The Winter Murder Case by S. S. Van Dine (1939) #12

 

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Major characters:


Philo Vance, Dilettante detective
John F.-X. Markham, District Attorney
Lt. O’Leary of the Winewood police

Carrington Rexon, owner of the Rexon estate
Richard Rexon, his son
Joan Rexon, his daughter, an invalid
Jacques Bassett, friend of Richard Rexon

Staff on the Rexon Estate

Ella Gunther, caregiver/companion to Joan Rexon, girlfriend of Lief Wallen
Eric Gunther, father of Ella, overseer (caretaker)
Marcia Bruce, housekeeper
Old Jed, The Green Hermit, former overseer
Lief Wallen, a guard
Guy Darrup, chief carpenter
Higgins, butler
Dr. Loomis Quayne, Rexon family physician

Guests at the Rexon Estate

Carlotta Naesmith, prominent society girl
Dahlia Dunham, political aspirant
Sally Alexander, singer/impersonator
Beatrice Maddox, aviatrix
Stanley Sydes, treasure hunter
Pat McOrsay, race car driver
Chuck Throme, jockey


Locale: The Berkshires, Massachusetts

Synopsis:

Philo Vance is invited to visit the estate of Carrington Rexon, in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. Carrington is concerned about the security of his emerald collection, due to the presence of a number of guests at the estate. His son, Richard Rexon, is about to host a party to announce his engagement to society girl Carlotta Naismith. Carlotta has organized the gathering whose guests are mostly unknown to Carrington, hence his anxiety about his emeralds.

On his way through the snowy roads to the estate, Vance stops and is enchanted by a girl skating on the estate’s pond. She is Ella Gunther, caregiver to disabled Joan Rexon (injured in a skating accident as a youth). Ella is also the girlfriend of Lief Wallen.

While in the woods the next day, Eric Gunther (father of Ella) discovers the body of Lief Wallen lying at the base of a cliff. Vance inspects the body and suspects murder. Some of the emeralds have meanwhile disappeared from the collection. While investigating, a second murder occurs.


Review:

The biography of Willard Wright ("Alias S. S. Van Dine") says that Wright hurried to complete this novel and left it ready to publish after his death. The only thing which differentiates it from his previous works is the change of venue - this one takes place in the snowy Berkshires rather than Manhattan. It has the standard S. S. Van Dine formula: discovery of a body, theft of a valuable object, a love triangle, and the slow process of alibi breakdown. Fortunately, it does leave out the long pedantic speeches on irrelevant topics, which makes the action more concise. A distraction is the batch of one-dimensional filler characters (the "guests") who do nothing more than dilute the pool of potential suspects.

See also this review by Bev Hankins on My Reader's Block.

Additional Material:

This book was published after the author’s death. The publishers included two additional pieces: the preface contains a memorial tribute to Willard Wright, and the appendix contains Wright’s (writing as S. S. Van Dine) Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories.

The Devil Man by Edgar Wallace (1931)

 

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About the author: Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace (1875-1932) was a prolific British crime writer, journalist and playwright, who wrote 175 novels, 24 plays, and countless articles in newspapers and journals (Goodreads). In terms of production, by cranking out one novel per month, he was the British equivalent of Erle Stanley Gardner. See this Wikipedia article.

Edgar Wallace

This is available as a free eBook from this page at Project Gutenberg Australia.

Major characters:

• Dr. Alan Mainford
• Madame Clarice Stahm, a Russian
• Peter Baumgarten, a Russian, Madame Clarice's secretary
• Jane Garden, a nurse
• Charles Peace, The "Devil Man"
• Carton, ex-con, former army mate/butler to Dr. Mainford
• Sgt. Baldy Eltham
• -- Eckhardt, developer of the silver steel process
• Arthur Dyson, engineer in possession of the formula and crystals
• Kate Dyson, Arthur's wife
• Lamonte, a prisoner

Locale: Sheffield, England

Synopsis: Dr. Alan Mainford is called out one snowy night to attend Madame Clarice Stahm. He arrives and her secretary, Peter Baumgarten, brings Mainford to see her. She is in a coma-like trance, but suddenly pops out of it. A strange man, Charles Peace, arrives and plays the violin to her which calms her.* Mainford can do nothing for her, and on his way out her nurse, Jane Garden, begs him to get her away from the house. 

Sheffield is a steel center and many companies are rushing to perfect a new kind of steel which does not rust, called 'silver steel' (which we know as stainless steel). The engineer who perfected the process is -- Eckhardt, who is now in the US. He had revealed the formula to Arthur Dyson, along with a small vial containing crystals essential to the process. Madame Stahm has an interest in the Silver Steel Company, and wants the crystals to analyze them for the formula. She had abducted an engineer of the Silver Steel Company, Lamonte, to try to gain the formula but he escapes and dies. She now hires Charles Peace to get it, and his strategy is to start a love affair with Dyson's wife, Kate Dyson, to gain opportunity to steal the crystals. Peace enlists the help of an ex-con, Carton, who happened to be serve with Alan Mainford in the army.

