Pretty Sinister Books

THE STORY: Mary Ann Manners receives a surprise visit from her no good nephew Tom Griggs. He threatens her with exposure of a secret if she does not give him shelter. He has some involvement with a death in Swansea. He never admits to killing anyone but Mary is sure Tom is guilty. She agrees to hide him but no in her house as she is expecting her grandson ted to visit very soon.  She finds Tom a remote church in a nearby village. The church is barely used and she hides Tom in an alcove. The next night Arthur Crook passes by on a bicycle, he has an accident and decides to enter the church. In exploring the place he inadvertently finds the alcove. Tom is dead inside -- suffocated on smoke and carbon monoxide from an extinguished charcoal heater he was using.

THE CHARACTERS:  The first half of the novel is concerned with the inquest on Tom Griggs' death. Due to circumstances surrounding where the body was discovered and that the entrance to the alcove was blocked from the outside by a heavy table it is certain the inquest will end in a verdict of murder.  Mary Ann Manners is arrested as she was the only person who knew Tom was in the church. The verdict is specifically names Mary Ann Manners and she is taken away to jail.  Arthur, convinced the woman is innocent, manages to get himself hired as her defense attorney. 

Hovering over this gruesome and cruel death of Tom Griggs is the real reason he came to town and the implications of his blackmail and threats. The investigation will show that Tom wanted to visit the present Earl of Cleveland but never got his chance.  Crook discovers that Tom had information about the inherited title.  We learn of a legend in which the eldest son of every Cleveland is doomed to die a violent death and never receive the title of Earl. The next in line for the title is Simon Oliver who met with Griggs just prior to his death. Simon gives all sorts of opinions mixed in with his eyewitness testimony at the inquest. The coroner loses patience with him and practically dismisses everything he says related to the meeting.  Crook knows better. Tom's murder is certainly tied to this strange legnde and to the Cleveland family who have many secrets they want kept hidden.

A subplot involving Stella, Simon Oliver's fiancée, takes the story in an entirely different direction when her life is endangered in a strange, nearly fatal trap. Disguises, anonymous messages, and a deceitful ploy that lures Stella to an empty house belonging to the Clevelands thinking Simon will meet her there nearly ends in death. Crook realizes that Tom's murderer thinks that Stella has some sort of information, possibly that she saw something she shouldn't have, that makes her a danger to the killer.  He has police keep an eye on her in the hospital while he sets his own trap for the killer.

Among the more interesting characters in this large cast are:

Lady Cleveland often referred to as The Dowager) , another one of Gilbert's favorite types: the imperious matriarch. She has some devastatingly insulting lines in some of the best family scenes. At one point she conspires with one her relatives to make sure Stella does not marry Simon, her son. I was certain the Dowager had something to do with Stella's near death-trap. She comes across not only as imperious but a bit wicked and sinister.

Rhoda Oliver - Simon's aunt and overly protective of the family. Perhaps a bit too devoted to her nephew. Lady Cleveland dismisses nearly everything Rhoda says. Rhoda reveals to Crook that the Dowager was once the governess in the Cleveland household and she married the master (more Jane Eyre motifs, so popular with crime writers) in an ambitious move to become the lady of the house. Rhoda calls her "an implacable enemy of anyone who threatens Cleveland."

Stella Reed - she comes to Crook and asks for his help in exposing the Cleveland family and helping her secure her marriage to Simon. She asserts she loves Simon for himself and that his money and title mean nothing to her. She ends her meeting with Arthur Crook vowing she will have Simon and "will stop at nothing to get him."

Simon Oliver - immensely likeable but naive and obstinate. Try as he might to get Mary Ann Manners freed during the inquest his highly opinionated way of speaking works against him. Though he is certain Mary could not have been near Tom because of his ten minute encounter with the murder victim outside of the Cleveland estate she is still found responsible for the murder.

INNOVATIONS: Crook gives several lectures on the trial by jury system and how he is unconcerned with who the guilty party is.  He reminds Simon, Stella, and anyone else who will listen that he only needs to prove Mary Ann innocent.  He talks about how he can sway the jury to believe any truth he can concoct based on the evidence and turn all suspicion away from Mary. The idea of actual truth vs. invented turth comes up several times over the course of the story making this WW2 era murder mystery all the more resonant in our 21st age of similar debates over actual truth as it applies to justice.

I also liked the multiple viewpoints employed. Often we get the thoughts of the characters in asides within long stretches of dialogue. Also I was unprepared for the unusual switch to Stella as the protagonist at around the midpoint of the book. Rather than a straightforward detective novel Death at the Door (1945) takes on aspects of a suspense thriller when th eaction pivots to Stella and the various attmepts made on her life.

Gilbert has subtle satiric touches throughout the novel as evidenced in the use of what at first seems like silly melodramatic trap later proven to be the work of a murderer inspired by a diet of lurid movies. The dialogue is often interspersed with trenchant and witty remarks from Crook, the tart-tongued Dowager and waspish Rhoda.

QUOTES:  ...though time wears out many things secrets are like first editions -- they're often more valuable when they're thirty years old.

Crook:  "Who the hell cares what I think? It's what the jury thinks, and the jury'll think what they're damn well told to think."

"Truth, in case you haven't recognized the fact, is what you can persuade the other chap to believe. And a snake charmer with a pipe and a python hasn't got anything on Arthur Crook, take my word." 

Rhoda arguing that Simon will be the next suspected murderer if Mary is proven innocent: "Law doesn't rest on inalienable proof, it rests on probabilities, and if [Crook], who looked as dishonest a creature as ever I set eyes on, can make people believe she didn't do it, he won't care who hangs."

You couldn't argue with a man like [Crook], Cleveland thought irritably. It was like wrestling with an eel.

THINGS I LEARNED:  Crook makes a passing reference to Beth-Gelert and the wolf which went over my head and of course sent me off on a mad Google search. It's Welsh folklore. Or history. Or utterly made up by an innkeeper who knew of the legend and adapted it for his hotel in the town of Beddgelert in Wales. But whichever you believe and wherever you choose to find this supposed legend here's the basic story. Prince Llywelyn had a faithful dog named Gelert who was entrusted to watch over a baby. I'll just cut and paste the rest from a page on Historic UK website:

When Llywelyn returned from the hunt, he was greeted by Gelert who came bounding towards him …his jaws dripping with blood.

The Prince was appalled, and a horrible thought came into his mind …was the blood on the dog’s muzzle that of his one-year old son. His worst fears were realised when he saw in the child’s nursery, an upturned cradle, and walls spattered with blood! He searched for the child but there was no sign of him. Llywelyn was convinced that his favourite hound had killed his son.

Mad with grief he took his sword and plunged it into Gelert’s heart.

But the hasty-thinking Llewelyn had jumped to conclusions before fully investigating the room. There was a dead wolf near the crib and the dog had torn the wolf's throat open.  He was in fact guarding the baby who was safe and unharmed beneath the overturned crib.

Gelert by Charles Burton Barber (1884)

 The story is alluded to point out how fear often supersedes reason. Crook emphasizes that he will not listen to prejudice based on fear or hate.

