Susan Spann, The Blade of the Samurai

Susan Spann, The Blade of the Samurai
© 2014 Susan Spann
A Thomas Donne Book/Minotaur Books/St. Martin’s Press
ISBN978-1-250-02705-4

This is the second book in a series (so far at 6 books and counting: http://www.stopyourekillingme.com/S_Authors/Spann_Susan.html) about Matsui Hiro (a shinobi—an assassin) who has been sent by his clan to serve as the bodyguard for Father Mateo, a Portuguese priest attempting to convert the Japanese to Christianity.  Set in the 16^th century, the historical background seems to me (a dilettante in this time period and country) seems extraordinarily well done.  At that time, the Japanese only allowed external trade with the Portuguese, who had a small number of merchants in the country, confined generally to specific parts of the major cities.  The Japanese had also permitted a number of Catholic priests to accompany the merchants and, while not actively encouraging those priests, also did not prohibit their activities.  Most of the priests proselytized the upper classes; Mateo worked among the lower classes.  (A reasonable overview of the period is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sengoku_period)  In this period, the Emperor was largely a figurehead, with control of the government in the hands of the Shogun.

The books are set largely in Kyoto, at that time the residence of the Emperor and the most important city in Japan.  The period is known as the Sengoku (“Age of Warring States”), and was a period of considerable political instability and internal warfare.  This book is set in the 1650s (European dating), if I recall correctly.

The book opens with Hiro (his personal name; Matsui is a family name, and not, actually, his real name) being disturbed by a creaking floorboard, causing him to go into (if you will) ninja mode.  The intruder turns out to be a relative, Kāzu, who works as a scribe in a government office.  His superior, Ashikaga Saburo, has been murdered, with Kāzu’s dagger, and Kāzu is certain he will be accused.  He swears he is innocent.  (The dead man is a member of the Shogun’s family.)

And then there comes a hammering on the door—a messenger from the government compound has come to bring Father Mateo to investigate the murder of Saburo (because of his success in solving a prior baffling murder—with, of course, Hiro’s assistance.  Hiro does not reveal Kāzu’s presence, and arranges for him to slip away while Mateo, accompanied by Hiro, goes to begin an investigation of Saburo’s murder.  A complicating factor is that it appears that an army, raised by Lord Oda, is marching on Kyoto, apparently with the aim of replacing the Ashikaga Shogunate with an Oda Shogunate.  So there is also a concern that Saburo’s murder is in fact linked to the country’s political instability.

Spann does an excellent job of keeping the dynastic issues clear and this helps make the investigation of the murder stand out.  While dynastic issues seem to be at the forefront, the murder could easily have been a personal matter—Saburo has private as well as political enemies.  As Mateo and Hiro investigate, and as the political crisis looms, two more deaths complicate matters, and Hiro meets Saburo’s very young son (who turns out to be an important part of the story).

This is, in my opinion, an extraordinarily rich book.  The characters (especially, but not only the continuing characters of Mateo’s household) are well defined and developed people; I never got any sense that they were these just to move the story along.  Hiro, who is really the main character, and Mateo are engaging, complex characters, whose friendship enriches the story.  For me, this book is a must-read, as is (so far) the entire series.

Francis Duncan, Murder for Christmas

Francis Duncan, Murder for Christmas
Originally published in 1949 by John Long, Ltd.
Re-published by Vintage Books/Penguin, 2015
This edition, Sourcebooks Landmark, 2017
© Francis Duncan 2017
ISBN 1-13-987-4926-5170-3

Duncan (which was a pseudonym adopted by William Underhill) was a moderately successful writer of mysteries from 1936 until at least the mid-1950s.  This one is a fairly standard English country house murder, in which an assortment of people, with ties only to their host (Benedict Grame), come together to celebrate Christmas.  Grame has this sort of a Christmas celebration annually, and some (not all) of the guests are regulars.  On Christmas Eve, Grame places presents for each guest on or under the tree.  But this year, one of his guests is shot, near the tree, dressed as Santa Claus, late on Christmas Eve.

And, this year, Mordecai Tremaine (who has some notoriety as an amateur detective) is, for the first time, one of the guests.  And Grame’s confidential secretary, Nicholas Blaise, has appended a personal note to Tremaine’s invitation: 

Please pay us a visit if you can possibly manage it.  Benedict will be more than ordinarily grateful.  As a matter of fact, I’ve been feeling that there’s something here to interest you.  Benedict doesn’t say much—in fact, he doesn’t know I’m making this comment, so I’d be glad if you’d keep it confidential.  But I can tell there’s something wrong, and frankly I’m getting scared.

The guests include a Member of Parliament, a famous scientist, a young woman whose guardian refuses to let her marry the young man she loves (who is also there), Grame’s sister, and assorted others.