Peace steals the vial of crystals, passes them to his confederate Carton. Carton does not realize their significance and gives them to his old army mate, Dr. Mainford. 

* reminiscent of Biblical account when King David played his harp to calm Saul, in 1 Samuel 16:14

Review: This was a great page-turning thriller. Reading some reviews on Goodreads, I found this was based on an actual person - and Wallace's story closely follows the real life story of Peace (1832-1879), as outlined in this Wikipedia article. Here is a photo of the real Charles Peace.

wikipedia

The Canary Murder Case by S. S. Van Dine (1927) #2

 

Major characters:

• Philo Vance, dilettante detective
• John F. X. Markham, District Attorney
• Margaret Odell, Broadway beauty, found murdered in her aparrtment
• Amy Gibson, Margaret Odell's maid
• William Jessup, telephone switchboard operator
• Suspect #1, Charles Cleaver, a man-about-town
• Suspect #2, Kenneth Spotswoode, a manufacturer and Margaret's date that evening
• Suspect #3, Louis Mannix, a fur importer
• Suspect #4, Dr. Ambrose Lindquist, neurologist who is quite cozy with Margaret
• Tony Skeel, professional burglar

Locale: New York City

Synopsis: Margaret Odell, known as "The Canary", is murdered in her apartment, and found the following morning by her maid Amy Gibson. Witnesses and evidence show no one entered or left the apartment at the time, and it appears the assailant had been hiding in a closet waiting for her to return home from a date.

Interior of apartment

It seems like a classic locked-room mystery, although quite obvious someone was hiding in the closet since the keys were found on the inside of the closet door! The only door to the apartment was under constant view by the telephone operator. So how did he get in and out?

Floor plan of first floor

Skeel is the only one known to be in the apartment at the time. But while narrowing down the possibilities, Skeel himself winds up murdered.

Vance finds the culprit by staging a poker game in which he observes and applies the psychology of poker to the players.

Review: Looks like S. S. had been reading Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (which came out the year prior, 1926) before writing up the solution to this one! If you have read T.M.O.R.A .then you already know the solution that got everyone so upset when Christie used it. Other than the copycat ending, a nice solid book in the series, before Philo Vance became so pedantic.

Vance just issues snide comments through most of the book, but nothing much happens to solve this locked-room puzzle until they get four suspects lined up:

• Suspect #1, Charles Cleaver, a man-about-town
• Suspect #2, Kenneth Spotswoode, a manufacturer and Margaret's date that evening
• Suspect #3, Louis Mannix, a fur importer
• Suspect #4, Dr. Ambrose Lindquist, neurologist who is quite cozy with Margaret

Vance's poker-game investigation is interesting - you may have to skim the play-by-play of the various hands, but even if you do not know poker you can follow Vance's logic following the game to pin the killer.

This book doesn't have any long side-trips through Vance's various eruditions (good!) but it does have a plethora of irrelevant footnotes (zzzz). I did enjoy the nicely drawn sketch maps of the crime scene.

The New Adventures of Ellery Queen by Ellery Queen (1940)

 

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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). 

Synopsis: This is a collection of a novella (The Lamp of God) and eight short stories; four of which are sports-related (baseball, football, prizefighting, and horse racing).

The Lamp of God (Novella): Ellery Queen is asked to accompany lawyer Thorne on a mission to pick up Alice Mayhew, coming from England by ocean liner, and bring her to the estate of her late father, Sylvester Mayhew. They drive to remote Long Island to find the estate consists of two houses, the older "Black House" and a more modern "White House." Sylvester lived and died in the Black House, now a derelict shambles. His family lives in the White House. Sylvester claimed to have converted his fortune into gold for Alice, his heir, and hidden it in the Black House. Ellery, Thorne, and Alice are put up in the White House. In the mornng they discover the entire Black House has completely disappeared, and likely the gold has disappeared with it.

The Treasure Hunt: Ellery visits retired military man Major-General Barrett in his fortress-like home on the Hudson River. Barrett's daughter, Leonie, discovers her $25,000 pearl necklace missing. The grounds and persons are thoroughly searched, but it cannot be found, and it is proven no one could have entered or left the estate.

The Hollow Dragon: Mr. Jito Kagiwa disppears suddenly from his Westchester home, along with a large, heavy doorstop decorated with dragons. Bill Gallant, Kagiwa's stepson, offers an explanation but Ellery is skeptical. Kagiwa is later found dead. 

The House of Darkness: Ellery and Djuna take a day off to visit the amusement park. In the haunted house, they find a dead body. A man had been shot in complete darkness, but how?

