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Book Review: THE FIGURE OF EIGHT (1931) by Cecil Waye

12/23/2024

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Cecil John Charles Street is far better known to classic detective fiction readers for his many enjoyable mysteries published under his pseudonyms John Rhode and Miles Burton than for his four early titles credited to Cecil Waye. These rare Waye-ward books from the early 1930s have been resurrected and are now available in print and eBook form from Dean Street Press, which is cause for celebration. The first entry, Murder at Monk’s Barn (1931), is a satisfying locked room puzzle in which the author makes good use of his detective protagonists, siblings Christopher and Vivienne Perrin. For the second Waye story, The Figure of Eight, Vivienne is completely offstage tending to her marriage, and Christopher finds himself embroiled in abstract international intrigue as two tiny (fictional) Central American republics fight over land and stolen government documents.

Street should certainly be commended for trying his hand at a thriller with the trappings of global politics; it’s not too much of a stretch to think that with Eight he may have hoped to deliver a tale similar in spirit to John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps or Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent. The problem with The Figure of Eight, I feel, is twofold. First, the character of Christopher Perrin just isn’t particularly engaging. With his sister no longer around to provide definition and badinage, the blandness of Christopher’s personality is even more pronounced. Second, the conflict between two small foreign countries fighting over contested mineral-rich land – said countries are named Montedoro and San Benito, with no specifics offered to distinguish one from the other in the mind of the reader – is so conceptual and figuratively distant that it acts as mere premise and nothing else. And that would be okay, except that the murders and the peril that follow as a result are scarcely more involving.

There is the promise of an alluring puzzle in the book’s first chapter: as a London bus reaches the end of the line, its driver finds an unconscious woman still in her seat. Unable to wake her, he summons a doctor and the passenger dies as she is being transferred to hospital. Investigations reveal that a man had accompanied her earlier, speaking forcefully in a foreign language. Where was this man now, and how did the woman die under such mysterious circumstances? Unfortunately, the answers are rather disappointing – yes, we are in the realm of exotic (and generic) untraceable poisons – and the incidents that occur from these events are less than engrossing. Christopher is poisoned not once but twice, both times secretly carrying some mainthornine, the only known antidote to the poison called “The Merciful Death”, which has been conveniently created by Perrin’s medical friend Sir Douglas Mainthorne.

Street stages several other intrigues in The Figure of Eight, and new incidents are launched and paced well enough to keep the plot moving forward. A mystery woman named Isabelle de Laucourt appears, and Montedorian delegate Señor Vincente de Lanate finds that official documents have been stolen and, later, is killed in an apartment building ambush along with his two assassins (or was it all a set-up?). And then there’s the tipped-over figure of eight itself, the infinity symbol found on a letter and a strip of newspaper that was the symbol of a once-powerful secret society. Could this cabal be operating today?

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For me, all these incidents never really add up to much, even as the basic ingredients have potential. What should be a climactic confrontation between resourceful hero and unmasked villain feels rather rote. There are no genuine puzzles for Perrin to solve in a traditional way, so instead he finds himself stumbling into various rendezvous with the sinister foreign forces that a more astute or cautious detective would avoid. At separate points in the story, both the pragmatic Inspector Philpott and the exotic villain bemoan the loss of such a brilliant mind should Christopher die. But the amateur detective does not demonstrate much of this innate brilliance in the book, nor is he given much opportunity to do so.

As always, I am grateful to publishers like Dean Street Press for making rare and expensive texts (even mediocre ones) from detective fiction’s Golden Age accessible to readers once more. The Figure of Eight is worth a look for Street/Rhode/Burton completists, but I doubt the title will wind up on anyone’s top 10 (or even top 100) list. Over at In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel, Puzzle Doctor was similarly underwhelmed, while R.E. Faust at Witness to the Crime was more forgiving in his review.

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Book Review: ETON CROP (1999) by Bill James

12/15/2024

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With the focus on an intriguing new character and a new and competitive drug dealing locale, Eton Crop becomes both a great standalone novel and one of the best stories to date in Bill James’s Harpur and Iles series. The character is young undercover agent-in-training Naomi Anstruther, and the location is an amusingly kitschy floating restaurant named The Eton Boating Song. The setup is simple but the narrative winds and weaves in satisfying and unpredictable ways. Two local Eton dealers have been killed by London players looking to expand; their corner table with its signaling glass of rum and black is now vacant. Anstruther is tasked to align herself with Mansel Shale’s group and become the next Eton dealer. This time, Detective Chief Superintendent Colin Harpur will be in the restaurant, ready with his undercover men to catch the out-of-town assassins.

