Sun 18 Jan 2026
Archived Mystery Review: STUART PALMER – The Penguin Pool Murder.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[4] Comments
STUART PALMER – The Penguin Pool Murder. Hildegarde Withers #1. Brentano’s, hardcover, 1931. Bantam, paperback, March 1986. Intl Polygonics Ltd, paperback, 1990, Rue Morgue Press, trade paperback, 2007. Penzler Books, trade paperback, 2023. Film: RKO Radio Pictures, 1932 (Edna May Oliver, James Gleason).
Miss Hildegarde Withers’s first meets Inspector Piper in this case, and she helps him solve a murder that takes place in the New York Aquarium, not long after the stock market crash of 1929. They also seem to rush off to be married at the end, but do they?
Definitely an oldie, but also definitely a goodie. One does wonder, however, how Miss Withers is so readily allowed to tag along with Piper, in so many violations of proper police procedure. In that sense, this is pure fantasy, from another era altogether.
January 19th, 2026 at 3:38 pm
FYI: BV Lawson, in her ACCORDING TO MURDER blog today, mentions that Turner Classic Movies is having a “murder” day this Thursday, January 22, starting at 6 a.m. EST, beginning with 1932’s THE PENGUIN POOL MURDER — which I always enjoyed –with Edna May Oliver, James Gleason, Robert Armstrong, Mae Clark, Donald Cook, and Edgar Kennedy. It will be followed by four Miss Marple movies featuring Margaret Rutherford.
January 19th, 2026 at 8:03 pm
Thanks, Jerry. I’m not signed up for TCM any more, but I think I can get a partial schedule if I get HBO through Amazon Prime. Life is complicated any more, isn’t it?
But thanks for the heads up on this. It might be in time for some readers of the blog. There aren’t many movies from 1932 that hold up as well as THE PENGUIN POOL MURDER.
In any case, I’ve added to info the credits at the top if the review. I meant to earlier, but I just didn’t get around to it.
January 25th, 2026 at 10:57 pm
The penguin in the film became a favorite and was briefly a star.
February 2nd, 2026 at 2:31 pm
Decades ago, during a mystery weekend at Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, New York (which has since become a treasured family retreat), I was introduced to Withers and Piper via a screening of the film version. I quite enjoyed it, but never got to see any of the sequels, which is a shame as Oliver and Gleason (so memorable in, respectively, A Tale of Two Cities and Arsenic and Old Lace) were delightful.
Perhaps worth noting that Palmer was also a busy screenwriter with multiple credits in the Bulldog Drummond and Falcon series.