Category: Q. Patrick / Patrick Quentin

Book Review: COTTAGE SINISTER (1931) by Q. Patrick

1/23/2021

The first mystery to be published under the pseudonym of Q. Patrick, 1931’s Cottage Sinister is a notable but uneven effort from Rickie Webb and his first co-author and partner in crime, Martha Mott Kelly. In the otherwise quiet English village of Crosby Stourton, a wave of poisonings has decimated the seemingly innocuous working-class Lubbock family. First to go is winsome Amy, visiting from London and poisoned at teatime. Soon her sister Isabel joins her, with more unfortunate deaths to come. Even the village’s feudal family is not immune to the tragedy, and when a locked-room poisoning occurs at Crosby Hall, suspicion turns to young Lucy Lubbock, a nurse who is rumored to have set her sights on Christopher Crosby, the young doctor and heir to the baronetcy.

With plenty of wheels in motion, Cottage Sinister nonetheless makes for a somewhat halting reading experience. For me, this has to do with elements that are energetic but not quite on-the-mark. The most obvious barrier is the tone of the prose itself, which means to be wryly comical but often feels both strained and false. More specifically, it is narration that calls attention to itself and its cleverness (in part through commentary on the genre), and as a result, this reader could never quite trust it or the story being told.

Curtis Evans, Golden Age of Detection scholar, is working on an ambitious biography and critical companion book of the round-robin authors and their mysteries published under Q. Patrick, Patrick Quentin, and Jonathan Stagge. Curtis has several excellent pieces already available on his website The Passing Tramp, including a look at Cottage Sinister, which he also categorizes as an underwhelming début. He laments the artificial tone struck by the two American-based writers (even as Webb was born and raised in England):

[F]or whatever reason the pair decided to make their England the deliberately artificial England of books, the England about which they thought the readers, whether in the US or the UK, wanted to read... [M]aybe they succeeded in what they were trying to do, but I think trying to do it in the first place was an error of judgment. It's just too twee really to be.

Added to that, the ostensible detective of the puzzle, Inspector Inge of Scotland Yard, is one whom the reader is never fully allowed to trust, and perhaps with good reason. Is he a parody of the genre type, or will his powers of observation allow him to gleam the correct solution? Part of this interpretive problem is that the authors choose to constantly refer to him as the Archdeacon in physical appearance; he is given that moniker far more than that of Inspector. But where G. K. Chesterton brilliantly uses the bland, unassuming figure of Father Brown as a manifestation of the man’s pragmatic, commonsense ideology, Inge’s likeness to a church figure is never activated and never pays off, either in character or in theme.

I have spent the first paragraphs talking about this story’s shortcomings; so what is there to recommend? While there was rarely much interest beyond the academic regarding plot or characterization, Cottage Sinister paradoxically finishes strong, with a clear-eyed dénouement that ties all of the book’s threads together. Webb and Kelly have also concocted an interesting poisoning method, and one that Curtis Evans convincingly argues was likely informed by Webb’s experience working for a pharmaceutical company. It also reminds me of a clever poisoning method in an even splashier début, when Agatha Christie had her Belgian detective investigate The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920).

Finally, let me note that Webb and Kelly’s next mystery, Murder at the Women’s City Club, set in Philadelphia and published the following year, is a marked improvement. Tone, characterization, and plot work in harmony, and the group of suspects are vivacious and nicely delineated. It is also heartening to know that many of these rare Q. Patrick titles are available as eBooks in the U.S. from OpenRoad Media and MysteriousPress.com, while Crippen & Landru Publishers have been curating and reprinting short stories and novellas. With Curtis’s companion volume in the works, it’s a Q. Patrick/Patrick Quentin renaissance.

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Book Review: MURDER AT THE WOMEN'S CITY CLUB (1932) by Q. Patrick

9/16/2018

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Cover of Murder at the Women's City Club. Image from PRETTY SINISTER BOOKS website.

