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Announcing December 2021 Mitchell Mystery Reading Group title: GROANING SPINNEY (1950)

10/31/2021

Twice a year, I try to moderate a group reading discussion of a Gladys Mitchell mystery. Invariably, I’m delighted and surprised by the conversation that is generated. Some readers choose a subjective, personal approach; others might share their research into the geography or era in which the story takes place. Character, plot, setting, tone, and literary allusions are all fair game, and whether you find the story dazzling or dissatisfying, I welcome your thoughts.

I have been selecting Mrs Bradley books to explore in series order. Our first group reading foray, back in 2018, was a reading of 1929’s The Mystery of a Butcher’s Shop. Every six months or so, a new title was selected and discussed: Dead Men’s Morris (1936), Come Away, Death (1937), Laurels Are Poison (1942), and the wartime Sunset over Soho (1943).

For December 2021, I want to revisit a particular wintry favorite in the series: Groaning Spinney from 1950. A few Gladys Mitchell fans were disappointed that they couldn’t join in with Sunset over Soho due to its rarity as a print title. I chose Groaning Spinney in part because it is still in print (albeit by a different name). Vintage Press published the book in 2017 as Murder in the Snow, and it is currently available from book retailers in the US and the UK. US eBook readers can also find a Kindle version.

Groaning Spinney displays the author’s transition to a more sedate storytelling style (and a more subdued Mrs Bradley, no longer cackling and poking people in the ribs with a bony, yellow finger). But there is still much to celebrate in this Cotswolds-set holiday story. Over the years, I have read the book three times – the group reading will be my fourth – and each time I am ensnared and held by the author’s charming literary spell.

If you would like to join us for the December reading event, either by sharing your observations or by reading along and visiting the weekly discussion posts, I hope you will do so!

As with previous readings, I would like to divide the chapters over four weeks and discuss one section of the book at a time. To take part, please email your comments (a couple paragraphs or so) to [email protected] by the Tuesday of the week due, and I will create a post incorporating everyone’s remarks shortly thereafter. Here is the schedule for Groaning Spinney:

TUES. DEC. 7 – Comments due for Chapter 1 “Mrs Bradley Takes a Christmas Vacation” through
Chapter 5 “Parson’s Farewell”
TUES. DEC. 14 – Comments due for Chapter 6 “Saturday’s Child” through
Chapter 10 “Peculiar Persons”
TUES. DEC. 21 – Comments due for Chapter 11 “What’s In a Name?” through
Chapter 15 “The Gun”
TUES. DEC. 28 – Comments due for Chapter 16 “The History of Worry” through
Chapter 20 “A View to a Death”

Of course, participants are welcome to read ahead, but please make notes of future chapters and send those comments on the appropriate week. I’m looking forward to revisiting and discussing this book. Let me know if you have any questions. Happy reading!

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Book Review: TAKE (1990) by Bill James

10/25/2021

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Tristram Shandy and Annie Get Your Gun are both woven into the fabric of Take, Welsh author Bill James’ sixth crime story featuring detective Colin Harpur and his supervisor Desmond Iles. Shandy is the current subject of Harpur’s wife’s reading group, and the 18th century satire reminds Colin that life is full of absurdities and coincidences, often delivered ironically and out of order. A community theater production of the 1946 Irving Berlin musical Annie, meanwhile, finds Harpur’s daughters sharing the stage with Doris Preston, the wife of Ron “Planner” Preston, a cautious career crook who has his eye on a weekly wages delivery truck.

In Take, the reader spends more time with the criminals than the cops, and the choice is effective and illuminating: James sketches intriguing portraits of Planner and his gang, which includes Tyrone and Dean, two young bucks who are looking out for themselves; Mansel Billings, a self-described mother hen caring for his own bedridden mother; and Hoppy Short, a dim but available gun for hire. There is friction among the group as everyone waits – Planner’s daughter is attracted to Tyrone, for one thing – but Mansel tries to keep spirits up and Planner tries to keep control.

There are also two informants waiting for a payout, a canteen worker at the truck company and a desk policeman looking to open his own restaurant. There is a rumor that there may be more money in the van than usual, as a third driver has been assigned to the route. It’s also possible that the police already know of the plan, and no one wants to drive into an ambush, especially when snipers like Robert Cotton are on the force and at the ready.

In her New York Times book review of the previous series entry, Come Clean, Marilyn Stasio writes that Bill James characterizes his criminals “in a mock-heroic style that confers dignity as well as absurdity on their aspirations for greatness.” It’s an observant description, and it fits the characters here as well. Except possibly for Hoppy, all are looking at the robbery as a way to find legitimacy and security. Planner wants to provide a comfortable, upwardly mobile life for his wife and daughter. Tyrone and Dean want this to be their first big score and a boost to their reputations. Mansel wants to give his mother care and quality that he can’t otherwise afford. Even Barry Leckwith, the cop informant on the inside, wants to use his share to become an independent entrepreneur.