It’s fair to say, I think, that the pace of the story is leisurely, extending over 345 pages that take us from Christmas Eve to a day or two after Christmas.  If the time is covered in great detail, the story does not seem to drag (although the passages allotted to Tremaine’s state of mind probably are a bit extensive).  The tale proceeds as, essentially, a series of relatively amicable conversations between Tremaine and the other characters, during which we learn a lot about them, some of which provide hints as to the outcome.  And while the denouement is well-handled, I doubt that many readers of mysteries will be shocked by it.  This is a pleasant way to spend a few hours, and worthwhile for that.  (It might be more fun to read around Christmas than during a heat wave, too.)

Michael Innes, A Night of Errors

Michael Innes, A Night of Errors
Ipso Books (reprint, 2018)
© 1948 Michael Innes

I recently read Innes’ first mystery featuring John Appleby (Death at the President’s Lodgings (1936); reviewed here: http://wordsmusic-doc.blogspot.com/2018/03/michael-innes-death-at-presidents.html), and my feelings about it were mixed.  A number of people urged me not to give up on his works (which I had not planned to do; I have read some o them in the fairly distant past, although none of the titles ring any bells).  I sorry to say that A Night of Errors seems to me to have been even less impressive than his first Appleby novel.

The book opens with a fairly extended introduction to the Dromio family history, from the first Dromio to arrive in England several centuries before to the current head of the family, Oliver.  The family had prospered to the extent that in the early 1800s, the head of the family (Ferdinand) received a baronetcy.  In an interesting quirk of family genetics, the family ran to identical twins.  In the current generation, however, identical triplets were borne to Sir Romeo and Lady Katherine.  And, two of those three died in a fire that was, seemingly deliberately set in the nursery in which the three were sleeping.  Leaving only Oliver.  Oliver proves, however, to be a poor manager of the family’s fortunes, and, as the story begins, is in America seeking an American heiress who is willing to marry a (minor) member of the English aristocracy.  Getting us to this point takes 50 pages.

Somewhat more quickly, we get to the first death, the circumstances of which I will not reveal.  But it leads to the local Inspector (Hyland) to enlist the services of John Appleby, retired from Scotland Yard and living nearby.  They endeavor to determine what has happened (including finding an explanation for the post-mortem treatment of the body, which is presumed to be that of Sir Oliver Dromio.  We have a cast of characters including the alcoholic butler, the somewhat less-than- energetic gardener (and other retainers), the Vicar, Oliver’s younger brother Sebastian…

The investigation is concluded by the end of the day following the first death.  But the narrative becomes fairly complex, including questions of identity, multiple explanations for the treatment of the corpse, and so on.  Unfortunately, by the time I got to the end, I no longer particularly cared who had killed whom.

I know Innnes’s work is highly thought of.  (His wikipedia page includes some of the reactions to his work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._I._M._Stewart).  I tend to agree with Julian Symons’s take.  He “identified Innes as one of the ‘farceurs’—crime writers for whom the detective story was ‘an over-civilized joke with a frivolity which makes it a literary conversation piece with detection taking place on the side’—and described Innes's writing as being ‘rather in the manner of Peacock strained through or distorted by Aldous Huxley.’ ” (The material here is quoted from the wikipedia page.)

Sara Woods, Malice Domestic

Sara Woods, Malice Domestic
© 1962 Sara Woods
Avon reprint 1986
(Out of print; readily available from used book sellers)

“…Duncan is in his grave,
After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well,
Treason has done his worst, no steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing
Can touch him further.”
Macbeth, Act III, Scene 2 [1]

Late one evening, William Cassell, returned to England after 18 years in Portugal to visit his brother Ambrose and family, is shot through a window while writing a letter at his brother’s desk.  One of Ambrose’s grandsons, Paul Herron, is found outside, barefoot, holding the rifle that fired the fatal shot.  He was heard to say, to his grandfather, “I thought it was you.”  Unsurprisingly, he is arrested and charged with the murder of William.  Ambrose arranges for Paul’s solicitor (Mr. Bellerby), and is adamant that Paul plead not guilty by reason of insanity.  Bellerby takes the case to Sir Nicholas Harding (and his nephew, Antony Maitland).  Harding himself is opposed to using insanity as a defense, and there is some doubt that an insanity plea could be supported.

As is happens, 18 years earlier, on the day that William Cassell left England for Portugal, Matt Herron (Paul’s father; there’s a twin brother to Paul as well, Timothy; they were 6 at the time, and asleep in the house) shot and killed his wife Ruth, his twin brother Mark, and himself.  Paul’s insanity (and his subsequent history of sleepwalking), Ambrose argues, stems from the trauma of his parents’ deaths.

