The Snare of Circumstance - Edith E. Buckley

THE STORY  Elmer Bliss, reporter, is hired by a mysterious gentleman called Philander Summerfield to look into a recent Peter Somhers murder case that he believes was never solved. Bliss has been fascinated by the case because Somhers' nephew, Harrison Milbrath, was tried twice for the murder. In the first trial he was found guilty then he and his lawyer appealed due to an abundance of circumstantial evidence that should not have led to a guilty verdict. In Milbrath's second trial he is acquitted. Summerfield offers Bliss $20,000 to find the actual murderer. With such a sizeable reward Bliss is keen to turn detective and discover the real murderer of Peter Somhers.

THE CHARACTERS  In the second chapter Buckley introduces Murray Kilbourne, "by predilection a sleuth of no mean ability."  We learn he turned to criminal detection after leaving college. He inherited a fortune from an uncle and in order to claim that money the will had a proviso that Kilbourne was instructed to give up detective work and "devote his energies to the cultivation of his literary talents."  Kilbourne pops up at various points in the early portion of the novel,  but then leaves the country. To me his inclusion is utterly superfluous. Buckley makes it seem that Bliss and Kilbourne will be a team similar to Holmes and Watson, but Kilbourne is actually the worst kind of bogey character.  He serves absolutely no purpose. It was the only irritating part of the book.

Elmer Bliss is, in fact, the real sleuth and he proves to be far superior to Kilbourne who allows his libido to intrude and cloud his judgment in the detective work.  The real sleuthing team tuns out to be Bliss and Harrison Milbrath. The two join forces at the midpoint when Bliss uncovers a secret that Milbrath was hoping no one would learn. The revelation of this secret binds them in a friendship and strengthens Bliss's resolve to repair Harrison's reputation damaged after being found both guilty and not guilty of a single crime.  Together they are sure that once the "snare of circumstance" is finally lifted the young man will be able to carry on with his life both professionally and personally without shame or ignominy.

Philander Summerfield is indeed a mystery man making his first appearance in the first chapter and then vanishing for the remainder of the book. Or has he?  An elderly bearded man matching Summerfield's description and behavior is frequently seen around the Somhers estate by several witnesses that Bliss questions during his investigation.  Is Summerfield spying on Bliss?  Or is this a Summerfield look-alike?

Dolores "Dolly" McClure is the mystery "woman in white" (an obvious nod to Wilkie Collins) that BLiss follows for several days before he discovers who she really is. This young beauty stirs the hearts of all young men who meet her and is rather obviously involved with Harrison though it takes both Bliss and Kilbourne several days to figure this out. Her scenes are some of the strongest in the first half of the book when Buckley is setting up her intricate plot and layering multiple secrets and ambiguities into the story. She is willful, forthright, witty, a bit of a tease, and on the verge of heartbreak. When she learns that Bliss is intent on clearing Harrison's name she becomes one of his closest allies.

Chauncey McClure, Dolores' grandfather, lives nearby the Somhers estate and swears he has seen the ghost of Somhers wandering the grounds late at night. There are some very eerie sequences related to this eyewitness account.  Chauncey also provides a bit of gentle humor prior to his confession of ghost sighting.

Hutton, the station master for the local train depot, is one of Elmer's best sources. Hutton is a born gossip and a fine raconteur.  Elmer Bliss learns more than he ever hoped for from the many stories Hutton cannot help but share.  The most intriguing of his tales is the past history of Somhers building a wing onto his library, a retreat from noise, servant gossip and other intrusions and distractions.  Bliss believes there is also a hidden room (possible influence of Carolyn Wells?) somewhere within this building addition. Hutton also reveals he has seen an old man with a gray beard frequently visiting in town and that he arrives and departs on the train headed fro Boston. Bliss is sure this proves that Summerfield is indeed following him and keeping tabs on his investigation.

Jim Arms and Horsford seem to be the two primary antagonists. Each man lives on the Somhers estate and while Horsford, a caretaker of sorts, has a wife and daughter, Arms is a single man. Arms is the more villainous of the two men holding a grudge against Harrison for years and responsible for testimony that led to the first trial finding Harrison guilty. Bliss suspects that Horsford has secrets and knows more than he is willing to tell. Certainly Horsford's daughter has a piece of information that she is holding close and Bliss suspects she is protecting her father. Ultimately, Bliss will gain one of these men as an ally in an unexpected turn of events around the novel's midpoint. 

INFLUENCES  The Snare of Circumstance (1910) was published at a time when Conan Doyle and all his Holmesian tricks were still the primary influence of neophyte detective novelists. Buckley's novel is one of the finest examples from this nascent period of detective fiction in America. It's all the more remarkable for being her only detective novel and having received numerous rave reviews ranging from H. L. Mencken in the May 1910 issue of The Smart Set ("...well worth the money asked for it.") to the unsigned review in The New York Times March 19, 1910 ("...one of the few [detective novels] which...carries the reader without a hitch. The plot is...most ingeniously carried out. At no point can the reader guess the surprise finally sprung upon him.")  She has clearly drawn from several of the Holmes stories (alluded to by both reviewers, BTW) and in particular borrowed one iconic scene from The Hound of the Baskervilles where Holmes tries to prove a person's identity using a portrait painting. In Buckley's case it is not a painting but a photograph that proves the identification. Bliss does exactly what Holmes did:  he covers up a beard to leave only the eyes and face.

There is another novel that has major influence on the plot, too. Buckley mentions the book outright in the final chapter, but neither the title nor the author can be named, lest I giveaway the crème de la crème surprise.  Let me only remark that this influential novel held sway over several detective fiction and thriller writers from the 1930s through the 1960s who were keen on introducing psychological terror into their plots. Prior to this novel I had thought the earliest use of this familiar motif was in a book published in 1933. Always eyebrow raising to find yet another example and one so early in the 20th century. Buckley's may be, if not the first, one of the first American detective novels to employ this particular psychological plot motif.  For contemporary audiences in Buckley's day it must certainly have been a shocking finale.

THINGS I LEARNED  I was certain that the book took place around 1908 but automobiles are rarely encountered.  Instead there is a type of vehicle I'd never heard of. Bliss employs an early form of taxi called the herdic. As more and more herdics pop up in the story, I was starting to reassess the time as the late 1890s.  At one point there is a herdic chase and Bliss actually says, "Follow that cab!"  In any case, a herdic is a horse drawn taxi with side seats and a rear entrance. The vehicle is named for its inventor Peter Herdic who designed the carriage in 1881.  I found several photographs and drawings of them and chose the best example to include in this post.  There is an excellent history of the herdic and its Pennsylvanian inventor with several illustrations and photos here.

QUOTES Bliss:  "[Horsford] implied that there is a 'real ghost,' but it was to the atmosphere of mystery and danger that he referred. I dare say this man of yours has seen the ghost!"

McClure: "It is only recently that I have indulged in speculation of [unpopular thoughts], but I have had an experience that sent my thoughts in channels quite out of their usual run. Wild as the statement may sound to you, it is a fact that I, too, this summer, nearly two years after his death, have seen the spirit of my old friend, Peter Somhers!"

McClure: "But Mr. Bliss, the figure was not an illusion. Phantom or man it was real, and individual, and if it was not a 'materialization' some one on earth has a wish to give color to the sentiment against the place." 

