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Book Review: THE PERFECT CRIME (2022) ed. Vaseem Khan & Maxim Jakubowski

11/3/2022

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The thematic hook of The Perfect Crime, a new 22-story anthology from the Crime Writers’ Association, both excited and ultimately disappointed me. As editors Maxim Jakubowski and Vaseem Khan explain in their introduction, this collection strives to give voice to authors who bring their own cultural and ethnic perspectives to their mystery and suspense fiction. Jakubowski notes the genre history of white men who have provided readers with ethnic protagonists, such as John Ball’s African-American detective Virgil Tibbs and H.R.F. Keating’s Bombay-based Inspector Ghote. Since the days of Edgar Allen Poe, crime fiction has overwhelmingly offered stories about white people and white culture, so a collection that encourages men and women of varied racial and ethnic identities to tell their own tales is cause for celebration.

Some authors featured here certainly deliver, while others disappoint. As with any multiple-writer anthology, a reader will likely find some entries stronger than others. With The Perfect Crime, however, I found myself wading through too many generic stories, tales that might be set in the Australian outback or feature characters named Kaeto and Tej but whose predictable plotlines could be transplanted anywhere with a Caucasian cast and suffer no culture shock. I tended to get ahead of many of these unsatisfying stories because their authors play it safe and deliver familiar tropes, whether it’s an unconvincing con-versus-con story or a lover’s triangle where one of the sides takes a telegraphed revenge on the other two.

When an author rises to the challenge to break from genre tradition and explore their own voice and cultural identity, the effect is memorable and sometimes visceral. Two excellent entries confront the subject of racial hatred and the violence it provokes head on. In John Vercher’s “Either Way I Lose,” a light-skinned African-American man in 1919 Omaha gets caught up in politics and prejudice and must decide how far he will go to provoke – or stop – murder within his community. With “The Yellow Line” and its menacing first sentence “He followed her home again,” Ausma Zehanat Khan relates the story of Haniya, a young Muslim woman who becomes the target of a privileged banker who takes sadistic pleasure in stalking his quarry. Both stories are carefully crafted, understated in their prose, and unflinching as they build to their climaxes; each offers a sharp portrait of minority individuals trying to survive within a culture dismissive and often openly hostile to them.

Other writers make great use of the mindset and landscape of their characters. For me, standouts include “For Marg” by the prolific J.P. Pomare, a somber story conjuring up the wet, cold isolation of the New Zealand hills as a widowed farmer tries to stop his sheep from disappearing. Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s “The Land of Milk and Honey” pays homage to Spanish domestic drama by placing tentative young lovers in conflict with the girl’s repressive patriarch of a father. With “Buttons”, Imran Mahmood explores the psychology of a sociopath in a focused, highly effective sketch of a London man prowling for a victim.

Sheena Kamal’s “Sundown” adroitly tackles the harsh topics of sex trafficking and racial violence in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, the title referring to towns where dark-skinned people must leave by sunset or face the consequences. “Paradise Lost” by Abir Mukherjee strikes a welcome lighter tone as an expatriate Scot criminal, stuck hiding out on a posh island retreat for the ultra-wealthy, schemes to return to the UK. American writer Walter Mosley rounds out the collection with “Bring Me Your Pain,” the story of Acme Green, a gentle man trying to secure a patent for his very unique machine.

As for the other 14 stories featured in The Perfect Crime, a few were enjoyable while others seemed to waste their thematic promise by providing rote plotlines and unremarkable characters. Nelson George’s entry “The Ten Lessons of Big Matt Silver” is notable for its Brooklyn hip-hop industry setting and its screenplay format but loses its impact as it tells far more than it shows, keeping the reader at a distance. (The story becomes a summary treatment rather than a script: “As Matt masterminds the cranberry campaign and worries about the FBI investigation, his relationship with Ruby deteriorates.”)

I wish other writers had shown George’s interest in style and story experimentation. Instead, too many selections cover very familiar ground, even with a location or a character that nods to the diversity the editors are trying to encourage. I am also a bit bewildered about the anthology’s choice of title – the crimes collected here are perfect, imperfect, and in two instances not really crimes at all. Still, I appreciate the editors’ efforts to present and celebrate modern crime fiction from authors around the world. Thanks to The Perfect Crime, I know which authors’ voices I plan to seek out… and which ones I may want to skip for now.