Thanks to the scholarly efforts of Curtis Evans over at his great GAD blog site The Passing Tramp, the mysteries published collaboratively under the names Q. Patrick, Patrick Quentin, and Jonathan Stagge are being discovered anew. And they're worth discovering, as my reading a few years ago of 1935's The Grindle Nightmare proved to me. As further cause for celebration, Mysterious Press/Open Road publishers have recently released eBook editions in the U.S. of some of the rare Q. Patrick titles, including the début novel Cottage Sinister (1931), as well as Murder at Cambridge and S.S. Murder (both 1933).

On his site, Curt has provided author information for these books, which is useful since four different writers contributed to the series at different times. Most famously – if that's the right word – the Patrick/Quentin/Stagge novels were either solo or collaborative projects between Q. Patrick creator Richard "Rickie" Webb and Hugh Callingham Wheeler.

Transitioning from prose writer to playwright, Wheeler would later work with composer Stephen Sondheim on the musicals A Little Night Music and Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. For some of the earliest Q. Patrick mysteries, however, Rickie Webb partnered with one of two female co-writers, Martha "Patsy" Mott Kelley and Mary Lou White. White contributed to S.S. Murder, but it was Patsy Kelley who was Webb's initial collaborator, first on Cottage Sinister (which I have yet to read) and then on 1932's lively Murder at the Women's City Club.

Indeed, the entire story of Club takes place over a weekend at a women-only apartment building, and the cast of characters is quirky and colorful. The club's president, Mabel Mulvaney, returns to the metropolitan town of Desborough, New York and is anxious to talk to Dr. Diana Saffron, an invalided resident and very successful specialist in her medical field. The two meet, but very shortly both women have died, asphyxiated by the gas that runs in each room. The sudden deaths bring the boorish police detective Manfred Boot into the women's club, a man whose masculine authority makes him blind to more nuanced details of the case.

To be fair, Detective Boot has to contend with some trying suspects. Freda Carter, the deceased Dr. Saffron's young protégé, is a doctor-in-training whose clinical observations have the cool air of judgment; friendly Deborah Entwhistle, with her ironic-yet-honest approach to life, also unnerves the no-nonsense Boot; Millicent Trimmer, club secretary, has a penchant for fainting just when she needs to be interviewed; Amy Riddle has her own suspicions, and they revolve around "colored" club staff members Rudy and Cornelia; and then there's Constance Hoplinger, the resident mystery novelist, who takes a little too much pleasure in the current situation and theorizes about how her own detective would handle the case.

As a mostly forgotten and unsung American entry of mystery fiction's Golden Age, I found Murder at the Women's City Club remarkably satisfying, spirited, and enjoyable. The authors – and this might be Patsy Kelley's prose contribution – use humorous third-person omniscient perspective to freely comment on characters and provide observations during introductions and scenes. Mystery readers might be frustrated by this narrative approach, as the details effectively define and develop the characters but might also feel like unneeded description. To me, the opinionated third-person perspective is a delight and is used well; take this example of observational lines that brings Mabel Mulvaney into focus:

Mrs. Mulvaney was not a prepossessing person. Her smile was acetic, her expression ascetic and her figure, while not exactly athletic, was built for speed and activity rather than for beauty. But what she lacked in embonpoint and personal charm, she made up for in efficiency. She was a Managing Woman, born to command rather than to comfort. She belonged to every committee to which she could commit herself and she made an excellent president for the Women's City Club.

The plot and puzzle at the center of the story are both solid, and the pacing feels instinctively right. There were a few very pleasant surprises, including a unique spin on the amateur detective: as Inspector Boot seems to be drawing the wrong conclusions, it's up to one of the women living in the building to step forward, make sense of the deaths, and identify a killer; this role-casting occurs organically rather than archetypically, which is very interesting. There's also a surprisingly gruesome final murder involving an unreliable elevator, and knowing the grimness to come in The Grindle Nightmare, it was likely a Rickie Webb contribution:

Suddenly, a scream rang out. It was Miss Hoplinger. Gasping for breath, she fell back against the wall and pointed with a trembling finger at a thin, red stream that came trickling aimlessly down one of the glass doors in front of them, out of the upper region of the shaft.

"Blood!" she exclaimed, and then again, louder, "I tell you, it's blood."

