Maigret in Vichy by Georges Simenon, 1968

 

About the author: Georges Joseph Christian Simenon ( 1903 –  1989) was a Belgian writer, most famous for his fictional detective Jules Maigret. One of the most popular authors of the 20th century, he published around 400 novels, 21 volumes of memoirs and many short stories, selling over 500 million copies. (wikipedia) 

Major characters:

• Mlle. Hélene Lange "The Lady in Lilac"
• Mlle. Francine Lange, her sister
• Lucien Romanel, Francine's boyfriend
• Louis Pélardeau, an industrialist
• Chief of C.I.D. Jules Maigret
• Madame Maigret
• Superintendent M. Désiré Lecoeur

Locale: Vichy, France

Synopsis: Chief Jules Maigret is advised by his doctor to take a vacation to Vichy to "take the waters". (Vichy is known for its mineral baths, which people can drink, bathe in,  or both) Maigret and Madame Maigret travel there, and he begins his prescribed regimen of drinking several glasses of hot mineral water throughout the day.

He and Madame fill the remaining time with walking around the city and observing people, giving them descriptive names for convenience. One woman they encounter regularly they name "The Lady in Lilac" for her preference in clothing color.

One morning Maigret is shocked to see her photo in the local paper, and a news story that she has been found murdered. Maigret visits the scene, and finds his old friend Superintendent M. Désiré Lecoeur in charge. Lecoeur has found her name is Hélene Lange, an introverted loner. Her sister, Francine Lange, is called to  identify the body and make arrangements. Francine is just the opposite of Hélene, a loud party girl who arrives in a sports car, complete with gigolo Lucien Romanel. As Maigret looks into Hélene's past, he finds she is surprisingly wealthy, with regular cash payments coming in; but from where?

Review: This story is as comfortable as an old slipper. Maigret and Mme. Maigret are enjoying growning old together in each other's company. I had heard about "taking the waters" but never knew exactly what that entailed, and here it is described fully. I found it amusing how they gave people descriptive names, as my wife and I have done the same. I enjoyed seeing Maigret slowly piece together details of Hélene's life, and slowly backtracked his way to the killer. There is a surprising twist at the end, and the story winds up with a suprising compassion by Maigret.

Gambit by Rex Stout, 1962

The Wolfe Pack

About the author: Rex Stout (1886 – 1975) was an American writer noted for his detective fiction. His best-known characters are the detective Nero Wolfe and his assistant Archie Goodwin, who were featured in 33 novels and 39 novellas between 1934 and 1975. (wikipedia). (bibliography)

Major characters:

Sarah "Sally" Blount, Wolfe's client
Matthew Blount, her father, charged with murder
Anna Blount, her strangely-attractive mother
Paul Jerin, the chess savant
Bernard Nash, the Gambit Club steward
Tony Laghi, the Gambit Club cook

The Messengers:

1. Charles W. Yerkes, a banker

2. Ernst Hausman, a broker

3. Morton Farrow, Sally's cousin

4. Dr. Victor Avery

Locale: New York City

Synopsis: Nero Wolfe has a visit from Sarah "Sally" Blount, who hires him to help her father, Matthew Blount, get out from under a murder charge. The death happened at a meeting of The Gambit Chess Club. Chess whiz Paul Jerin was playing a "blindfold" game against twelve members of the club,  twelve individual simultaneous games. There was no literal blindfold - he was in the adjacent library room and four messengers would carry the moves to him and take his responses.

Jerin's custom was to drink hot chocolate while playing. Blount, who was observing the play, brought him a pot of chocolate which turned out to contain arsenic, and Jerin died after drinking some. 

The only persons who had opportunity to administer the poison were Blount, the four messengers, the steward Bernard Nash, and the cook Tony Laghi.

Review:  

This book is chess-centric, but you need not know about chess in order to enjoy it. There are a few incidental play references.  There is a small cast of characters, and it is mentioned a few times that the killer is one of the seven (Blount, Nash, Laghi, and the four messengers) and that turns out to be correct.  