Dolly: "You know what Tennyson says...? 'But a lie that is part a truth is a harder matter to fight.' That was the case with the testimony of Jim Arms; only the truthful part was so exceedingly small. Now that he has convicted Harry to a living death he is not content. He dares to sneer at him..."

EASY TO FIND?  Having been out of copyright for the past 16 years The Snare of Circumstance has been snatched up by the POD People. Several affordable paperback copies are available from a couple of print-on-demand outfits like Forgotten Books. I'm sure a copy has been uploaded to one of the many internet archives as well. Those seeking out the handsomely designed hardcover from Little, Brown & Company (shown throughout this post) with four original illustrations by Arthur E. Becher can pick from six different copies offered from online sellers. Prices range from $17 - $75 in various states of condition from reading copy to very good. I also found one Canadian edition, one of the better copies, priced at only $20. Happy hunting!

NEW STUFF: Murder at Gulls Nest - Jess Kidd

I will always read anything published by Jess Kidd, one of the most imaginative Irish writers of the past 20 years. I first heard of her through the dozens of rave reviews for her unique genre blending debut Himself (2016), a mix of crime novel and ghost story. But the first book I read of hers was Mr Flood's Last Resort (2017) -- original UK title The Hoarder -- an unconventional mystery novel which also coincidentally has some ghosts in it. She has written all sorts of novels, including a book geared for young readers, all of which tend to feature some element of a traditional mystery novel though none of them were true detective novels until she wrote Things in Jars (2019), a wild, dizzying imaginative mystery thriller with a real detective that blends bizarre murders with supernatural creatures and Irish mythology. She followed that third novel with an unusual historical adventure and coming of age novel, The Night Ship (2022), based on the actual shipwreck of a Dutch sailing vessel in the 17th century. Now she has turned her hand to a full fledged, retro Golden Age mystery completely embracing the traditional detective novel.

As much as I wished that she would have created a series character with Bridie Devine, her Victorian era woman detective from Things in Jars, we are now promised a series character in the person of Nora Breen, the protagonist of Murder at Gulls Nest.  Nora is a former nun who has recently left her cloistered existence in the Carmelite monastery of High Dallow and traveled to Kent to the resort town of Gore-on-Sea which sounds suspiciously like a real city in West Sussex that I know is the home of one of my favorite rare bookselling entities (World of Rare Books in Goring-by-Sea). Here she sets up in the boarding house of the title hoping to learn what happened to another nun from her monastery who also left the order after getting ill and needing to recuperate in the outside world. Frieda Borgan, the young nun Nora befriended, promised to write to Nora regularly. When those news-filled letters suddenly stopped in August Nora decided to find out what happened to Frieda that would prevent her from writing.  A prologue pretty much hints at her fate alerting us to expect an unhappy outcome for Frieda.

Nora starts her inquiry on the sly. She comes across as a busybody yet oddly manages to gather quite a bit of information. Within days one of the boarders dies unexpectedly and everyone assumes the person committed suicide. Nora and the another boarder think otherwise.

This is a well done traditional mystery novel, following too closely perhaps to formula, but not without Kidd's requisite offbeat humor and touches of the bizarre. Among the oddball characters are an elderly puppeteer who specializes in Punch and Judy performances, a stern housekeeper/cook who serves up unpalatable meals and runs the boarding house like a jail with rigid rules, a strange 10 year-old girl who refuses to speak and dresses like a miniature Miss Haversham, and the local reverend who lives next door and cultivates a huge brood of rabbits - his only friends - as he tends to dislike most people. Reverend Audley (an allusion to Braddon?) was maybe my favorite of the supporting characters. Another unusual character is Hosmer, the artsy photographer Nora meets in town, who both offers her info on a boarder who fled Gulls Nest immediately after the supposed suicide and also takes her portrait in a quirky scene involving jazz music and Nora's shedding her inhibitions in a literal dance of freedom. Also worth nothing as typical Kiddian quirkiness are the scenes with Nora feeding a seagull she names after a priest. The bird regularly visits her on the ledge outside her bedroom window, she mulls over the case, and discusses her ideas with the gull as the bird swallows chunks of herring Nora has bought for the bird to snack on.

Ultimately the characters and their relationships make Murder at Gulls Nest an enjoyable read and distract from endless Q&A sequences that otherwise might have proved tiresome. Inspector Rideout, the primary policeman of the book, has an intriguing relationship with Nora -- at first adversarial, then giving way to mutual admiration, and finally budding friendship. At one point Rideout says to Nora:

"The war hasn't helped. It has blown us apart in so many ways; the old rituals, the old beliefs no longer hold. We want death, like life, to have a reason. [...] Sometimes we have to accept that when it comes to matters of life and death, we can't know everything and never will."

I think this is what Kidd was attempting to accomplish with this homage to the traditional mystery.  She has succinctly and simply summed up the post-WW2 mindset. How war has permanently changed all preconceived notions of modern life and all human interaction.  Perhaps there will be no real tidy ending that will explain all the death and misery churned up at Gulls Nest.

Kidd knows the genre well and has already proven she is a wiz at dreaming up complex and fairly clued plots.  however, in this outing as formulaic as it is and not so cleverly clued I was able to figure many of the twists dozens of chapters before Nora had any idea what was going on.  I think most readers well read in mystery fiction will be able to figure out some secrets early on and see through some of the misdirection.  I was hoping for a finale in which Dinah, the mute child, would suddenly regain her speech and become the real detective of the piece by pointing out everything she had overheard while hiding behind curtains and in the sideboard of the dining room. Alas! no such denouement occurs. The finale is indeed rather melodramatic and Dinah does play a part in the unmasking of the rather obvious villain.

I look forward to Nora's next adventure in which she will solve a series of "supernatural murders" associated with a seance that goes terribly wrong. There is a medium and a seance in Murder at Gulls Nest, but whether the medium Miss Elspeth Dence (very reminiscent of the kooky Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit) will also appear in the next book I will not know until I can read it. Book two of the Nora Breen investigations entitled Murder at the Spirit Lounge is due out in June 2026. 

HALLOWEEN SPECIAL: Sinister House - Leland Hall

The most uncanny thing about my reading Sinister House (1919) is not so much the content of this fine tale of a haunted house and malevolent ghosts but my timing.  A few days after I started the book I attended a performance of the new stage thriller Paranormal Activity (conceived and directed by Felix Barrett, written by Levi Holloway) based on the series of horror movies of the same name. The play deserves a post all to itself and I will have to refrain from talking about it here. But the eerie coincidences between a supernatural novel written more than a century ago and a play only written one year ago are seriously unreal. They both begin as commentary on routine living then morph slowly into tales of malign presences infecting the living. There is even a manifestation that takes place in the novel that is exactly the same as a fleeting moment in the play I saw.  That's chillingly coincidental and mindbogglingly uncanny as far as I’m concerned!

Leland Hall's novel starts out so utterly mundane that he includes lectures on the real estate business, building concerns and one of the characters' disdain for developmental communities which were already a blight on American neighborhoods in 1919, at least according to Leland Hall. Then the routine of everyday life gives way to disturbing and unsettling events. The first major shift in the story happens when the narrator Pierre is visited -- during a torrential thunderstorm, no less -- by his neighbor Eric Grier who has recently moved into a ramshackle home on the outskirts of the cookie cutter development known as Forsby. He has returned from a business trip in Buffalo, walked from the train station as there were no cabs at that late hour and when he saw the light on in Pierre's house hoped to gain entry and shelter from the storm. Eric is eager to get home to his new bride Julia who he could not stop thinking of while he was away.

