Three Days for Emeralds by Mignon Eberhart (1988)

(I know, 1988 is not Golden Age, but her career was mostly in the Golden Age).

Major characters:

• Alicia "Lacy" Wales, our protagonist, legal secretary to Hiram Bascom
• Hiram Bascom, attorney
• Richard Blake, Lacy's fianceé, secret government agent
• Rose Mendez, neé Murphy - appealed for help but didn't get it
• Carlos Mendez - Rose's ex
• Yolanda Mendez, Carlos' current wife
• Inez Wales - Lacy's stepmother
• Rafael - Inez' brother
• Burden "Buddha" Smith, neighbor and confidante
• Spook, Buddha's manservant
• Hobie Fellows - a teen gas station attendant
• Captain O'Leary - police

Locale: New York City and environs

Synopsis: Alicia "Lacy" Wales, legal secretary, receives a letter from old friend Rose Mendez, appealing for help. Lacy asks her boss, Hiram Bascom, for assistance, and he responds in a confusing manner, even kissing her. Lacy goes to see Rose, to find she has deteriorated into a fat, dirty, candy-eating slug. Lacy hands her a drink of whiskey, she downs it, and immediately falls dead. Lacy goes to look for a sheet to cover her up, and in her bedroom she finds that Rose has a framed photo of Richard Blake - her own fianceé - on her nightstand. 

The Mendez family appears. There is a convoluted divorce/alimony decree between Carlos and Rose, specifying that her alimony will cease if she remarries. Then a marriage certificate is found between Rose and Richard Blake. Lacy is torn to find her fianceé may have married Rose behind her back.

Review: This is Eberhart's last novel. In 1988 she was 88 or 89, and it is sad that her writing is just not cohesive and magic any more. I considered not finishing it, but stuck with it as a sort of tribute to her career. The action is jerky and illogical, and uses way too many exclamation points, Nancy Drew style. It has the flavor of being dictated. After a rough beginning, it does smooth out somewhat to the end.

The action upon discovering Rose's death is especially hard to follow. Eberhart struggles to get someone to notify the authorities. There is an appearance by several "Spaniards" from the fictional country of Logonda who are stereotyped and wo dimensional at best; their background and relationships are tangled and difficult to understand. Their main activity is standing around, drinking, and looking elegant. One, Rafael, carries his pet with him, which is described at various points as a small dog, a cat, or a ferret; which he claims to have found on an airplane (!). Rafael does turn out to be the most believable of the lot.

Various scenes are just not credible - for example, a family interview by the police breaks into a knock-down drag-out fight and the police just idly wait for it to be over. Lacy drinks a drugged martini, recovers and vows to not drink anything another has prepared - and on the same page accepts and drinks a cup of coffee from Inez - the vow didn't last long. Golden Age clichés remain in vogue - poisoned chocolates and spiked drinks abound.

Five Passengers from Lisbon by Mignon Eberhart (1946)

dustjackets.com

About the author: (from Goodreads): Mignon Good (1899-1996) was born in Lincoln, Nebraska. In 1929 her first crime novel was published featuring 'Sarah Keate', a nurse and 'Lance O'Leary', a police detective. This couple appeared in another four novels. Over the next forty years she wrote a novel nearly every year. In 1971 she won the Grand Master award from the Mystery Writers of America. 

Major characters:

The five passengers on the lifeboat:

• Marcia Colfax, our protagonist
• Mickey Banet, a.k.a. André Messac, a concert pianist; her fiancé
• Luther Cates
• Daisy Belle Cates, his wife
• Gili Duvrey

Crew of the Lerida on the lifeboat:

• Alfred Castiogne, doomed
• Manuel Para
• José Urdiola

Crew on the hospital ship S. S. Magnolia:

• Captain Lars Svendsen
• Colonel Josh Morgan, a patient
• Colonel Wells, a doctor

Locale: on the Atlantic Ocean

Synopsis: WWII has just ended in Europe. Five people in Lisbon, Portugal are anxious to get out of Europe the fastest way possible, and book passage on the freighter Lerida, bound for Buenos Aires - rather than have a long wait for passage direct to the US. They are Marcia Colfax and her fiancé Mickey Banet (who is travelling under the name/passport of Frenchman André Messac for an undisclosed reason), wealthy Luther and Daisy Belle Cates, and beauty Gili Duvrey. The Lerida runs into trouble in a storm, and goes down. The five passengers and three of the crew take to a lifeboat.