Antony Maitland, also a barrister, undertakes to investigate the circumstances of the current murder, which entails a series of conversations with all concerned.  (And the cast of characters, who are mostly related in one way or another, is large.)  He comes to believe that understanding what happened on that night 18 years ago, and what led William to return to England, are essential to developing a defense for Paul.  Clearly we have a tangled situation, and one that reminded me, the first time I read the book (probably in the 1970s) and again today, of nothing so much as Ross Macdonald’s complex and multigenerational Lew Archer books.  (Maitland is, to my tastes, a more interesting protagonist than Archer, but that’s clearly a matter of taste.)

I thought the characters of Paul and Timothy, in particular, were very well portrayed, and that keeping all the characters clear in our minds as readers was handled quite well.  This was the second entry in the Maitland series, and it is as characteristic of the whole as one could ask.  Although we have yet to see Harding and Maitland at work in a courtroom, we get a very strong sense of their approach to the law, and how they work so well together.  This was, when I first read the books decades ago, one of my favorite continuing series, and I am greatly enjoying re-visiting it.  Highly recommended.

[1] All the titles come from Shakespeare; I have quoted above the passage from which this title comes.

Rex Stout, Three for the Chair

Rex Stout, Three for the Chair

© Rex Stout, 1955, 1956
The Viking Press, 1977
Bantam Crimeline reprint, 1994
ISBN-13: 978-0553248135
Also available as an ebook

My reading has been spotty for the past few weeks; I currently have a couple of books in progress that are good enough to continue reading, but not good enough to keep me in my chair.  I have, however, continued reading a chapter or two of a Nero Wolfe novella before bed, and just finished Three for the Chair.

The first of the three novellas in the book, “A Window For Death,” involves the return (from self-exile in Canada) of Bert Fife to his home town of Mount Kisco, where his two brothers (David, a high school teacher; Paul, a real estate agent) and sister Louise (married to pharmacist Vincent Tuttle) still live.  Bert left after being acquitted of their father’s murder (by openng the bedroom windows during a snowstorm, where his father, suffering from pneumonia, was sleeping).  With him is his business partner and friend, Johnny Arrow.  Bert (and Johnny) are now rich men, having discovered a rich lode of uranium.  And Bert has come back to resolve some issues.

Bert comes down with pneumonia and dies in his hotel room after his family has left for the theater.  Paul (loudly and aggressively) alleges murder, and the family agrees to hire Wolfe to determine whether the police should be involved.  Wolfe does a neat bit of deduction on a seemingly inexplicable circumstance surrounding Bert’s sickbed, and, in the process solves both the long-ago murder and resolves this mystery. 

Diplomatic immunity looms large in “Immune To Murder.”  Wolfe is entreated by Undersecretary of State David Leeson to travel to a mountain cabin where two oil moguls, Leeson, and Ambassador Kelefy (there to negotiate a deal to exploit is country’s oil reserves) go fishing for trout.  Wolfe’s presence is precipitated by Kelefy’s request to eat a trout cooked by Nero Wolfe.  So the fishermen fish, but one of them doesn’t make it back alive.  The local DA seems fully aware that his hands are in one way tied.  At one point he says:

…I wish to convey the sincere thanks of myself personally, and of the people of the state of New York, to Ambassador Kelefy and his staff.  He and his wife and Mr. Spiros Papps of his staff are protected by diplomatic immunity from arrest or detention…

Later, Wolfe adds:  “Ambassador Kelefy, his wife, and Mr, Papps are beyond your reach even for inquisition, let alone indictment.”  So it’s abundantly clear that some of those in attendance are more special than others.  Oddly, perhaps, the clarity of the position early in the investigation has always made the denouement a bit of a letdown.  But watching Wolfe do his thing in such an un-Wolfean environment works nicely.

“Too Many Detectives” also finds Wolfe thrust into the outside world, along with Archie, both having been summoned to Albany for an inquiry into their involvement in wiretapping.  They, and four other PIs, one of whom is Dol Bonner (and one employed operative), are waiting to be interrogated.  At which point a murder is announced—the murder of a man who hired Wolfe to engage in wiretapping (and who gave Wolfe a phony name, too boot).  Before long, we learn that two of the other PIs in attendance were tricked into wiretapping someone by the same man, using virtually the same ploy (but a different name).  The other two are not so directly tied in.  Wolfe, incensed at having been arrested, convinces the other detectives to do some investigating remotely.  (Archie seems more worried than is warranted by Wolfe’s susceptibility to Bonner’s charms, I thought.)  While not everyone is happy with the outcome, all the good guys get to go home, cleared of murder and of illegal wiretapping.

Another strong group of stories, especially as we get to see Wolfe out of his element. 

Sara Woods, The Windy Side of the Law

Sara Woods, The Windy Side of the Law
Harper & Row, 1965
© 1965 Sara Woods
(Out-of-print, but readily available from used booksellers.)