Immediately, there is a discussion of the difference between the two homes in the novel. Pierre's house in Forsby is wholly modern made of cement with a "granolithic walkway" leading up to the front door, equipped with modern plumbing including turn-of-the-century fad of exposed pipes and, of course, electricity. Eric's 19th century home is still trapped in the past made almost entirely of wood and stone and no modern conveniences. Gaslight and fireplaces providing heat and illumination, water is fetched from a well. Eric is beginning to behave differently and Pierre and his wife Annette notice that Julia is especially happy in the gloomy house when her husband is absent. At first Pierre cannot understand why the two young newlyweds have moved into such an eyesore of a house. Annette finds nothing at all attractive about the place neither outside nor in. But Julia seems happy and finds comfort in its old-fashioned atmosphere. Pierre, however, finds that atmosphere chilling -- literally and figuratively.

Frontispiece from the US 1st edition,
illustrations all by Haydon Jones

 

It seems a malign influence has permeated the house and is infecting Eric. One night when Pierre, his wife and three year-old son Bobbie are traveling home their car breaks down with not one but two flat tires. They are forced to seek out help and shelter from the Griers. Little Bobbie is terrified of setting foot in the house having had his fertile young imagination stimulated by some strange fairy tales his mother has told him, notably one about the Loreley. In her version the siren sings tempting songs in order to lure men to the death and she eventually eats them! Bobbie calls the Grier home the "Singing House" and does not want to go in. His mother manages to calm him until he sees Eric. Bobbie has a fit of hysterical screaming crying out: "No, mama! Get him away, get him away! Don't let him touch me. He's going to eat me!"

Annette's cousin Giles is the primary skeptic in this cast. He is certain that Eric did not just stumble upon the house in Stanton by accident as he claims. Pierre learned that the house belonged to Morgan Snart, "an eccentric old man, very religious," and his  homely daughter Huldah "who had taken to religion even more entirely than her father." Giles digs into the Snart's past and uncovers secrets about the two that belie their supposed good character and surface religious demeanor. He also finds out a bit more about Eric but is circumspect in relaying that news to everyone.  Compounding this mystery is a forbidden room that Julia insists Eric never open. It remains locked for the majority of the novel. When it is opened out of necessity terror reigns down upon everyone.

Sinister House is clearly a precursor to Shirley Jackson's pioneering haunted house novel The Haunting of Hill House published five decades later in its depiction of a malign presence in an evil house that affects one single person. Hall's novel is both prophetic and iconoclastic in that he defies the traditions of Gothic literature by making the man the object of the haunting and not the woman. In fact, both Julia and Annette are the voices of reason throughout the entire book. It is the men who suffer the most -- from fear, susceptibility, and rash judgment -- when the evil presences finally manifest themselves and carry out their wicked plans. True Julia is targeted in a frightening scene (see illustration plate at right) but it is Eric, Pierre and even Giles who are the sorriest victims suffering both physical and psychological injury more than either of the women.

QUOTES:   I say it walked; but really it moved in some half-human, half-fiendish gait, slowly yet in springs. It was the shape of a tall woman. ...as this thing passed along the wall, its insubstantial head was turned to me, so that I was subjected to a lidless stare of incredibly sinister malice.

Books which teach etiquette of the drawing room had better put in a special clause to warn students against behaving before their hosts as if they were seeing the hideous family specter pass along the wall of the dwelling in which they are being entertained.

There's nothing like a familiar unpleasant job to keep the mind from brooding. 

Giles: "Dead men rise up never --read even your poets.  Ghosts breed in the living. That's where we'll catch them."

Truly I believe that the past was dead to [Eric]. By force of his will to live he had made it as if it had never been. He denied it to himself. And if he denied it to himself, it was no lie for him to deny it to others.

It doesn't do any good at all to say "Boo!" at the past if you're afraid of it.

THINGS I LEARNED:  Pierre talks about his intolerance for lack of modern utilities at the Grier house. He mentions one of his pet peeves is the presence of cannel coal in so many country homes and how he much prefers gaslight. Cannel coal, also called  candle coal and oil shale, was used in the 19th century for its bright and steady flame. Because it burned longer than wood it was a preferred choice for home fireplaces. Its compact dense structure also made it an easily carved material for sculpture, ornaments and jewelry.

Pierre comforts an injured Giles in the finale and describes himself as "kneeling like a Mussulman beside him in the gloom." He's not talking about an apple sauce brand or a misspelling of a he-man here. Mussulman is an archaic term for anyone of the Islam faith. We use the word Muslim now.

THE AUTHOR:  Leland Hall (1883-1957) was born and raised in Massachusetts. I was unable to locate a newspaper obituary online to share other biographical info. According to his gravestone shown in a photo at Find A Grave he was born in Malden and was laid to rest there alongside one of his relatives. Based on the dates this is most likely his father. Anyone with info on Hall is welcome to email more info or comment below. I can't even verify any other books he may have written. I'm curious about his work, if any more exists.

EASY TO FIND? Copies of the original edition are few and far between.  I found only two copies, priced rather steeply, of the US edition (Houghton & Mifflin, 1919) offered for sale online. It was first reprinted in hardcover in the 1970s by the private publisher Bookfinger in a limited edition of about 500 copies. Some if those turn up frequently for sale at affordable prices. Finally, there is a comparatively cheaper reprint in a paperback omnibus (Hippocampus Press, 2008) that is still out there in the used book market and available brand new from the publisher. In addition to Sinister House you get another classic haunted house novel in that two-fer reprint:  Cold Harbor by Francis Brett Young. 

The Bowstring Murders - Carr Dickson (John Dickson Carr)

I've had my copy of The Bowstring Murders (1933) for decades. Why have I never read it until a few days ago? Well, for one thing it's a treasure. I own the hardcover first edition with the silly attempt at creating a new pseudonym for John Dickson Carr. Instead of "Christopher Street", the name Carr wanted as his pseudonym, an executive at William Morrow slapped the utterly giveaway name of "Carr Dickson" on the book. Copies of the original hardcover with this pseudonym are extremely hard to find these days. It's the only book with that dumb pen name.

Maybe Carr's angry reaction to that decision of which he was not notified as Douglas Greene records in The Man Who Explained Miracles (1995) was the reason that this book is also the only one with John Gaunt, a detective consultant to Scotland Yard who shuns modern scientific advances. I was sorting through a box of vintage paperbacks and I found another copy of The Bowstring Murders, this one a 1970s era reprint from Belmont Books. I figured: Well, no time like the present. So I dashed off my long overdue read of this early John Dickson Carr book in a couple of days last week.  Interestingly, it seems more of a retread of both Carr's own books as well as the work of some of his influences.

The story takes place in a familiar Carr setting: the Gothic castle known as Bowstring, home of Henry Steyne, AKA Lord Rayle. Bowstring comes complete with a moat and a man made waterfall on the vast estate that feeds the water in the moat and keeps it flowing to avoid the stench and health hazards of stagnant water.  The reader is constantly reminded of the presence of the waterfall and its never-ending roar which prevents many of the characters from hearing certain crucial sounds related to the several murders that take place. Also notable is that the story takes place over only three days.