Mickey was a concert pianist before the war, but the Nazis injured his fingers while he was in a concentration camp.* Marcia and Mickey try to keep his true identity (Mickey Banet) a secret from Captain Svendsen just to keep things simple.

One of the crewmen, Alfred Castiogne, collapses just as the lifeboat is intercepted by the hospital ship Magnolia. When they get him aboard, he is already dead - stabbed in the back. The murderer had to have been one of them in the lifeboat, and now they are all on the hospital ship. Captain Svendsen tries to find the murderer, but the murderer is not done yet. 

Review:

Atmosphere. A ship creeping across the Atlantic in a thick fog with a murderer aboard. There is a small pool of suspects - just the five passengers rescued from a lifeboat  - and one of them must be the murderer. I had the opportunity to read this while sitting on a Maine beach with ships visible on the horizon, a perfect setting for a mystery read. Of course, it was daytime, no fog, and I was quite safe on land.

The book features the usual Eberhart love triangle - the innocent protagonist (Marcia Colfax), the fiancé who is all wrong for her (Mickey Banet), and a newcomer who is perfect for her (Josh Morgan). 

John Morgan is the character who is a bit puzzling - he is a patient yet he has the run of the ship and the ear of the officers. I expected him to turn out to be something else, but he remained a patient.

The mystery patient walking around, unable to speak, head swathed in bandages with only his eyes showing, seemed a bit typecast at first but did develop into a believable person.

A great read - but not one to take on a cruise.

* For other mysteries which involve a concert pianist who has suffered a hand injury and is unable to play again, see Deep Lay The Dead by Frederick C. Davis (1942) and The Man Who Didn't Mind Hanging by Nancy Barr Mavity (1932).

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

The Case of Jennie Brice by Mary Roberts Rinehart (1913)

dustjackets.com

Major characters:

• Bess Pitman, the landlady, our protagonist
• Lida Harvey, her niece
• Philip Ladley, her boarder; but is he a murderer?
• Jennie Ladley, a.k.a. Jennie Brice (stage name), an actress
• Ellis Howell, a newspaper reporter
• Mr. Holcombe, an amateur investigator
• Zacharia Reynolds, a boarder

Locale: Pittsburgh PA

Synopsis: The action takes place at a modest boarding house in the poor side of Pittsburgh, during the flood season. The flood has risen halfway up the first floor (see dust jacket illustration above) in Bess Pitman's boarding house, causing her to relocate her boarders - Philip Ladley and his wife Jennie (an actress with the stage name of Jennie Brice), and Zacaharia Reynolds to the second floor.

The Pitmans don't get along. Jennie has mentioned to her fellow actors that she expects him to kill her. They argue in the boarding house, and the next morning she is missing - and Philip is not too concerned, and vague as to her whereabouts. Bess Pitman immediately suspects murder has been done. 

Mr. Holcombe, retired merchant with a heart for animals, is in the neighborhood feeding cats and dogs stranded by the flood. He comes in to feed the Ladley's dog, Peter; and Bess fills him in. Mr. Holcombe is an amateur investigator, and immediately brings in his newspaper reporter friend Ellis Howell to help find out what happened to Jennie.

There are clues to Jennie's whereabouts, but she cannot be located. A body washes up in the flood but cannot be identified - is it her? 

Review: The landlady gets suspicious ... one of her boarder couples has a fight, the wife says the husband is going to kill her, and then she disappears and the husband acts nonchalant. The landlady assumes murder and sneaks around to prove it to the skeptical authorities. Could this have been the inspiration for It Had To Be Murder by Cornell Woolrich (1942) - later made into the Hitchcock movie Rear Window - in which a neighbor makes the same assumption and becomes the investigator? *And* both books have a dead dog and baskets on ropes as plot elements. Coincidence?