The  big puzzle is how did the arsenic get into the chocolate? The solution is a clever Agatha Christie-like move. 

This is nice tight little read.

Also see this review by Bev Hankins on My Reader's Block.

 

The Dutch Shoe Mystery by Ellery Queen, 1931

 

dustjackets.com

About the author: Ellery Queen is a crime fiction pseudonym created in 1929 by Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee, and later used by other authors under Dannay and Lee's supervision. Dannay and Lee's main fictional character, whom they also named Ellery Queen, is a mystery writer in New York City who helps his police inspector father solve baffling murders. (from Wikipedia - full article). 

Major characters:

• Abigail "Abby" Doorn - hospital benefactor, victim #1
• Hulda Doorn - her daughter
• Hendrik Doorn - her brother
• Sarah Fuller - her companion/housekeeper
• Dr. Francis Janney - head surgeon, victim #2
• Dr. John Minchen - medical director
• Philip Morehouse - attorney
• Moritz Kneisel - a scientist
• Lucille Price - a nurse/secretary

Locale: New York City

Synopsis: Ellery Queen drops in to Dutch Memorial Hospital for a quick visit with his old friend, Medical Director Dr. John Minchen. Minchen gives him (and the reader) a tour, and invites him to stay and observe an operation on the hospital's benefactor, Abby Doorn. A diabetic, she had fallen and injured her gall bladder.

Ellery takes a seat in the operating theatre's gallery. The patient is brought in, but something is wrong. She is dead, garroted with wire. Ellery takes charge of the scene until the authorities arrive.

It is quickly determined the deed was done in the adjacent Anteroom. While the patient was there, someone dressed in hospital uniform came in and bent over the patient. The nurse assumed it was surgeon Dr. Francis Janney, due to his signature limp, but it seems someone posed as him to gain access to the patient. Janney was meeting at the time with Thomas Swanson, who can provide a solid alibi, but Janney is secretive about Swanson's identity. The perpetrator's clothes are found stashed in a phone booth, including two canvas uniform shoes, one of which is the shoe of the title.

Doorn's attorney, Philip Morehouse (also Hulda Doorn's boyfriend), is questioned about possible motives. Abby was about to sign a second will, but died before signing, so her first will remains in force. The first (but not the second) leaves a significant amount to scientist Moritz Kneisel, who has a secret laboratory in the hospital; which is dependent on her funding.

Review:  I enjoyed this one, it moved right along and mixed in a number of red herrings along the way.

The brief period in between making a new will and signing it is quite hazardous in Golden Age mysteries, and this one is no different.

My edition has two sketch maps, one of. the entire hospital floor, and one of Janney's office; both are helpful in following the action. . 

The shoe thing comes up rather quickly after murder #1, but then there is no mention at all of it until the denouément at the very end. The solution, as explained by Ellery, is really a logic grid puzzle of this type, in which only one person has a certain set of characteristics, so he has to plod through all of them in a tedious manner:

I found three things unexpectedly amusing:

1. The "Interlude" in which the case is reviewed by the Queens - and is printed using extra wide margins for note taking by the reader! A funny gimmick which I am sure caused headaches for the printer. Fortunately, no prior owner of my copy ever availed themselves of this option.

2. One occurrence of the n-word. However, as soon as it is uttered, the speaker is reprimanded that "we don't use that word any more!" (So why is it in there at all?)

3. The description of the operating room states the doors "swung open on heavily oiled hinges" - one of my favorite mystery tropes! I even have a blog page devoted to their oiliness.

Also see this review by Bev Hankins on My Reader's Block.

Death Goes to a Reunion by Kathleen Moore Knight, 1952

 

amazon

About the author: Surprising little is known about Kathleen Moore Knight (1890-1984), at least online. She is not listed in Wikipedia nor the more popular mystery fiction directories; her booklist is on Fantastic Fiction. My count is 34 mystery novels, all published by the Crime Club; a few under the pseudonym of Alan Amos. See this 1946 interview.

