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Book Review: SURVIVE OR DIE (2019) by Catherine Dilts

6/22/2019

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Author Catherine Dilts knows her way around the Colorado outdoors. So do most of her characters in Survive or Die, a reality television twist on the murderer-in-our-midst scenario found in mystery fiction. Catherine is the creator of the Rock Shop Mysteries and a regular contributor to Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, and despite her busy schedule she has also participated in my first two Mitchell Mystery Reading Group book reads. I always enjoy the lively, active characters she creates, their strong sense of motivation and morals (even when said morals are bent or broken), and intriguing outdoor settings that often pit people against the harsh realities of nature.

-Survive or Die follows a motley group of factory workers as they gather for a mandatory week-long retreat in the Colorado woods. Their saturnine and increasingly drunken boss, Jack Bender, has hired ex-TV host Rowdy Hunter to create a Survivor-like series of challenges that will force his employees to choose teams and fight to keep their current jobs. The rope bridges and ATV obstacle courses may not be the real threat, though: it is clear that injuries, attacks, and even death are occurring at an alarming rate.

Aubrey Sommers thought husband Grant was providing a romantic getaway for them both, away from kids and clutter, only to find herself separated from him, sleeping in a tent, and part of a competing team. Sotheara Sok is on an environmental mission and needs to use the contest as cover to hunt for treasure of a different and dangerous kind. Berdie Placer, the old but tough-as-nails company receptionist, has a family score to settle. Together with Madison Wilhelm, a friendly figure initially ill-suited to the concept of "roughing it", the women form the team Stockton's Revenge, relying on each other for support and survival.

It is largely through their eyes that we view this wet and wild world, and as the contest begins and the book continues, it is Aubrey, Berdie, Sotheara, and Madison who evoke much of the reader's interest and empathy. It also helps that almost everyone else could be considered a potential killer, so we are more inclined to trust the ladies, especially as they become active in investigating the death of a photographer who was allergic to bees. When an unlikely few found their way into his cabin room, the victim's always handy epinephrine pen was suspiciously out of reach.

As the week pushes on and physical attacks (involving tripwires, flying arrows and tossed rocks) on the contestants escalate, Aubrey wonders if she'll be able to escape in time with her husband before a restless killer claims another victim. Survive or Die builds to a memorable climax as the women protagonists -- now separated and trying to get back to camp after a violent storm brings new dangers to the group -- confront the criminal(s) and uncover some unpalatable truths.

Some personal impressions regarding this energetic, busy mystery novel: for me, the story came together about a quarter of the way through, and once it hit its stride, it was very engaging indeed. The initial chapters suffered from the need to set up the many subplots and from the sheer number of characters at camp (over 40 employees are initially gathered to compete, not counting Rowdy's cooks and crew). Those numbers dwindle quickly, and once the reader becomes familiar with Dilts's designated heroes, the plotline snaps into focus and the book becomes more convergent.
 
Similarly, the paradox of factory owner Jack Bender, by all accounts a selfish and misanthropic man, providing a week-long company retreat for his employees (presumably with paid vacation, as no one complains about missing income) meant I needed to wait until the book's second half before I could learn more about circumstances that would provide context for the choice. I enjoyed the deft brushstrokes applied to the many supporting characters that painted brief, intriguing portraits of each person, their personality, their role at Bender's Clips, and the motivation that drives or limits them in the contest and in life. 

I have always been a fan of mystery settings that isolate a group of people and plots that turn up the tension. J. Jefferson Farjeon's Mystery in White has his travelers stranded by a snowstorm in a country manor where murder may have just occurred, while Agatha Christie brings And Then There Were None's fated guests to Indian Island, with no means of escape. Catherine Dilts makes good use of her woods-and-mountains Colorado backdrop to trap and challenge her characters, and she keeps the perceived safety of civilized society just out of their reach. 

Survive or Die makes for a fun beach (or woods) read and is available now through Amazon in eBook and print formats.