This is a dark little novel set in a depressing locale and time, but is a fascinating read. The characters take the flood in their stride, it happens every spring. There are none of the famous "Had I But Known" exclamations. The last page contains the shocking solution, as well as a surprising and satisfying twist to the character's relationships.

This is a short novel, but tight. There is no fluff or padding, just constant action in the style of Erle Stanley Gardner.

The Bat by Mary Roberts Rinehart (1926)

dustjackets.com

The play came first (1920), then the book was back-written from it (1926). Wikipedia states in its article The Bat that "the The Bat is a three-act play by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood that was first produced by Lincoln Wagenhals and Collin Kemper in 1920." It was remade into film several times as well.

Major characters:

• Courtleigh Fleming, bank president
• Richard Fleming, nephew and heir to Courtleigh Fleming
• Miss Cornelia Van Gorder, spinster
• Sally Van Gorder Ogden, her sister
• Dale Ogden, Sally's daughter
• Jack Bailey, a.k.a. Brooks, the missing bank cashier
• Lizzie Allen, the frenzied maid
• Billy, the Japanese butler
• Reginald Beresford, a young lawyer
• Dr. Wells, family physician
• "The Unknown", a mysterious amnesiac
• Detective Anderson

Locale: a country place near New York City

Synopsis: A master criminal, "The Bat", is at large in New York; having committed countless burglaries and a few murders. Newspaper reporters are eager o chase down The Bat in order to get the exclusive story. Police Detective Wentworth had tried to do so earlier, and wound up shot for his trouble.

Meanwhile, Union Bank has gone belly up (this predates the FDIC), and president Courtleigh Fleming passed away, along with the knowledge of where the missing funds went. Jack Bailey, the cashier is missing too. 

Spinster Miss Cornelia Van Gorder wants to rent a summer place in the country to get away from New York City, and seizes the chance to rent the now-vacant home of Courtleigh Fleming; making arrangements with Fleming's nephew, Richard Fleming. No sooner does she settle in than an anonymous letter tells her the house is "unhealthy for strangers."

Suspicion about the missing funds turns to Courtleigh Fleming (although dead). Many people have an interest in getting into his house, and the blueprints show a secret room somewhere. Could the money be there? To complicate matters, Cornelia's niece, Dale Ogden, is engaged to missing cashier Jack Bailey. Detective Anderson is installed in the house to figure it all out.

Review:

This book was back-written from the stage play, and it shows (not a criticism), but it easy to see this presented on stage as is; since all the action takes place in one room. I have seen the stage version, a nice period mystery. 

The middle portion of the book gets a bit tedious as the characters explore motives at length, point fingers at each other, and generally flail around as the lights regularly go on and off - expected in a stage version but a bit repetitive in a novel. The amnesiac "Unknown" stumbles, bleeding, into the house and yet no one seems too concerned about him and he is left to wander around unsupervised. 

There are a few comic episodes. Miss Cornelia's tricky interview of Brooks for the gardener position is hilarious, as she outwits him in her knowledge of gardening. At this point, it looks like Cornelia will be the one sharp enough to solve the mystery; since Detective Anderson just seems to harass people needlessly. Hysterical maid Lizzie brings laughs on the stage, but her mania is a bit tiring in print. The obligatory (real) bat makes an appearance too.

One loose end: chapter one is about an unnamed newspaperman itching to have a go at catching The Bat, and being turned loose by his editor to do so. I expected him to show up later in the story, but this story line is dropped and we do not hear from the newspaper angle again. 

The fascinating part of this book is that there is a person named "The Bat" who cannot be found, and a real person sitting among them whom they call "The Unknown". Could he be The Bat? No, that would be too simple. How these two are reconciled is a clever twist, although flirting with the standards of fair play.