EASY TO FIND?  Anthony Gilbert mystery novels while unfortunately not reprinted in any contemporary editions (other than as digital books) since the 1950s are very common in the used market place. In the UK the book was published as He Came By Night and both the US edition and UK editions were reprinted in paperback. Both hardcover and paperback copies are out there for sale, many of them extremely affordable.  I'm offering a 1st US edition with the uncommon DJ at an reasonable price. You can find it here. 

  

Jeremiah X. Gibson, Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan, is accompanied by his colleague from the D.A.'s office known only as "Mac" who also serves as the narrator in their debut which deals with the murder of a promiscuous barfly and sometime entertainer as well as the apparent suicide by poisoning of the man who supposedly killed her. But it's a lot more complicated than a tawdry sex crime --she was strangled, her clothing was carefully cut from her back and the word "Bitch" was written in lipstick on her bare skin-- and suicide. The first complication is that there are multiple witnesses who saw the man, night club dancer Hubert von Mund, in the woman's apartment. He has a very distinctive garish plaid coat he wears everywhere. And a man wearing that coat was seen in the window of Fleurette Val's home. It wasn't just his coat that make the witnesses remember him --  he was doing something rather lewd with his pants down. Gibby doesn't buy that someone would go to the trouble of such an elaborate crime, perform a sex act, and then come to a bar wearing the same coat and knock back a beer with a cyanide chaser. He starts an intensive investigation that takes him from tenement apartments to bars to small businesses meeting up with a collector of erotic photographs and dirty books, an odd husband and wife who seem to spend a lot of time playing voyeur on their neighbors, Hubert's ex-dancing partner who was abandoned when he broke his contract leaving her without a job, and a coiuple of hunky tattooed bartenders who have attracted quite a following from the regular female bar patrons.

The Corpse in the Corner Saloon (1948) is a forerunner to the sex-and-crime murder mysteries that would flood the popular fiction marketplace in the 1950s.  For the year of publication this book is incredibly racy, just shy of salacious. You get a veritable cornucopia of transgressive topics and incidents: exhibitionism, , erotic drawings, pornographic books, and sex in bedooms with draperies open. Naked people and voyeurs are everywhere. The reviewer for The Saturday Review in November 1948 said "Well enough done, but definitely not for queasy palates." Understatement! Stone manages to raise several sexual topics with wiseacre dialogue and well placed innuendo avoiding vulgarity with ironic humor.  The characters themselves are mostly a sleazy bunch (I counted only two suspects who weren't sex obsessed or window lurkers), no need to make it raunchier by going into great detail. Besides, I think the editors must've thought they were risking too much by including the murderer fondling himself in a window. They had to tone down all the rest of it somehow.

As for the mystery elements Gibby (as he is referred to by our narrator) is keen on the "Clue of the Coat", as it were. In fact, clothing and the world of tailoring play an extremely important part in the solution to the two crimes. A tailoring business owned by Marlowe Trutt features prominently in the story. Arnold Carroll is Trutt's longtime associate and friend.  For a long time the story seems to be implicating Carroll as the murderer with a motive of over-protectiveness of Trutt and revenge. Trutt has a surprise connection to Fleurette Val that turns the case on its head. And when an unusual order for a fabric that matches the strange yellow and blue plaid of Hubert's distinctive coat is trace back to Trutt's business Mac becomes highly suspicious of Carroll.

One of the more interesting clues is the word neatly written on Fleurette's back. Of great interest to Gibby is the "t" which is not fully crossed. This turns out to be the trademark of someone's signature and is well known to anyone who uses Trutt as their tailor.  His signature with partially crossed T's (see the illustration on the Dell paperback) is well known because his name is the company logo. His flourishing signature appears on labels in clothes as well as the ornate business cards he hands out to clients. Someone is trying to frame Marlowe Trutt. Gibby sees through this transparent ploy immediately.

Despite the tawdry nature of the crimes and the prurient interests of the window spies in the various apartments that face the murder scene this is a well plotted mystery with deft twists and several excellent red herrings that fooled me and led me away from the real unexpected villain of the book. I'd classify it as a fair play detective novel that mixes up noirish subject matter found in typical private eye novels of this era with traditional mystery novel plotting. One particular clothing related clue mentioned exactly once in the early part of the book is a clincher to the identity of the killer. I completely missed that clothing remark. It was placed nonchalantly with the expertise of Carr or Christie. Kudos to the writer for that one. 

THE AUTHOR:  "Hampton Stone" is one of the many pseudonyms used by Aaron Marc Stein (1902-1985) who began his mystery writing career as early as 1935 when as "George Bagby" he wrote a long series of detective novels inspired by the growing popularity of police procedurals. They all feature Inspector Schmidt and the narrator George Bagby who, like S. S. Van Dine, "authors" the books as if the cases were real. Under his own name Stein created the archaeologist sleuthing team of Timm Mulligan and Elsie Mae Hunt, and the engineer Matt Herridge. The "Hampton Stone" detective novels all feature Gibby and Mac and lasted into the early 1970s with a total of 18 books.

THINGS I LEARNED: The art of tailoring and the business of being a tailor is a highlight of the novel.  Even supporting characters turn out to have tailoring and sewing skills. Clothing aficionados take note!  You will learn all about the snobbery of high end tailors and their tastes in fabric, the commercial aspect of clothing industry disdained by true tailors, the "ghetto" of Manhattan's garment district, and even the intricacies of inserting a zipper into a pair of pants. It was all sort of fascinating. The many crime movies I've seen featuring tailors as protagonists from The Tailor in Panama to The Outfit don't offer anywhere near the depth of understanding nor give as much insight into tailoring as in this book.

EASY TO FIND? Dozens of copies of the two vintage paperback editions are out there for sale. Pries for the vintag e paperbacks range from $3 - $15. You can choose from the nifty Dell Mapback shown above, or a Paperback Library edition from 1971 with cover art that makes Gibby look like long gone, action movie star Steve McQueen. Hilarious! A few copies of the US 1st edition shown at the top of this post are also available for sale ranging from $15 to $54, with and without DJs. I read my copy from the Chicago Public Library. Don't have one to sell you. Sorry.

The first words Amy Brewster utters in her debut mystery novel are: "Of course he didn't you quibbling corporation jackanapes!" All 300 pounds of her barges into the room chomping on a Havana cigar then demands with the cigar's cellophane wrapper still in her hand "Where do I put this?" Here is one of mysterydom's least well known but most fabulous creations. We can thank forgotten writer Sam Merwin, Jr for giving her to us.  She appears in only three full length novels and three novellas, far too few, but all worth tracking down.

In Knife in My Back (1945) Merwin gives us a colorfully detailed outrageous past for Amelia Winslow Brewster. He starts with her physical description: "a woman of indeterminate years, of vast corpulence and even greater ugliness" with an outdated hair style that he describes as "cut in the old Dutch style of the suffragettes of 1916."  We learn that she was educated at Radcliffe, graduated Phi Beta kappa and was "admitted to the Massachusetts bar before she was twenty." Coming from a wealthy family helped her no doubt, but her shrewd financial skill turned her modest bank account into eight figures then she gave most of it away. She also has a talent for "gambling prodigiously" and managed to rake in more millions in casinos all over the country. Merwin ends this financial history with this comment: " A confirmed advocate of the redistribution of wealth, she had done her best to live up to it--but couldn't seem to unload [it] as fast as she made it."