UK 1st edition. Used Carter Dickson as author.
Body is illustrated as face up unlike in the book.

Lord Rayle is an eccentric medievalist who prefers living in the past and lecturing anyone who will indulge him on his vast collection of medieval weaponry and suits of armor. The night before he is killed a pair of gauntlets go missing. Then Lord Rayle decides to nail shut a door hidden behind a tapestry in the armor room that leads to a secret alcove. It's almost a case of shutting barn door after the horse has fled.  Later, we learn that passageway was used a trysting spot for his daughter Patricia. She would use that hidden area to meet a handsome guest, Larry Kestevan, for midnight snogging sessions. As she is thwarted from meeting her lover Patricia eventually discovers her father's body, practically tripping over it in the candlelit armor room. Her father was apparently strangled by a bowstring and his body is crumpled in a strange position face down on the floor of the armor room.

Gaunt is called in to help Inspector Tape. Prior to the arrival of Gaunt the book is fairly colorless with lots of chit chat from Francis Steyne, son to Lord Rayle, and what amounts to a lot of malarkey about the collection of armor. For me, Gaunt was the only really interesting person in the entire cast.  Another in a long line of omniscient detectives with antisocial tendencies, a high opinion of himself, and critical opinions of everyone else, he's also a rampant alcoholic. Carr tries to hint at a tragedy in his past as a reason for his heavy drinking. (He caused the death of one of his partners, I think. I forgot to note it exactly.) Eventually he lost his job with the police due to his drinking, but still manages to be called in regularly to help with unusual crimes. And so we find him at Bowstring trying to make sense of not only the strangling death of Lord Rayle but also the strangling of the maid Doris, who claimed to have seen a suit of armor standing in a stairway a few nights prior to both violent murders. About midway through the book another character is killed. But this person is shot to death which immediately dismisses the idea of anything supernatural related to a ghostly figure in armor.

1973 Belmont paperback
This time the body is face down (sort of), but
his arms are wrong! They should be underneath.
And the clothes are all wrong, too.

The most impressive feature is not the bizarre murder method of strangling by gauntlets (already used by Carolyn Wells in 1931's Horror House) or the impossible circumstances surrounding the brutal murders. Instead what stands out as more ingenious is how Carr manages to take all the minute details -- details most readers will dismiss as ornament and filler -- and apply them to the overarching plot. Offhand comments and one particular insult, for example, all serve to support Gaunt's solution. All details reveal the strange weak character flaw of the murderer, a person with a lack of imagination whose lies are obvious. At least to Gaunt.

Lying and the art of lying seem to be central to the book.  Gaunt has a mini lecture on the dubious science behind the lie detector machine, a fairly new invention and used regularly in police investigations since the mid 1920s. He describes in detail the lack of understanding of psychology of liars' behavior and how that will almost certainly backfire the moment a lie detector machine is introduced.  He believes that the machine's recording of the body's reactions (pulse, heart rate and respiratory signals) are not the telltale signs of lying. In fact, the liar he believes will immediately be put on guard and the usual giveaway of a liar -- elaborate storytelling -- will be substituted for short colorless answers lacking in the details that will always reveal a liar.

Due to a rather small set of suspects the ultimate reveal of the killer is no real gasp-inducing surprise. It's clear that of the small pool of suspects -- Francis, Patricia, Larry, the footman Saunders, and Bruce Massey, Lord Rayle's secretary and financial advisor -- it can only be one of three people. Greene mentions in The Men Who Explained Miracles that the solution seems to very similar to another book Carr wrote prior to 1933 which featured Henri Bencolin.  He says that it may be one of Carr's many cases of self-plagiarism in his early career. Carr was known to recycle ideas form short stories and put them into his novels. This happened several times in the stories that appear in Department of Queer Complaints, for example. Ultimately, it was fun to see just how Gaunt caught the killer who he says acted mostly on impulse even though his crimes had been well thought out in advance. In one way this novel is more satisfying as a howdunit and whydunit than it is the old-fashioned whodunit.

Murder Up the Glen - Colin Campbell

THE STORY:  Lorin Weir is on a walking tour of the West Highlands. He is warned to stay away from his intended hiking paths because of the dangerous  poorly maintained trails that proved deadly to a couple of young men on recent unsuccessful climbs. But the terrain is not the only danger. Lorin learns of the legend of the Black Walker, ghost of a Spanish invader to Scotland, that appears in the area on Beltane (May 1) and Midsummer -- two nights favored by witches, warlocks and haunts.  Lorin dismisses the superstitious warning and camps in the forbidden area.  He witnesses a murder an d sees a black caped figure fleeing into the night.  Lorin also flees but in doing so he dsrops his monogrammed knife. Uh oh! Now he'll be implicated.

CHARACTERS:  Initially, Lorie Weir appears to t be the protagonist detective in Murder Up the Glen (1933), but the novel is structured in an unusual manner. In Part One Lorin and the villagers are featured as they all search for Duncan Grant, a gameskeeper who has gone missing then turns out to be the murder victim Lorin found in the highlands.  In Part Two a writer, Martin Loan, and his colleague Dr. Lawrence Neal, an Irish physician interested in crime and supernatural, take over as narrator and detective respectively.  As the story gets more complex and detailed Loan adds several letters and diary entries to his "manuscript" to offer up alternate points of view and provide eyewitness testimony that he was unable to provide himself.  Loan and Dr. Neal take an arduous journey to Fantassich Lodge where they set up temporary headquarters to help the Neil family (distant cousins of the physician) make sense of the murder and  clear up whether the ghost might be involved or not. 

The Neil family is headed up by Colonel Evan Neil. The others -- Cynthia, a 17 year old preparing for university, and John 14 years-old -- are joined by Neil's two stepchildren Alan and Mary, both under 10 years old. All these supporting characters have their own special scenes with Cynthia eventually taking on a major role as she becomes more and more attracted to Lorin Weir and determined to clear his name. In fact, the youngest boy Alan serves to be crucial to the investigation when he stumbles on the incriminating knife with Lorin's initials in a burn (a large stream) while fishing.

The austere and grim setting with its foreboding landscape dominates the first half of the book. Descriptions of the craggy land, mountains and glens, burns and rivers provide substantial creepy atmosphere. The landscape and geography become like a character unto itself.  The inclusion of a gorgeously rendered map (see below & click to enlarge) that serves as the front endpapers in the first edition allows the reader to realize more fully the all-important landscape.

The Neil's maid Mairag and Dugald Cameron, her boyfriend of sorts, will also emerge from the background and take up a majority of the story when Lorin focuses his efforts on proving that Dugald killed Duncan Grant. The comely Mairag was the object of many of the local men's attentions including Grant, the murder victim. Lorin is sure jealousy is the motive. Mairag, of course, denies Duglad had anything to do with the crime pointing out his relatively good nature, despite his temper, he would never kill anyone. However, Dugald becomes surly and often violent in his own denials. The two seem to be protecting each other.  Or are their actually protecting someone entirely different?  Cynthia is puzzling out all the seeming jealousies and cover-ups and tries to help Lorin see the truth.

Meanwhile, Dr. Neil is out to prove that the ghost is real and that the legends and stories surrounding  The Black Walker have some legitimacy.  Is it possible that this caped figure is an actual ghost? And what of Daft Jimmy who has been seen wandering the mountainous terrain in his own black cape? This local "half-wit" who spends much of his time herding sheep seems to be part of a crime. Lorin suggests that Daft Jimmy is being exploited and manipulated by an angry, more intelligent man in order to carry out violence and is doing so in a Black Walker get-up.

