E.C.R. Lorac, Murder By Matchlight

E.C.R. Lorac, Murder By Matchlight
(Edith Caroline Rivett)
Dover re-print 1988; original (U.K.) publication Collins (Crime Club), 1945.
ISBN 978-0-486-25577-4

Lorac was a prolific “golden-age author” of at least 75 mysteries between 1931 and 1959, the majority of which featured Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Robert Macdonald.  Macdonald is a mild-mannered investigator, whose approach [at least in the 2 books I have read so far; the other Bats in the Belfry (1937)] seems to be to gain the trust of the people he’s questioning and using his sense of logic and order to sort things out.  There’s little overt violence and whatever reliance there is on “scientific” aspects of investigation is pretty much left to one side.

In this outing, a man (John Ward is the name on his identity card) is killed in a park, during the blackout (it’s WW2, and so none of the park’s lights are on), on a cloudy, moonless night.  In the park, at the same time, are two other men, Bruce Mallaig (who is wandering around, slightly depressed because his fiancé has cancelled a dinner date) and Stanley Clayton (who is out of work, and overheard a telephone call setting a rendezvous between the man making the call—who referred to himself as “Tim” and to the person with whom he was speaking as “Joe” that aroused his curiosity.  The night is describes as so dark that there was virtually no visibility, except for that provided by a match when Ward lights a cigarette.[1]

Macdonald arrives on the scene where Mallaig and Claydon have been detained by a police officer who came in response to Mallaig’s shouts for assistance.  (A doctor who was walking his dog has verified that Ward is dead.)  And the investigation begins.

It leads him to the boarding house at which Ward lived.  Most of the inhabitants are working in one or another form of theater, and are (of course) eccentric.  Ward is quickly established as a ne’er-do-well, who seems to have lived by sponging off others and occasional fiddles, but an interesting one—he fought with the IRA in the 1920s; he attempted to enlist for WW2, but was rejected because of a permanently bad leg, and so on. 

The bulk of the book involved Macdonald’s efforts to confirm (or find holes in) the stories he has been told, and he eventually does.  If the conclusion seems a bit forced (and not, in my opinion, all that well deducible by the reader), it works quite well dramatically.  For an author I’d never heard of until the last couple of months, Lorac has been a pleasant surprise, and I’ll be on the lookout for more.

[1] I don’t entirely buy the complete darkness scenario, though.  I’ve never actually wandered around in that sort of complete darkness, but even outdoors at night with heavy clouds, I’ve always been able to see something.

Robert Goldsborough, The Battered Badge: A Nero Wolfe Mystery

Robert Goldsborough, The Battered Badge
Open Road/The Mysterious Press
© Robert Goldsborough 2018
ISBN 978-1-5040-4910-8
Also available as an ebook

Rex Stout has long been my favorite author of mysteries, and the pair of Archie Goodwin and Nero Wolfe my favorite fictional detectives.  Archie’s narrative voice is, in my opinion, unmatched, and Wolfe’s persona is at once captivating and intimidating.  So, when Robert Goldsborough first published a “Nero Wolfe” mystery (Murder in E-Minor, 1986) I had serious reservations about the enterprise.  Now, 32 years later (and having purchased and read all 13 of the “Nero Wolfe” mysteries Goldsborough has written), I find all my reservations confirmed and, if anything, strengthened.

I met Mr. Goldsborough in the early 1990s, having had the opportunity (at the invitation of a mutual friend) to have lunch with him.  He was, and I suspect still is, a pleasant, likable man, a good conversationalist, and a true devotee of Stout’s work (which he knows as well as anyone).  But, I must say, his efforts at continuing the saga have ranged from adequate to unfortunate,  The current effort, The Battered Badge, is not the least successful of his efforts [Murder, Stage Left (2017) has that dubious honor].  It is, however, a very disappointing book.

Now I will admit that my disappointment is in large part a reflection of my admiration for Stout’s writing and characterizations.  But even on their own terms, Goldsborough’s recent efforts are disappointing.  It is difficult, though, to read them, think about them, or write about them without comparing them to the originals.

Goldsborough’s (relative) strength is in his plots.  In this book, the director of the Good Government Group, a/k/a GGG (Lester Pierce) is shot in front of his Park Avenue apartment building, in circumstances that strongly suggest (a) a murder-for-hire that (b) might be a result of Pierce’s efforts to goad the New York Police Department into more vigorous efforts to investigate the Mob and disrupt it.  As a consequence of factors surrounding the investigation Inspector Cramer (Wolfe’s long-time rival in the NYPD) has been suspended as head of the Homicide squad.  (Another side note—some of the prepublication publicity for the book suggested that Cramer might be facing disciplinary action.  But nothing in the book really supports such a suggestion.)