Knife in My Back combines puzzle elements of traditional detective novel with hard-boiled characterization in the person of Brewster.  A woman comes to the Dumonat mansion to deliver a message to 28 year old Chris Horton. She is waiting impatiently for him in the study and when he finally arrives at the house he finds her stabbed. Police immediately suspect Joe Horton, Chris' brother, who apart from the butler Gordon was the only person in the house at the time. Joe calls Amy Brewster to defend him and keep him out of jail.

Though the culprit may be easy to spot in this debut mystery that doesn't diminish the all around fun factor of this yarn. It's fast paced, witty, and filled with the arcane history of glass making artisans, paperweights and the origin of those objects as art collectibles. It's the only mystery I've read to deal with this arcane hobby and the tidbits of history make for were fascinating reading.

Brewster returns in Message from a Corpse (1945),  a more hardboiled mystery dealing with professional criminals, a missing biographical manuscript with secrets about a dead millionaire, and a murdered retired judge. The mysteries all culminate in the uncovering of a cache of hidden jewels. Brewster displays her knack for cryptography and codebreaking in this book.

The final book in the trio of novel length adventures is A Matter of Policy (1946).  Insurance fraud brings two strangers together as they attempt to discover who used their names as claimant and beneficiary on a $500,000 life insurance policy. Jim Leavitt, an inept investment counselor, has no knowledge of the policy in his name or the beneficiary a night club singer names Tosta Kaaren, stage name for Toots Carlisle who is actually from Carnarsie and not Sweden. We got a lot of barroom fights, face bashing and a few scenes of our protagonists being tied up.  When a bodyguard assigned to Jim ends up dead in a trap intended to kill Jim Amy Brewster is called in to ehlp put an end to the fraud and possible future attacks on Jim.

I enjoyed this last book just as much as Knife in My Back for all the sarcastic banter from Amy Brewster, her usual wisecracks and hilarious insults. It's a lot more action oriented betraying Merwin's love of pulpy thrills like the stories he wrote for magazines like Dime Detective, Thrilling Detective and Popular Detective to name just three of the dozens of magazines he was published in over his 30+ year career.

Knife in My Back (the first, but I think the best of the trio) is the most common of these books in the used book market. It was reprinted by Handi-Books and I found over 50 copies of that vintage paperback edition for sale on various bookselling sites. Matter of Policy and Message from a Corpse are also out there but fewer copies of each turned up.

For those of you who prefer digital books you're in luck because the three novellas (for decades only found in the original pulp magazines) are available from Deerstalker Mysteries in a single eBook entitled Meet Amy Brewster. This digital book includes: "The Corpse Comes Ashore," "Amy Stops the Clock" and "The Maestro's Secret." And of course -- I had to force myself to look -- the other novels turn up in digital formats as well.

I read three books that were set around or on Christmas Day during December and have managed to finish only one in time for the end of 2022. One I stopped because it was so dull in its 33 pages of exposition but online reviews encourage me to finish it. It's only a novella of 79 pages and I thought I'd be done with it in a few hours!  The third I only started yesterday afternoon.  So those other Christmas mystery reviews will be showing up next week.

The Empty Bed (1928) features Jimmie Haswell, Adam's first series character, a solicitor who has a habit of stumbling into puzzling murder cases.  In this fourth book in the brief nine mystery novel series Haswell and his newlywed wife Nonna are invited to spend Christmas at "The Cedars", the estate of his friend Joyce Gurney.  Accompanying him are his friends Tony and Mollie Bridgman who both appeared in Adams' first mystery novel The Secret of Bogey House, also Haswell's debut.

When they arrive they soon learn that Joyce's Uncle Silas was bludgeoned by a medieval mace on Christmas Eve. Apparently he had interrupted a burglar who was attempting to rob the household.  A window was cut out in the hallway near the body and there are signs of a struggle. But soon Jimmie and the police dismiss the bludgeoning burglar theory when various puzzling aspects of the crime reveal themselves.

1.  Why was Vivian Gurneys bed not sleep in ?  Where did the nephew disappear to in the night?  And why has he not returned on Christmas Day? This seems to be the empty bed of the title. However, another empty bed will provide another clue in the denouement.

2. Who let loose the bloodcurdling scream that awoke the entire household?  Why will no woman admit to the scream?

3. Who took Vivian's knife and left it near the window in the hallway?  Was it used to cur out the glass from its leaded housing to make it appear a burglary took place?

4. Who left the mysterious note signed by "J" mentioning a secret late night tryst changed from midnight to one o'clock in the morning? Was it Joyce?  Or Jasper? Or someone else with a J initial outside of the home?

Silas is one in a long line of curmudgeonly misers with many relatives awaiting his money in the world of mysterydom so there are plenty of suspects and motives.  As the investigation proceeds there is also a lot of lying and covering up.  Jimmie begins to distrust his friend Joyce when she will not come clean. Eventually we learn of her secret engagement and that her fiancee showed up at "The Cedars" late Christmas Eve.  The fiancee becomes the prime suspect and shortly after the inquest the police arrest him.  Jimmie is sure the police have arrested the wrong person and works tirelessly to clear his name and find the real murderer -- a much more dangerous person who will strike again shortly after the arrest and even attempts to kill Jimmie.

No Herbert Adams mystery is without at least one game of golf. Despite the melting snow and sodden greens Jimmie and Tony make it to the links.  Really it's one of the most incidental and superfluous uses of the game in the plot.  In other Haswell mystery novels the murder happens on a golf course, in the clubhouse or nearby a golf course and the game takes more prominence.  In one mystery a character arranges a game of golf and in the guise of friendly conversation during the game coaxes vital info out of a suspect.

Another recurring aspect in Adams mystery is romance and love. In The Empty Bed we have a couple about to be engaged, one broken engagement, and a beautiful maid the object of many men's admiration. Love and romance are always on Adam's mind.  All works out well for all the various couples, but this time we also have the ugly side of sexual attraction and unbridled womanizing in a cad named Captain Hugh Rollings who makes passes at every woman in the story. He's like a Harvey Weinstein of the the 1920s. Rollings' kissing and groping (it has nothing to do with the mistletoe, that's just his excuse) lead to a nasty fistfight. Defending his wife, one of many women Rollings kissed and fondled without consent, Jimmie gives the Captain a sound beating suffering a few blows himself in the process. Merry Christmas, creep!

The Empty Bed seems to be Adam's first genuine detective novel.  Previously his novels mixed two genres - the adventure novel and the detective novel with the adventure aspect winning out. Though there is some fair play clueing in The Empty Bed, the finale is laden with too much inference and guesswork on Haswell's part.  In the last chapter we discover there was an eyewitness to the murder, someone who was protecting the murderer and guarding another secret.  This witness conveniently verifies everything that Haswell guessed at. I was slightly disappointed with that lazy way to explain away all the last minute clues thrown at us. Still The Empty Bed shows promise and by the time Adams writes The Crime in the Dutch Garden (1931) -- so far the best of the Haswell mysteries I have read and a superior fair play example of the bizarre murder method mystery plot -- Adams will have proven himself a contender in the genre.  That he was never elected into the Detection Club seems clearer to me based on so many detective/adventure hybrids and too much intuitive detective work in his first decade of writing.