Finally, I must note how much I admire the solution of this story, which isn't groundbreaking in concept but it is logical, cleanly presented, and highly satisfying. John at Pretty Sinister Books – check out his smart review – finds the plot "a bit convoluted", but for me it was one of the most straightforward murder mystery reveals I've encountered, in a good way. I was a little ahead of the story when it came to revealing the murderer, but that person's identity is teased out very effectively, and the plot was scrupulously fair play.

While the characterizations of the African-American maid and handyman couple Rudy and Cornelia are products of their time – as is the racial prejudice that fuels one tenant's suspicion of them – it is balanced somewhat by the likeable Deborah Entwhistle's more progressive view of, and friendship with, the pair. I hope Mysterious Press/Open Road will be able to introduce this solid Q. Patrick whodunit to a new group of readers.

UPDATE: Curt at The Passing Tramp blog has provided some fantastic history and analysis of this title, as well as great information about the writers behind the Q. Patrick pseudonym. You can read these articles here and here.

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SHADOW OF GUILT (1959) by Patrick Quentin

6/17/2017

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As can be inferred by its title, Shadow of Guilt plants itself firmly in noir territory. Narrator George Hadley is restless, trapped in his marriage to Consuelo "Connie" Corliss, whose family fortune and crisply ordered ways have made him feel like a kept man. His attentions turn to his sympathetic secretary, Eve, and there is much talk about running away together to Tobago. But a smooth-talking cad named Don Saxby uncovers their secret, and shortly thereafter he is found dead in his apartment, with two bullet holes added for good measure.

Naturally, George becomes a suspect of the amiable but dangerous Lieutenant Trant, but then the police have a range of people to choose from. The popular favorite is Chuck Ryson, fiancé to Connie's daughter, Ala.

Ala, it quickly becomes known, has had her own fling with Saxby, and the Ryson family revolver proves to be the murder weapon. George finds Ala in the dead man's apartment immediately after the murder, and his actions – at least according to his own confidences to the reader – are meant to shield the girl from more trouble. But Ala could very well be guilty, as she is that most Freudian of noir characters, a nubile teen girl who nevertheless exudes knowing sexuality…and who subtextually strands her stepfather in that shadowy area between paternal innocence and forbidden lust.

Shadow of Guilt, written by Hugh Wheeler under the shared pseudonym Patrick Quentin, feels like one of those genre stories where the social and psychological trappings carry more interest for the contemporary reader than the somewhat contrived plot. The question of who killed the blackmailing, philandering Saxby is interesting but incidental, since the focus stays fully with narrator George Hadley. Through his point of view, we learn about his contempt for efficient wife Connie and his (rather misguided) concern for irritating stepdaughter Ala. As a late '50s example of cocktails-and-board meetings, upper-middle class suburban living, it's simultaneously intriguing and artificial. And with so much scorn confided to us about his wife, Connie Corliss becomes (perhaps unintentionally) the most sympathetic character in the book. That she too should be considered a potential murderer gives the story a satisfying edge.

The polite but deferential Lieutenant Trant, whose smiling presence gives George so much discomfort, struck me as a precursor to Levinson and Link's iconic Lieutenant Columbo, a character who would make his stage début nearly a decade later. Ultimately, Shadow of Guilt strains under the weight of a few too many twists and coincidences, but for a while it delivers an effective noir about an ordinary man who finds himself under extraordinary criminal pressure.

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Book Review: THE GRINDLE NIGHTMARE (1935) by Q. Patrick

11/13/2016

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One of the very great pleasures of reading mystery fiction scholarship comes from discovering "new" authors and titles to explore. This occurred several times over while reading Martin Edwards' masterful history of The Detection Club in The Golden Age of Murder. The list of authors and books to investigate quickly grew to two pages, and an increasingly hectic work schedule has only allowed the merest sampling of the many enticing suggestions. Edwards' description of the plot and merits of 1935's The Grindle Nightmare by Q. Patrick proved irresistible, and I soon tracked it down via college interlibrary loan and devoured the twisty story of savagery afflicted upon animals and humans alike one dark winter in a small New England town.