But those who have delighted in James’s hilarious, brutal, and surprising series – Eton Crop is the sixteenth entry – should know that events are not guaranteed to go as planned and can often turn to nightmare for cops and criminals alike. What is fascinating here is that the obvious hook that would surely generate suspense for any other crime fiction writer – i.e., Will the undercover agent be discovered by the gang she infiltrates? – is subverted at the outset. Shale knows full well that Anstruther is a plant (his intel is just as good as Harpur’s) but stands to benefit from the charade, so he proceeds carefully.

With this excellent book, the author continues to add to a cumulative, serial narrative that gives characters a chance to speak, act, and reveal their personalities in fascinating and contradictory ways. “Panicking” Ralph Ember has survived much intermittent peril. Ralphy is a vain bar owner who has formed an uneasy alliance with the other local kingpin, Manse Shale, since both are threatened by the London forces trying to take over the drug trade in James’s always unnamed city. Art dealer and informant Jack Lamb provides Harpur, and only Harpur, with useful intel while wearing era-appropriate costumes whenever they have their midnight meetings at deserted WWII battlements. Even Ember and Shale’s junior partners in crime, Beau Derek and Alfie Ivis respectively, are wonderfully drawn creations, each with their own strengths, weaknesses, and rhythms of speech.

And as for Naomi, Bill James shows how adept, and how unique, he is at shaping characterization and psychological terrain. Over just two chapters (Ch. 4 and 5), the reader meets this woman and learns everything relevant about her through the character’s actions, words, and internal thoughts. In a way, it’s a minimalist portrait, as we follow her vacation with her boyfriend to Torremolinos, the friction that ensues while there from her commitment to go undercover – he rightly argues that, once undertaken, his relationship with “Naomi” will dissolve and “Angela Rivers” will be an unreachable stranger to him – and her only-live-once fling with a vacationing Welshman named Lyndon during the return flight to England. It’s a wonderful introduction, alternately letting us empathize and judge the young officer’s choices and her admirable but perhaps misplaced devotion to duty.

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The paragraphs above, which praise plot and character, don’t adequately capture just how enjoyable Bill James’s books are, and how teeming they are with life, insights, wit, and vivid turns of phrase. The crime stories are written in almost a stylistic shorthand (which, depending on the character, can be quite verbose and circuitous) that readers become familiar with as they stay in this fictional world and learn the language and the customs of the denizens there. There are some stories that I feel could be approached by new readers as standalone entries, and Eton Crop is one of these: Naomi Anstruther provides the compelling anchor and keeps the kitschy restaurant afloat, right up to its unpredictable climax. 

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Book Review: FURIOUS OLD WOMEN (1960) by Leo Bruce

11/30/2024

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Furious Old Women. What a wonderful crime story title, both evocative and a great antonymic turn on the phrase “angry young men”. Indeed, an infuriated 71-year-old named Mrs. Bobbin accuses an unknown group of male hooligans of waylaying, robbing, and clubbing her sister Millicent to death on her way to church. But as schoolmaster and amateur detective Carolus Deene listens to the tale, he concludes that the killer’s gender, age, and motivational outlook might not be so obvious. He takes the case with reservations, and starts not by harrying the town’s juvenile delinquents but by investigating the assorted characters who had appeared in the wealthy victim’s life.

Although I had hoped this mid-career mystery from Leo Bruce would start off with an energetic flourish, the first chapter – consisting almost exclusively of dialogue between detective and client – is one of those where the author chooses to introduce the entire cast to come over a few preliminary pages. (I counted eleven future suspects namechecked and described, superficially and in turn, by Mrs. Bobbin in Chapter One.) The effect of this type of everyone-all-at-once opening frustrates me because there is no room for the reader to meet characters initially on their own defining turns. Ideally (and in my opinion), suspects in mystery fiction should be introduced sequentially in settings that let us infer personalities and relationships in a more organic, and less compacted, way.