Major characters:

John "Jocko" and Helena (Roberts) Myrick

Nella, their grandaughter

Peter Clothier, Nella's' fiancé

Lee Halstead, John's friend

Henry Clark, young groundskeeper and handyman

The sorority sisters:

• Miss Frances Furlong
• Ruth (Gale) Grant (married to Fitzhugh Grant)
• Lucy Kenyon (married to Jerome "Jerry" Kenyon)
• Claire (Fielding) Cutler, a widow
• Elinor (Carrington) Mace, a widow

Locale: Penberthy Island, Massachusetts

Synopsis: Helena Myrick has invited five of her sorority sisters to her home on Penberthy Island following their 40th class renion. Her husband John "Jocko" Myrick had, 40 years ago, dated all of them at one time or another. Also living with them is their granddaughter, Nella, who parents are dead. Nella is engaged to local Peter Clothier.

The scene shifts to John's study as an unnamed woman enters and pulls a gun on John, stating she had been waiting forty years for this moment, wants to kill him and Helena, and take Nella for herself; for reasons not quite clear. She shoots him dead, placing the gun in his hand to make it appear a suicide.

Elisha Macomber comes on the scene, and immediately suspects foul play. While he and young Henry Clark are getting the background on the five sorority sister guests, the scene changes to Helena's bathroom, where John's killer confronts her, first attempts poisoning (with DDT!) and ultimately drowns her in the bathtub. Now the motive is becoming clear, and the Myrick estate is now inherited by Nella. Or is it? The plot thickens when Nella's only link to her parents - a framed photograph - disappears. Then Peter Clothier is attacked as well.

Review: This book was quite startling, as on two occasions, we have a play-by-play description of two murders, without revealing the killer's identity - other than that of a woman, and inferred by her conversation that she is known to the victims, and one of the sorority sisters. 

All five of the women are quite catty and vindictive, and had any of them been the killer, that would have been all right. It did get confusing keeping them straight as various movements and motives were explored. 

Elisha did his best, as usual, but the real star of the narrative turned out to be young handyman Henry Clark, who becomes Elisha's enthusiastic operative.

The use of a "DDT bomb" had me cringing, especially when the thing was used indoors for insect control! 

Please also note one instance of the n-word, in a colloquial expression about a woodpile.

"I" is for Innocent by Sue Grafton, 1992

 

About the author: Sue Taylor Grafton (1940 – 2017) is best known as the author of the 25 "alphabet series" ("A" Is for Alibi, etc.) novels featuring private investigator Kinsey Millhone in the fictional city of Santa Teresa, California (based upon Santa Barbara). She was the daughter of detective novelist C. W. Grafton.

Major characters:

Lonnie Kingman, attorney

Kenneth Voigt, Kingman's (and Kinsey's) client
David Barney, architect, acquited of Isabelle''s murder

Laura Barney, RN, David's first wife

Herb Foss, David's attorney

Curtis MacIntyre, informant, habitual offender

Rhe Parsons, Isabelle's friend

Tippy Parsons, Rhe's daughter

Kinsey Millhone, P.I.

Dead prior to the story:

Isabelle Barney, David's ex

Locale: (fictional) Santa Teresa, CA

Synopsis: P.I. Kinsey Millhone is settling into her new office, a room leased from attorney Lonnie Kingman. Kingman has a new client, Kenneth Voigt. His ex-wife, Isabelle, had divorced him, then been murdered. Her new husband, David Barney, was tried and acquited for the crime. There is a considerable estate involved, so Voigt, convinced of Barney's guilt, hires Kingman to bring a civil wrongful death case against him; which would deprive Barney of Isabelle's fortune. Kingman hires Kinsey to try to find some evidence, which was lacking in the criminal trial. There is a bit of urgency, as the five-year statute of limitations is about to run out.

