Category: Golden Age Mystery

Mitchell Mystery Reading Group September Event Announced!

7/5/2020

I think most of us can say, with understatement, that this has been an unusual year. I count myself lucky, as I am still in good health and employed, which is more than far too many people around the world can report. But all of the incidental anxieties and uncertainties take a toll, and it has been difficult to find much energy outside of the daily grind of work and coronavirus precautions for creative or holistic projects. I have become a more passive and less active human artistically – a change that frustrates me – and these days I would rather read someone else's mystery story or watch a classic movie than tell my own tale or write my own review.

I hope to change that, or at least find a balance between passive and active living. To that end I announce the next Mitchell Mystery Reading Group event: anyone interested should join us for a joint reading in September of the 1942 Mrs. Bradley book Laurels Are Poison. This story of mayhem and murder at Cartaret Women's College received the most mentions when I conducted an informal poll of 1940s titles way back in March, edging out other suggestions Death and the Maiden (1947) and The Rising of the Moon (1945). Laurels also introduces the "three Musketeers" who will make future appearances in the series, the trio of friends featuring Alice Boorman, Kitty Trevelyan, and Laura Menzies, with the latter stepping up to become Mrs. Bradley's trusted factotum through the many mystery stories recorded after this one.

As with the previous reading group titles, I would like to frame the conversation by encouraging a discussion on a set of chapters each week. Readers and contributors can certainly read through the novel earlier than scheduled, but the chapter division allows us to have a more focused exchange of ideas and observations. Those who want to offer comments only need to email them to me, and I will do my best to organize and incorporate everyone's thoughts in weekly blog updates. And if you want to read but not take part in the public forum, that is also fine.

Here are the September 2020 discussion dates for Laurels Are Poison:

Chapter 1 "Open Sesame" to Chapter 5 "Intrusion of Serpents"
Email comments to me by Tuesday 9/8 for post on Friday 9/11

Chapter 6 "High Jinks with a Tin Opener" to Chapter 9 "Evidence of the Submerged Tenth"
Comments by Tuesday 9/15 for post on Friday 9/18

Chapter 10 "The Flying Facoris" to Chapter 14 "Field-work"
Comments by Tuesday 9/22 for post on Friday 9/25

Chapter 15 "Rag" to Chapter 19 "Itylus"
Comments by Tuesday 9/29 for post on Friday 10/2

I hope you are able to join us in the group reading, and if not, I wish you well in finding another satisfying story to read or tell, as your mood dictates. Stay well and make healthy choices, and feel free to send a message to jason@jasonhalf.com if you want to connect or need to commiserate with a fellow human.

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Book Review: SMALLBONE DECEASED (1950) by Michael Gilbert

6/21/2020

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The most celebrated of Michael Gilbert's mysteries, and deservedly so, 1950's Smallbone Deceased offers a wonderful ant's-nest look into a firm of solicitors who find an unwanted corpse among the office paperwork. Specifically, the body of Marcus Smallbone is discovered stuffed into an air-tight deed box, and it is left to Inspector Hazlerigg to determine not only who killed and hid the trustee but also when the murder took place. Fortunately, the Inspector has an ally on the inside: Henry Bohun, a newly hired lawyer with enough autonomy and intelligence to follow his own paths of investigation. It is an effective pairing, a nice balance of official policing and amateur sleuthing with both figures thoughtful and intuitive; it creates a respectful equality that doesn't usually occur in the pages of mystery fiction, where the amateur so often shows the professional the error of his ways.