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Book Review: THE CASE OF THE HOWLING DOG (1934) by Erle Stanley Gardner

6/15/2019

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During a recent perusal of Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, one of the entries in P.G. Wodehouse’s always amusing book series, I was delighted to find that Bertie Wooster was working his way through “the latest Erle Stanley Gardner.” While I knew that young Bertram – who might not possess the most discerning of literary minds – was a fan of popular detective fiction, it seemed particularly apt that he would choose this famed American author. For one thing, his titles are often sensationalistic and evocative: Gardner’s cases involve Lucky Legs, Substitute Faces, and Counterfeit Eyes. For another, Gardner’s famous creation Perry Mason was massively popular but culturally disposable; conventional wisdom is that the many stories featuring his lawyer’s exploits are mass-market yarns and not much more.

And then I realized: I’ve never read an Erle Stanley Gardner. Bertie Wooster has more experience with the author than I do.

So, as a longtime classic mystery fiction fan, I was very curious how Gardner and his attorney would fare in my court of private opinion. The result, in a very satisfying way, is contradictory. My mix of sentiments is actually better than the non-verdict of a hung jury, because there is much conclusive evidence to invite further investigation with a few more books. But it is undeniable that there are points in the testimony that speak admirably of the defendant even as other elements expose some mighty weaknesses in the case.

Indeed, 1934’s The Case of the Howling Dog has much to recommend, starting with its curious premise. A man comes to Mason complaining that his neighbor’s dog is fraying his nerves with his baying and wants a legal remedy. He also asks for details about drawing up a will where all his possessions would go to that neighbor’s wife. The conflicting requests – coupled with reports that the client has been watching his neighbors through binoculars – make deputy district attorney Pete Dorcas question the man’s sanity, but Mason thinks there’s more to the situation, and there is.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that my early assumptions about the plotline’s trajectory were completely upended, and that the story quickly became much more complicated (at times, unnecessarily so) and also loopier. Part of the challenge is that a few plot threads, such as the search for a deported Chinese servant – unfortunately referred to by all the police and lawyer characters, including Mason, as a “chink” – are left fluttering. Generally, though, everything adds to the picture, and there are some very neat setups that deliver dramatic disintegrations of key witnesses on the stand.

The Case of the Howling Dog delivers two such moments, and they are clever and inventive: one involves casting doubt on an eyewitness’s statement, while the other unwraps a bandaged hand alibi. But the real shock for me is Perry Mason’s use of ethically dubious – and in one case certainly illegal – actions to make sure Bessie Forbes, the client he is defending, is not found guilty of murder.

Knowing little more than his pop culture reputation, I had always assumed that Gardner’s famous character was a by-the-books defender of justice who won his cases handily by being shrewd and playing fair. But here Mason engages in some very questionable behavior, acting as a maverick rule-bender and taking a few phenomenal risks. One choice involves hiring an actress to impersonate a suspect, while another finds Mason manufacturing a confession of murder and forging a person’s name on the document(!). Why he coerces Della Street, his adoring personal assistant (and potential witness for the prosecution if this stunt isn’t successful), into helping him type the letter is anybody’s guess. After all, Mason is forward-thinking enough to destroy the typewriter afterwards, commenting that, like a fingerprint, each machine is unique.

The grounds of such a disbar-able offense is that it will lead to the excavation of a new floor foundation where Mason suspects the bodies are buried. Even though the fake confession is indirectly sent to a journalist and not to the police, it’s still an unbelievable gamble, but then all of the attorney’s hunches pay off (naturally) and it is the prosecuting district attorney who is nonplussed and disgraced.

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So this early Perry Mason story is a rather wild and outsize affair. Although entertaining and actively paced, I couldn’t help comparing it to Rex Stout’s masterful Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin mysteries, and Gardner suffers in comparison. True, Wolfe is allergic to courtrooms, but both he and Mason share a penchant for the climactic reveal and for confronting the criminal with convicting evidence. But Rex Stout’s prose (as he filters it through Goodwin’s tongue-in-cheek narration) is often nimble, carefully chosen, compact, and compelling. Unlike his plotting on display, Erle Stanley Gardner’s syntax and style comes across as repetitive and artificial.