As a Christmas tale the setting is only incidental and proves an excuse to get a houseful of murder suspects together. What surprised me, however, were the timeless insights into how Christmas celebration and holiday traditions haven't changed in over a century. Here are some choice holiday themed quotes from various characters:

CHRISTMAS MAGIC
What magic there is in the very name Christmas! None is too old to feel some thrill as the day dawns, and few too cynical to look forward to it without some hope of happiness beyond the ordinary.

RE-GIFTING
Mollie: "Years ago I started a present drawer. A few weeks after Christmas I pop into it all the things we shall never want. Of course we appreciate the kind intention and very often find someone who really likes the gift."

IT'S THE THOUGHT THAT COUNTS ...SORT OF
Nonna: "My rule is to give people something I'd like myself. So if you don't care for what you get, please give it back."

CHRISTMAS DINNER
Jasper (the ne'er-do-well sarcastic nephew): "Dinner was good, but conversation dull, dealing mostly with dead relatives -- 'Do you remember how Aunt Arabella lost her teeth in the soup?" -- and things like that. Family yarns we drag up every Christmas. After dinner we had a poisonous evening -- some music and old-fashioned whist for penny points."

GETTING ALONG
Sgt Inglis: "Did you quarrel with your uncle?"
Jasper:  "No. There was plenty of time for that. We arrive on Christmas Eve, and seldom quarrel before Boxing Day."

Finally, in the absolute last paragraph of the book I learned something fascinating. Jimmie apologizes to Nonna for their Christmas spoiled by crime and nearly the end of their marriage in that horrific attempt on his life. He promises he will make it up to her: "We'll go to Switzerland for the winter sports."  Was this the Olympics by any chance? I thought. Off I went a-Googling. And voila! Jimmie's mention of "the winter sports" to turned out to be the St. Moritz Winter Games of 1928.  They were, in fact, the first Winter Olympics organized separately, that is apart from the Summer Olympics. How's that for some real life inspirational detective work!

The Man Who Cried All the Way Home (1966) is a return for Dolores Hitchens to pure detective novel. What makes this novel all the more unusual is the detective. He is Chuck Sadler, a septuagenarian lawyer, slightly crippled who must use a cane to walk, and yet is still sharp as a tack and savvy about criminal procedure. He’s the perfect person to help Dorrie Chenoweth when her husband dies under suspicious circumstances and the police suspect her of possibly causing his death. It helps that Sadler is also her beloved uncle, a cherished friend as well as her elderly relative. Uncle Chuck steps in to help Dorrie identify her husband’s body with battered face found by his wrecked car at the edge of the Borrego Reservoir. Too many odd elements surrounding the man’s death lead Uncle Chuck to believe this is not an accident but a murder and he starts making inquiries on his own to help clear Dorrie’s name.

As he delves into Sargent Chenoweth’s business at his privately accounting firm he discovers the Dorrie’s husband was duping many of his friends and leading a double life. Shady business deals and stock market manipulation are uncovered as well as plans to flee to South America. Uncle Chuck also traces Chenoweth’s secret life to a love nest where he was entertaining a young woman both he and Dorrie knew since the woman was a teen in high school When that young woman now, barely 20 years old, is also found dead Chuck begins to fear that his niece may not be as innocent as she claims to be. The police are beginning to formulate a similar theory as Uncle Chuck, that Dorrie found out about her husband’s infidelity and decided to get rid of both of Sargent and his much younger mistress.

Dogs play a unique role in the story, too. Pete is the Chenoweth’s collie mix that got into trouble and came home injured. Uncle Chuck looks at the dog’s wound and tells Dorrie that its unmistakably a bullet that grazed Pete’s neck and ear causing a furrowed scar. When a variety of suspects turn up at the Chenoweth home as part of Uncle Chuck’s routine Q & A sessions the dog behaves skittishly. There are three separate people the normally friendly dog acts strangely around serving as a clue to the person who probably tried to shoot the dog. But why? Uncle Chuck is certain Pete was around when Sargent was killed. The dog’s odd behavior sets Chuck’s mind imagining an ingenious way to reveal the murderer. He finds a look-alike dog at the local pound and begins an vigorous training program for the quick to learn rescue animal. Ultimately Uncle Chuck’s plan proves to be one of the cleverest and original methods of unmasking a murderer to appear in any detective novel of this era.

Fast paced and a real page turner The Man Who Cried All the Way Home is one of the most engaging books I’ve read from Hitchens’ long career. It’s a definite throwback to her days as D. B. Olsen when she wrote traditional detective novels. The plot is fairly clued and populated with a wide array of colorful suspects all with varied motives. And she delivers the goods here in a rousing action-filled finale that reveals  a totally unexpected culprit.

It’s a shame that this particular title is so hard to find in either its paperback or hardcover editions. Currently, I uncovered only twelve copies for sale in English and some if those are the old Detective Book Club 3-in-1 volumes. Other copies are of French and German translations. I stumbled upon a copy of the ultra-rare Curtis paperback (pictured at the top) with the intention of offering it to Stark House for a possible reprint then learned that the remainder of all of Dolores Hitchens’ reprint rights (including all her books written under her various pen names) were recently outright purchased by Mysterious Press/Open Road Media. Sadly, we won’t be able to get this one in a Stark House reprint. And it may only be a digital version of this book that may turn up in the future…if it ever does.

Gardner dictating one of his many Perry Mason novels

Much has been written about mystery writers and their involvement in real life crime cases. Arthur Conan Doyle used his skills as an amateur sleuth and ophthalmologist to help clear the name of George Edjali accused of mutilating horses and other farm animals. A nurse who after reading Agatha Christie’s The Pale Horse recognized the signs of thallium poisoning in that book and managed to get proper treatment for a misdiagnosed patient in time to save the patient’s life. But what of other mystery writers' adventures in real criminal cases? Who else might have turned detective in real life or had their books used to help solve a crime? An article in the recent Smithsonian magazine highlights Erle Stanley Gardner’s involvement in helping to resolve a case of a wrongfully accused and imprisoned Apache shaman.

Gardner never stopped practicing law and, in fact, spent much of his later life helping prisoners. This may have been mentioned in Gardner’s biography by Dorothy B. Hughes but I’ve never read it. Nevertheless it was fascinating to learn that Gardner was one of the first people to create a foundation that examined miscarriages of justice (The Court of Last Resort), reviewing cases of prisoners who wrote letters claiming innocence and of being wrongfully imprisoned. One such letter written in 1951 found its way to Gardner’s desk. The writer was Silas John Edwards, an Apache medicine man who had started his own religion. In 1933 he had been tried for the murder of his wife, was quickly found guilty on largely circumstantial evidence, and sent to prison. Gardner reviewed the court transcripts and interviewed others on the reservation where the murder took place. Many of those he interviewed were convinced of the Apache’s innocence. Some even claimed to know the name of the true killer. It was a piece of supposed evidence presented by the prosecution, however, that set Gardner off on his quest to save Edwards.