As the remnants of the Homicide squad investigate (and fail to make much headway), Wolfe is hired by Pierce’s widow to investigate.  As usual, Archie does the legwork, including preliminary interrogations of the actors in the drama, and Wolfe also meets with them (usually briefly and, as least as I read the book, with little to show for it).  There is the usual gathering of the players and disclosure of the guilty party (in both cases with a twist).  But from the premise to the conclusion is not a particularly well-handled trip.

Without getting into the details of the investigation, I want to focus on what is the single greatest flaw with the book (and with Goldsborough’s work generally).  He gets the characters, and especially their voices, wrong.  The book contains many conversations in which Archie is a major participant (several between Archie and Lon Cohen, a newspaperman with the Gazette; Archie with his permanent flame Lily Rowan; and Archie and staff at GGG, and more).  While it’s established that Archie is glib and not above bantering, almost all these conversations are more banter than substance…and the banter is not even particularly witty or amusing. 

Another feature of Stout’s work involves the confrontations between Wolfe and either Cramer or people he expects to extract information from.  Here, Wolfe’s interrogations are strangely bland (or even pointless—but, at that, a notch above what we got in Murder, Stage Left), and, as extractions, seem mostly unproductive.  And the scenes with Cramer are almost wholly devoid of bite.

The conclusion, when it comes, seemed, at least to me, to be almost entirely ad hoc, based on no deductions (either by Wolfe or by Cramer), on no particular revelations during the climactic scene, but rather by the murderer’s verbal slip and subsequent outburst.  If what we see is supposed to provide us with any reason to believe that a jury would vote for conviction…well, call that another serious difficulty. 

Even leaving aside my respect and affection for the for the originals, assuming I could approach The Battered Badge without its context as a continuation and homage, the investigation and discoveries do not match the setup, and the conclusion was disappointing.  I clearly cannot recommend this as an addition to the Wolfe oeuvre, and I can’t really recommend it on its own merits.  I wish I could do one or the other—or both.  But I can’t.

A digression on Rex Stout's novella, "Invitation to Murder"

As I think I may have mentioned, I've been re-reading the novellas as my "bedtime" reading. And I'm currently re-reading "Invitation To Murder," originally published in 1952 (so presumably set in the Wolfean world as it existed around 1950). We are introduced to the problems of Herman Lewent, the primary of which is that he has been receiving a $1,000 per month allowance from his sister (he was basically disinherited in their father's will)--and she has died. Her husband has continued the allowance, but whether that will go on for much longer, he cannot say. But that's not what I wanted to talk about.

Early on, Herman tells Wolfe (and Archie): "A few months ago I had three mistresses, one in Paris, one in Toulouse, and one in Rome..." Herman is such an unprepossessing figure that Archie at least initially doubts this. But what I have always wondered about is the economics of this. $1,000 per month around 1950 would be the rough equivalent of around $10,000 per month today. And in 1950 the US dollar was "strong" relative to the franc and the lira, adding perhaps 20% to 25% to its purchasing power in post-war Europe. Say 25%.

So his annual income was, then, the equivalent of abut $150,000. Clearly a decent income. But enough to support three mistresses on?

So I did what you would expect an economist to do--I tried to find some actual data. Which has proved to be harder than I would have thought. Which is, for me, a disappointment...I continue to wonder how Herman managed.

The alternative, of course, is that his "formula" for getting on terms with women was such that they paid most of the costs of the relationship. Which might explain why, after some time, one of them attempted to poison him.

Jill Paton Walsh, Debts of Dishonor

Jill Paton Walsh, Debts of Dishonor
Minotaur Books/St. Martin’s Press
© 2006 Jill Paton Walsh
ISBN 0312-35536-X

Walsh’s third mystery featuring Imogen Quy, resident nurse at St. Agatha’s College (Cambridge University).  Sir Julian Farran, who (barely) graduation from St. Agatha’s around 40 years ago, and who is now chairman of and the driving force behind the Farran Group (sort of a cross between an investment banking firm and a corporate raider, buying whole firms to flip or dismember for profit), has been invited to dine at the High Table.  The invitation was urged by Peter Weatherby, recently appointed Bursar (chief financial officer) at St. Agatha’s (he’s also on the board of the Farran Group).  And Andrew Duncombe, formerly a Fellow (in economics) at the college and (for a while) Quy’s lover, will be with him.  He works for Farran and is a member of the board.