As for the “mock-heroic” descriptor, I think that may be a little too dismissive. Almost always, the author makes his characters psychologically truthful; we might not agree with the choices made (of both the police and the criminal plotters) but we always understand the motivation and logic that brings them there. Planner and his gang aren’t being mocked; morality aside, their focus on their goal of stealing is just as competent and thorough as Harpur’s actions to sniff out and stop illegal activity. Each side has its networks, each side struts on the same stage, castmates destined to share the same sets and perform in a final drama together.

If the reader sides ultimately with the actors representing law and order, it is largely because the criminals are endangering innocent people with their acts. The men have guns, and they are not the cap pistols from the music hall. I mention this because Bill James also brilliantly examines the murky morals of Team Law & Order, filled with individuals (Harpur and Iles included, but also of informants like Leckwith) who are willing to keep the rule book conveniently closed if doing so will benefit them. In Take, the married Harpur’s ongoing affair with Ruth Cotton has cooled, as cuckolding a colleague and sharpshooter by sleeping with his wife might not be the best strategy.

Used throughout both as a verb and a noun, Take is another winning entry in an unusual and consistently engaging crime series. The story whips along, conflicts and complications are constant, and the dialogue and prose are always colorful and often bitingly funny. I appreciate James’ world-building, and his ongoing refusal to label anyone “hero” or “villain” but instead explore every character along the way and have them act truthfully, however flawed their thinking and ethics may be. No community theater director could ask for more.

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Book Review: MURDER'S A SWINE (1943) by Nap Lombard

10/22/2021

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Available in November from Poisoned Pen Press stateside – the reprinted title is already launched in the UK – 1943’s Murder’s a Swine receives a worthy revival. In his introduction, Martin Edwards explains that Swine (U.S. title, The Grinning Pig) is one of two spirited mystery stories produced during the war years by British literary couple Gordon Neil Stewart and Pamela Hansford Johnson. Both this book and Tidy Death (1940), their prior detection thriller published under the name Nap Lombard, feature socialites Andrew and Agnes Kinghof, a bantering couple in the style of Nick and Nora Charles. To their credit, the Kinghofs aren’t quite as besotted with booze and prove more enjoyable company than Craig Rice’s American equivalents, Helene Brandt and Jake Justus.

Indeed, the style and tone of Murder’s a Swine is intelligent and charming, and if the puzzle plot (and especially the means of coercing the killer to confess) falls a little short, the prose and characterization – not to mention an intriguing setting that provides a snapshot of English suburban living in the early days of the war – keep the reader engaged and entertained. Along with an ARP warden, Agnes Kinghof uncovers the body of a man hidden among sandbags in a darkened alley. The victim proves to be an estranged relative of one of the Kinghofs’ neighbors, a kindly woman with a weak heart named Mrs. Sibley. She soon becomes the target of escalating, pig-centered pranks, with a sow’s head appearing in the service lift and another head popping up uninvited at a Punch and Judy show.

Despite the couple’s efforts, the malevolent prankster soon dispatches Mrs. Sibley, and seems to have set his sights on another relation, “Bubbles” Ashton. Andrew and Agnes work to protect the young woman, and the felicitously named Inspector Eggshell also keeps a close watch. It is Andrew’s cousin, the alternately magisterial and misanthropic Lord Whitestone, who resents the pair’s meddling: the man has ties to Scotland Yard and the Home Office and finds Andrew to be a personal irritant. Due to his stubbornness and portly carriage, Agnes has dubbed Lord Whitestone, half affectionately, “Pig”.

The story is decently plotted and well-paced, and the co-authors display an astute eye for narrative detail. The observational humor regarding characters and situations reminded me at times of the humanist tone I love to find in the novels of Gladys Mitchell. Take this example: Lord Whitestone reluctantly accepts an invitation from the Kinghofs for a night out, only to be held captive as an audience member for a charity talent show featuring Boy Scouts and Girl Guides. The authors describe the scene (and Pig’s growing discomfiture) in this amusing and vivid way:

After a few more couplets and a dance, the girls disappeared, only to reappear a few moments later to receive the thunderous applause of their fathers and mothers. When they had disappeared for good, the last three tripping over Bessie Milton, who was trying to get more than her fair share of the reception, a stringy young woman with glasses and pale-blue false teeth announced that Scout Percy Fiddle would give an impersonation of Mae West. This was so embarrassing that Pig took out his season ticket and read it carefully front and back until Percy had bowed his way off the stage.

Stewart and Johnson’s use of their wartime backdrop is also notable, especially as it is used mostly organically. Scenes such as a meeting to discuss residential fire safety precautions and negotiations with a local shopkeeper to purchase rationed meat and dairy are both historically interesting as well as neatly character defining. If the mood generated in Murder’s a Swine falls a little short of Gladys Mitchell’s best evocations of British life during the war – the brooding, dreamlike Sunset over Soho (1943) and the busy, brighter Brazen Tongue (1940) are well worth reading – the suspense of a killer stalking and terrifying women is always at the fore.