Silas John Edwards (left) and his father ©E.E. Guenther, from collection of William Kessel as published in Smithsonian

Edward’s wife had been bludgeoned and strangled. Near her body were bloody rocks inscribed with the initials of the accused. Gardner found convincing physical evidence that was overlooked or paid little attention to during the trial like blood that was smeared on Edward's clothing rather than splattered which would have happened if he had actually bludgeoned his wife. But in a bold and outrageous move the Prosecution claimed that the initialed rocks were part of an Apache ritual. The D.A. told the court that an Apache murderer left initials at a crime scene to prevent the victim's soul from seeking vengeance. Gardner thought it a ludicrous claim, something not only counterintuitive but utterly lacking in common sense, and he had his surmise backed up by Apaches on the reservation. None of the Apaches he spoke with could corroborate such a fraudulent sounding ritual. Not one Indian had ever heard of such a practice neither in their own culture or in the odd religion that Edwards had created. Working with the court transcript and gathering witness testimony from Apaches who were never called to the stand back in 1933 Gardner worked tirelessly to prove the prosecution manipulated facts and in some cases invented them to get the conviction. There is a happy ending for Edwards even though he served almost all of his time in prison.

Rather than summarize the entire story which has more than its fair share of life’s irony and twists to rival any Perry Mason novel I point you to the full story as written by journalist Jack El-Hai. Luckily it’s one of the articles you can read in full at the online version of the December 2020 issue of Smithsonian magazine. It makes for eye opening reading.

The first novel Will Oursler wrote was also his first detective novel. The Trial of Vincent Doon (1941) is presented as if it were an actual murder case and consists entirely of a facsimile of the court transcript accompanied by drawings, house plans, photographs and a full set of People’s Exhibits. No doubt this was inspired by the latest fad -- solve-them-yourself murder puzzles like those in the Baffle Books published by Doubleday Crime Club and the crime dossiers created by Dennis Wheatley and J. G. Links with titles like Murder Off Miami and Who Killed Robert Prentice? These dossiers included not just photographs of the evidence as in Oursler’s novel, but the actual evidence: pieces of threads, real fingerprint sheets, and in one case a cellophane envelope containing real hair. The Trial of Vincent Doon is unique as a first novel in its structure and gimmickry, but as a novel it is not very original nor even thrilling.

Philip Strong, is the criminal defense lawyer for Doon and is clearly modeled on Perry Mason. His partner James Matthew acts as the narrator/compiler and periodically makes commentary on Strong and the case in footnotes a la the Van Dine detective novels. The story involves a lover’s triangle that leads to a stabbing murder of strait-laced Edwin Hallet. The accused is a jealous painter, Vincent Doon, who was working on a portrait of Betty Van Eyck. Hallet was to marry Betty but Doon claims she never loved her fiancée, that she was really in love with him.

Though Oursler may think he was being clever and original l this book is heavily reminiscent of Gardner’s Perry Mason series, especially the later books which contain lengthy courtroom scenes designed mostly to live up to the formulaic TV series. Like the Perry Mason TV series and most of the books the most interesting parts of Oursler’s story are not the complicated plot, unusual motivations and surprise confessions on the stand, but the quirky trivia-laden testimony of expert witnesses. In The Trial of Vincent Doon the most fascinating part of the book, the most interesting to read, is the testimony of a telephone repairman!

He answers a series of seemingly irrelevant questions which are objected to by the prosecution but are allowed by the judge. Strong insists that the phone repair and the ringing of a phone at a certain time on the night of the murder is crucial to understanding the apparent alibis of people other than Doon. And so the reader is treated to some intriguing and true telephone repair tricks like a special code that repairmen can dial into any phone that will make the phone ring after hanging up. This is definitely true. As a teen back in the 1970s I was given that special code (which changed over the years and was different depending on where you lived in the US) by some savvy friend of mine whose father was in telecommunications. I would play tricks on my brothers and my mother all the time by dialing the three digit code, hanging up and leaving the house.

Much better is Oursler’s sequel Folio on Florence White (1942) once again with Matthews, this time as full-fledged first person narrator, and Strong as defense attorney cum detective. The gimmick of the casebook forgoes the courtroom transcript and People’s exhibits but as the title tells us it is indeed a folio. Interspersed between narrative chapters we get letters, memos, phone messages, transcripts of depositions all designed with different fonts and illustrated elements to give the illusion that they are actual documents.

The cast of characters is relatively familiar in this story of wealthy businessmen, adultery, corporate malfeasance and the theft of company assets. Florence has been wrongly convicted of theft of securities two years ago and has recently been released from prison. Her rival who testified against her, Evelyn Emory, is killed by cyanide poisoning. Flo is arrested. Later, another witness from the old security theft crime is also killed. His wife thinks it is a heart attack. But autopsy proves poisoning by cyanide. Is someone getting even for Flo’s wrongful imprisonment?

In one of the novel’s most memorable sequences Strong does some actual sleuthing at a potter’s field, based on an actual cemetery with a gruesome history (see THINGS I LEARNED section). A visit to Harlem gives us a scene relatively free of prejudice in which Strong and Matthews feel out of their element when they realize they are treated as outsiders and intruders. While there is an open hostility expressed Oursler does not go the 1940s PC route by making the white people seem like they know everything. Nor are the Blacks turned into ludicrous cartoons for comic effect. Strong and Matthews learn a lot about themselves in this scene and the Black characters are depicted with sympathy and wisdom.

Complicating the story of Flo’s supposed guilt in the murder of Evelyn is the disappearance of Harvey Mason, owner of Mason Aircraft where she and Evelyn worked. A tramp dies with no form of identity found on his body and the after the legal limit of waiting for a relative to claim the body it is sent to a potter’s field. Strong orders an exhumation of the corpse thinking they can prove that the trap is actually Harvey Mason who was put into tramp’s clothing. When the coffin is opened, the body is gone. Shades of John Dickson Carr!

The Potter's Field on Hart Island, 1898 (courtesy of Bowery Boys website)

THINGS I LEARNED: The history of the island is described in detail which led me to check up on the story. Turns out Oursler merely changed the name to Planker’s Island and described it as having once been owned by a rich Dutchman named E. Van Dyrk Planker who after his death bequeathed the island to New York City for use as dumping ground for 'refuse and trashe.'  He based the setting on a cemetery located on Hart Island, written up lately in various online articles as “a place of strangeness and sorrow” and “New York City’s potter’s field.” The New York City Corrections Department maintained and supervised burials for in its earliest life the island was home to a Confederate soldiers’ prison. For decades after the Civil War prisoners were tasked with burying bodies of unclaimed corpses that had been consigned to New York City’s morgue. To this day prisoners still tend to the grounds and bury the dead on Hart Island, but the prisoners come from Riker’s Island as the prison on Hart Island is long since abandoned and fallen into ruins. Hart Island has also been used to bury HIV victims during the AIDS crisis and victims of Hurricane Sandy. Most recently hundreds of people killed by COVID-19 have been buried here. Oddly, these days Hart’s Island is under the direction of the New York Department of Parks and Recreation but the public has never been able to visit. This may be changing soon in light of the consequences of the pandemic.