The tale is narrated by Douglas Swanson, a medical student sharing a house with the brilliant but enigmatic Dr. Antonio Conti, as violent events begin to shake the citizens of Grindle Valley. Roberta Tailford-Jones' pet marmoset goes missing, only to be found in the woods with its stomach slit open. Next is Bill Strong's goose, followed by little Polly Baines' kitten. Polly, a young child from a poor family, also disappears, and police chief Bracegirdle begins a search. Polly's savant-like brother, Mark Baines, falls under suspicion because of his unusually intense connection to all manner of plants and animals. The fondness does not seem to extend to people.

When a car pulls along a small dog named Sancho Panza in the shadows of the night, it is rescued just in time by Dr. Conti. But was the intervention a little too convenient? As events grow increasingly grim, Doug Swanson wonders if he really knows the state of his roommate's mind. Shortly thereafter, Jo Baines, father of Mark and Polly, requests a secret meeting with Swanson at the Mill Pool; our narrator finds the drowned Baines the next morning, each of his arms caught in a spring trap. Next, the participants of a coon-hunt (another ironic game of animal torture) discover the missing Polly Baines, who had been tied alive to the uppermost branches of a tree and left to die. As suspicions mount and vultures ceaselessly circle the valley, it becomes clear that at least one of the villagers – and perhaps more – has crossed over into madness.

As you can see, The Grindle Nightmare is hardly a typical Golden Age mystery cosy. Interestingly, it's also not exactly a horror tale, despite its gruesome plotline and effectively built sense of mounting dread and increasing entrapment. There's a fair-play mystery focus at its heart, and it’s a strong one. Q. Patrick – I will address the authors' curious lineage in a moment – offers a busy but never confusing series of events and populates Grindle Valley with suspects of engagingly specific psychological complexity. There's Roberta Tailford-Jones, a grating socialite whose unwelcome town flirtations seem to be a direct challenge to her impotent husband (rendered so from wartime shrapnel); Dr. Conti, whose Italian lineage and opaque moodiness make him an outsider to the earnest Swanson and an inscrutable character in the list of suspects; scion Seymour Alstone, who inhabits the role of the disliked but obeyed wealthy landowner; and grandson Gerald Alstone, a weak-willed young man who demonstrates a curious hero-worship for Peter Foote, a fellow student who is perhaps more attractive and self-assured than is healthy.

I'm tempted to state that the dark subject matter, concerned as it is with mutilation and torture of both people and pets, is due to the authors' American setting and perspective, but I'm not convinced of that. The urbane violence and toughness of hard-boiled fiction is entirely absent here and, as the title implies, the result is more nightmare than noir. The driving interest in this book seems to be the psychological; usually an exploration of the aberrant and abnormal, if used at all in classic detective fiction, is implied or alluded to without being made explicit. To that extent, The Grindle Nightmare of 1935 feels notably modern, with Freudian instances of same-sex attraction, cuckolding, impotency, societal malaise, and psychopathy to be found in the subtext and, equally often, on the surface. It all makes for a fascinating mix of the classic and the contemporary in style, story, and mood, and it is well worth seeking out.

Along with Martin Edwards, I am indebted to Curtis Evans over at The Passing Tramp blog, who has an excellent entry about the history of the writing consortium responsible for the titles published under the names Patrick Quentin and Q. Patrick. Four writers have contributed to the franchise over the decades, including award-winning playwright Hugh Wheeler, a collaborator with Stephen Sondheim on Sweeney Todd, Demon Barber of Fleet Street and A Little Night Music. Curt identifies the authors of The Grindle Nightmare as the franchise's anchor Richard Wilson Webb, writing with Martha Kelley. Check out his great website for more information!

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Book Review: COTTAGE SINISTER (1931) by Q. Patrick

Book Review: MURDER AT THE WOMEN'S CITY CLUB (1932) by Q. Patrick

SHADOW OF GUILT (1959) by Patrick Quentin

Book Review: THE GRINDLE NIGHTMARE (1935) by Q. Patrick

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