Sat 20 Nov 2021
An Archived Mystery Review: HUGH PENTECOST – The Fourteen Dilemma.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[8] Comments
HUGH PENTECOST – The Fourteen Dilemma. Pierre Chambrun #12. Dodd Mead, hardcover, 1976. Worldwide, paperback, April 1990.
It’s been quite a while since I read either a Judson Philips or a Hugh Pentecost mystery, and I find that I’d completely forgotten how much passion he used to put into a story. Not passion in a sexual sense, but pure, unadulterated emotion. Rage, hate, love, joy, the works.
What disturbed me at first was the fact that this adventure of Pierre Chambrun centers around the death of a beautiful young 12 year old girl who also happens to be a deaf mute. She and her parents are staying at the Hotel Beaumont as the result of a winning lottery ticket in a $250,000 lottery, They’ve been given a luxury apartment on the exclusive 14th floor, along with assorted diplomats, movie stars, professional killers, including one working for the State Department, and some of the wealthiest people in the world.
And thus the number of possible suspects is limited, even though the hotel is otherwise very much like a city unto itself. But young innocent girls are not supposed to be murder victims, and — if this makes sense — while I know it happens in real life, there is no real reason I have to read about it in fiction as well, is there?
But the fact that she cannot hear or speak is an essential part of the plot, and that she is an innocent victim is part of what spurs Chambrun into taking some of the actions he does. The story builds, as it often does in Pentecost’s books, into a story of black power politics, Arab nationalism, corporate greed, and of course, national security. In other words, a full-fledged international crisis.
As the years [have gone] by, some of the fervent emotion seems to have ebbed away from what seemed so important a decade or so ago. On the other hand, it’s still oil that makes the world go around, or haven’t you noticed?
Overall, this us a decent mystery, told in Pentecost’s straightforward, often blunt style of writing, but in the end the death of the small girl is all but forgotten. With all the other events going on, it’s not surprising, but I somehow still found it more than a minor annoyance to me.
November 20th, 2021 at 10:52 pm
For some reason I never really got into the Chambrun books. I much preferred Peter Styles, the Park Ave. Hunt Club, or John Jericho ( the latter more in short than long form ).
I do recall the passion in his books, Styles and Jericho were often justice figures as much as detectives, and of course the Park Ave. Hunt Club certainly falls in that category.
This one reminds me that often as not in the genre when there was a shocking crime in this era like the death of a child by the end of the book the plot would turn out to be about everything but the shocking death. Even Rex Stout couldn’t, or wouldn’t, work up a great deal of anger over the murder of a child. It took Spillane or one of the hard boiled types to get truly worked up by injustice.
November 20th, 2021 at 11:17 pm
Hugh Pentecost’s real name was Judson Phillips, which was the name he used for his Peter Styles books. Styles was a journalist whose passion for justice was what made his adventures real page turners. Unfortunately, many of the Phillips/Pentecost books were based on current events at the time, and somehow not enough time has passed to make readers nostalgic for them. At the moment I think they’re largely forgotten.
November 21st, 2021 at 3:27 am
I have read a couple of books of Hugh Pentecost. I found them good but not enough to send me immediately looking for more of his stuff.
November 21st, 2021 at 3:32 am
Although my familiarity with mysteries is limited, I myself enjoy stories when the whodunit is told from the youngster’s perspective. Such have made for some of my all-time fave children’s books.
Magical stuff such as Cocteau’s “The Holy Terrors” or Kastner’s “Emil & the Detectives”.
Even cheaper fare like ‘The Hardy Boys’ or ‘Jupiter Jones’ can be entertaining depending on when you first meet them.
On the other hand, children appearing in adult crime yarns usually do seem like stock props. It’s very easy for a kid in a crime romp to be annoying.
“Man on Fire” by AJ Quinell is one of the only modern examples I can think of which straddled the divide in a way which evoked no objection from me.
November 21st, 2021 at 4:12 am
To expand a little on the whole child in danger and child victim business in earlier mysteries I suspect the writers just didn’t want to get too deep into bathos or exploitation.
Believe it or not writers once had taste and discretion and didn’t want to lose library and lending library sales.
It was something the Reggie Fortune books by H. C. Bailey were often singled out over, and even in a book like MacDonald’s THE NURSEMAID WHO DISAPPEARED where the kidnapping of a child is a major element of the plot the child is kept off stage as much as possible.
In fairness I probably prefer that. Children in danger is too often today the standard and not the exception and even some pretty good writers push my tolerance for the trope and cross lines to an extent they lose my trust (Stephen King’s IT is one that went too far for me and I stopped reading him for many years).
It can be done effectively, Michael Innes THE JOURNEYING BOY, John Buchan’s ISLAND OF SHEEP, Jack Davies PAPER TIGER, Victor Canning’s MAQUERADE, Mary Stewart’s AIRS ABOVE GROUND, even Spillane’s THE TWISTED THING, but too often it misses the mark by a wide margin for me.
For one thing most writers don’t write even vaguely believable children and it quickly becomes irritating watching them fumble.
There are always exceptions, LET’S KILL UNCLE by Rohan O’Grady, EMIL AND THE DETECTIVES, Conan Doyle’s “Sussex Vampire,” MOONFLEET, EVERY LITTLE CROOK AND NANNY, or TIGER BAY, but just in general I prefer them neither seen nor heard in my crime fiction whether as detective, victim, or potential victim, and there are good writers like Jonathan Kellerman I pretty much don’t read because of that prejudice.
November 21st, 2021 at 8:16 pm
I’ve been reading Hugh Pentecost/Judson Philips books for decades. I’m always impressed with prolific writers who can keep the quality of their work at a high level. Pentecost/Philips certainly qualifies. Sadly,Pentecost/Philips is slipping into the “Forgotten Writer” category. But, I’m still reading him.
November 21st, 2021 at 10:55 pm
Not quite forgotten yet. Crippen & Landru published a collection of John Jericho stores as recently as 2008. Here’s part of their blurb
“JERICHO FIGHTS THE BATTLES Hugh Pentecost, the pseudonym of Judson Philips (1903-1989), created one of the most memorable of fictional sleuths in the red-bearded artist, John Jericho. The stories combine interesting settings, skillful puzzles, social concerns, and earnest melodrama. Jericho’s paintings reflect his anger against social injustice and violence, and his search for Truth; and when the downtrodden, the unfairly accused, and (frequently) a damsel in distress seek his help, he is willing to enter the fray. Jericho’s skills as a detective are his skills as an artist. His painter’s eye picks up details that others miss. And the energy he puts on his canvasses is reflected in the physical energy with which he fights for Truth. The 15 stories in The Battles of Jericho, written between 1964 and 1976, are filled with the social unrest of that turbulent era, tempered with Jericho s (and Pentecost’s) belief in individual responsibility. The Battles of Jericho is the 26th in Crippen & Landru s Lost Classics Series — new collections by great writers of traditional mysteries. Introduction by S.T. Karnick. Afterword by the author s son, Daniel Philips. Cover by Gail Cross.”
November 22nd, 2021 at 8:40 pm
A further note on Jericho, one of the Park Avenue Hunt Club heroes was John Jericho. I don’t recall him being bearded, but I think he was redhaired and an artist.
He’s not exactly the same character and the timeline doesn’t really fit, but he might have been part of the inspiration.
I greatly admired the Jericho stories when I used to read them in EQMM. They were well written, concise, had punch, and the characters were often sharply drawn considering the length. A few of them stayed with me far longer than others in the same issues.