I choose two elemental examples to defend my statement, lest I stand accused of slander and defamation of character. First, the book is filled with mostly two-person conversations peppered with the likes of “Perry Mason said” or “replied Paul Drake.” I strongly suspect that Gardner may have kept his eye on a page count (or was paid by the word) because all of this unneeded identity repetition is trying. The dialogue – until he gets into the courtroom, it's usually Mason explaining while the other person asks questions – doesn’t need such tagging, as it’s hardly in dispute who is speaking to whom.

Second, the interactions of the characters (and often the characters themselves) come off as stilted and stereotypical. People in Perry Mason’s world tend to fall into two camps: they are either adoring and fawn at the feet of the celebrity attorney or they are belligerent and antagonistic to him. Such binaries aren’t a great problem – it certainly helps identify heroes and villains in the cast – but it does draw attention to the artifice that Gardner has built. I will be generous and overlook the casual misogyny as yet another era-crafted artifact, but it’s still troubling to hear Perry Mason bark multiple “Shut up and listen” commands to a woman who is thoroughly composed and rational. Or, as Gardner needlessly tags it in Chapter 12, “Shut up,” he told her, “and listen.”

This was a surprising and provocative reading experience, and perhaps provoked me in ways the author didn’t intend. I look forward to trying another Erle Stanley Gardner in the near future. If Bertie Wooster recommends it, then that’s good enough for me.

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Book Review: THE BEAST MUST DIE (1938) by Nicholas Blake

6/11/2019

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I'm working my way through Nicholas Blake's Nigel Strangeways mystery series after having first read the books nearly 20 years ago. But this month, when I came to the excellent 1938 entry The Beast Must Die, I was reluctant to revisit it. Two reasons for this: the central premise is so vividly designed and presented that I still felt familiar with the story after all these years; and I had such a good experience the first time around that I didn't want to try it again merely to find diminishing returns.

Happily, this Beast holds up and well warrants a second look. And for mystery fans who haven't yet read the suspenseful, twisty novel, there's even more to enjoy.


A plot summary with too many specifics might telegraph or ruin some surprises, so I will limit myself to the story's inciting incident and early developments: we learn through his diary entries that mystery writer Frank Cairnes plans to identify and murder the hit-and-run motorist who killed his young son. This motivation may not be fully moral but it is sympathetic, and it doesn't take Cairnes long (especially as he happens to encounter a convenient after-the-fact eyewitness) to come up with a prime suspect, a boorish and petty garage owner named George Rattery.  

It is when Cairnes insinuates himself into Rattery's circle and begins the game of cat and mouse that The Beast Must Die becomes an irresistible, page-turning tale of suspense. A murder occurs – we have been witness to Cairnes' inner thoughts and deadly plans throughout the diary's narrative – but not in the way that intended killer or intended victim expect. Nigel Strangeways is brought into the dramatic affair, and he finds a number of well-drawn characters to view as suspects, including Rattery's dour, manipulative mother, his ex-mistress who has begun to fall for Frank Cairnes, and even Rattery's bullied and emotionally fragile teenage son.

I admire author Blake/Day-Lewis's skill here to shift and blend many distinct elements of the crime story, from traditional whodunit and detection to Shakespeare-inspired cold revenge tale to a human-sized moment of modern-day tragedy. The various tones not only fit together well but also keep the story propelling forward with a what's-next urgency that later Blake novels often don't deliver. Blake's early titles are filled with clue- and character-generated attention to detail, and it is clear that he is taking seriously the challenge of crafting a satisfying fair-play mystery. Like many good writers with a similar pedigree, he may be traveling in a popular genre but he's not taking a condescending view. The moods, brooding natural settings, and pathos that are generated (interestingly, both at the beginning and very end of the story) prove highly effective, and hint at Day-Lewis’s talents as a poet who is attentive to imagery, structure, and specifics.

Even if one still finds some flaws in this Beast – there are a couple expedient coincidences for one thing, and the murderer’s rationale that inspires the commission of that crime at that moment could be viewed as either bold or foolhardy – it is still a very engaging read. Other reviews of the book can be found from Kate at crossexaminingcrime (also a reread for her, and equally good the second time around), Nick at The Grandest Game in the World, and The Puzzle Doctor at In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel.

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