Featured in his fun genre overview The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books, GAD historian Martin Edwards writes that Smallbone Deceased is "packed with incidental pleasures," and I completely agree. There is much to enjoy in this well-plotted story, and Gilbert proves to be very adept at wry characterization. Told through an understatedly humorous third-person narration, the author sketches his cast of partners and secretaries with singular and observant details. We meet the rotund, approachable Mr. Craine; the petty, dyspeptic and insecure Mr. Birley; Mr. Horniman Junior, reluctantly assuming the mantle he inherited from his beloved father, Mr. Horniman Senior; pleased-with-himself office wit John Cove; and the four secretaries, Misses Bellbas, Cornel, Mildmay, and Chittering, each with their respective strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore, the underpinning psychology of these characters feels truthful – part of what an actor would call his or her character's "given circumstances" – from Bob Horniman's antipathy to follow in his father's celebrated footsteps to one lonely secretary's dalliance with an office employee.

The mystery at heart is a good one, smartly clued and one that becomes more immediate and intricate when a second after-hours murder occurs. There are only two minor points that briefly pulled me out of the story. (Do note that neither point detracts too much from an otherwise highly satisfying reading experience.)

A 1930s vintage deed box, perfect for storing papers or a very tiny person: measurements of this one are 18.5" width and 10.2" height

First, for a tale that builds its world so realistically, the set-piece of the novel is an office deed box so large that a small adult body can be contorted and pushed inside. It is also, we are told, one that can be hermetically sealed. I don't doubt that Michael Gilbert, a solicitor himself, knows whereof he writes, but surely an office box of that size (and one that a secretary at one point is said to move and use as a stepladder) would resemble at best a small trunk or, if elongated with multiples stacked upright, the drawers of a morgue. That's a lot of space for a lone client's paperwork storage. Still, as the vaudevillians have said and as I have written before regarding implausible details in mystery fiction: you buy the premise, you buy the bit.

The second niggling detail only arrives at the mystery's solution. While Barzun and Taylor, in their Catalogue of Crime, praise the "two splendid murders" and assert that "the motives are good," I would humbly submit that one motive is good – with a hiding-in-plain-sight clue that is quite masterful – while the other came as a surprise, almost to the point of being an explanatory afterthought. It invited me to return to what I knew about that character (in a story that handles character psychology so efficiently and successfully) to see if I might have arrived at the motive before it was stated. And the verdict was… kind of, but not really. It presumes a rationale for murder where one generally wouldn't be, and Gilbert seems to be aware of this: he even has his amateur detective Henry Bohun state that "the real reason, the inner reason for [the crime] I don't suppose we shall ever know."

If you have not yet read Smallbone Deceased, don't let my magnification of the sole two sticking points (for me) deter you from sampling a wonderful workplace mystery. Characterization, tone, and plot support one another to create an excellent reading experience. And if you want a second, third, or fourth opinion, you need only look to my colleagues for their reactions: visit Tracy at Bitter Tea and Mystery, J.F. Norris at Pretty Sinister Books, Les at Classic Mysteries, Kate at crossexaminingcrime, Nick Fuller at The Grandest Game in the World, and Martin Edwards' Crime Writing Blog.

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Book Review: THE 12.30 FROM CROYDON (1934) by Freeman Wills Crofts

5/25/2020

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Freeman Wills Crofts is a Golden Age Mystery author whose reputation, or infamy, has long preceded him in my mind. I have managed never to read a book of Crofts – I don't even think I had sampled a short story – through my decades of hungry classic crime consumption. And the reason for this was one of prejudice and stereotype: he is the most humdrum of Humdrum writers, and his puzzles are obsessed with suspect alibis and railway timetables (Crofts worked as a railway engineer) to such an extent that there is no room for characterization or color. Knowing what attracts and repels me within the genre, this formula sounded like the least interesting variant I could imagine, a sort of novel-length algebra lesson where one arrives at Murderer X through mathematical proofs, with all work tediously shown.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I finished reading my first Crofts story, The 12.30 from Croydon – even the title evokes red-penciled timetables and phlegmatic inspection of tickets – only to find that I had experienced a well-paced tale with an admirable amount of intrigue, character psychology, and even pathos. I will be very curious to learn whether this 1934 inverted mystery is an anomaly among Crofts' many other works or if I have breezily underestimated a writer I never really explored. But Croydon, at least, is quite winning in its construction and execution, and while puzzle and whodunit fans may feel cheated to view proceedings from the perspective of the killer, I found that the approach gave the story an immediacy and humanity that I hadn't expected from the author.