THE AUTHOR: Will Oursler (1914-1985) whose work was previously featured and discussed here back in 2015 was the son of mystery writer, journalist and Catholic spokesperson Charles Fulton Oursler, better known to vintage mystery fans as “Anthony Abbot.”  Oursler, the son, also made his living in journalism as a war correspondent, appeared on talk radio as a panelist and wrote several books, like his father, on religion or with theological themes. I call him a moonlighter because out of a total of 45 books (fiction and non-fiction) only eight of his novels qualify as detective fiction. Remarkably, I recently discovered he served as Vice President of Mystery Writers of America. So I guess he was very much involved in the crime fiction world and not really a dabbling moonlighter at all. In addition to the two books featuring Strong and Matthews as protagonists Oursler wrote two other novels modeled on these folios without the lawyer duo, two Gale Gallagher books in collaboration with Margaret Scott using the main character, a female skip tracer/private eye, as their pseudonym and as "Nick Marino" an additional two crime novels.

What a surprise it was to learn that this excellent detective novel was the work of a young economics professor who was teaching at the University of New Brunswick when it was published. Burton Keirstead (writing as B. S. Keirstead) co-authored his first and only novel with D. Frederick Campbell, who apparently was also working at the university though I was unable to uncover anything about him. The Brownsville Murders (1933) is an engaging and fascinating blend of police procedural, a novel of rural Canadian life, a satire of naive thinking, and an eye-opening account of the RCMP in 1930s Canada. Keirstead seems to draw from American pulp writers and the nascent detective novels just beginning to become popular as million copy bestsellers. Well reviewed in the American press The Brownsville Murders showed promise for the young man who wrote only one other detective fiction work published only in serial format, but would go on to make a name for himself as one of Canada's leading economists of the early 20th century.

The Brownsville Murders is set in the titular Canadian farming village sandwiched between Woodstock and Fredericton in the province of New Brunswick. In the opening pages we meet a young couple engaged to be married who while driving to Fredericton come across a body in the middle of the road. Upon close inspection they see it is a man who has been shot in the head. When they go for help and return to the accident scene the body has disappeared. A search ensues and soon another person is dead. And then another!  Only 35 pages have passed and already we have three bodies, one missing, and two young people terrified to have been caught up in a true murder mystery.


Brian Woodworth, the young man driving the car that night, we soon learn is a law student finishing his studies and employed in the office of Lawyer MacPherson whose first name is never mentioned. Macpherson is our narrator and the unofficial detective of the novel. This is a blend of both amateur and professional detective work. Inspector Eccles of the RCMP will eventually take charge of the investigation aided by MacPherson and Sgt. LaTour. Interestingly, MacPherson notes that the young sergeant is the more capable of the two policemen. He describes LaTour as a man of "sheer native wit and shrewdness and insight." In contrast Eccles is an an impulsive and fanciful thinker who MacPherson believes relies too much on imaginative ideas "full of bad psychology." Eccles is certain that two people were responsible for the three murders and the vanishing of two corpses. He cannot envision that one person could carry out all the activity necessary in killing three people and moving the bodies.

The man found dead in the road is identified after painstaking questioning and turns out to be a local named MacLeod with a reputation as a womanizer. In one of the most intriguing fictional inquests I've ever read the Brownsville murder case reveals a torrid lover's triangle heightened by impassioned jealousies and rampant cruelty. We meet a sadistic Fundamentalist Christian farmer who according to gossip beats his daughter. A feeble minded "half-wit" confesses his love for MacLeod's wife and talks of his passion for late night salmon fishing. Finally, we learn of the life and work of the stranger in town, a writer and illustrator named Stephen Jamieson.

Canadian law allows for a police counsel to question witnesses at a coroner's inquest.  In The Brownsville Murders the police counsel is Mr. Des Barres who is determined to implicate Albert Denton, the "half-wit fisherman" who was seen wandering near the site of the shootings. This eyewitness is Mrs. MacLeod, the object of Albert's obsessive affection and also the wife of the murdered man in the road. As MacPherson watches the inquest unfold from the gallery he is suspicious of every word uttered by Mrs. MacLeod. Is it possible that she is perjuring herself in order to escape suspicion and help Des Barres build his case against Albert?

Poor Brian Woodward is also badgered on the witness stand during the inquest. He is advised by MacPherson to keep his temper under control and not allow himself to be bullied into an outburst. MacPherson is sure that Brian will be manipulated and exploited by the shrewd and controlling police counsel. It's all Brian can do to keep from criticizing Des Barres' methods rather than simply answering his questions. At times he cannot speak, rather he sits seething in the witness stand.

The inquest ends with a circumstantial case built against Albert who has been painted as an obsessive stalker angry with MacLeod and protective of his "love" for Mrs. MacLeod. Albert's father is worried that the police will soon arrest Albert and hires MacPherson as his lawyer. The case becomes one of MacPherson trying to save Albert from trial and determined to help Eccles and LaTour find the true murderer of the three shooting victims.

I was completely enthralled with this novel. It's an impressive debut work and all the moreso because the writing duo managed to fool me.  The James M. Cain-like atmosphere of jealous lovers and volatile extramarital affairs was so convincing and so neatly laid out with multiple suspects I was completely taken in. But all the while Keirstead and Campbell had another angle with clues cleverly planted so off-handedly that I dismissed them entirely as red herrings. Much to my embarrassment (and later delight) these supposed red herrings were the real clues leading to the solution. In fact, one bit of investigation about a shack on one of the farms near the initial murder and roadside accident should have been so obvious to me that I was kicking myself for overlooking it.

Young Burton Keirstead, circa late 1930s.

Burton Seely Keirstead (1907-1973) was born in Woodstock, New Brunswick and was the son of Dr. Wilfrid Currier Keirstead, a pastor for the United Baptist Church and a noted professor himself. Dr. Keirstead taught philosophy and social sciences at University of New Brunswick where his son would eventually study and teach.

Burton would choose economics over religion and philosophy and his studies included a stint as a Rhodes Scholar in Oxford where he was involved in the Adelphi Club, the Dialectical Society and the Lotus Club. While at Oxford he often entertained students in a salon in his private rooms. One of the most famous salons he arranged included a talk by fellow student E. M. Forster, famed novelist of A Passage to India, A Room with a View, Howard's End and Maurice.

Over his lengthy career as an academic and economist Keirstead taught at University of New Brunswick, Dalhousie University's Institute of Public Affairs, McGill University and University of Toronto. He was a visiting lecturer at MIT, University of Arizona and The University of West Indies in Jamaica where he studied and eventually published a book on freight rates and the federal shipping service. He published several books on economics throughout his life notably The Economic Effects of the War on the Maritime Provinces of Canada (1944), The Theory of Economic Change (1948), Canada in World Affairs, Vol. VI (1956), and Capital, Interest and Profit (1958).