The dinner goes reasonably well, but two leftish members (Carl Janner and Clive Horrocks) of the college (a sociologist and another whose discipline is not specified) launch a pointed interrogation of Farran, dissecting his business career.  The evening ends with Farran falling on his way out the door and being treated by Quy.

But Quy has made an impression on Farran; he invites her to come to London to lunch with the board of directors (and o offer the position of HR director.  (This was my first problem with the book—Quy is an excellent nurse.  But why anyone would want to hire her as a company’s HR director is beyond plausible.  One thing HR directors must know well is labor law, and Britain’s labor laws are relatively strict—compared with the U.S.)

Farran then takes a short leave, checking into a small medical facility that specializes in treating substance abuse issues.  The clinic in on the coast; patients ate discouraged from wandering around on their own; alcohol is prohibited.  It should come as no surprise that Farran is found, quite dead (and well bashed up) at the bottom of the cliff.  Given the state of the corpse, some formal identification is required, and it’s provided by his wife (now widow) and the doctor running the clinic.

Duncombe (remember him?) finds it hard to accept the verdict, believing that the second in command at the Farran Group, Max Holwood, has murdered Farran in order to take control of the company.  He persuades Quy to accompany him on fishing expedition.  It’s worth noting that Holwood is married to Farran’s daughter Rowena, for whom Duncombe has developed some affection.

This is, broadly, the setting.  At this point (and, indeed, to the end), the one weakness of the book is its treatment of the business issues that really are at the heart of the story.  At one point, Weatherby (St. Agatha’s Bursar) disappears—having not asked for leave, having not only told no one where he was going, but telling no one that he was going.  If I were the Master of the college, I would have almost immediately called in auditors and reported the disappearance to the police.  (This is not second-guessing; as soon as he disappeared, I was mentally shouting “Call in the auditors!  Call in the police!”) 

And then Holwood is also murdered, after having had something of an altercation with Duncombe. 

And then the share prices of the Farran Group collapse—Farran is dead; Holwood is dead.  An initial examination of the books is not positive.  For the college—Weatherby had invested most of the college’s funds in a single bond issue (a truly stupid thing to do, especially for someone who should certainly have known better—and he is still missing. 

Oddly enough, it’s at about this point that the book, for me, came together.  Quy’s gentle probing of the people involved is very much in character, and she realizes something that was easy to miss.  While major parts of the ending can hardly be called “happy,” it all seems at least to work.  And, if everyone has to make some ethical compromises to get there, at least they recognize what they are doing. 

The first two book in this series (The Wyndham Case and A Piece of Justice) have more coherent plots and are more tightly written.  But Debts of Dishonor is by no means a disappointment.  Well worth the trouble of finding a copy and well worth the time you spend with it.

Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Velvet Claws (the first Perry Mason book)

Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Velvet Claws
© 2011 (renewed)
Original publication 1933
Available as an ebook and from used booksellers

My reading TOCTVC originated in a post on the Wolfe Pack’s Facebook page (the Wolfe Pack being, of course, a group devoted to the life and works of Nero Wolfe—and his creator, Rex Stout).  Specifically, Pack member Ted Burge posed this question:

“So in the story, Mason gets a client to confess, with Della and Drake there. The police enter the room, and Mason turns the client in. Gardner was a litigator before turning author. How is the confession not privileged and why doesn’t it result in a fast descent into disbarment for Mason?”

But that’s not I want to write about.  TCOTVC was the first Mason book; I thought I had read them all (all 80-something of them), but could call up absolutely no memories of this one.  And, although I On have occasionally bought one (or two…) for my ebook reader, I didn’t have this one.  So I bought it and read it (and none of the Mason books take very long) and this report is my reaction.

The plot, briefly.  An attractive young woman (calling herself Eva Griffin) calls at Wolfe’s office to seek his help.  The previous night she had been at a nightclub with Harrison Burke, a member of Congress who is preparing to run for the Senate.  While there, a man was shot (murdered), and she and Burke managed to get away without being questioned.  But a tabloid (Spicy Bits, which is basically a cover for blackmail) has learned that Burke was there, and she wants Mason to ward off any publicity—if necessary, by buying off the editor of the tab.  Della has checked on the woman’s address and has reason to suspect that the name is phony.  Mason takes the case (which suggested to me that either he was hard up or he was taken in by his new client’s charms).