Charles Swinburn is an ordinary man under extraordinary pressure: his electric motor manufacturing company is feeling the squeeze of a national recession, the woman he is courting won't commit to marriage without the promise of a secure future, and the good men who serve as his employees rely on the factory for their livelihoods. Appeals to Andrew Crowther, Charles' elderly and ailing uncle, fall on deaf ears, and Andrew refuses to give his nephew an advance on his inheritance, even though not doing so places the family business in jeopardy. (Andrew accuses Charles of improper management, although the reader understands that external economics are to blame.) After other alternatives have been exhausted, Charles starts to consider methods for speeding along his aged uncle's impending demise.

Charles has a sister and brother-in-law, and it is in Peter Morley's presence that Uncle Andrew expires, after taking a fatal pill disguised as an indigestion tablet. Complicating matters for the police, but initially strengthening Charles' alibi, is the fact that death occurs on an aeroplane, as the family (minus Charles) flies across the Channel to Paris to attend to an emergency. For a short time, the reluctant murderer believes his actions to be a success; however, it isn't long before another party puts the pieces together and tries a spot of blackmail, forcing Charles to plan a second and darker murder.

What struck me throughout was how carefully and purposefully Crofts makes his antihero a sympathetic but still amoral character. Charles Swinburn becomes a premeditated killer by degrees, and the author gives him a strong sense of ethics and intelligence, the latter allowing him to rationalize his choice to go against the former. This is the opposite of an uncomplicated sketch of a villain, one who only needs to get the plot started through his scheming, and I appreciate Crofts' attention to detail. Charles tries multiple avenues to raise money to save his company and keep his men employed, and when he first wishes that his old uncle would die sooner rather than later, a strong moral compunction pushes the thought aside.

The obstacle, too, is formidable and unyielding: Charles tries to reason with Andrew and indeed makes persuasive arguments and appeals, but the old man does not relent. The reader goes on much the same journey as the protagonist, which really provides added dimensions to a story that could have been delivered as a routine and emotionless police procedural.

That procedural aspect does come in at the end, when Inspector French – who we are told has just been promoted to Chief-Inspector – recounts the steps taken to build a case for the prosecution away from Peter Morley and right to Charles. This conversation happens over the final two chapters and is told anecdotally over a round of drinks with a reporter, a police captain, and Charles' own defense attorney (after the trial, I should clarify). It's also merely informationally interesting and has none of the dramatic propulsion of the central story; perhaps this isn't a surprise since it is literally a scene of explanation and anticlimax. Crofts keeps his detective very much at the periphery during The 12.30 from Croydon, which works very well here but which I suspect is atypical within the series. Along with the smart sustained build in following Charles Swinburn's steps to murder, the criminal trial is the other dramatic highlight, a wonderfully observed sequence of hope and despair for the accused, with the reader invited to view proceedings from his nerve-frayed perspective.

One other observation: it is clear that Freeman Wills Crofts has an affinity for all things mechanical, and the trans-Atlantic flight, this one seen through the eyes of a 12-year old girl, is described in wondrous and accurate detail. Young Rose Morley experiences the thrill of ascent, the wheels spinning until they no longer touch the ground, then the cabin tilt and the engine noise leveling as the plane's speed allows for a break in the sound barrier. It must have been quite entertaining for readers in 1934, most of whom would likely find travel by air as great and mystifying a novelty as Rose does; Crofts provides the details and makes sure they are right.

I, on the other hand, was wrong. I am quite happy that my prejudices were challenged and that my first Freeman Wills Crofts story was a strong and surprising one. I plan to pick up another Inspector (or Chief-Inspector) French mystery at some point, and I shall see what the mathematic ratio of characterization to timetable analysis will be then.