The Bleeding Portrait: Ellery visits Lord Gramerton's home where a legend surrounds an oil painting of the patriarch: that the portrait bleeds whenever the current Lord Gramerton's wife is unfaithful. While Ellery is there, it happens again.

Man Bites Dog: Ellery attends a New York Yankees game. Ex-pitcher Big Bill Tree is in an adjacent box with his girlfriend, and his wife is also attending. Bill falls dead after eating a ballpark hot dog.

The Long Shot: Ellery visits a race track and works with a desperate owner who has one chance left, to win the race and the big purse. 

Mind over Matter: A prizefighter is beaten by a challenger, and found dead in his car, parked next to Ellery's. Ellery's missing coat provides the vital clue.

The Trojan Horse: A football team tries to maintain its winning Rose Bowl record, and in the midst of it a collection of precious jewels goes missing.

Review: I had earlier reviewed the first set of short stories, The Adventures of Ellery Queen (1934), and found them lacking due to racial stereotypes, cruelty to animals, and other issues; and so hoped this later collection to be an improvement. It is, although it still contains racist language not used today.

The Lamp of God has such a unique solution I remembered it from reading it 20 years ago, still a solid story. My favorite of the collection is The House of Darkness, with great descriptions of the haunted house setup in the amusement park. The Trojan Horse was very good - even though I do not understand football at all, I was able to follow it just fine. 

The Bleeding Portrait was ho-hum, with a much too long wordy buildup to a sleepy solution. The Hollow Dragon is full of Asian stereotypes, spoken by the other characters, still distasteful.

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

The Dirty Duck by Martha Grimes (1984)

 

About the author: This is #4 of 25 books featuring Richard Jury. See this Wikipedia article for biography and list of the 25 Richard Jury books. Click this Martha Grimes label to see all my reviews of this series.

Major characters:

The Honeysuckle Tour group:

• James Farraday Sr.
• Amelia Blue Farraday, his southern belle wife
• Honey Belle Farraday, their 17 year old daughter
• Penny Farraday, their 15 year old daughter
• Jimmy (James Jr.) Farraday, their wandering 9-year old son
• Gwendolyn Bracegirdle
• Lady Violet Dew, titled but earthy
• Cyclamen Dew, her niece
• George Cholmondelay, a legend in his own mind
• Harvey Schoenberg, a nerdy computer enthusiast 
• Valentine Honeycutt, the tour leader

And...

• Jonathan Schoenberg. Harvey's brother 
• Superintendent Richard Jury
• Sergeant Lasko, Stratford police
• Melrose Plant
• Agatha Audry, Melrose's aunt
• Vivian Rivington, Jury's old flame
• Jenny Kennington, Jury's new flame?

Locale: Stratford, England

Synopsis: The Honeysuckle Tour group has descended upon Stratford to take in the Shakespearean atmosphere. First problem, 9-year old Jimmy Farraday wanders off somewhere and cannot be found. This is not too alarming, it seems he does this all the time; so after a couple of days(!) the family appeals the authorities for help. 

Sergeant Lasko of the Stratford police asks Richard Jury speak to the Farradays unofficially to reassure them everything is being done to find Jimmy. 

Meanwhile, one of the tour group, Gwendolyn Bracegirdle, goes for a walk at night and is found dead the next day. Beside the body is a program from As You Like It with a bit of obscure handwritten verse on it. In an effort to identify the poem, Jury consults with tour group member and computer nerd Harvey Schoenberg who is researching Elizabethan history, to no avail. Melrose Plant goes to the library and after a brief inquiry identifies the poem.

Additional deaths follow, each with a bit of the poem left with the body.

The story cuts away periodically to Jimmy, who is being held captive in a tower along with a cat.

Review: The murderer leaving bits of a poem with the body sure sounds Agatha Christie!

At first, it was unclear to me whether the accounts of Jimmy being held in the tower were real or just an account of Jimmy's imagination. (It turns out they are real). The Jimmy story line runs along totally independent of the tour group murders, although it does connect up at the end.

Lady Violet Dew seems too coarse to be believable (reading Hustler?)

A good read although it does delve into Elizabethan history a bit much.

The Avenging Ray by Austin J. Small (1930)

 

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About the author: Austin J. Small (1894-1929), UK adventure and thriller author. In the US he published under his own name, while in the UK his books usually appeared as by Seamark. He wrote three novels of science fiction: The Man They Couldn't Arrest (1925) is a mystery novel incorporating unusual devices and inventions into the plot. In Master Vorst / The Death Maker (1926) the London Secret Society's insane plan to kill off the human race by germ warfare is thwarted in the nick of time. The Avenging Ray (1930), as by Seamark, features a Mad Scientist intent upon destroying the world (http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/)

Major characters:

• Geoffrey "Gerry" Windermaine
• Sir Robert Harrigan, his host
• Valerie Harrigan, Sir Robert's daughter
• Hawkins, the Harrigans' butler
• Pymm, the Harrigan's gardener
• Rosaine
• Carlo Damian, the Mad Scientist
• Bob Standy, of Scotland Yard
• Tendleton, the local constable

Locale: The moors of Devon, England

Synopsis: Sir Robert Harrigan invites his friend, Gerry Windermaine, to his home - Deepvale Manor - for a vacation. However, Sir Robert has two hidden agenda - first, to look into mysterious happenings upon the moors; and second, to marry off his daughter Valerie Harrigan, due home from abroad the next day.

