In Which I Fail to Understand the Market

Not long ago I read a mystery short story. (I'm not giving details because I don't want to badmouth a working writer.) The plot goes like this:

1. Murder.
2. Police find a fingerprint.
3. Police ask suspect about fingerprint.
4. Suspect attacks police, is guilty.

In between 1. and 2. there's a lot of window dressing, none of which turns out to be important.

I'll stipulate that I was enjoying the story right up to the end. I'll even admit that I'm a little interested in the other stories in the series.

But I'll further admit that I don't grasp why this kind of story routinely gets published.

Strike Two

I tried another Ngaio Marsh mystery, The Nursing-Home Murder.

Roderick Alleyn decides, for absolutely no reason whatsoever, to recreate the crime.

At the recreation, a supporting character--entirely by accident--nearly knocks over a piece of equipment.

This reveals the killer's identity and method.

Also, the killer's motive makes absolutely no sense. He's a fanatical eugenicist, but the victim neither has, nor has any prospect of having, children. (highlight to view)

Concerning Dame Ngaio Marsh

 Recently a close friend forwarded this review to me:

Every Roderick Alleyn Novel (Fiction, Ngaio Marsh, 1934-1982) Roderick Alleyn, the Shakespeare-quoting, handsome, aristocratic Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard, spans the gap between Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey and P.D. James’ Adam Dalgleish. Not as inventive (in plot or dialogue) as Sayers, and not as deep (in character and psychology) as James, Marsh still easily beats Christie for human stories, and her puzzles are reliably honest legerdemain, the best kind. The early novels have a Sayers-Wodehouse sort of air, and she never approaches the psychological starkness of late Allingham, but at her best (Surfeit of Lampreys, Scales of Justice, and the near folk-horror of Dead Water, all Recommended) she combines knowing lightness, humanity, and cruelty better than most mystery writers. Many Alleyn novels have a theatrical setting, combining two hothouse genres with general success. –KH

Now, I am well known as a swooning devotee of the traditional whodunit mystery, featuring puzzles and clues and stuff. There are very few practitioners of the art nowadays, although I would be remiss not to cite the inimitable Steve Hockensmith and the always-excellent Aaron and Charlotte Elkins. (Although, come to think of it, I myself have imitated Hockensmith, so maybe he's only mostly inimitable.) I'm always searching for new authors in the classic mold. So nothing would please me more, at least within the confines of the literary universe, than to find that I'd unjustly overlooked Ngaio Marsh.

The thing is, I've never thought much of her. Her writing style is good, but her plotting always struck me as pedestrian at best. On the other hand, my wife likes her, and brought a dozen Marshes to our library. So I resolved to try again. I picked out one of the books I hadn't read, Death in Ecstasy.

Here's what happens:

1. A woman is poisoned while attending a peculiar religious service.
   
2. Ordinary police work reveals that she had a serious quarrel with someone, regarding the theft of some bonds which she had given to the sect. 
3. It's not clear with whom she quarreled, but it's presumed that that's who killed her.
   
4. One of the suspects actually overheard the quarrel, but he won't tell the police who the other party was.
5. Except that, a couple chapters later, he does tell them who it was, and that's your murderer.
6. The end.

There are a lot of melodramatic trappings, but that's it. That's the mystery.

Ngaio Marsh fans, please tell me: what am I missing?

Book Review: The Mysterious Commission

The Mysterious Commission
Michael Innes (J.I.M. Stewart)
Mystery

There were quite a few respectable mid-century Englishpersons who moonlighted as detective novelists. "Nicholas Blake", for example, was actually Cecil Day-Lewis, Poet Laureate (and father of the actor Daniel Day-Lewis). To this tribe belongs "Michael Innes": J.I.M. Stewart, academic literary critic and student of J. R. R. Tolkien at Oxford.

The "Innes" novels, from early to late--and this one is quite late--all have a certain flavor to them. It's not easy to describe. Irony is a big part of it, but it's an understated irony. Imagination, sometimes run wild, is there too. I'm tempted to call the writing "urbane", but that sounds a little too mannered. It's a little bit gently snobbish, quite witty, and even  . . . gulp . . . cozy. That latter word has been co-opted latterly by a mystery subgenre that would mostly be better described as "cutesy", which is a pity, because otherwise it would fit the Innes model well.