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Book Review: DEATH AT BREAKFAST (1936) by John Rhode

5/9/2020

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At first glance, the murders seemed unrelated, even as they both concerned employees of the accounting firm of Slater & Knott. First, the rather antisocial office worker Victor Harleston dies of poison at the breakfast table; and then, after paying a visit to the Torquay home of his business partner, Edwin Knott disappears, along with a tidy sum of cash that he was carrying for deposit. In the former death, Superintendent Hanslet strongly suspects Harleston’s half-brother Philip; in the latter, all signs point to the founder’s temperamental son, Gavin Slater. Along with Junior Station-Inspector Jimmy Waghorn, Hanslet becomes more and more mystified until he consults Dr. Priestley, who is able to see the events from a new and enlightening perspective.

John Rhode’s mysteries are never exactly confounding, but Death at Breakfast offers a number of ancillary puzzles that are specific and intriguing: who was the unknown man outside the house on the morning of Harleston’s murder? How was the victim poisoned with nicotine-laced coffee if a report shows no ingestion of the substance in his stomach? Why did the two partners differ so in their view of the firm’s financial status? Who drew a crude picture of a gun on a wall at a potential crime scene, and why? As Dr. Priestley stories go, this one is lengthy but enjoyable, with a great amount of theorizing from Hanslet and Waghorn and a solution that will likely be as obvious to the seasoned reader of detective stories as it is to the quiet but correct doctor.

Adding to the padding is an interesting (if unnecessary to the plot) and detailed account of a 19th century European nicotine poisoning case. This true-crime anecdote certainly appears to be a source of inspiration to the author here, and he allows Jimmy Waghorn to expound for pages over similarities between the murder he is investigating and the poisoning of Gustave Fougnies by his sister and brother-in-law in 1850. Certainly the Comte and Comtesse de Bocarmé were less imaginative in their approach to murder – overpowering and forcing their victim to swallow the stuff – than Rhode’s resourceful villain in Death at Breakfast.

This was the first Dr. Priestley mystery I experienced as an audiobook, and John Rhode’s unadorned reportage style of storytelling makes for an easy listening experience. Many thanks to Anna M. of Germany, who brought the author’s titles on audiobook to my attention!

There was one aspect that may have been made more prominent because I was listening to a reader performing each character’s dialogue, but it is a common element of some Golden Age Detective fiction, and of Rhode’s books in particular. Superintendent Hanslet assumes the rather utilitarian role that many official police characters perform in these stories: he is very capable of collecting evidence and advancing theories, but his energy with these tasks is directly proportional to the limits of his thinking. (This must be so in order for the brilliant amateur detective to take the reins and deliver the solution before the plodding copper can.) The paradox here is that Rhode paints Hanslet as a man who, upon hearing that feline blood is found at the scene of a mighty fight inside a room, has a mind nimble enough to imagine a tussle with an escaped tiger may have occurred, but is not intuitive enough to think that a person may have used cat’s blood for the purposes of misdirection. It’s a strange tightrope walk between intelligence and ignorance, and I’m not sure that the author keeps his character convincingly in the air at all times.

Still, for classic mystery fans Death at Breakfast has much to recommend. For Cecil John Charles Street, whose devilishly prolific nature meant that this was just one of five novels he published in the year 1936 alone under the John Rhode and Miles Burton pseudonyms, there’s much to admire in his presentation of a straightforward (if lengthy) murder puzzle well told. You can find other online reviews of this title by equally prolific (and perhaps devilish) GAD experts Nick Fuller, Martin Edwards, Aidan, and The Puzzle Doctor.

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Mitchell Mystery Reading Group September Event Announced!

Book Review: SMALLBONE DECEASED (1950) by Michael Gilbert

Book Review: THE 12.30 FROM CROYDON (1934) by Freeman Wills Crofts

Book Review: DEATH AT BREAKFAST (1936) by John Rhode

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