Far more satisfactory is the author’s handling of the revelations and solution in the book’s final chapter, which is arguably what matters most in this genre. Not only do the clues of timeline and character that Bruce’s detective gathers during his investigation prove to be scrupulously fair play, but Carolus Deene arrives at his conclusion and then decisively walks away from the case. He only reveals his findings to friends at an informal dinner party months later, after no arrest has been made and interest in the tragedies at Gladhurst has abated within the village. Deene’s parting shot to Detective Inspector Champer, a hostile Yard official who treats the amateur sleuth with contempt throughout the book, scores a bullseye with the reader:

[Champer, after learning that Deene accepts the Inspector’s general view of the case:]
“We don’t seem to disagree on a point.”
“I don’t think we do,” said Carolus; then, unable to resist a somewhat petty triumph he added: “There’s only one difference. I know who was the murderer and you don’t. Good-bye, Inspector. We shan’t meet again, on this case, anyway.” 

Like any good murder mystery, as the plot progresses other dangerous and deadly incidents occur, and Deene (and the reader) seeks context for these new events that stems from our initial victim’s fate. One middle-aged villager, once seen as a rival of the dead Millicent Griggs, dies from poisoning, while another is injured after a fall inside the church’s bell-tower. And the author lets his detective end the tale with a clever bit of summary that shows how a simple shift in perspective makes all the evidence align.

Leo Bruce has always enjoyed approaching his mystery stories from a comedic, often satiric perspective. He is most well known for his books featuring the stolid Sergeant Beef, with the most famous being Case for Three Detectives (1936). His output of the Carolus Deene series nearly triples that of the Beef books, however, and those titles featuring the Senior History schoolmaster who is an amateur investigator on the side – or is it the other way round? – may be underrated by many fans of mystery fiction.

Perhaps the humor is not for all tastes: there is a Dickensian trend to use evocative surnames that can promote caricature more than characterization. In this book alone, we find various souls named Mugger, Slipper, Rumble, Stick, Chilling, Slatt, and Waygooze, whose personalities are all given a comically broad varnish. Then there is Flo, a denizen of the pub who is always up for a laugh – anyone who discusses her to Carolus invariably adds, “But Flo doesn’t mind.” And apparently she doesn’t, as the boastful poacher and philanderer Mugger, proud of both vocations, occasionally steps out with Flo:
“This is a handy place,” confided Mugger, “if you’ve got one with you on a wet night. No one’s going to disturb you here. They keep away from churchyards after dark. I remember…”
“Come along,” said Carolus.

And speaking of churches in their more traditional, respectable role: in Furious Old Women, Leo Bruce amusingly pits a Catholic-influenced “High Church” mentality against a Protestant-practical “Low” one as Grazia Vaillant and Millicent Griggs each battle to bend the parish church to their own desired image. Vicar Waddell explains how he kept the more ornate additions away while appeasing both ladies:
“Well, I had liturgical colours, you know, and we turned to the East for the Creed. I had to draw the line at holy water but I allowed those of the choir who wished it to make the sign of the cross. I had six candlesticks on the altar but kept a plain cross and felt bound to refuse the large crucifix presented by Miss Vaillant… I agreed rather reluctantly to the choir wearing the lace cottas which Miss Vaillant presented after their surplices were worn out but I would not go so far as scarlet cassocks…”
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Personally, I appreciate the playfulness of the writing, although often less is more. Bruce is not immune from overplaying his joke, as with a repetitive gag where Constable Slatt insists that Deene use the term “police officer” as a title of respect, even when the “copper” in question refers to the mineral or “policeman” pops up in a Kipling quotation.

Taken in all, though, Furious Old Women is an enjoyable tale from detective fiction’s Silver Age with an admirably uncomplicated and satisfying fair-play puzzle at its heart. Leo Bruce’s witty mysteries, and perhaps the Carolus Deene books in particular, deserve to be rediscovered.

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Book Review: THE BARBAROUS COAST (1956) by Ross MacDonald

9/1/2024

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With private eye novels – and stories spun from any genre, really – I am especially interested in The Hook. How does the author glide (or throw or crash) the reader into the story, and how original is the premise? Are the introductory characters intriguing enough for us to commit to spending two hundred more pages in their company? Is the initial predicament straightforward or are there already twists to throw the reader off balance? And do these early pages convey the writer’s tone and skill, and are they appealing?