Well, of course, Eva Griffin is a phony, and, as is often the case with Mason’s clients over the years, seemingly unable to keep her story straight.  We quickly discover that she is the wife of George Belter, the wolf behind Spicy Bits, that her marriage is rocky, and that she fears that Belter will make her life even more miserable than it is if he finds out about her fling with Burke.

Later the very same night, she phones Mason and begs him to come pick her up (at a drugstore near the Belter manse), with a story about someone having shot Belter (true!) and claiming she had heard Mason arguing with Belter just before the fatal shot was fired (false!).  Mason goes to bet her (in a rainstorm, which becomes relevant), and, after poking around, calls the police. 

On our way to the solution of the crime (and, or course, Mason’s client did not do it), we encounter (among other things) a drunken nephew, a stoic housekeeper and her niece, a forged will, and, yes, the scene in which Mason extracts a confession from Eva and turns her over to the cops.

It’s pretty much what you will find in every Mason book, but it’s also a lot less well handled than in subsequent books.  Gardner did a great job devising intricate (and often almost unbelievable) plots (in the sense of structure of the book and events within the book), but he was never an eloquent or graceful writer.  (Gardner wrote, in addition to the Mason books 29 books featuring Donald Lam and Bertha Cool, and 9 about a small-down DA, Doug Selby.  These other 2 series, which I think are in some ways are better than the Mason books, share the plotting intricate plots and pedestrian writing.  In some ways, though I like them better.)

The one thing that stands out in TCOTVC is the repeated intrusions into the story of Mason explaining/excusing his actions—some of which actually could get him in legal hot water—that it is his duty to fight for his clients, even at risk to himself.  (I found this vastly amusing because there is a personal injury lawyer in Indianapolis whose TV ads feature the lawyer proclaiming “I fight hard for my clients.”)  I suspect that removing all those speeches, which are more obtrusive in this book than in most of the later ones, would cut the reading time from a little over 2 hours to maybe 1 hour and 40 minutes.

This, like the Mason books generally, is like candy corn…you eat it (read them) and then wonder why.  But they are hard to resist.

Rex Stout, Trouble In Triplicate

Rex Stout, Trouble In Triplicate
Original book publication, Viking (1949)
This edition, Bantam Crime Line (1993)
© 1945; 1946; 1947

Rex Stout’s use of the novella format is almost unique (or so it seems to me).  I can find no evidence, for example, that Ross Macdonald (the creator of Lew Archer), whose first PI novel was published in the same year as this collection, ever wrote any novellas (although he did write some Archer short stories, collected in 1977’s The Archer Files: Complete Short Stories of Lew Archer, Private Investigator).  John D. MacDonald (Travis McGee) wrote at least 2 stand-alone novellas [collected in Border Town Girl in 1956) and published 2 collections of short stories [Good Old Stuff (1982) and More Good Old Stuff (1984)].  Stout published no Wolfe short stories (that I know of), but there are at least 42 Nero Wolfe novellas in 14 collections.

The stories in this collection (“Before I Die,” “Help Wanted Male,” and “Instead of Evidence”   were published immediately after World War II, and in all three there are references to the war and its aftermath.  Stout served, in his youth, in the U.S. Navy, but never in a combat situation; nonetheless, his writing reflects some sensitivity to the effects of war on those who fight it, as this exchange in “Instead of Evidence” indicates:

Goodwin:  “Don’t get excited.”
Joe Groll, foreman at the business involved:  “That’s right…I must remember that, not to get excited.  Everybody is very thoughtful.  They put you in uniform and tach you what every young man ought to know and take you across the ocean into the middle of hell, bombs, bullet, flame-throwers, your friends die right against you and bleed down your neck, and after two years they bring you home and turn you loose and tell you now remember don’t get excites.”

All three of these are first-rate Stout (and Wolfe).

In “Before I Die,” Daazzy Perrit, a gangster, wants Wolfe to pull a blackmailer off his back.  The problem is complicated by the fact that he has set her up to impersonate his daughter.  And, murders intervene.  Wolfe’s suspicions are aroused, and he sets a trap for the person he suspects. And it’s easy to miss (I’ve always felt somewhat smug about noticing it the first time I read it.)  There’s a lot of shooting in this story, especially at the climax (and in the old brownstone).