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Book Review: VINTAGE CRIME (2020) edited by Martin Edwards

6/15/2020

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The new Crime Writers' Association anthology Vintage Crime presents its contents more or less chronologically in order of publication, inviting the reader to look for topical and stylistic patterns as the stories and their authors push through the decades. In his introduction, editor Martin Edwards explains that the collection starts with the Association's founding in 1953 and continues into the early 21st century, "demonstrat[ing] the evolution of the crime short story during the CWA's existence." Upon finishing the anthology and reflecting on exactly what evolution I had witnessed, I suspect there were simply not enough species under the microscope to make any conclusive Darwinian assessments, even with the generous 22 stories featured here.

There is ample evidence to make some unsurprising genre generalizations, though. Once past the Second World War and into the 1950s, writer and reader appetites for clever Golden Age detective puzzles, once voracious, were on the wane. The earliest published story in Vintage Crime, and not coincidentally the one that reflects the foot most firmly on GAD ground, is "Footprint in the Sky" by John Dickson Carr. Another early story, Michael Gilbert's "Money is Honey" also features some old-school clueing, but after the first four entries, there's less interest in the body in the library than the body in the bed, and how the ensuing jealousy or spurning of a lover or spouse will lead to murder or death.

As such, the most elemental change to track in the field of crime fiction as represented by the tales is the transition from the mystery puzzle to the psychological crime story. Whether this change is a welcome or unwanted one depends on the reader, of course. But it is no accident that Story Number Five, "The Woman Who Had Everything" by Celia Fremlin, is all about Getting Inside the Protagonist's Noggin. Quoth the Fremlin:

"He never thought about anything else any more, at home or away: a far cry from those golden holidays in the first years of their marriage, when he'd sit or lie beside her hour after hour, rubbing oil on her brown body, murmuring into her ear nonsense to make her laugh or endearments to make her glow – face down on the hot sand – with secret joy."
Will Maggie's suicide attempt finally bestir husband Rodney's love for her once more? (This is not a spoiler; this is the plot of the story.) Other pieces take a similar approach, such as "Turning Point" by Anthea Fraser, which evokes sympathy for a woman contemplating an affair as escape from a loveless marriage. There's nothing wrong with trying to align the reader emotionally with key characters; not doing so was a valid criticism of much classic mystery fiction, where suspects and detective were pushed around clinically like pieces on a chessboard. But when the crime aspect replaces the mystery aspect, then the writing succeeds or fails based on personal interest instead of puzzle ingenuity. And not every story in Vintage Crime felt satisfying, but here are the ones I (subjectively) single out as most memorable:

"The Nuggy Bar" by Simon Brett – fans of Brett's theater-set Charles Paris series already know of his dry wit and darkly comic view of life and death. Here we have a great satiric send-up involving a middle manager for a cleaning product company and his decision to plan a murder literally by the book – in this case, using a handbook of business precepts meant to shepherd the shaping and launch of a new product.

"The Hand That Feeds Me" by Michael Z. Lewin – a gimmick, but a good one whose brevity doesn't overstay its premise. A stray dog (who narrates) delivers an unconventional justice to avenge the death of a homeless stranger who was kind to him.

"Cold and Deep" by Frances Fyfield – puppies don't fare well at all, but this slow-but-smoldering tale sets up a confrontation between an earnest young woman and her sadistic in-law that builds to a satisfying, haunting climax.

"Interior, with Corpse" by Peter Lovesey – one of only a few post-1950 stories in the mix that gives a nod to sleuthing and detection, and the premise is delicious: a very detailed rendering of a crime scene shows up in an art gallery as part of a deceased painter's collection. The problem is that the picture's setting is recognizably the home of an esteemed retired fighter pilot and the dead woman looks eerily like someone who disappeared from the village decades ago.

And Martin Edwards provides "Melusine", an uncomfortably dystopian tale of a plague ravaging Britain's livestock. As the protagonist kills diseased sheep and cattle in countless numbers, he wonders just how close his wife and his drinking buddy have gotten in his absence.

Other honorable mentions: The H.R.F. Keating story "Inspector Ghote and the Noted British Author" follows his likeable Indian inspector as he contends with an irritating Western celebrity as a guest; "The Egyptian Garden" by Marjorie Eccles sketches a bittersweet friendship between a socialite living in Egypt and her young and bright servant; and Mick Herron provides a 21st-century character twist within "All She Wrote," a 2008 story that subverts expectations but feels more technical than immediate.