While The Brownsville Murders is Keirstead's only published detective novel it is not his only contribution to crime fiction. The editor of Maclean's magazine after reading an enthusiastic review of Keirstead's debut mystery novel in a New York newspaper met Keirstead in person to discuss his fiction. Together they came up with a plan to publish Keirstead's second idea for a detective novel as a serial. The first part of Murder in the Police Station appeared in the January 15, 1934 issue. MacPherson, Brian Woodward (now a partner in MacPherson's firm), Inspector Eccles and LaTour all appear in this second work. A nice surprise is that after his success with the Brownsville case LaTour has been promoted to the rank of Inspector in the RCMP. Murder in the Police Station was published in six bi-monthly installments from January through April 1934. The entire serial is available to read at the Maclean's website. I hope to read the whole thing and write a review of that obscure fiction work soon.

THE STORY: William Power, lawyer, confides with his married novelist friends, Vincie and Penny Mercer, on an unusual murder involving what appears to be a poisoning by inhalation. Evidence suggests that a boutonniere found on the victim's lapel was dusted with cocaine.  The two writers are enlisted as unofficial detectives and together the three solve the murder with a very strange method of killing and even more odd motive.

THE CHARACTERS: William Power along with the Mercers appear in a brief series of detective novels by John Hazlette Vahey writing under the pseudonym Henrietta Clandon. Vahey is better known to readers of this blog as Vernon Loder whose mystery novels incorporate bizarre plots, strange murder methods and his trademark sense of offbeat humor.  Power on the Scent (1937) is the fourth book in the series of five, but only the third in which the three series characters appear together.  Powell appears alone in Good by Stealth (1937) while the Mercers go it alone in the final Clandon novel Fog over Weymouth (1938).

Penny and Vincie are novelists who specialize in crime fiction and detective stories. Penny's last work was released as This Delicate Murder, the previous novel in the Clandon series, and we find out that Penny writes as "Henrietta Clandon" adding an element of metafiction to this series. The previous case is alluded to several times and even footnoted in the text.

Penny comes up with a handful of good ideas as to how the cocaine was administered when an elaborate re-creation of a flower delivery fails to show that the rose used as a boutonniere could have held onto the powdered drug over the rough road the bicyclist travelled. When she learns that the victim had a fondness for the candy Turkish Delight she offers up the traditional coating of confectioner's powered sugar could easily have been doctored and not been noticed. That the victim is also a "snuffer" (translation for US readers: drug snorter) suggests that he may not have sensed the difference to an added sprinkling of coke on his candy. The detective work here is filled with interesting ideas and action like the flower delivery by bicycle re-enactment that Vincie performs for Power and the police.

The title of novel comes into play at various places. We get discussions of the scent of flowers, perfumes, and the apparently fading habit of people smelling flowers. When Power passes by a garden at night and smells the pungent odor of tobacco plants which he tells us release their scent at night he once again gets to thinking of botanical scents.  It turns out to be the detection climax of the book.

Overall, I would call Power on the Scent a didactic detective novel. The bulk of the detection is done via conversations at afternoon tea, restaurant meals and dinner parties. It's detection as a social gathering.  Almost all of it exclusively through dialogue as well. Late in the book is one excellent scene where Powell invites Dr. Terpis, forensic pathologist, to dinner at the Mercer home.  Dr. Terpis is perhaps the liveliest character in the entire book. He was certainly my favorite.

Terpis is described as "no more than thirty, fat, red-faced, with a perpetual smile and a hoarse laugh which broke out on the least provocation."  He is amateur puppeteer and entertains Penny's interest in the art form with tales of his puppet making and his work on writing plays for his gallery of puppets. He enjoys every course of the meal prepared for him ("It was as good as eating yourself to watch his gastronomic pleasure") and is a pleasant raconteur as well as an informative forensics expert.  When Terpis comes to discuss the case he presents fascinating details about the skull of a Great Dane that went over a cliff with one of the suspects, both perished. His findings, both macabre and pertinent to the case, will help clear up some ambiguities, decide the actual method of murder, and lead to the surprising solution to the various mysteries uncovered in the death of Montague Morgan, stockbroker and developer of a unique variety of Rennavy Rose.

INNOVATIONS: As "Henrietta Clandon" Vahey indulges in a self-consciously witty style, overflowing with puns, epigrams and arch humor.  It's a humor reminiscent of Restoration comedies of Wycherley and Etherege and seems utterly out of place in this detective story plot with its grave consequences involving murderous rage and drug abuse.  Other writers use this arch humor to great effect like Christianna Brand and Colin Watson without characters willfully drawing attention to their own cleverness.  I was bothered by how delighted Penny and Vince were with each other when they came up with yet another ridiculous pun.  Even Powell joins in on the game. The dialogue is loaded with the kind of epigrammatic sentences you find too often in the plays of Oscar Wilde. People don't talk this anywhere except in books, on stage and in cocktail comedies of 1930s American cinema. In a detective novel that does not start out as a farce the self-conscious humor sticks out like a sore thumb. This is not to say I didn't find some of it clever or amusing; some of it is (see QUOTES section). However, when the characters comment on their cleverness and practically pat each other on the back when some witticism is delivered I was rolling my eyes.

THINGS I LEARNED:  The victim's nephew Charles Sibbins has hired Powell to look into his uncle's suspicious death. He's a playboy and spendthrift who at the start of the book is hunting bongos in Afirca.  I always though a bongo was a type of drum. Guess again! Bongos are a type of striped antelope with distinctive curved horns indigenous to to Western Africa. (see photo)  Currently there are only 150 still living in the wild.  Luckily, their home is a preserve in the Kenyan mountains where hopefully they are safe from marauding poachers who seem to be solely responsible for the decimation of hundreds of animals species in that continent.

Penny refuses to use the hateful term macrocarpa to describe a hedge behind which Morgan was found. She says why say that when its easier and smarter to use cypress. A macrocarpa is, after all, a form of cypress -- the Monterey cypress, in fact. The very type of cypress clinging for life on the cliffs of Carmel, CA that has been photographed innumerable times and appears all over the internet.

On page 158 there is this sentence: "Noses, 'narks' as they used to be called, are very useful but rarely men with any moral sense." This is most likely the origin of the crime world slang term spelled as 'narc' in the US. I always thought narc was derived from the word narcotic. Nark and nose here are meant as slang for police informer. Nark first appeared in print in 1859 as the Merriam-Webster wizards of lexicography and etymology informed me. They suggest it derives from nak, Romani (the Gypsy language) for nose.

Another odd word on page 175 "Morgan...might be tempted to risk his money on a stumer..." sent me to the internet dictionaries once more. I learned that this is British slang for fraud or failure, especially a horse race that was rigged or fixed. It can also refer to the person who was victimized from such a rigged horse race.

And -- of course-- dog in the manger cropped up again! ("There was no suggestion of tender passages between them. He was either a dog-in-the-manger, or she was a superlative typist. They are, I hear, rare in the City.") For those who are counting that makes the third appearance of the phrase in two months for the books reviewed here. How have I never heard or read it until this year?

QUOTES: Summing up Charles Sibbins, an avid hunter, as a loudmouth coward Power says:
"You take it from me that if bongos went about with sub-machine guns Sibbins wouldn't collect many."

"You're spoiling the whole thing! You people full of commonsense are the death of all imagination!"