Since I’m interested in tracking those elements, it should be obvious that I hope to see these tools used effectively and memorably by the storyteller. The stronger The Hook and the more assured and effective the start of the story, the more I can relax as a reader because I know I’m in good hands. Ross MacDonald, the author of The Barbarous Coast (1956), provides a sublimely engaging first ten pages for his sixth novel featuring Lew Archer, and the pages and chapters that follow are similarly first-rate. The result is one of MacDonald’s most resonant and tragic tales yet, using a very human pathos to explore the familiar hard-boiled detective themes of betrayal, seduction, violence, and revenge.

Archer arrives at the gates of an exclusive club on the California coast looking for a man named Bassett. First he must deal with an angry fellow named George Wall, who is also trying to get his hands on Archer’s prospective client. The investigator learns that Wall is married to a beauty named Hester Campbell, and the woman has gone missing. Archer meets with the fussy, snooty Bassett – who is asking for bodyguard protection against Wall – and then chooses, with the flip of a coin, to take on the hot-tempered husband as his client instead of the unlikable club manager. The search for the missing wife unearths other mysteries, notably the unsolved killing of a teen girl on the beach. The victim happens to be the daughter of an ex-prize fighter named Torres, who is now working as the gate guard at Bassett’s Channel Club.

How’s that for a Hook, left, right or otherwise?

As with other titles in MacDonald’s excellent series, The Barbarous Coast anchors its story upon two slippery posts. There is the moneyed decadence and moral decay of rich families who can use their power and cash to make problems disappear; and the uneasy coexistence of the people trying to get through life by seeking truth in a way that’s personally honorable – Archer, George Wall, and the world-weary gate guard Tony Torres belong to this camp – and those willing to bend or break the truth to further their fortunes. It is not a surprise that most of Coast’s characters readily join this second group with nary a twinge of conscience, including an imperious movie producer named Simon Graff and a conceited boxer-turned-contract player named Lance Leonard, who happens to be Torres’s wayward, undisciplined nephew.

Indeed, the personalities of Coast’s characters are superbly drawn and explored, with perhaps only the rich set’s gun-toting hired heavies nearing cliché. We see the world through Lew Archer’s eyes, and that’s a good thing, since the perspective is often insightful, surprising, and quite amusing. When an offended Mr. Bassett demands to know why Archer won’t act as his bodyguard, the detective provides this unconventional, unvarnished answer:

“It means living at close quarters with some of the damnedest jerks. They usually want a bodyguard because they can’t get anybody to talk to them. Or else they have delusions.”
And while some readers may not welcome Archer’s psychological assessments of his character and others – I find that they are brief, nuanced, and never intrude upon the pacing or plotting – these rare moments of reflection (presented as straightforward reportage) are valuable and compelling. An example from Chapter 24:
“I drove home on automatic pilot and went to bed. I dreamed about a man who lived by himself in a landscape of crumbling stones. He spent a great deal of his time, without much success, trying to reconstruct in his mind the monuments and the buildings of which the scattered stones were the only vestiges. He vaguely remembered some kind of oral tradition to the effect that a city had stood there once. And a still vaguer tradition: or perhaps it was a dream inside of the dream: that the people who had built the city, or their descendants, were coming back eventually to rebuild it. He wanted to be around when the work was done.”    
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I am also consistently impressed by the skill in which Ross MacDonald (a pseudonym of Kenneth Millar) layers the twists and complications of his plots without losing the attentive reader along for the ride. The story here is neither simple nor simplistic: the cast quickly expands to more than a dozen active characters, each with their own obscured or announced objectives. As it should happen in a P.I. mystery, each revelation – whether the uncovering of a hidden relationship or the discovery of a fresh corpse – takes Archer into new territory as the kaleidoscope turns and a new picture forms. The conclusion of this story has a mournful inevitability, as the picture clicks and clicks again until Nemesis tries to balance the board between the honorable and the corrupt.

Along with The Ivory Grin (and, if reputation is to be relied on, the upcoming title The Galton Case, which I shall read soon), The Barbarous Coast shows this ambitious author and his observant detective at their very best. It can also be sampled as a standalone story outside of the series and is highly recommended.

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