With such variety, it's a good bet that readers will find something, or a number of somethings, to like here. As the car commercials say, actual mileage may vary. Vintage Crime will be released in the U.S. on August 11 by Flame Tree Press. I received an advanced reading copy of this title via NetGalley in order to provide an honest review.
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Book Review: THE CHRISTMAS CARD CRIME AND OTHER STORIES (2018) Edited by Martin Edwards

11/17/2019

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While this enjoyable anthology was released to UK readers in 2018, the Poisoned Pen Press is making The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories available to American classic mystery fans this holiday season. Curator and series editor Martin Edwards has been delivering consistently wonderful collections of forgotten or overlooked short stories for the British Library Crime Classics imprint, and this entry proves an engaging addition. As a veteran reader of Golden Age Detective fiction and its authors, I think the most entertaining aspect of each anthology is the way that established and unknown writers alike shine when given their place, side by side, in the themed gallery.

In fact, two writers whose work I know only passingly proved the most impressive to me here. Ronald Knox, a founding member of The Detection Club and, eventually, a Catholic priest, delivers "The Motive", a twisty, cerebral tale related by a clever defense counsel as an after-hours anecdote. Stripped almost to the abstract, the barrister's story of a would-be murderer's quixotic behavior keeps changing in its perspective with new information, and although its logic and dénouement may be ultimately unrealistic, it nevertheless captures and holds the reader's attention.

Cyril Hare, a mystery novelist and lawyer himself, contributes "Sister Bessie or Your Old Leech", a bruise-black comic story about an amoral businessman who tries to identify and dispatch at a family Christmas party whichever relative is blackmailing him. I've read two of Hare's mystery novels, Tenant for Death and Suicide Excepted, and this stinging short piece reminds me that I must return to his output and read more.

The eleven stories in the anthology are arranged chronologically, which also allows us to see how styles and storylines change through the decades. Baroness Orczy begins the collection with "A Christmas Tragedy", where Lady Molly of the Yard investigates the murder of Major Ceely on Christmas Eve. The story is told by Lady Molly's admiring maid Mary, as she watches her employer gather evidence to prove a hot-tempered suitor's innocence. The tale carries a fun mix of trailblazing and traditional gender expectations, and receives extra points for including this rather surprising sentence: "It is a far cry from a Christmas Eve party to a series of cattle-maiming outrages, yet I am forced to mention these now…"

The title story by Donald Stuart is agreeable and full of incident: there's a snowbound train from Paddington, a girl passenger in jeopardy, and a murdered man with a torn Christmas card in his hand. Dramatist Trevor Lowe investigates, and his Scotland Yard friend Inspector Shadgold serves as his Watson. The mystery is not especially complicated (and the murderer falls into the most elementary trap imaginable) but "The Christmas Card Crime" is well-paced and cinematic, if slight.

John Dickson Carr, writing as Carter Dickson, provides a successful winter ghost story and a completely superfluous locked-room mystery, but the latter is what his reputation is built upon. In "Blind Man's Hood", a woman is found alone in her house with her throat cut and her lower torso badly burned. It's an alarming image that evokes genuine bafflement, which is why the "solution" lands even less satisfactorily than it would otherwise have done. The ghost revenge thread that provides the climax, however, is both compelling and eerie.

It was nice to read a short story by John Bude, as I come fresh from my first Bude mystery novel experience with 1936's The Sussex Downs Murder. "Pattern of Revenge", collected here, actually benefits from its smaller, tighter canvas. In this brief tale, a man on his deathbed confesses to murder and to framing his rival in love. E.C.R. Lorac tips her hand with her story's title "A Bit of Wire-Pulling", which concerns how an assassin could shoot a man through a snow-frosted window and then vanish. (To be fair, as Martin Edwards informs us, the story's title when first published in The Evening Standard was the less clue-pointed "Death at the Bridge Table".)

The other stories here are uniformly good. Selwyn Jepson relates "By the Sword", exploring an ancestral curse about the way the men in a family will die; it proves true literally for the victim and more figuratively for the murderer. "Crime at Lark Cottage" by John Bingham is a moody and suspenseful story of a woman (with a young daughter) waiting for her escaped convict husband to return. And genre critic and modern crime writer Julian Symons is represented by "'Twixt the Cup and the Lip", a tale about a multi-person plan to steal loaned jewels on display at a department store. Its tone and fragmented character perspective while the robbery is occurring reminded me greatly of Donald Westlake's crime stories yet to come, and the ending moment will find its spiritual kin within the Walter Matthau movie The Taking of Pelham One Two Three released nine years later.

