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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: RE-ENTER SIR JOHN (1932) by Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson

5/5/2024

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The inciting criminal act of 1932’s Re-Enter Sir John is one of the most singular to be found among the plots of Golden Age detective fiction, and I just wish that an absorbing (and logical) story had come out of such an odd premise. Celebrated actor and manager Sir John Saumarez feels paternal pride for Peter Varley, an aspiring young thespian in his troupe, “for who but [Saumarez] had taught the boy to walk and wear his clothes and keep his hands still?”

Sir John invites Varley to his club, but a friendly game of cards turns scandalous: the young man is accused of cheating, and a search of his suit jacket reveals a stitched inner pocket in the sleeve hiding additional aces. Although Varley denies any wrongdoing, the following day’s performance shows that the theater audience has already learned of the episode and has turned on him. Sir John cannot believe his honest ingenu has stooped to cheating. When the man flees the company and his rooming house like a fugitive, Sir John vows to clear Varley’s name and restore his reputation.

Two other people are affected by Varley’s Exit Stage Left. First, he leaves behind his love interest, an earnest and attractive journalist named Jill. Second, his landlady Mary Lake has become fond of her lodger and is upset by the accusation against him and his abrupt departure. Sir John makes an appointment to meet the plump Mrs. Lake, but she dies (presumably of a heart attack) in Piccadilly right before the scheduled meeting. Did the observant landlady know more than she realized? And why was Varley’s vacant room searched by an unknown visitor?

Re-Enter Sir John is the second and last novel by Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson to feature their amateur detective and professional actor/manager. His first outing, 1928’s Enter Sir John, holds up a bit better, in part because the stakes seem higher. In that story, Sir John Saumarez (né Simmonds) saves an actress accused of murder by investigating the crime and identifying the guilty party; he soon marries the exonerated and now-smitten Martella Baring. Sir John has no more than a social-party cameo in Printer’s Devil (1929), a novel that appeared between these two tales, and one where the murder mystery feels secondary to its strained run of comic romance.

Each of these books demonstrates that the authors can craft entertaining, evocative prose. As writers, Simpson and Dane are strongest when they are establishing settings or shading in their characters. They can also stage a climactic moment effectively, such as the scene in Re-Enter where Sir John attempts to force a reaction from a murderer. Instead of Prince Hamlet’s “Mouse-trap” play-within-a-play, the actor collaborates with a film director to create an avant-garde silent short designed to place psychological pressure on a certain member of its audience.

With those authorial strengths acknowledged, I also found it difficult to overlook the weaknesses within the pages and plot of Re-Enter Sir John. As the conclusion is reached and all is revealed, certain aspects of the story still feel illogical or bewildering. To take one example, framing young Varley by planting cards within the stitching of his suit jacket is an odd and awkward gambit; I don’t understand how the culprit had the opportunity to do such a thing and, perhaps more practically, why he would use this method to disgrace the man and get him out of the way when other solutions – including murder – were possible. (And Varley did not know playing cards were concealed in his jacket sleeve until he was searched?)

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Once revealed, the identity and motive of the criminal don’t seem revelatory so much as arbitrary and, ultimately, inconsequential. To be fair to Dane and Simpson, there is some light clueing to lead us to the relationship between Varley and his nemesis, but arriving there in the final chapters still feels unsatisfying.

Perhaps I am being too critical, especially as there are far worse Golden Age artifacts out there. At least Dane and Simpson offer agreeable prose and an enjoyable glimpse of characters working in the theatre, from the actors and agents to the dressers and understudies who appear on the stage and behind the scenes.

Knowing that this will be the final performance of Sir John Saumarez, I shall clap politely at the curtain even as I hardly regret the lack of opportunity for an encore.