Several instances of a light beam shining with a bat stencil applied to it to make a shadow must have been the inspiration for Batman's bat-signal. Wikipedia states Batman was created in 1939, so perhaps!

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

The Man Next Door by Mignon Eberhart (1942)

dustjackets.com 

About the author: (from Goodreads): Mignon Good (1899-1996) was born in Lincoln, Nebraska. In 1929 her first crime novel was published featuring 'Sarah Keate', a nurse and 'Lance O'Leary', a police detective. This couple appeared in another four novels. Over the next forty years she wrote a novel nearly every year. In 1971 she won the Grand Master award from the Mystery Writers of America. 

Major characters:

• Maida Lovell, our protagonist, secretary to Steve Blake
• Steve Blake, head of a government wartime (WWII) project
• Bill Skeffington, his assistant
• Christine (née Favor) Blake, Steve's sister-in-law, a war widow
• Angela Favor, Christine's high-maintenance younger sister
• Walsh Rantoul, the effeminate boarder
• Nollie Lister, a nosy neighbor
• "Smith", a foreign agent

Locale: Washington DC

Synopsis: Pretty Maida Lovell, secretary to war department executive Steve Blake, stops by Christine Blake's house (his widowed sister-in-law) where he is living and has his home office. She is to pick up some notes for his radio speech later that evening. She is in love with him, and jealous that Blake has been spending time with Christine's elegant penthouse-lifestyle sister, Angela Favor. She encounters - and rebuffs - prissy Walsh Rantoul in the house, who is mixing drinks and coming on to her. She goes upstairs to retrieve the notes, and Blake stops in at the same time. After Blake departs for his meeting, Maida goes downstairs to find Blake gone and Rantoul dead in the kitchen. It looks like Blake has murdered him, since they had words earlier.

A stranger who calls himself "Smith" enters. In order to protect Blake from discovery, he offers to dispose of Rantoul's body and the evidence, if Maida will find information about airplane movements for him. The information he asks for is to be public knowledge anyway, so she complies. Now she is trapped. Smith is obviously an enemy spy and he has a hold on Maida to find out more and more intelligence on wartime materiel and personnel movements.

Review: A riveting murder/spy mystery and love story all rolled into one. As in many of Eberhart's books, the protagonist is the cute brunette girl-next-door caught up in intrigue as she also faces losing the man she loves to a high-maintenance blonde. The descriptions of Washington DC set the tone of the story, as well as emphasizes how much of the progress there occurs not in Congress, but behind closed doors at cocktail parties. The WWII restrictions add to the flavor. This is a tight novel, with a small cast of characters. She outwitted me as usual. Three or four times I predicted how this was going to work out, but I was wrong every time. Even the title misled me, I thought "the man next door" referred to a certain person, but again, wrong.

The House at Satan's Elbow by John Dickson Carr (1965)

About the author: See this Wikipedia article.

Major characters:

• Pennington Barclay, master of Greengrove
• Deidre Barclay, his young wife
• Fay Wardour, a.k.a. Fay Sutton, his secretary
• Estelle Barclay, his sister
• Dr. Edward Fortescue, family doctor
• Annie Tiffin, cook
• Mr. Justice Wildfare, long dead, but returning as a ghost?
• Nick Barclay, New York magazine publisher
• Garret Anderson, historical writer
• Andrew Dawlish, attorney

Locale: England

Synopsis: Old Clovis Barclay had left the Greengrove estate to eldest son Pennington. Then a second will is found, which left the estate to grandson Nick Barclay instead. Nick comes to the UK, and heads for the estate with his friend Garret Anderson. Nick doesn't want the estate, and plans to give it to Pennington anyway.

The estate comes with a legend that the ghost of former owner Mr. Justice Wildfare visits periodically. They arrive to find the ghost has just visited Pennington, and shot at him; but the gun was loaded with blanks. They also discover that Pennington's secretary, Fay Wardour, is Garret's old girlfriend. The ghost makes a second appearance in a locked room and tries again with real bullets, this time wounding Pennington.