Gerry sets out for a walk and finds a yard-wide line across the moors which has been decomposed to dust, and hears of other strange findings of dead animals. He stops by a cottage - Rose Cottage - and meets an enchanting girl outside, Rosaine. Later he sees a tall, mysterious man enter the cottage. The man is Carlo Damian, the Mad Scientist. Sir Robert believes he is reponsible for the happenings, but Gerry is not convinced. 

Deepvale Manor has an unexplained electrical surge which pops all the bulbs. Gerry finds a wire on the ground, follows it back to Rose Cottage, and to a dynamo running in a shed - the likely cause of the surge. Gerry destroys the dynamo.

Bob Standy of Scotland Yard arrives. Gerry learns that Damian's hideout is in the Pendine Caves. Gardener Pymm summons Gerry to show him that a lake has disappeared overnight. Gerry encounters Damian at the dried-up lake, and is taken captive to the Pendine Caves.

Review: This is a wild adventure thriller and a lot of fun with the various inventions of the Mad Scientist. The Death Ray which causes all the trouble consists of being a Death Ray comprised of two elements, an Anti-Coherer which dissolves matter, and a Degravitisor, which scatters the residue into the universe. 

I wondered why Scotland Yard was called in so early, where was the crime? All that had occurred at that point was mysterious lights on the moor.

The Mad Scientist theme also appears in Leslie Charteris' The Saint books of the same period. And as in the James Bond stories, the villain ties up the hero in his lair, then explains his evil inventions at great length before attempting to do away with the hero. We can't have the hero perish in ignorance!

The book has a puzzling ending. After the Mad Scientist and the Death Ray are dealt with, I was wondering which girl Gerry was going to wind up with - Rosaine or Valerie? The ending is ambiguous. Gerry tells Rosaine to get packed, he is going to take her away, then Valerie shows up twirling a wedding ring on her finger. Apparently Gerry gets them both!

The White Rider by Leslie Charteris (1928)

 The White Rider is the second of two novels which preceded the Saint series (The first being X Esquire). I was fortunate in finding both titles on eBay.

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About the author: Leslie Charteris (1907 – 1993), was a British-Chinese author of adventure fiction, as well as a screenwriter. He was best known for his many books chronicling the adventures of his charming hero Simon Templar, alias "The Saint". Charteris spent 55 years – 1928 to 1983 – as either writer of or custodian of Simon Templar's literary adventures, one of the longest uninterrupted spans of a single author in the history of mystery fiction, equalling that of Agatha Christie (from Wikipedia). 

Major Characters:

• Seldon, now deceased, accumulated a fortune in drug money
• Marion Fenton, Seldon's step-daughter
• Arnold Bracebridge, lecherous receiver of stolen goods
• Bill Kennedy, police detective
• James Haddon, New York City police
• Simon "Peter" Lestrange, a Saint-like adventurer
• Rev. Theophilus Gregory

Locale: England

Synopsis: Marion Fenton's stepfather, Seldon, accumulated a fortune (1 million pounds) in illicit drug money in New York. He has passed on, and the money was never found. Marion claims to have stashed it somewhere, but will not touch it on principle. She worked as secretary to Arnold Bracebridge, but quit after his repeated advances to her. She lives at Sancreed Manor, and there is a mysterious horseman, called The White Rider, who rides about at night in the vicinity.

Bill Kennedy is sent by Scotland Yard to investigate, and attempt to locate the money. He is accompanied by James Haddon of the New York City police.

Soon after their arrival, Bracebridge is found murdered in an abandoned cottage in the woods, and The White Rider had been seen nearby. Where is the 1 million pounds, and who is the White Rider?

Review:

Definitely this is a "first draft" of the Saint series, with our adventurer-on-the-edge-of-the-law Simon (hmm, even the same name) Lestrange. All the elements are present: fast cars of fictional makes, wild chases, a beautiful damsel in distress, booty to be had by bopping the ungodly.

A bit hard to follow who is speaking at times, with many references to a "Steven" who is never quite identified - he seems to be only a figure of speech.

A bit rough and repetitive in places, but quite a fun read knowing it was one of the two predecessor novels of the Saint series. Just remember this was 1928 when standards were a little different.

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