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Book Review: PRINTER'S DEVIL (1929) by Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson

1/22/2024

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There is a rather unique reason why Printer’s Devil, the second criminous collaboration from Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson, kept me guessing until the end. Because of the tone and the plotting, I – and I suspect other readers as well – never felt certain whether the novel was a whodunit at all. Upon reaching the end, it turns out that there is a suspicious death (a little over halfway through the book) and a motive that implicates a handful of suspects who had reason to stop the publication of a scandalous memoir. But the authors appear to be equally interested in the budding romance of a headstrong young editor’s assistant and the publicist who has fallen for her, and chapters are devoted to their wooing: in an apartment, on a bus, and at the symphony, among other locales. The result has detective story and comic romance wrestling awkwardly for dominance, and it seems that, by the final page, hearts beats clubs.

Such commingling of genres might not be a problem, but Printer’s Devil never quite manages to fuse the two approaches into a cohesive whole. This makes for a rather schizophrenic, if occasionally interesting, reading experience. The ambiguity isn’t helped by the way the character of Sir John Samaurez is used (or is underused) here. Samaurez, an actor and theatrical producer, assumed the central role of amateur sleuth in Dane and Simpson’s first effort, the previous year’s Enter Sir John, where he was kept busy saving an innocent actress accused of murder. In Devil, Sir John is present but treated like nearly all of the other supporting characters: he and they appear at social parties and are given just enough description and dialogue to fill the void, but scarcely more than that.

The mystery plot, when it finally activates later in the book, concerns the death of a powerful female publisher, Horatia “Horrie” Pedlar, who has the misfortune to fall from her fire escape one fateful night. Found among the ashes of the fireplace grate is the scrap of the cover page to Reflections, a manuscript by literary enfant terrible Marmion Poole that promises to reveal the embarrassing secrets of several prominent people.

It seems, then, that Horrie may have been killed to stop the memoir’s publication, and so far so good (and better late than never). But suspects prove elusive for the reader who wishes to play armchair detective, largely because the authors don’t seem interested in presenting a puzzle or a clear pool of supporting players. Rather, we are invited to spend our time with the budding young lovers, secretary Gilda Bedenham and publicist K.K. “Koko” Fry, two characters who are so indulgently, quirkily rendered that you know their creators would never implicate them in such a distasteful deed.


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Paradoxically, Printer’s Devil is modestly successful and intermittently engaging when approached as a light prose novel. That is, if you explore it as a story of characters rather than expecting a detective fiction puzzle, there is some enjoyment to be found and evocative, often playful writing threaded throughout. But lovers’ interludes get tedious quickly when you are waiting for something more portentous to happen, especially if a reminder is needed as to why you are reading this story.

Martin Edwards, the prolific mystery author and crime fiction archivist, provides an illuminating review of this title on his blog (and has also acquired a dustjacketed edition of the book signed by Helen Simpson, the lucky devil). He suggests that ultimately the book is a failed experiment “because the authors strike the wrong balance between people and plot”, and I agree. Printer’s Devil was published in the U.S. by Cosmopolitan Book Corporation as Author Unknown. Thanks to the shared library network at Internet Archive, curious and intrepid readers in the U.S. can sample this semi-mystery’s text here.

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Book Review: ENTER SIR JOHN (1928) by Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson

5/21/2023

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I suspect that a great majority of readers who love – and who read broadly within – the detective fiction genre are looking for that next great discovery. This might be a standalone mystery with an intriguing title and a curious reputation, like Joel Townsley Rogers’s The Red Right Hand (1945) or Cameron McCabe’s The Face on the Cutting Room Floor (1937). Or it could be the first encounter with an author or series that proves to be rewarding and addictive. (Christianna Brand, anyone? Q. Patrick, perhaps?) Once we have read and re-read our Christies, Carrs, and Queens, what’s next on the horizon?

It is no surprise that I live and read for just that discovery. My first true literary love, the wonderfully imaginative Mrs Bradley series by the wonderfully prolific GAD novelist Gladys Mitchell, bloomed when I found a paperback copy of 1945’s The Rising of the Moon in a remainder bin. I was so taken with this author’s prose and plotting – the former at times perhaps more sturdy than the latter – that I launched a tribute website to introduce more readers to her books.