INNOVATIONS:  What makes Murder up the Glen a bit remarkable is the manner in which Campbell manages to blend the real with the legendary.  The shifting between suspects is also well done. By the final third of the novel the plot becomes similar to a Christianna Brand detective novel with quickly shifting accusations arising and almost as quickly demolished as new facts come to light. Ultimately, Dr. Neal uncovers a Gothic surprise of sorts and disproves what seems to be the ultimate accusation. Neal offers up his own ideas which incorporate a hint at supernatural activity while others dismiss his claims and point the finger at the only mortal suspect left to have been accused. While the book is not actually open-ended in the finale, there is a oddly ephemeral suggestion that is left up to the reader to either believe or dismiss. This book is unique among detective novels in this regard.  I thought of The Burning Court (1937) and wondered if perhaps John Dickson Carr had read this book and tried his hand at a similar introduction of genuine supernatural content revealed in the novel's conclusion.

THE AUTHOR:  Colin Campbell was the pseudonym of Douglas Christie (1894-1935) who wrote novels under his own name, his Campbell alter ego and a second pen name, Lynn Durie. According to Hubin's Bibliography of Crime Fiction Dr. Larry Neal, is a series detective and appears in two other mystery novels. The first novel, a frustratingly rare book I am still in search of for over 20 years (!), Out of the Wild Hills (1932) is a mystery with genuine supernatural content.  The third and last of the Neal mysteries, Murder on the Moors (1934),  I managed to find in a scarce POD reprint edition and will review that one in March.

EASY TO FIND?  If you want a hardcover edition -- well, good luck.  I found a battered copy a few years ago but recently sold that in my online listings. However, if you don't mind eBooks or digital texts, then you are indeed in luck!  I suggest you click here and you will find three different digital versions of Murder Up the Glen, one for Kindle, one in Epub, and one full length PDF.  Happy reading!

NEGLECTED DETECTIVES: Rosalie LeGrange, medium turned sleuth for hire

THE STORY:  Dr. Walter Blake meets Annette Markham on a train and falls in love with her.  She tells him she is not meant for men according to her aunt and guardian, Paula Markham, a student of Eastern occult religions. Annette says her Aunt Paula told her she has "the Light" and is meant for higher things. Dr. Blake soon meets Paula and is suspicious of an ulterior motive, possibly fraud,  in tutoring her niece. The physician seeks out Rosalie LeGrange, a medium, to help him expose Paula Markham. But Rosalie cautions Dr. Blake that Mrs. Markham is not a fraud at all, but the real thing. Exposing such a powerful woman (if she is faking it) will be difficult to impossible. Dr. Blake's real concern is the possible exploitation of Annette and he admits to his love for her.  Immediately Rosalie gives in for she has soft spot for young love. Turns out Mrs. Markham is in need of a new housekeeper and through clever manipulation Rosalie gains the job. The investigation begins! Stock manipulation and con artistry abound as Rosalie and Dr. Blake make their through The House of Mystery (1910).

THE CHARACTERS:  Rosalie lets Blake know that most medium fakery grows out of the genuine thing. She should know because she is a real medium herself having from her teen years had visions and heard voices telling her things that later prove true. In charging money for consultations she confesses that it is easy to give in to fake stories when the client is eager to hear anything positive. This, she says, is the crux of the fortune telling racket no matter how it shows up - crystal balls, tarot cards or seances. It's the showmanship that is so tempting and the resulting ease of foretelling good news rather than doling out the awful news that more often make up the real truth. She likes a challenge, though, and facing off with Paula Markham will test her like no other job she's taken on.

Rosalie is sharp witted, highly observant, sometimes wise, but hardly an intellectual. All of her dialogue is rendered in a working class style peppered with period slang and folksy idioms. She makes for a refreshing detective fiction protagonist as most of these characters from the late 19th century and early 20th century are all cut from the same cloth: aloof, dispassionate, so logical as to appear ruthless and cruel. Rosalie bears little resemblance to those super sleuths. No surprise that such a likeable, warm-hearted, amateur detective proved to be popular with readers for she returned in a sequel, The Red Button (1912), this time trying her hand at solving a murder.

In Paula Markham we actually see a personality that would make the perfect fictional detective of this time. Paula's personality is the coolly aloof sophisticate and she proves adept at subterfuge and deceit.  Rosalie has met her match just as she feared. Paula Markham seems inspired by the master criminals that were so popular in serial fiction and magazine short stories in the pre-WW1 era. She meets up with Arthur Bulgar, a corrupt mining company executive fearful that his company is about to fail, who in turn seeks out Robert Norcross, Wall Street financier, haunted by the death of his lost love. Bulgar and Markham use this knowledge to cajole Norcross into helping bail out the mining company. Annette will play a part in the scheme acting as the voice -- and sometimes "body" -- of Norcross' dead lover.

THE AUTHOR:  Will Irwin (1873-1948) was a journalist and novelist. He covered the 1906 San Francisco earthquake for The New York Sun, wrote about Japanese racism in California, and had a series of newspaper articles appear in Colliers Weekly exposing fraudulent mediums and the "spirit racket".  No doubt that series led him to write The House of Mystery.  In addition to his two detective novels, Irwin was the author of numerous nonfiction books ranging from a history of San Francisco to a biography on Herbert Hoover for whom he worked from 1914-1915. Irwin was married to the writer Inez Haynes Irwin, noted feminist, novelist, and also a dabbler in detective fiction.  See my review of The Women Swore Revenge for a look at his wife's style of mystery novel

THINGS I LEARNED:   On p. 141 Rosalie says: "It all come from Mrs. Markham. It was like a sweet smell radiatin' from that room, and just makin' me drunk. It was like--maybe you've heard John B. Gough speak. Remember how he had you while you listened?"  Gough was a Temperance orator and revivalist, apparently known for his smooth and persuasive voice.  The internet is teeming with info on him.  Google away if you want to know more.

Two other personalities -- Marsh and Miss Debar -- are mentioned in passing as topical references which led me to look them up.  Marsh is Luther Marsh, a lawyer who was swindled by Ann O'Delia Diss Debar (at left), one of America's notorious crooked spiritualists. Houdini called her "one of the most extraordinary fake mediums and mystery swindlers the world has ever known."  In 1888 she was finally undone when her extravagant greed led her to tricking Marsh into signing over the deed to his townhouse on Madison Avenue in Manhattan. The police caught up with her leading to a sensational trial. She was convicted and went to prison... for a mere six months! There's a wealth of info online about Debar. She makes for fascinating reading. Look her up!

Walter hears a piano playing a tune on p. 202.  Some lyrics pop into his head "Wild roamed an Indian maid..."  Turns out these are lyrics from the first American "popular hit" written by a woman. The song  is "The Blue Juniata" by Marion Dix Sullivan with lyrics by her husband J. W. Sullivan.  In the novel the song is used as a hypnotic cue to induce Annette to play her part in the spirit fakery.  For an upbeat 1956 arrangement of the folk tune click here.  It's a pleasant recording with a quick tempo featuring the male singing group The Plainsmen.