Review: First off, it is not a murder mystery - no one gets murdered, despite the cover blurb. It is two consecutive locked-room puzzles (same room each time). The Greengrove mansion is a sprawling, massive place with lots of overly specific description in the text - one sketch map would have been preferred - and could have avoided absurd statements of the obvious such as:

"What had been the left-hand window of the library as you stood inside the room looking out had now become the right-hand window as you stood outside looking in."

The details of room layouts, window layouts, etc. led me to believe something would be up with that, perhaps mirrors or a secret passage, but no. The household itself is an amusing collection of characters - manic Estelle is always running around, and beyond the sedate library and music room (with ear-shattering Gilbert and Sullivan records playing) is - yes, a pinball room at which the family enjoys playing pinball. Toss in a couple of love interests, and amongst all this fun is Annie Tiffin, the cook; who proves to be an enjoyable character and provides one of the keys for Dr. Fell to unravel the two puzzles.

Miss Pinkerton by Mary Roberts Rinehart (1932)

dustjackets.com

About the author: Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876 – 1958) was an American writer, often called the American Agatha Christie, although her first mystery novel was published 14 years before Christie's first novel in 1920. Rinehart is considered the source of the phrase "The butler did it" from her novel The Door (1930), although the novel does not use the exact phrase. Rinehart is also considered to have invented the "Had-I-But-Known" school of mystery writing, with the publication of The Circular Staircase (1908). (from a Wikipedia article).

Major characters:

• Herbert Wayne, deceased - but still warm - as story begins
• Paula Brent, his girlfriend
• Miss Juliet Mitchell, his elderly, deaf aunt
• Arthur Glenn, attorney
• Florence Lenz, Glenn's secretary
• Hugo, the butler
• Mary, the cook (Hugo's wife)
• Nurse Hilda Adams, a.k.a. "Miss Pinkerton"
• Inspector Patton
• Dr. -- Stewart
• Charlie Elliott, neighbor, Paula Brent's former boyfriend

Locale: unspecified

Synopsis: Herbert Wayne lives on the 3rd floor of his aunt's (Miss Julia Mitchell) run-down mansion. It has seen better days - the only servants remaining are Hugo (butler) and Mary (cook, and Hugo's wife). Herbert had been speculating on stocks and now he is found shot. No one can determine if it was murder, suicide, or accident (he had been cleaning his gun).

Miss Julia is feeling poorly so Inspector Patton plants Nurse Adams in the home as her nurse. Wayne's girlfriend, Paula Brent, is distraught. Then it comes to light that her former boyfriend, Charlie Elliott, has been hanging around and threatening to do away with Wayne in order to get Paula back. This puts him at the top of the suspect list.

Review:

Nurse Adams is a great sneak to be our investigator. When talking on the phone to Inspector Patton, she addresses him as "doctor" so the family won't suspect. A lot of the book is devoted to figuring out if waster Wayne is a murder, suicide, or accident - and there is a lot of hanky-panky going on with the crime scene evidence too. The use of a newspaper in a murder is a new one. 

I do like the amusing episodes - the funniest is when Nurse Adams is keeping watch over her patient, Miss Julia, at night; and each is waiting for the other to fall asleep (reminiscent of Humphrey Bogart in Treasure of the Sierra Madre) - with alternating peeps over the bed's footboard. Another amusing happening is repeated incidents of people getting trapped on the mansion's roof!

I learned a few essential things from this book:

• Risus Sardonicus - an involuntary grin caused by muscular action, "may be caused by tetanus, strychnine poisoning or Wilson's disease, and has been reported after judicial hanging." Do a Google Image search for some creepy pictures.
• How to tell if a person in a faint is faking - you will have to read the book to find this little technique out!
• Rolled Stockings - a rather rebellious action in the 1920's-1930's by ladies by unclasping their stockings from their garters and rolling the tops so they stay up all by themselves. Shocking! See this article.
• How to shoot somebody at close range without leaving the telltale powder burns.