Kimsey gets a lead: Curtis MacIntire had shared a jail cell with Barney, who supposedly admitted the crime to him. It looks good, but then MacIntire's story falls apart, and Kinsey uncovers a rock-solid alibi for Barney; making their case much worse instead of much better.

Review: I am working my way through the 25-title 'Alphabet series' for the second time. These are great 'beach reads' and I always enjoy relaxing with one. 

There is an enjoyable plot line running through it, with landlord Henry Pitts having a visit from his overly-health conscious brother William. (If you like Martha Grimes' Richard Jury / Alfred Wiggins byplay, it's the same setup).  

I did find it difficult to unravel the various marriage combinations, but here they are, in order:

• Unnamed man married Isabelle (her #1). Ended with his death in boating accident.
• Kenneth Voigt (his #1) married Isabelle (her #2). Ended in divorce.
• David Barney (his #1) married Laura. Ended in divorce.
• David Barney (his #2) married Isabelle (her #3). Ended with her death by gunshot.

The Second Confession by Rex Stout, 1949

 

dustjackets.com

This is the second title in the Arnold Zeck trilogy (the first is And Be a Villain, the last is In The Best Families).

About the author: Rex Stout (1886 – 1975) was an American writer noted for his detective fiction. His best-known characters are the detective Nero Wolfe and his assistant Archie Goodwin, who were featured in 33 novels and 39 novellas between 1934 and 1975. (wikipedia). (bibliography)

Major characters:

• James U. Sperling, chairman of Continental Mines
• Madeline Sperling, his 26-year old daughter
• Gwenn Sperling, his 22-year old daughter
• James "Jimmy" Sperling Jr., his son
• Paul Emerson, right-wing radio broadcaster
• Connie Emerson, his wife
• Louis Reny, attorney
• Webster Kane, economist of Continental Mines
• William Reynolds, the name on the membership card
• Arnold Zeck, arch villain
• Nero Wolfe, P.I.
• Archie Goodwin, P.I.

Locale: New York City and Chappaqua, NY

Synopsis: It appears 22-year old Gwenn Sperling is getting set to become engaged to attorney Louis Rony. This does not set well with her father, ultra-conservative James U. Sperling, chairman of Continental Mines. Sperling suspects Rony may be a communist, and engages Nero Wolfe to prove it; so he can have a reason to cancel any budding relationship. Wolfe replies that of course, he cannot prove Rony is or is not a communist, he can only determine if he is one or not. 

Archie Goodwin is sent to stay at Sperling's Chappaqua estate, Stony Acres. He knows Rony is hiding a small item, and stages a holdup to try to get it. It turns out to be a Communist Party membership card, but in the name of William Reynolds - and it is not clear if Rony is Reynolds. Wolfe gets a phone call from arch-nemesis Arnold Zeck, warning him off the case.

Gwenn decides she has had enough anyway, and summons Rony to Stony Acres to tell him so. It doesn't end well - he is found dead the next morning, run over by a car. Circumstantial evidence points to Archie as the driver. Zeck takes action, and machine-guns Wolfe's plant rooms in revenge. Archie gets off the hook when Webster Kane confesses (the first confession) to being the driver. Wolfe doesn't believe it, and finds the real killer who supplies The Second Confession.

Review:

The good: A nice, tight, small cast of characters, all introduced quickly. Wolfe makes a rare trip outside his home, that is always a fun episode when he tries to "fit in" (literally) elsewhere.

The bad: The communism-scare angle is so dated and does not carry to present time well, although the right-wing radio hosts are certainly still around. The staged holdup did not seem believable at all. The whole Rony/Williams membership card thing was hard to follow and I am still not sure I understand it.

The puzzling: Arnold Zeck doesn't come across as the arch nemesis (other than the machine-gun episode). He is just too quiet, articulate, and polite.

I missed Lt. Cramer - he does not appear.