AVAILABILITY:  Lucky you! (a rare cry around here)  The House of Mystery has been uploaded to Project Gutenberg.  You can read it for free there, may be even download it.  As a bonus you get all eight original illustrations from the first US edition which I freely used to decorate this post. My edition has only four illustrations and the plates are tinted a faint yellow which I don't like. The artwork most likely appeared in a magazine when the story was first serialized. Illustrations are by noted American artist Frederick C. Yohn.

Let the Man Die - S. H. Courtier

Supt. Ambrose Mahon comes to Corelia Bush Nursing Hospital to prevent a murder.  An anonymous note implies someone will die on night of May 11-12, the anniversary of a hatchet murder that took place 22 years ago.  Let the Man Die (1961) also features a ghost legend and weird activities that add a tinge of supernatural to the story. Red roses are mysteriously left beneath the portrait of a man who was accused of the murder and who later committed suicide in prison.  Along with the rose is a note: "No one sent roses the day I died." Whenever the ghost appears witness say it smells of the hospital -- an odd antiseptic or oil-like aroma lingers in the air after it vanishes. Suspects include a variety of oddball residents of the nursing home each suffering form a different ailment, the doctor in charge, and two nurses on staff.

With all the ghost business I can't help but think that this is Courtier's homage to Carr.  But also it must be a homage to Clayton Rawson.  Two of the  characters turn out to be magicians. A young woman named Estelle figures out how a card trick is done and Courtier goes to great lengths to describe how it works.  Another character is good at quick changes into street clothes. It is clear that illusion and trickery will figure in the plot and the reader should be on his toes the moment that magic appears. I know I was paying too close attention. And yet in the end I was thoroughly surprised in the the eyebrow raising final pages. It was bloody brilliant! Talk about misdirection. He nearly matched the master John Dickson Carr himself with a genius surprise.

And the ultimate retro touch:
a plan of the Nursing Home!

I don't want to discuss the plot of this very involved and multi-layered story with all the mysteries being traced back into the past. The story truly must be experienced with as little as known as possible. The unraveling and the slow reveals keep piling up on one another but the plot tricks never seem messy or convoluted.  Not only is there the murder and suicide of 22 years ago, there is another mysterious death uncovered, a possible suicide and loads of masquerade and illusions. For a book published in 1961 its remarkably retro. The book is teeming with Golden Age conventions and truly feels like a love letter to the plot heavy books of the 1930s and 1940s.

Hands down I think this is Courtier's masterpiece. Always a innovator when it comes to finding new ways to commit murders or set crimes in unique Australian settings, Courtier almost always remains very contemporary in motives and characterizations. Let the Man Die is very different. It is perhaps the closest Courtier came to replicating an old-fashioned traditional detective novel.

Unfortunately, it's very scarce and only one copy is available for sale online. However, I will be selling my shortly! I'll put it up as an auction because I know there will be lots of interest. Oh! Mine has the equally scarce DJ (seen above), unlike the other copy for sale.

The Ghost of Thomas Penry – Kenneth O’Hara

Howard Stavey is tasked with creating a treatment for a TV program the subject of which will be Thomas Penry, a Welsh man known for his research into the occult and psychic phenomenon. If it meets with director and production team approval he may be allowed to write the script.

After meeting with one of the Penry’s sole living acquaintances Howard uncovers some intriguing info on Penry’s wife Madeleine who froze to death with her child one winter decades ago. Her death was always thought to be a tragic accident, but Howard’s research reveals she may have been killed and that the child may not have been Penry’s. Madeleine claimed to have psychic abilities her husband was envious of coupled with the fact that letters reveals she most likely was apparently in love with another man who could be the child’s father. Prime motive that signals Penry killed his wife. This murder mystery angle decides the director that the story is worth filming and he orders the script be written and he starts to gather up a production team.

O'Hara does an excellent job in displaying the conflict between writers, actors, director and crew members. We also get unusual insight into dealing with actor’s egos, especially since they are planning to portray real people. Initially reluctant to do a movie about a man who played with spooks Tom, one of the actors, changes his mind when he starts to believe he has psychic ability. He begins to not only believe in The Ghost of Thomas Penry (1977) but that he is the reincarnation of the man he has been hired to play on film.

Gwenillen, owner of the house and distant relative to Penry, after much dilly dallying finally takes the production crew and actors into the basement and reveals the chapel. It’s vast and apparently untouched since the scandalous ritual that ended with the death of Ruthven Douglas back in the WWI era. Chests contain silver, medieval tapestries and ritual wardrobe. Ros who has an eye for lavish clothing is drawn to the purple and gold cloak. Natalya, the production designer, has a fit. “Don’t touch it!” The fabric is of course fragile and it may fall apart in the hands of the careless actress. Tom & Ros go up to a balcony and fight. An enormous vase comes crashing down barely missing Adrian the director. Is it an accident? Or an angry ghost?

Eliphas, a former professional magician, is the production’s magic and occult consultant. He finally speaks on p. 104 with a lengthy discussion of the house, Penry and the group of amateur psychics who gathered in the underground chapel. Howard replies, “I’d like to believe” in a long monologue. Eliphas laughs then offers his opinion of Penry and the chapel. A disagreement of ceremonial magic follows. Howard says there is no proof. Eliphas points out the care given to the chapel and its contents proves otherwise. Harriet (researcher and co-writer) prefers to come straight to the point. “He tried to summon demons.” But Eliphas says there is no proof of any of that. Penry was too evasive in his diaries and notebooks. He thinks Penry had psychic power and was ashamed of it.

Eliphas tells Howard that Tom had a vision of what the interior of the house looks like just before he entered the building. Tom described to Eliphas in great detail the furniture, the architecture, the layout, and when he enters it is almost exactly what he uttered. Does he have genuine psychic ability? A vase levitates when he mutters some mumbo jumbo near the art object and he is convinced that he has “the gift.”

During a second visit to the chapel another vase falls – or is shoved – and someone is killed. Everyone thinks it’s Ros because the corpse is wearing the purple and gold cloak. But when the body is turned over they discover it is someone else.

Joe, the crew's cameraman and electrician, Howard and Harriet piece together all the accidents and chicanery. The trio turn sleuths to find out who among them is a murderer and why. A major clue in the victim's wallet leads Harriet to uncovering the dead person’s true identity and why he got himself hired onto the crew. The ultimate reveal is a gobsmacking surprise and explains all of the serious psychic moments and mysterious phenomenon in the supposedly haunted chapel.

 This is a highly recommended read for those like me who can't get enough of detective novels that feature supernatural phenomenon -- be it genuine or faked.  There is plenty to admire here, especially the completely unexpected manner in which all events unfold, the identity of the victims, and the unmasking of a devious killer. The background of a TV film crew is 100% authentic, too.  Read on to learn of the author's real name and various professions.

THE AUTHOR: Margaret Jean Morris (1924 - 1996) began her writing career with the mainstream novel Man and Two Gods (1953).  She also penned a handful of plays and several detective and crime novels using the pseudonym Kenneth O'Hara.  Her first mystery novel, A View to a Death (1958), features Dr. Alun Barry, a director of research at an engineering firm, who accidentally becomes a detective while on a vacation.  She is probably best known under her other pen name, "Jean Morris",  as the author of several juvenile fantasy novels starting with A Path of Dragons (1980).   Her young adult books have been compared favorably to Ursula Le Guin's.  Morris also spent much of her life as a TV scriptwriter and notably wrote episode four ("Anne of Cleves") for the BAFTA and Emmy award-winning series The Six Wives of Henry VIII  shown on both BBC and American TV on PBS in the early 1970s.