That aside, The Mysterious Commission is an enjoyable little book. The protagonist is a portrait painter, rather than Innes's usual Sir John Appleby, and the artistic side of the story is nicely handled. There's some good puzzlement and some funny bits. The air goes out a little bit in the last chapter, for the simple reason that the baddies could have accomplished their goals in a much more straightforward fashion. Getting there, however, is at least half the fun. The writing is usually good enough to carry an Innes novel even when the premise is a little lacking in credibility. This one isn't a classic, not even a minor classic, but it's an enjoyable read nonetheless.

Book Review: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes
Loren Estleman
Mystery

While this is written in an acceptably Watsonian style, it adds absolutely nothing to Stevenson's story. It's nothing more than a rewrite of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with Holmes and Watson stuck into it. Every single development in the original is here. "Watson's" introduction promises that this book reveals hidden and shocking depths behind the published version . . . which is exactly what it fails to do! There's one trivial addendum near the end. Unless you've somehow managed to avoid knowing the Big Reveal in Dr. J. and Mr. H.--in which case, I want to know how--you've already read this book. 

Loren Estleman was a noted Sherlockian. He should have known better.

Book Review: Death at Breakfast

Death at Breakfast
John Rhodes
Mystery

Death at Breakfast is very much a matter of taste (har har!). To put it another way, it's a mixed bag. How much you'll like it will depend mostly on what kind of mystery reader you are.

Specifically, Death at Breakfast is a Golden-Age mystery of a fairly standard sort. A puzzle is given, characters move around asking questions, and a solution is revealed. If you're looking for depth of characterization, this is not the book for you; the detective character isn't even described, and the other characters are absolutely flat. A few hints at a love element are not an asset.

Nor, to be honest, is the puzzle especially startling. A reader well-versed in this subgenre will recognize a good many familiar elements. Applying meta-textual thinking will tell you who the killer is, too.

What remains is a reasonably enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours. There are some ingenious clues, reliable pacing, and a clear explanation. I like this sort of thing; ergo, in spite of its limitations, I rather liked the book. I won't go out of my way to search down more John Rhodes, but I'll read him if I get the chance.

Book Review: The Roman Hat Mystery

The Roman Hat Mystery
Ellery Queen (Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee)
Mystery

The first Ellery Queen mystery; comments here apply equally. The titular hat is rather cleverly resolved, though.

Book Review: The Dutch Shoe Mystery

The Dutch Shoe Mystery
Ellery Queen (Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee)
Mystery

All the early Ellery Queen books--those with titles following the The Nationality Object Mystery--are much of a muchness. The clues are placed fairly. The deductions are clever, if occasionally wafer-thin. The characterization is perfunctory. The dialogue is dated. And the detective, Ellery Queen himself, is insufferable.

Yes, insufferable. Dannay and Lee, as the intro to this volume points out, were imitating Philo Vance, whom Raymond Chandler called "the most asinine character in detective fiction". (Or, as Ogden Nash put it, "Philo Vance/Needs a kick in the pance.") Ellery Queen is less a character than a collection of mannerisms. What character he does have consists mainly of supercilious tics and pretentious allusions.

Having said that, The Dutch Shoe Mystery is a workable puzzle. If you can stomach Ellery Queen (by regarding him as a plot device, is the way I did it), it's a decent enough read for those who like this sort of thing.

---

In justice, I should point out that:

• Ellery Queen the character got a lot better over time.
• "Ellery Queen" the authors were true giants of the 20th-century mystery scene; nobody in the U.S. did more for the genre.

Book Review: The Franchise Affair

The Franchise Affair
Josephine Tey
Mystery

[WARNING: Contrary to my usual practice, this review contains spoilers.]

Josephine Tey isn't as widely known as some other Golden-Age mystery writers, but her reputation among the cognoscenti is very high. The Daughter of Time and Brat Farrar and Miss Pym Disposes are all considered classics--and rightly so.

The Franchise Affair, regrettably, is nowhere near that quality. At best, it's aged poorly. Tey's virtues as a writer--characterization, in particular--are present, but they're eclipsed by a pervasive and quite nasty snobbery.

The story is a rather simple one. Robert Blair, a middle-aged lawyer with a settled life and no great passion, is called to assist one Marion Sharpe, who's been accused of kidnapping and beating a teenager named Betty Kane. In the process of finding out the truth, Blair accidentally falls in love with Marion, to his own mild confusion (this, by the way, is by far the best aspect of the book).