The seventh mystery featuring Antony Maitland, an English barrister [and his wife Jenny, his uncle Sir Nicholas Harding (also a barrister; Maitland is attached to Harding’s chambers—law firm) and Geoffery Horton (frequently Maitland’s instructing solicitor)] finds Maitland faced with defending—by investigating heroin smuggling charges—his old friend Peter Hammond.  (As is almost always the case with Woods, the title comes from Shakespeare, in this case Twelfth Night, Act 3, Scene 4—and, yes, I had to look it up.[1]  Hammons has awakened in a relatively cheap hotel in London and has no memory of anything about himself or his life.  He finds Maitland’s name in a notebook, discovers his address, and sets out to find Maitland (who is, for all he currently knows, himself.)  He runs into Maitland outside Maitland’s home, and they soon return to the hotel, where two police officers are waiting for him.  (I should add that the desk clerk greets Hammond by name when they return.)

The officers want to ask him questions about a phone call they received alleging that Hammond was smuggled heroin into the country (he has just returned from a business trip to the far East).  And, lo and behold, there are two bricks of heroin in his luggage.  When he returns to his room following some initial questioning, he finds a body—of one of the hotel’s employees—in the bathroom.  And he calls Maitland for help.

At this point there is a rather important issue.  Is his amnesia real of feigned?  A pint that is never addressed in the book, Hammond must have known who he was when he registered at the hotel.  His name is in the hotel’s register (along with his signature) and the desk clerk knew his name.  All he has (apparently) done is sleep.  It’s no wonder the police do not believe in his amnesia; it’s not clear why Maitland is so immediately willing to.[2]

In the course of his investigation, Maitland talks with Hammond’s fiancѐ Nan, with the passengers on the ship on which Hammond returned to England (including another fiancѐ, Elaine), and his brother-in-law, for whom he worked (Hammond’s sister recently died).  Hammond, of course has (or claims to have) no memory of any of these people.  Not much progress is getting made, except that Maitland runs across a number of shady characters (one of whom he once defended).  But Maitland eventually reaches a conclusion (although I’m not sure we as readers have sufficient information to get there and all ends well (enough).

Unusually for a Maitland book, there are no courtroom scenes (which Woods handles extremely well).  The narrative moves well, and if more than usual is made of Maitland’s bad right arm, everything does seem to fit pretty well into place.  While this is not first-rate Woods, it is a good mystery and gives us additional insights into Maitland and his associates.  Well worth seeking out.

[1] The apparent meaning is that the speaker (Fabian) is urging his companion (Sir Toby Belch) to avoid any action that will bring attention to himself, as staying upwind from a deer you are hunting.

[2] Subsequently we get the suggestion that someone gave him a dose of scopolamine mixed with morphine, which is apparently true, at least in some cases (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5535325/)

Ed Gorman, Sleeping Dogs

Ed Gorman, Sleeping Dogs
Thomas Dunne Books/Minotaur/St. Martin’s Press
© 2008 Ed Gorman
ISBN 978-0-312-36784-8
Also available as a ebook

The first in the 5 book series featuring Devlin Conrad, political consultant for hire, who works for centrist-to-liberal candidates.  In this campaign, he is working for incumbent Illinois Senator Warren Nichols, and, as the campaign draws, Nichols is about to face off against his (very conservative) opponent, Jim Lake.  As the “debate” nears its mid-point, Nichols wobbles, and collapses on stage.  This does not bode well for his re-election; the immediate question is why he collapsed.  That is answered pretty quickly—he was drugged.  And the immediate assumption is that someone working for Lake is involved.

And that someone might be R.D. Greaves, also a political consultant, but one whose mode of operation is more like an assault than a campaign.  Conrad’s suspicion that Greaves is involved is hightened when Greaves gets in touch, alleging that he has a videotape of Nichols in a very compromising position with a woman to whom he is not married.  Which, as Conrad knows, is plausible—because Nichols has a well-deserved reputation in that respect.  What Greaves wants is money—and a lot of it.  But when Conrad shows up to make the payoff, Greaves is dead and the tape is missing.

The rest of the book is the intertwined story of keeping the campaign afloat, and Gorman handles the story with his usual deft touch.  If there’s one thing about the book I had a little trouble with, it was that the opening seemed to drag a bit as Gorman introduces us to the campaign team, the candidate, and the candidate’s wife.  Once I was past that, the story moved quickly and compellingly to its conclusion.

Dev Conrad’s position sets this up well as a series, for a couple of reasons.  First, the series will not be tied to a single location or to a narrow cast.  And second, because Conrad is an appealing narrator, aware of his own weaknesses and strengths.  And, if you are a political junkie, I think Gorman has presented the life of the campaign in a realistic manner.  (I’m an outsider, but it sure seemed that the political narrative was plausible.)  My only regret, really, if that there are only 5 books in the series.  I will miss Gorman’s writing.