Ben Jensen, a newspaper publisher, who (apparently with some reluctance to miss out of a publishing coup) receives a death threat in “Help Wanted Male,” and seeks Wolfes help.  Which he does not get.  But when Jensen is swiftly and efficiently killed, and Wolfe receives his own death threat, he takes action.  (Archie has an appointment in DC to try to talk his way into somewhat more active military service than his mostly honorary rank of Major.  Incidentally, this indicated that this story is set before “Before I Die,” although it was published after it.)  Part of Wolfe’s strategy is to hire a body double until he can figure out what’s going on.  Believe it or not, the disarrangement of some household furniture is crucial to the solution.

“Instead of Evidence” is firmly after the war; Archie is a civilian again.  Wolfe is hired by Eugene Poor and his wife Martha to provide specific information to the police if Poos s murdered—and with a putative murderer specified.  Wolfe takes the case, as it seems to be an easy $5000 (the equivalent of about $50,000 these days).  Of course, Poor is killed—in a way that seems to me to be unique.  Wolfe fulfills his end of the bargain, providing all the information ha has been given to Inspector Cramer.  He soon begins to think things are not as they seem (unsurprisingly), and with help from Saul Panzer, gets the evidence he needs. (Which, incidentally, is why I think “Instead of Evidence” is not a good title.  There is evidence and it’s sufficient to bring the case to a conclusion.)

Another strong collection.  (I’ve been re-reading them a chapter or so at a time before I go to bed at night; each novella takes ne about a week.)

John Bude, Death Makes a Prophet

John Bude, Death Makes a Prophet
British Library Crime Classics 2017
© Estate of John Bude 2017
ISBN 978-0-7123-5691-6
Also available as an ebook

There was a spate of mystery novels (some mentioned by Martin Edwards in his introduction) that are centered around a religious cult, in the 1930s and 1940s[1].  Some of these treat the cult gently or humorously (as is the case here); in other cases, the cult is quite sinister (The Dain Curse will suffice as an example).  In Death Makes a Prophet, we spend something over half the book following the (modest) travails of the Children of Osiris, founded (and presided over) by Eustace Mildmann.  The Cult is known familiarly as COO (Cult Of Osiris), or COOism.  Mildmann (who mostly lives up to his last name) is making a decent income as the High Prophet (£5,000 per year or about $25,000, in the late 1940s; that’s the equivalent of about $250,000 today).

Nonetheless he has his problems.  The chief supported of the venture, Mrs.Alic1a Hagge-Smith, seems interested in a more aggressive approach to the thing.  A secondary suporter, Mr. Hansford Boot, is a strong supporter of Mildmann.  Then there’s the somewhat mysterious Mr. Peta Peneti, the Prophet-in-Waiting, doing his waiting on a mere £500.  And Miss Penelope Parker, on whom both Mildmann and Peneti have designs (the former, honorable; the latter, not so much).

The first 60% or so of the book revolves around the internal machinations of COOism, and, as a result, the story advances at a very leisurely pace.  But this is a mystery novel, and so we do have a theft of a religious artifact, a shooting (of Mildmann’s chauffer, who has been mistaken for someone else), and, eventually a murder (actually, two of the principal dramatis personnae), by prussic acid.  And so Inspector Meredith (sans any backup from Scotland Yard) arrives on the scene.

His investigation is not undertaken at a whirlwind pace, either.  He speaks, more than once, to the principals and makes some headway in identifying who they are, were they were, and who might have a motive.  Finally, as the result of information obtained, but not by Meredith, we arrive at the conclusion.  Which consists of Meredith summarizing his conclusions for the relevant police higher-ups in about two pages, wherein we receive a mass of information we have never seen before.

And thus endeth the investigation.  This is the second or third of Bude’s books about Meredith, and it is decidedly the least of them.  It took we a while –over a week—to get through the 285 pages that it took to tell this story.  And while it was not aggressively bad, or badly written, it also did not exactly rivet me.  It seems likely that Inspector Meredith will not be high on ly list of things to read,

[1] And the religious cult continues to show  up on occasion in contemporary mystery fiction.  Timothy Hallinan’s The Four Last Things (1989), featuring Simeon Grist, for one.  A fairly comprehensive discussion can be found here:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/prophets-and-loss-when-cults-meet-crime-trouble-wi/