This being a mystery, it should surprise nobody that the heroine is innocent. What's rather disgusting is how Tey displays her class prejudices. Blair believes Marion at once because, basically, she's part of his social class--and according to Tey he's right to do so. In Tey's world, Our Sort of People are simply better than the common folk (who are all right as long as they Know Their Place). Our Sort of People can make pronouncements to the effect that you can always tell a criminal by the set of his eyes, or indeed that you can tell someone's character by the color of their eyes, and of course they're correct, because Our Sort of People just know these things. Old Colonel Whittaker pronounces Betty Kane a liar because she reminds him of this lance-corporal (not an officer, obviously!) he knew in India who was a Rank Bad Hat. Robert Blair knows that a certain witness is a liar because of, I kid you not, "the vulgar perfection of her teeth." Blair, indeed, expresses a repellent desire not merely to prove his client innocent, but to actually make Betty Kane suffer--because, I suppose, she's No Better Than She Should Be. It's all down to Breeding, you see, combined with mollycoddling the Criminal Elements among the lower classes. 

Frankly, by the middle of the book I was positively rooting for Marion Sharpe to be found guilty and sent to prison. Of course, that doesn't happen, nor is there any real suspense that it might happen (because Marion Sharp is Our Sort of People, while Betty Kane is ex hypothesi a Nasty Piece of Work). I could maybe forgive the unpleasant attitudes if the plot were a real corker, but in fact Robert Blair does absolutely nothing effective, there are no surprises or twists, and the conclusive evidence is delivered out of the blue by a random hotel owner who happened to see Betty Kane's picture in the newspaper.

Now, class prejudice in older fiction (and non-fiction) is hardly news. This particular iteration expresses the anxiety of the British upper-middle classes at losing of their privileges after World War II. That fear is perhaps the difference between forgivable and not. I'm strongly reminded of the frenzy of certain insecure males about the #MeToo movement, who are convinced that Conniving Women will be coming out of the woodwork to Threaten Their Masculinity with malicious and unfounded accusations. That's Tey's perspective the lower classes. 

By comparison, the snobbery found in Christie and (especially) Sayers is positively benign. Sayers certainly maintains the distinction between Our Sort of People and the rest, but the rest aren't considered to be inherently vicious and threatening and Other; indeed, when she's not being comic, she allows them their own kind of dignity, as with the Thodays in The Nine Tailors or the professional dancer Antoine in Have His Carcase.

Not recommended.

Book Review: For the Sake of the Game

For the Sake of the Game: Stories Inspired by the Sherlock Holmes Canon
Laurie R. King, Leslie S. Klinger (editors)
Mystery

Meh.

I wanted to make that the whole review. I would be remiss, however, if I didn't also point out that several of these stories appear to be dross that the authors had lying around, with a few Sherlock Holmes references hastily stuffed in after the fact.

Oh, and it's been done (ahem) better.

Other than that: meh.

Book Review: Death in Captivity

Death in Captivity
Michael Gilbert
Mystery, adventure

This is something of a minor gem. It's both a murder mystery and a prison-camp escape adventure, and both sides are treated quite well. The setting is reminiscent of the classics The Great Escape and Von Ryan's Express. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone seeking a dose of literary greatness, but any aficionado of classic mystery should give it a whirl. 

This is another entry in the British Library Crime Classics series, by the way, which--although not all of the books have aged well--is an invaluable and highly laudable endeavor.

---

If you haven't read Von Ryan's Express, go do it now. (There's also a movie version, which is somewhat better-known but not nearly as good.)

Book Review: Bibliomysteries, Volume 2

Bibliomysteries, Volume Two: Stories of Crime in the World of Books and Bookstores
Otto Penzler (editor)
Mystery

It'd take a concerted effort to get me to actively dislike a collection such as this one. Thankfully, Bibliomysteries is pretty good--much better than the usual mixed bag of minor stories by major writers, unsold shorts by minor writers, and whatnot. There's only one real stinker (by a writer whom I once advised on Amazon to switch to writing romances; nothing has changed since then). Of the rest:

• "Mystery, Inc.", a slightly predictable but very effective Poe-esque offering from Joyce Carol Oates, is probably the best. 
• Thomas Perry’s "The Book of the Lion" is an enjoyable take on a familiar setup. 
• Stephen Hunter's "Citadel" is not very believable, but the pacing is excellent and the characters nicely cinematic.

The range of sub-genres is very impressive and the writing standard surprisingly high. Recommended for book-loving mystery fans.