And each time I discover a “new” writer of crime fiction and delight in his or her storytelling strengths, I celebrate and know that I’m likely in for the long haul: examples include Nicolas Freeling’s series featuring Dutch detective Pieter Van der Valk; the Lew Archer tales of Ross MacDonald; and most recently, the dark and quirky Harpur & Iles stories by Bill James. These writers are far from unknown, but the initial read of one of their books felt serendipitous as I fell under their narrative spells.


A friendly, philosophical correspondent named Pavel recently reminded me of the works of Helen Simpson as he described how much he enjoyed this author’s prose. As far as I know, my exposure to Helen Simpson and her work was limited to her chapter contribution in the round-robin detective novel Ask a Policeman (1933). In that book penned by members of The Detection Club, Simpson swaps detectives (one of the book’s concepts) with Gladys Mitchell and inserts Adela into the moniker of Beatrice Lestrange Bradley, an addition which delighted Mitchell. The timing seemed right and, thanks to Pavel, my interest was piqued, so I ordered Simpson’s first mystery novel, co-written with Clemence Dane, through academic interlibrary loan and let Sir John Saumarez take the stage.

The plot of Enter Sir John is simple and engaging: Martella Baring stands accused of murdering fellow actress Magda Druce after an ill-tempered and ill-fated evening visit to the victim’s home. Standing in the dock, Martella comes off as beautiful and cool as she dispassionately surveys her surroundings and awaits her fate. But stage actor and producer Sir John Saumarez is in attendance, and the actress’s performance stays with him after the jury brings in a verdict of Guilty.

As a working acquaintance of Gordon Druce, the dead woman’s husband, Sir John learns more about the events of the fateful night. He is troubled by a bit of set dressing, namely an empty wine glass that should either have been full or not there at all. Using his connections and his charm, Sir John begins an amateur investigation that leads him to a new suspect, and one who will give the professional actor a very robust run-around before the case can be resolved and Martella Baring can be exonerated.


The book’s authors were both familiar with the world of the theatre and the sometimes vivid personalities of those who choose to perform on stage. Being playwrights in addition to prose writers, Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson bring their penchants for character creation and dramatic plotting to their story of a woman wrongfully accused of murder. Indeed, I think it is the authors’ ability to set scenes and bring to life a number of Enter Sir John’s incidental characters that makes the tale so entertaining.

From its opening-pages nod to the porter of Macbeth – each chapter begins with a quoted line from a Shakespeare play – we learn less about the principals, i.e., Sir John Saumarez and the actress he is trying to save from the gallows, and more about the scrappy, lived-in demeanors of those cast in supporting roles. It is a winning strategy: characters like Novello and Doucie Markham, perpetually behind in their rent but hoping that Sir John’s interest in the case can be parlayed into employment within his theatrical company, are spirited, sympathetic, and very amusing. And while not integral to the plot, a chapter recording the debate around the jury table is beautifully observed and quite comical, with several figures adroitly sketched to highlight their quirks and qualities.

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On the other hand, the mystery plot is uncomplicated, with a rather linear detection process and only a few alternative suspects from which Sir John and the reader can choose.  It doesn’t help that Martella Baring is rather conveniently (that is, unconvincingly) unconscious during the murder’s crucial moments, and that her lack of memory has affirmed her guilt within her own mind. This, we must presume, is why she makes no effort to defend herself in court or challenge the prosecution’s version of events. But such coincidence is not uncommon in mystery fiction, and it did not bother Alfred Hitchcock when he chose to adapt Enter Sir John, one of the director’s early talkies and released as Murder! in 1930.  

The other element that might be bothersome to 21st century readers concerns the killer’s motive for disposing of Magda Druce, as well as that character’s… well, character. The problem is that both aspects are outdated, to put it kindly, although I can appreciate the societal pressures this rather pathetic murderer might have felt (or paranoically imagined) while living and looking for work in 1920s London. The book loses its pace around the two-thirds mark, when the culprit is revealed and must be searched for, only to be found and then lost again, not once but twice. It’s a curious, prolonged dénouement to an otherwise enjoyable book.

As an authorial pair, Dane and Simpson wrote two more detective stories on the heels of Enter Sir John. I hope to read and review these soon, as their debut crime fiction production delivered a worthwhile performance, even with some third-act stumbles.

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