If you're looking for a great sampling of holiday-themed mystery stories from the start of the 20th century into the 1960s, look no further. I received an advance reading copy of the Poisoned Pen Press edition through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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Book Review: BOBBY OWEN, BLACK MAGIC, BLOODSHED, AND BURGLARY (2015) by E.R. Punshon

7/7/2019

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Several years ago, when I was nearly finished with providing summaries and reviews for all of Gladys Mitchell's Mrs. Bradley books at The Stone House, I flirted with the idea of creating a second tribute website spotlighting another overlooked GAD-era mystery writer. Back in the early 2000's, some writers (like Mitchell) were underrepresented on the Internet, and very little information beyond title lists and brief author biographies were available to curious readers. I had already read the first three books in E.R. Punshon's series featuring policeman Bobby Owen, and felt like he would be a worthy candidate for early Internet-era canonization.

And he would have been, except for one thing: I found that Punshon's books were always enjoyable and moderately engaging but not really notable or especially commendable. His detective fiction straddled a strange space on the strengths-and-weaknesses spectrum that brought them close to a neutral score whenever I finished one. And that's odd, because my experience with E.R. Punshon and Owen has always been positive, yet I never rush to start the next installment. So while to date I've read the first 12 titles in the 34-book Owen series in chronological order, it has taken me 17 years to do so.

Punshon's strengths include inventing imaginative mystery scenarios and effectively conjuring mood and setting in his stories. His proletariat policeman Bobby Owen, who rises in the ranks over the course of the series owing to his keen intelligence and quick actions, is a very likable figure, modest and earnest but also perceptive and intuitive in a winning way. (I haven't read any books in his earlier Carter & Bell series.) Even with these positive attributes, though, Punshon's prose can feel uninspired and repetitive, and his pacing is sometimes very slow, allowing the reader to get ahead of his plotlines.

I was curious to try a collection of his short stories published in 2015 by the great independent publisher Ramble House, Bobby Owen, Black Magic, Bloodshed, and Burglary. I'm very glad I did, because problems with pacing and prose disappear when the author shifts his focus from novels to short tales. There is a welcome mix of crime stories – five of them feature Owen, while the others allow the story to unfold from the criminal's or intended victim's point of view – and a handful of very entertaining weird tales exploring supernatural and spooky phenomena and the unlucky people whose lives change (or end) when they become entwined.

Experiencing these short pieces one after another, I was impressed with the creative variety of storylines on display, and with the attention Punshon pays to crafting a solid story in whichever genre he is practicing. Several of the collected stories were published in periodicals like The Strand Magazine and The Weekly Tale-Teller in the first decades of the 20th century, when both crime-themed tales and eerie ghost stories were in a sort of pre-pulp popular demand. (Thank you to Ramble House and editor Gavin O'Keefe for locating and assembling the unjustly neglected works.) The shorter format also shows Punshon's ability to be nimble and spare, whittling a story down to its essentials while still using enough description and scene-setting to ignite the reader's imagination.

All five Bobby Owen stories collected here were originally published in The Evening Standard, and they are uniformly good if not especially memorable. The horror stories in the following group fare better, and Punshon clearly knows how to use the genre elements to strong effect. While none of these stories breaks new thematic ground, the best of them are eerie, imaginative tales. The early "Little Red Devil", first published in 1904, shows the Faustian price to be paid for a writer driven to create horrible, transformational art; "The Living Stone" from 1939 would feel right at home in a Clive Barker anthology decades later, while stories like "The Long Lane" (1898) and "From Beyond the Barrier" (1911) recall the straightforward yet unsettling supernatural narratives of M.R. James.

The anthology also includes seven pieces collected as crime stories, and they vary in approach and tone. Liberated from the limitation to tell tales just from the policeman's perspective (as with the Bobby Owen shorts), these are fun, mischievous little stories of larceny and murder. "My Day of Vengeance" (1906) channels Poe's immortal "The Tell-Tale Heart" (1843) – indeed, it is the story of a murderer who must unexpectedly battle his conscience and keep hold of his sanity – and "The Miracle Worker" (1919), about a suburban couple falling for a charlatan of a spiritual medium, has the DNA of O. Henry in its blood.

PictureE.R. Punshon, author photo from the 1950 Penguin paperback reprint edition of Mystery Villa.
My favorite tale, however, is "Lady Betty and the Burglars". First published in 1917, it is a lively early example (certainly running against crime story stereotypes of its time) of the notion that a woman is able to confront dangers and solve problems on her own, emphatically without the need of a man to come to her rescue. It's a droll effort, and still surprising and fresh more than a century later.

The collection Bobby Owen, Black Magic, Bloodshed, and Burglary is an impressive testament to E.R. Punshon's care for crafting storylines, evoking mood, and telling a variety of tales. I am grateful that his work has been anthologized to avoid losing these stories to time, neglect, and indifference, which would be a shame. While I never got around to honoring E.R. Punshon with his own website, I am very happy to champion his writing in this review!


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