Book Review: The Sentence is Death

The Sentence is Death
Anthony Horowitz
Mystery

[Note: At the time of posting, the U.S. edition of this book hasn't yet been published.]

Sequel to The Word Is Murder. All of my comments on the latter are applicable. As between the two books, this one has less character development--perhaps inevitably, since it's not introducing a new main character--but an even better puzzle. I did spot a crucial clue early on, and I did figure out what Horowitz was up to (using meta-book thinking) a couple of chapters ahead of time, but I nonetheless liked The Sentence is Death a great deal.

Book Review: The High Window

The High Window
Raymond Chandler
Mystery

I got this to fill a gap in the collection. To be honest, it's not one of Chandler's better books. The plot is by turns too baroque and too obvious, and there are too many characters who make an appearance and disappear again for no apparent purpose. It does contain some sharp character portraits, descriptive prose, and dialogue, though, so it's hardly a total loss. Marlowe's role as knight-errant is unusually explicit in this one; there's only one person in the story who's really a victim, and that's who Marlowe chooses to help.

Book Review: Forever and a Day

Forever and a Day
Anthony Horowitz
Thriller

Anthony Horowitz is one of the better mystery writers working today, so I was mildly curious to see what he could do with the James Bond form. Forever and a Day is in the continuity of the written Bond, not the filmic one, and the written Bond is a more interesting character altogether. (Also, it's a good James Bond title.)

Well . . . it's not bad. It's not especially memorable, though. As an origin story for 007, it has the problem that Daniel Craig's movie version of Casino Royale does the same thing, only better. Often it puts Bond in a curiously passive role, with his love interest Sixtine taking the initiative.. The construction is a bit loose: there's a scene where Bond and Sixtine reconnoiter the enemy base, for example, for no reason whatsoever. And the big reveal--while it really does read like something Ian Fleming might have used around 1960--isn't all that shocking to a modern reader. Even Bond's character is underdeveloped.

On the other hand, the writing is smooth, the scene is alluring, the villain is very good in a very Bondian fashion, and the final chapter is outstanding. Forever and a Day isn't a book for everyone, but there are many worse ways to pass an afternoon.

"Holmes on the Range" RETURNS!

It's no secret that I like Steve Hockensmith's writing. Heck, I shamelessly ripped off lovingly borrowed his main characters.

Now, after a long hiatus, they're officially back. The Double-A Western Detective Agency is on Amazon even as we speak. Short summary: I liked it a lot, and not just because I had the chance to see an early draft of the manuscript. This is an actual Adventure, with quick pacing and a good deal of action. There's a nice intertwining of multiple plot threads at the denouement, too. There's even an honest-to-God theme about going it alone vs. relying on others.

If you liked the prior books in the series, you'll like this one.

Book Review: The China Governess

The China Governess
Margery Allingham
Mystery

At one time Margery Allingham had a reputation, along with Christie and Sayers, as one of Britain's Golden Age Queens of Crime. I haven't read all that much of her output, but what I have read leaves me puzzled as to why anyone would think so. The China Governess did nothing to enlighten me. It's a mess. In fairness, it's the next-to-last book she completed; I'll assume provisionally that it does not represent Allingham at the height of her powers.

Book Review: The Mystery of Three Quarters

The Mystery of Three Quarters
Sophie Hannah
Mystery

[WARNING: Unlike some people, I generally try not to put spoilers in my reviews. This will be an exception. Then again, if you still want to read the book after reading this post, you deserve what's coming to you. Also: long and screed-y.]

I read Hannah's first Hercule Poirot pastiche when it came out and thought it was pretty bad. The plot was all over the place, she had a tin ear for dialogue and names, one character showed strong signs of being a Mary Sue, and the narrator character was afflicted with pointless and ultimately trivial psychological hand-wringing.

I skipped the second book. But then I spotted the third in the library, and it opened surprisingly well, and I thought, what the hell. (What can I say? I'm not bad, just weak and easily led.) The good news is that the aforementioned problems have been minimized. The bad news is that they've been replaced by new, much worse problems.

Look: if you're going to pastiche Agatha freakin' Christie, the third-best-selling author of all time (behind the Bible and Shakespeare), there's one thing you've got to have. You've got to have a puzzle. This is the one fundamental overpowering thing that Dame Agatha did better than anyone else before, during, or since. She'd set up a puzzle, give you all the clues, and then pull out a solution that (a) you didn't see coming, and (b) seemed totally, logically, inevitable. That "aha!" moment--or, more specifically, that "I can't believe I didn't see that!" moment--is why people read Christie in the first place.