I was surprised at how much menace was actually on display; the villain of this story takes more pleasure in terrorizing of his targets than he does moving towards his goal of inheriting a fortune. The Kinghofs conclude early in the story that the criminal is likely a man named Maclagan Steer, a black sheep bearing a grudge against family members he has not seen in decades while exiled abroad. But where the vengeful figure is now, and who he might be impersonating incognito to get closer to his relations, propels the mystery through to a gathering-of-suspects and unmasking-the-killer climax. It’s all very good fun (if a little dark and suspenseful at times), and I am grateful to Martin Edwards, Poisoned Pen Press, and the British Library Crime Classics series for returning this Pig to the page.

Reviews can also be found on my colleagues’ blogs at Beneath the Stains of Time and crossexaminingcrime. I received an advance reading copy from NetGalley in exchange for a forthright review.

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Book Review: INVISIBLE WEAPONS (1938) by John Rhode

10/12/2021

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Invisible Weapons offers two crimes for the price of one: in the book’s first half, Inspector Jimmy Waghorn investigates the murder of Robert Fransham, a man found dead from a blow to the head in his brother-in-law’s home. The entrance to the washroom where Fransham’s body is found just happened to be under surveillance by a trustworthy constable at the time of his death, while the sole window leading outside was watched by the man’s chauffeur. The second half concerns the death by carbon dioxide poisoning of Sir Godfrey Branstock. In the latter case, the coroner reaches a verdict of accidental death due to a leak of sewer gas in Sir Godfrey’s wine cellar. In the former case, Waghorn and his superior, Superintendent Hanslet, focus on the one man with a clear motive: Fransham’s brother-in-law, Dr. Thornborough.

Are the two deaths related? Dr. Priestley seems to think so. If so, how was Robert Fransham struck down when he was alone in a room? And where is the weapon? Consensus from bloggers and readers place Invisible Weapons as a solid but unremarkable entry from author Cecil John Charles Street’s more than 140 detective stories published under the names John Rhode and Miles Burton. I would agree with that assessment: it is a breezy, fast read, aided by the two-for-one structure and a good representative title to show the author’s interest in plot and investigatory procedure with minimal interest in character development or complicated motives. It is also one of the few John Rhode titles currently in print, thanks to the recent publication of this book and three others by HarperCollins, who have resurrected the Collins Crime Club imprint.

As workaday as this genre story is, Street provides a few spots of enjoyable character development, such as the presence of Alfie Prince, a mentally deficient tramp who goes door to door asking for cigarettes and gets angry when denied his pleasure. I also appreciated the spirited speech of a neighbor named Willingdon, which shows that the author can infuse characterization through dialogue when he chooses to. (Much more often, Jimmy Waghorn will ask a question or two of a person and receive straightforward paragraphs in reply that read like a dispassionate witness statement.)

As reviewers have noted, it is the remarkable obtuseness of the police – and their complete failure to connect the dots without Dr. Priestley’s help – that strains credulity the most here. Hanslet in particular is fixated on Dr. Thornborough for Fransham’s murder, an unshakeable belief built principally on the fact that the suspect is the only one with an apparent motive: Fransham was about to change his will, and the doctor had recently fallen upon financial hardship. To his credit, Waghorn stops short of arresting Thornborough because he feels evidence is lacking. No one involved questions why a man would invite a near-estranged relative to his own home and then murder him under mysterious circumstances when an accident away from the estate would have generated far less suspicion and achieved a better effect.

Some proposed secondary theories are also head-scratching and unconvincing, yet Superintendent Hanslet accepts them as possible, no grain of salt needed. One example: because tramp Alfie (or at least his singular coat) was seen in the neighborhood of Adderminster shortly before the murder, one speculative idea is that Dr. Thornborough managed to get Alfie to kill for him. The doctor, knowing that Alfie’s mental stability sometimes caused blackouts and memory loss, would be safe as he could trust his assassin to promptly forget his role. Hanslet is astute enough to consider variations and scenarios like that one, but logic and common sense are given only to amateur criminologist Priestley.

Perhaps it is for this reason that Dr. Priestley, with secretary Harold Merefield in tow, spends some of the later pages visiting the houses and poking around the washrooms and cellars himself. As the police view has calcified into stubborn dogma, the doctor’s rare outing is needed so he can gather additional facts that will explain the strange circumstances of each man’s death.

This is also one of those tales where quite a bit of luck and coincidence needs to go the murderer’s way, from the trajectory of the weapon to a rented truck sitting in a garage on the premises and conveniently overlooked for days after the crime. Perhaps that all comes with the territory of mystery fiction; it’s a pleasant enough garden path up which to walk. Just don’t look too closely at the reality of the details, either of the criminal’s fragile plan or of the policeman’s remarkable ignorance.

In part because of the modern reprinting, many reviews of Invisible Weapons can be found online. Among the learned bloggers spilling some virtual ink: TomCat at Beneath the Stains of Crime; Puzzle Doctor at In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel; Nick at The Grandest Game in the World; Martin Edwards at his Crime Writing Blog; and JJ and Aidan offer a detailed, spoiler-stuffed discussion at The Invisible Event.

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Announcing December 2021 Mitchell Mystery Reading Group title: GROANING SPINNEY (1950)

Book Review: TAKE (1990) by Bill James

Book Review: MURDER'S A SWINE (1943) by Nap Lombard

Book Review: INVISIBLE WEAPONS (1938) by John Rhode

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