The Lake of the Dead - André Bjerke (and another giveaway)

"Let's summarize:  A lake that sucks people into it, an invisible phantom that screams and leaves footprints, a crazed double murderer on the loose, wandering around desperately in the dark of night. You might indeed say this is a fitting atmosphere for a psychoanalyst."

-- Gabriel Mørk in The Lake of the Dead (1942)

Is there anyone out there who knows of the existence of Bernhard Borge, the Norwegian author of four eerie detective novels tinged with horror and supernatural elements?  Unless you grew up and read Norwegian popular fiction I doubt it.  Borge is the pseudonym of André Bjerke, a well regarded poet who dabbled in crime and detective fiction during the 1940s. According to James Jenkins' extremely informative intro in this new English edition of the second Borge mystery novel I learned that it was Bjerke who is behind the Borge alter ego.  Jenkins, publisher and founder of the excellent small press Valancourt Books, also serves as translator for the first English edition of what has been deemed a classic in horror and crime fiction by Norwegain readers.  The Lake of the Dead (1942), or De dødes tjern as Norwegians know it, consistently appears on "Best of..." lists as the best remembered classic Norwegian mystery novel. Astonishingly, at one time it outranked even the work of modern Norwegian bestselling crime writer Jo Nesbó.

Let me add a clarifying bit to that statement about Norwegian readers only knowing about The Lake of the Dead.  The book was so popular that it has been filmed twice. It's first cinematic adaptation in 1958 with a screenplay by Bjerke (and featuring the writer in the role of Gabriel Mørk) is still available online from Sinister Cinema in a DVD with English subtitles. If any English speaker does know about the story it is probably because they have seen the movie rather actually reading the original book.

But to the book itself!

Anyone who craves the kind of detective novel that incorporates impossibility and apparently supernatural aspects will get more than they ever bargained for in The Lake of the Dead.  It easily stands beside the mystery novels of John Dickson Carr, Hake Talbot and Eric Harding's Pray for the Dawn for its eerie atmosphere and use of grisly legends. Each time Bjerke describes the lake and its surrounding forest the book amps up the horror and the macabre. All senses are employed as the reader is transported to the Norwegian haunted lake with the stench of rotting marshes, the croaking of frogs "as if calling from the abyss" and the miasma of fog that seems interminably wrapped around the perimeter of its waters.  Paranoia and terror infect the inhabitants of the cabin by the lake recalling the fear of the guests of U. N. Owen in And Then There Were None as they try to prevent more of their number becoming victims of the ghost that lures people to their doom in the lake's haunted waters.

And there's more to draw in fans of Golden Age detective novels here. Like the Philo Vance series Bjerke creates a narrator character along the lines of S. S. Van Dine. Bernard Borge is not only the author of his detective novels he is the narrator.  Borge is paired up with psychoanalyst Kai Bugge who serves as the real detective of the books in which he appears.  According to Jenkins' intro Bugge serves as detective in three of the four Bernhard Borge mystery novels.

Borge opens The Lake of the Dead with a bemoaning monologue in which he tells a group of friends that he is suffering from writer's block and is about to give up on writing altogether. We learn that Borge is a mystery novelist and his friends dare him to tackle a real mystery and challenge his failing imagination. His lawyer pal tells a story about a haunted lake where ages ago a crazed man grabbed an ax and chopped up his cheating wife and her handsome male lover, dumped their bodies in the water, then committed suicide by drowning himself. One of the friends, Bjørn Werner, has recently rented the shunned cabin by the shores of that very lake. The friends decide to visit for a weekend and hope that Borge will be inspired by the haunted locale to write his next mystery novel. When they arrive Bjørn is nowhere to be found, nor is his pet dog he took with him. They discover footprints leading  to the water but none that return to the cabin. It appears he was lured to the lake and disappeared. Or did the ghost of that mad murderer drag Bjørn down into the lake’s rumored bottomless depths?

3rd Borge novel, English title:
Dead Men Come Ashore (1947)

The novel features all sorts of intriguing horror set pieces including a sleepwalking damsel in distress, one attempt on another person's life, a near impossible break-in at the cabin, and --of course-- one genuine murder. Borge and Bugge are like GAD versions of Mulder and Scully, with Borge slowly but surely taken in by the occult lectures he hears from Gabriel Mørk while Bugge is the resident skeptic examining each supposedly ghostly manifestation and other-worldly event with the eyes of a rational scientist. But he's also a psychoanalyst and an avowed Freudian. He's not going to completely abandon his training and career mindset. Part of the most crucial evidence is found in handwritten notes Borge finds detailing one of Bugge's client's dreams. Together they also find Bjørn Werner's diary, the work of what appears to be a raving madman which also includes some bizarre dreams written down. Kai Bugge reminds Bernhard Borge that one of the greatest tools of any psychoanalyst is dream interpretation and he will use his Freudian training to glean from these dreams a more thorough understanding of Werner's troubled soul. Dream interpretation becomes key to helping solve the mysteries, not as bizarrely as Moris Klaw does in Sax Rohmer's Dream Detective mystery stories, but rather as a psychoanalyst approaches his work with patients. 

There are other ingeniously planted clues, much of it related to psychology and psychoanalytic observations. In this regard The Lake of the Dead is reminiscent of the mystery novels of Helen McCloy whose psychologist detective Basil Willing also acted as a police consultant by using his career training to help him understand the psyches of the suspects and the victim. Similarly, readers might recall the Freudian ramblings of Mrs. Bradley in the mystery novels of Gladys Mitchell.  I get a sense from Kai Bugge's character and his intense theorizing that Bjerke understood psychoanalytic methods much more in depth than Mitchell's often specious psychology when it cropped up in the Mrs. Bradley books.

Borge's 4th & final novel
English title: Hidden Pattern (1950)

This excellent mystery novel packs a wallop in the final pages. I want to bring up one final analogy but will have to be circumspect in doing so. Those who come away either gasping in awe or at least raising their eyebrows when reading the penultimate revelatory chapter ought to know that while it may appear to be unique and brand new it is not wholly original on Bjerke's part. The bizarre murder method and motive were both first introduced in a minor classic of English language detective fiction back in the Victorian era.

Whether you are keen on Carr-like supernatural elements, the battle between the true believer in other-worldly events and the rational scientist, or enjoy a detective novel that plumbs the depths of psychological mysteries that lead to crime The Lake of the Dead has a lot to offer. Jenkins is to be commended on his discovery and for making at least this one Borge mystery available to English language readers.  I certainly hope we have not seen the last of Bernhard Borge and the fascinating psychological detective Kai Bugge.

The web page for Valancourt Books edition of The Lake of the Dead will lead you to various other web pages where can purchase a copy.  Or you can enter my giveaway by leaving comment below. That's right I'm giving away two copies of this new edition!  Just tell me anything about a forgotten foreign language mystery or horror novel that you think we all ought to know about - translated into English or not. No geographic restrictions this time because I'm having Amazon ship the book to you!  [Why didn't I think of that before?]  So enter away and leave me loads of comments every one of you out there.  This new edition is really is a cause for celebration.