Sophie Hannah's moment is not an "aha!" moment. It's a "chuwhuuuuh?" moment. Actually, it's a series of "chuwhuuuuh?" moments--an elaborate, rickety structure of improbable psychological hand-waving combined with utterly nonsensical internal logic. There are too many ridiculous bits for me to describe them all. A few particularly egregious examples should give the flavor.

The central clue that makes no sense whatsoever.  Throughout the book, an enormous fuss is made about identifying the typewriter that produced several letters. Let us suppose that you are the villain, and do not wish this typewriter found. Do you: Hide the typewriter under a bed. Buy two brand-new typewriters. Beat up one so that it looks like an old machine. Tell the detective "We have two typewriters, a new one and an old one. You can test them both." Throw the typewriter into the lake. Buy one brand-new typewriter. Beat it up so that it looks like an old machine. Tell the detective "That's our typewriter." If the answer is #1, for God's sake, WHY? The absolutely ridiculous fundamental premise. Your cunning plan is to accuse your sister of murder, so that she will be hanged and you will get the money. The death in question was, and was assumed to be, natural. You write letters vaguely asserting that there has been Foul Play. Which of these things do you do? Sign these letters with the name of the most famous detective in the world, thus assuring that he will take an interest. Give your sister an unassailable alibi. Fail to provide any further evidence whatsoever, other than an dubious and not-very-incriminating clue in a place where anybody in the world could have put it. None of the above. The butler did knows it. The point of having a detective is to have him, you know, detect stuff. Having the butler listen at doors and basically spill the whole plot does not count.

I could go on . . . and on . . . but why bother? Sophie Hannah might well be a good writer for a different sort of book--there are flashes of that--but as constructor of puzzles she's absolutely hopeless.

Book Review: Don't Point That Thing at Me

Don't Point That Thing at Me: The First Charlie Mortdecai Novel
Kyril Bonfiglioli
Mystery, humor

Upon the outer integument of this opus a statement is prominently plastered, averring it to be "The result of an unholy collaboration between P. G. Wodehouse and Ian Fleming". This doesn't quite whang the nail on the crumpet. I blame it on the New Yorker having a low taste for literary fiction, thus starving its writer johnnies of the oomph necessary for the Higher Criticism. Only a sadly underfed critical faculty could have lighted upon Fleming while fluttering past the clear thematic and semiotic debt to Leslie Charteris's "The Saint" canon. For myself, I should also have identified a smidge--perhaps even a modicum--of Fraser's "Flashman" epos; but this is a subject upon which reasonable chaps might non-concur.

There's some semblance of some kind of plotty thingamajob in this book. It might make what is termed "a lick of sense", but definitely not two licks, and a full serving is jolly well out of the question. Cavil not! Don't permit the pale cast of thought, or any color cast really, to sickly o'er your reading, and you'll be a better and happier person.

Book Review: A Long Time Coming

A Long Time Coming
Aaron Elkins
Mystery

Ahh, the classic looted-Nazi-art suspense tale. Aaron Elkins has done this sort of thing before, in the Chris Norgren novels and the standalone thrillers Loot and Turncoat. And you know what? Like the art itself, it never gets old.

A Long Time Coming picks up speed gradually; it's about the middle of the book before the violence begins. I didn't mind. The setup is interesting in its own right, and the story of Solomon Bezzecca--the victim of the looting--is quite powerful. Once the scene shifts to Milan (yes, it's another one of those books that makes you want to travel someplace and eat things) the plot thickens nicely, with several layers of murkily-agenda'd characters to choose among. There's some good art history and some good art technical details and a nice cryptic development or two for the protagonist to puzzle over.

It's not groundbreaking. It's not going to be picked up for a big-budget Hollywood thriller starring Tom Cruise. It is, however, great fun. I'm not generally prone to car metaphors--I'm a train nut--but I can't help thinking of A Long Time Coming as the literary equivalent of a ride in a sports car with a good driver. The gear changes come smoothly, you get just the right amount of excitement, the car handles superbly, and when you get to the end you'd be happy to do it again.

Or, to put it another way: not once did I think "Oh, come on, I could do better than that." If you think that's a low bar, you didn't read this, this, this, this, this, or this. Among others.