July 31, 1960. Both:
Are nebbishy men who are badly underestimated by suspects they question, at first. See Murder and Blueberry Pie (Chapters 7, 10), and the reactions of Bob Oliver and Howard Graham.
Deal with suspects who are above them in the social scale.
Act like they are about to go, then turn back and ask more questions of suspects. See Murder and Blueberry Pie (Chapter 10), where Shapiro does this first to the room clerk, then more intensely to suspect Howard Graham.
Are big city police detectives, who work in plain clothes.
The names Shapiro and Columbo are verbally similar. Both:
Have three syllables.
Have the accent on the second syllable.
End in O.
Nathan Shapiro is likely more working class, than such upper middle class men he interviews as Bob Oliver and Howard Graham. Still, these suspects are not the upper class big-shots interrogated by Columbo. One suspects that Shapiro’s Jewishness also causes him to be underestimated by suspects. This is a dimension not present in Columbo.
September 11th, 2020 at 10:10 am
[…] of old pros still at work, as I was in my review of a recent book by Richard Lockridge], the second half of that description goes double for Ngaio […]