HALLOWEEN SPECIAL 1: The Women Swore Revenge - Inez Haynes Irwin

THE STORY:  Four women make a pact to bring to justice the murderer of their dear friend Lizbeth More who was stabbed on Halloween after a terrifying poltergeist encounter and a visit by a bizarrely masked individual peering in through the windows of More's home.  Years before, Lizbeth's fiance Arthur was also stabbed to death, on the night before they were to be married. As there was little evidence Arthur's murder was never solved and his killer is is still at large. Are the two deaths related and were they committed by the same person?  Chief of Police Patrick O'Brien investigates and receives more than ample help from a trio of amateur sleuths.

THE CHARACTERS:  The Women Swore Revenge (1946) is divided into multiple sections told from one character's view point, either in first person (Mary and her policeman husband) or third person (amateur sleuths Malo Wrenshurst and Patience Wilbor).  Although the title and blurb on the US edition's dustjacket imply that the four women who make their pact will turn sleuth it really is only two of them who become amateur detectives even going to extremes by assuming alternate identities. Mrs. Wrenshurst, a community theater actress, goes so far as donning a wholly unnecessary disguise complete with dowdy wardrobe, turban and wig. They have, as Wilkie Collins coined in The Moonstone caught a "severe case of detective fever." And they do remarkably well in their roles. A third sleuth is Michael Penchard, Lizbeth's gardener, whose flight from town triggers a police search and fuels gossip that he is the killer. Actually Penchard has left town to follow someone he believes is the true murderer. By sheer chance he and Malo Wrenshurst will meet up in a seedy hotel in Boston where the two will trade stories and share evidence they have collected.

The amateur detective scenes are rich with detail. In fact the entire book is overflowing with lush details on how homes are furnished, what the gardens and grounds of those homes look like, lists of the flowers and trees that seem like catalogs, and painstakingly described layouts of how rooms in the houses are arranged. So it's no surprise when Irwin turns her pen to action sequences that they too are elaborately described. Her writing is as exact and focussed as a cinematographer's camera. Malo's keen eye finds a locket embedded in the vines that have covered the doorway to an abandoned icehouse. Mike's eyewitness account tells of a strange "flying creature" swinging from branches in More woods like some kind of Tarzan wannabe. Patience travels to upstate New York and does a thorough search for the true identity of Whiting Vane, a polio crippled antique collector and mystery man who lives near the Mores. All these and more are highlights in this engrossing detective novel.

ATMOSPHERE: The More house has a history of being haunted dating back to the late nineteenth century.  Legendary and written accounts tell of poltergeist activity with dishes and glasses being smashed, paintings falling from walls and furniture being overturned with no person anywhere in sight. Lately the poltergeist has started up its mischievous destruction again mystifying Lizbeth and frightening her two female servants. The oddest part of this haunting is the appearance of figures dressed in old clothing. They take the shape of four old women on their knees praying. On two separate occasions these figures turn up mysteriously in rooms previously unoccupied. Irwin handles these scenes with a deft hand and manages to pull off a genuinely creepy atmosphere. Most of her misdirection works, but some more astute readers may see through Irwin's deceit.  Still, she succeeds in making it seem as if some supernatural force is at work. The descriptions of the grotesque face at the window turn truly horrific when it is discovered what exactly that mask at the window really was.

As the various detectives delve into the past we learn that some characters have carnival and circus work in their past. Gossip turns to the possibility of a circus performer being the murderer. And the fact that all the victims in the book are stabbed in the back had me immediately thinking of my favorite Golden Age motif - knife throwing.  This coupled with the presence of a crippled character had me spinning an elaborate scheme of how the murders were accomplished and who the killer was. I was close, but there was no way I was going to come up with the truth because I fell for some of Irwin's misdirection that even a novice reader of detective novels might have discounted. Irwin pulls off a genuinely surprising resolution that borrows from the insane ideas of Harry Stephen Keeler coupled with nightmarish plot twists reminiscent of horror writers of the pulp magazines. She won major points with me for her grotesque touches.

If there is anything to fault this highly imaginative, spooky and macabre Halloween mystery it is the unnecessarily lengthy wrapping up of the various mysteries.  For reasons known only to Irwin she has O'Brien gather the survivors and the innocent characters to deliver a typical Golden Age detective novel lecture that explains everything. But over 75% of the lecture has already been told to us by other characters earlier in the story. And those present know everything that O'Brien is telling them!  All that O'Brien needs to tell these characters (and the reader, of course) is the motive for the murders and the explanation of the poltergeist and the thing at the window.  I confess that I skipped over many paragraphs in this irksomely rambling penultimate chapter.  Also the last section is improperly named for one character when it should be named for Patrick because his is the primary point of view not the person for who Part 9 is named. Ah well. Despite these quibbles the book still has a corker of a mystery plot.

THE AUTHOR:  Inez Haynes (1873-1970) was an active member of the women's suffragette movement and an avowed feminist her whole life.  She is best known for her early 20th century non-fiction writing on women's rights, women's biography as well as some feminist novels notably Gertrude Haviland's Divorce (1925). Her first works were published under Inez Haynes Gillmore her name when she was married to Rufus Gillmore, journalist and mystery writer who diehard fans may know for his Van Dine pastiche The Ebony Bed Murders (1932).

Haynes divorced Gillmore shortly before the onset of World War 1 but continued to write under her married name.  In 1916 she married Will Irwin, another journalist and sometime novelist, who astonishingly also wrote murder mysteries. His two detective novels star Rosalie La Grange, a medium/con artist turned sleuth. Irwin used these novels as a vehicle to voice his distrust and skepticism of the spiritualist movement. The Irwins lived in Europe during WW1 and both were war correspondents for English language newspapers.

In addition to her feminist works Haynes wrote Angel Island (1908), an allegorical feminist fantasy (some call it science fiction but there's little science to it); a series of children's books about Little Maida, a girl who is raised by her wealthy father after her mother dies; and the five detective novels featuring Chief of Police Patrick O'Brien. Interestingly, her detective novels are set in the fictional town of Satuit, based on her life in Scituate, Massachusetts where she and Irwin spent most of their summers and where Haynes settled after her husband died in 1948.

THE SERIES:  The Women Swore Revenge (1946) is the fifth and final detective novel Irwin wrote featuring Patrick O' Brien and his wife Mary. Once again, I chose to read the author's last book first at some cost.  Two previous cases are mentioned in passing, one was getting so detailed a I skipped over the entire section for fear that Irwin would reveal too much. I'm discovering more and more that some writers never thought over this particularity bad habit of possibly spoiling previous books as they continued to add to their characters' adventures.  So a warning that anyone interested in tracking down Irwin's mystery novels that it would be a good idea to read the others first before you get to this final book. However, be warned:  Murder Masquerade (1935), the first in the series, is a very young and naive book completely different from The Women Swore Revenge which in comparison is highly sophisticated. The difference in tone and writing is remarkable. I can only surmise that Bennett Cerf who was editor at Random House shaped up Irwin as a writer when she was under contract to his publishing house. But more on Irwin's early mystery novels and her books as a children's author which seem to have influenced Murder Masquerade when I review that book next month.

Patrick O'Brien Detective Novels
by Inez Haynes Irwin
Murder Masquerade (1935)
   published in the UK as Murder in Fancy Dress (1935)

The Poison Cross Mystery (1936)

A Body Rolled Downstairs (1938)

Many Murders (1941)

The Women Swore Revenge (1946)