Impartiality is a gift of the gods and they are more sparing of it than anything else.

"The fact is that Withers has got the wind up, and I always find it pays to let the wind do its work," [Penny said]
"Very right," Vincie agreed, "practical and alliterative."

Vagueness is a virtue in a practicing policeman. He can always say that he didn't mean what you mean.

"I warned him against that dog several times. In fact, I hated the beast. It may seem unkind to say so, but over-kind and friendly people, and over-affectionate dogs are definitely dislikeable."

"Does it not occur to you that a man or woman tells the truth more often when he is rude, then when he is civil and polite?"
"Politeness is as much an enemy of the truth as oil is of friction."

EASY TO FIND? But of course! How's that for a welcome surprise. Four of the books written by Vahey using the Clandon pen name have been reissued by the prolific vintage crime novel reprint publisher Dean Street Press. In addition to Power on the Scent you can purchase a copy of Good By Stealth (already favorably reviewed here and here), Inquest and This Delicate Murder. All four were officially released on March 2 and are now available for sale in paperback and digital formats. The original UK editions of the Henrietta Clandon mystery novels are extremely scarce. None of them were published in the US during Vahey's lifetime. Some like Fog over Weymouth have not been available in the used book market in decades. There are a handful out there, but I suggest that you purchase the new editions as they include informative introductory material by Curt Evans who offers up his usual biographical tidbits and insights into the writer's work.

THE STORY: Professor Edgar Murchison has vanished, but his family is not too concerned. His wife has not reported him missing and seems none too worried. But she becomes unusually alarmed when her tenant Tuck Forrester currently renting the Murchison home while school is out of session for the summer returns a smoking pipe she found in the house. Apparently Murchison was never without his pipe. Why was it left behind if he went off on an unannounced trip? Suspicions are further raised when a body turns up in the professor's clothes and a mysterious shadowy creeping figure is seen lurking in the forest near the Murchison home.

THE CHARACTERS: The Mystery of the Creeping Man (1931) is the second appearance of husband and wife sleuthing team Michael and "Tuck" Forrester. Commissioner Davies who worked with them in The Maestro Murders (1930, Wees' debut mystery novel) has them take up residence in the Murchison home for the summer break. He expects them to dig into the local gossip and see if they can ferret out any info on what happened to Prof. Murchison. They do more than the policeman ever could have imagined when they uncover missing diamonds, a mystery man roaming the woods, bizarre experiments in a university research lab, an unhinged scientist, and a killer with a taste for both human and animal victims.

I did enjoy this book ...up to a point. The characters are a lively bunch. Tuck and Michael are easy to like, they have some nifty banter and a couple of very well handled scenes theatrically presented. Tuck acts like Jane Marple at a garden party she engineers purely to draw information out of the easily baited gossips in town. Some of the supporting characters were spot on, especially Alix Lissey, a snobbish and elitist spinster, whose outsider status allows for some ironically perspicacious observations that will be her undoing.

But it was the outrageously complex and surreal plot that kept my interest...that is until it derailed in the final chapters.

INNOVATIONS: Part of the detective work involves solving an unusual code in jigsaw puzzle format. The code made up of several pieces of paper with strange symbols eventually point to a stonework pattern on a sundial in the backyard of the Murchison property. And the amateur sleuths find a valuable prize embedded in the edging of that lawn ornament. The code is rather elaborate and something that only characters in a detective novel would dream up in order to hide a valuable item. It requires a miraculous imagination in order to piece together, literally in this case, the code. Proves that Wees' characters are a bit too smart for their own good. The whole thing was lost on my tired brain even taking into consideration that an academic with lofty intellect invented the arcane code.

I could only smile ruefully when I reached the section that dealt with the intricacies of a bridge game. I immediately thought of our dear, late friend Noah, his affinity for the card game and his love/hate relationship with cameo appearances of the game in detective novels. Even while remembering Noah with a smile on my face I confess that I mostly skipped over everything in those seven pages overloaded with bidding, passing, and trick-taking because all the rules of bridge remain an utter mystery to me no matter how much a writer tries to make them appear understandable. Wees didn't try here, she assumed her readers were expert players.

As the book progresses the complex plot gets ever more bizarre. Murderous attacks increase -- some successful, some failed -- until the story transforms into a ludicrous horror movie complete with a mad scientist, secret underground passages and a lab of gruesome surprises hidden in the forest. Wees had no idea how to end her story. What with a bigamous subplot and machinations of two of the primary characters, a boy sleuth investigating the poisoning of his pet dog, and Mrs. Devoe's guilt-ridden conscience, the mystery gets ever more convoluted and teeters on the brink of absurdity.

Sadly, the denouement is littered with threads left hanging and mysteries hazily explained, if explained at all. When Michael keeps saying things like "I don't know how he did that...but he did" you want to reach through the pages and throttle him. One of the murder weapons is an unnamed poison that can kill a dog and cat instantly yet shows no real signs of toxic compounds under scrutiny and laboratory analysis. A touch of pulpy science fiction? More like pure laziness, my friends.

Wees got better in time, but this sophomore effort surely shows that she tried to do it all in one book but just wasn't up to the task as a novice.

THINGS I LEARNED: Before I completely gave up on the bridge section I came across this sentence, "Tell 'em we follow the Rockefeller convention..." and I had to find out what that meant. It's a joke used to describe a phony "convention", an oft used bidding pattern pre-arranged between partners. According to the American Contract Bridge League website: "With only 15 words allowed during an auction and just 13 cards in each suit, bridge players have invented dozens of special bids, called conventions, to describe their strength and hand patterns." Apparently back in the 1930s many of those "conventions" were named after millionaires, hence the joke about the wealthy American family.

THE AUTHOR: Though born in the United States Frances Shelley Wees (1902-1982) grew up in Saskatoon, lived and worked in Ontario province, and finally settled in British Columbia on Denman Island. Many of her books are set in Canada. According to a talk she gave in 1948 at Regina Women's Canadian Club at the Kitchener Hotel she became a professional writer by accident. Her husband found a manuscript of a novel she wrote, read it, and thought it worth publishing so he typed it up and sent it to New York. The book was indeed published and sold over 50,000 copies. Her life as a novelist was off to a great beginning.

Prior to writing full time she had been a primary school teacher, the Canadian director of the speaking engagement syndicate known as Chautauqua, and lastly worked in public relations for a Toronto firm. She was married for over fifty years to Wilfred Rusk Wees, who taught psychology at the Camrose Normal School and was executive vice-president of Gage Publishing Ltd.

Wees wrote 22 books, a mixture of romance, detective, and suspense novels for adults and a handful of juvenile mystery books. Ten of those novels can definitely be classed as crime or detective novels for adults. Most of her crime novels remain out of print and are only available through libraries or the used book market. However, her 1956 suspense novel The Keys of My Prison was recently reprinted by Canadian publisher Véhicule Press. Brian Busby, the series editor for their Ricochet Noir crime fiction imprint, wrote a rave review about the novel on his blog The Dusty Bookcase and helped bring the book (and Wees) out of the shadows of obscurity. That later book is worth your time, her early mysteries like The Mystery of the Creeping Man perhaps not so.