Bodies in a Bookshop

Bodies in a Bookshop - R. T. Campbell
ISBN 0486247201

This narrator of the 1949 mystery gets into a reader’s good graces by observing, “The trouble with bookshops is that they are as bad as pubs. You start with one and then you drift to another, and before you know where you are you are on a gigantic book-binge.”

But in a "curious little shop in a side-street off the Tottenham Court Road," botanist Max Boyle finds not only recondite tomes but also two bodies in a back office filled with gas fumes. He also notices that their heads have been bashed in and that the room is bolted from the outside. Not for the first time, internal evidence says, Boyle calls the long-suffering Yard Chief Inspector Reginald F. Bishop a.k.a. The Bishop. However, Boyle’s flat mate and research mentor Professor John Stubbs horns into the investigation, which reveals a dismal world of blackmail, pornography, and theft of rare books. The suspects are sharply differentiated, the plot speeds up, and in a change of tone and pace, the reveal is outstanding.

The Bishop is skeptical of Stubbs’ use of the scientific method. He claims that forming and testing hypotheses, finding them implausible, and starting the process over and over again until the solution that fits the facts is found simply amounts to guessing and throwing explanations out until time, more evidence, and the law of averages ensure that one explanation is probably the right one. Stubbs, a loud beer-quaffing Scot, takes exception to this wording of the scientific method. But in traditional academic style, truth is found through different approaches and more or less good-natured bickering.

Author R. T. Campbell (real name Ruthven Todd) was a Scottish-born literary man who wrote a handful of mysteries. His witty writing style makes up for his jocose repetitions when describing the foibles of Stubbs and The Bishop. Also enjoyable are the superbly drawn characters and vigorous dialogue. Every setting is appropriately claustrophobic.

Mount TBR #57

Happy Veteran’s Day

I read this book for the Mount TBR Reading Challenge hosted over at My Reader’s Block from January 1 – December 31, 2016. The challenge is to read books that you already own.

A Volunteer's Adventures: A Union Captain's Record of the Civil War - John William De Forest

John William De Forest earned fame as a novelist after the civil war and nowadays he is considered the first American realist. I have not read his most famous work Miss Ravenel's Conversion, but may because this memoir of his war experience was quite interesting and smoothly written. It consists of letters to his wife and magazine articles that we wrote both during and after the war.

Clearly De Forest was a highly educated man. He even knew French so he was able to communicate with Cajuns while he was posted to dangerous campaigning and tedious garrison duty in Louisiana. The siege of Port Hudson, for instance, is narrated very clearly.

After that, he fought under Sheridan in the valleys of Virginia and all his experience was grist to his literary mill. Some of the chapters are letters, some magazine pieces, and others recasts of official corps history that he was ordered to write as is federal plundering for food. I was surprised that between paychecks, union officers often nearly starved on meagre rations.

The editor provided instructive introductions to the chapters. I would recommend this account to serious students of the civil war.

W.C. Fields: His Follies and Fortunes

W.C. Fields: His Follies and Fortunes - Robert Lewis Taylor

ISBN 0312034504 

This 1949 biography of great comedian remains a wonderful and informative read. Taylor takes Whitey Dukinfield from an abused runaway to national fame as W.C. Fields, showman of the stage, screen, and radio. Fields’ early adversity made him into a wary, suspicious skinflint as if being a comic genius isn’t trial enough to any human being (see Bert Lahr, Lenny Bruce, John Belushi, Jackie Gleason, etc.). This was written before the “tell all” biographies of the 1970s but Taylor does not flinch from stories that make his subject look disagreeable. Any reader who is interested in comedy, vaudeville, and classic Hollywood should do herself a favor and read this very funny -- and sad – book.

Happy Halloween!

In 1957, American popular music was still different and eclectic in that recording artists drew on multiple influences to make their own unique blends of blues, country, bluegrass, rhythm and blues, ragtime, barbershop, rockabilly and rock and roll. The influences came not only from not only other musicians and trends, but from tall tales and folktales and the oral traditions of the South.

These lyrics are to Little Demon by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, who is nowadays primarily known for the still odd I Put a Spell on You. Note the rural setting, supernatural characters, exaggerated details, lively fun, and colloquial language that we expect in folktales.

Rather obscure is the line “He had death on his mind 'cause my demon let him go” but the demon and spirit world is not on our earthly plane so its supernatural agenda is bound to be inscrutable to us human beings. Think of the haunted hotel in The Shining; who can say what those wraiths were up to, with bloody elevators and I don’t know what all?

Just like the repeated <>, human language struggles to understand non-human vocalizations. Says something for the control Hawkins had over his voice that he could say <>  in the same way every time. Try saying a string of nonsense syllables the same way multiple times – it’s not easy.

The line “He gonna run through the world 'til we understand his pain” connects with the demon’s amazing tinkering with time itself. The demon is hurting and he is going to hassle the mundane world till all mortals know it. And till somebody steps forward to relieve his uncanny hurt

Little Demon
Down in the valley on a foggy hill rock
Stood a pretty little demon blowing his top
Fire in his eyes and smoke from his head
You gotta be real cool to hear the words he said

He said <>
That cat was mad!

He had steam in his soul for the one he loved so
He had death on his mind 'cause my demon let him go
He gonna run through the world 'til we understand his pain
Somebody help him get this demon home again

He said <>
That cat- that cat was mad!

He made the sky turn green, he made the grass turn red,
He even put pretty hair on Grandma's bald head
He made the moon back up, he even pushed back time
>He took the frutti out of tutti, he had the devil drinkin' wine

He said <>
That cat was mad!

This demon felt good cuz he finally got across,
To the crazy little demon that a woman’s still the boss
Down in the valley on the foggy hill rock
You can still hear the demon blowing his top

He said <>
That cat- that cat was mad!

He pushed back, brought in afternoon,
He even made Leap Year jump over the moon,
He took the Fourth of July and put it in May
He took this morning for a drive yesterday

He said <>
That cat- that cat was mad!

Mount TBR #56

I read this book for the Mount TBR Reading Challenge hosted over at My Reader’s Block from January 1 – December 31, 2016. The challenge is to read books that you already own.

The Longer the Thread – Emma Lathen

The 13th mystery starring series hero John Putnam Thatcher was published in 1971 by two business women who wrote under a pen name. Thatcher, a middle-aged financier on Wall Street, must visit his bank’s Puerto Rico branch, which is concerned about problems at an investment, a large garment maker. The backdrop of Puerto Rico provides social and political conflict between those who want Puerto Rico to be independent versus those who want the special status with the US to continue as usual.

The garment maker’s factory has seen sabotage of finished goods and machines. A foreman – an obnoxious bad actor who was enjoying the trouble (we all know such people at work) – is shot to death. The main suspects are the gringo managers of the plant, which sparks talks of strikes. The factory owner calls in a union organizer, a tough woman negotiator, a character for which the book is worth reading for the authoresses’ early feminist views (that anybody can make success from clear thinking and having a clear-cut goals). Thatcher investigates the murder and sabotage, but arrives at the conclusion mainly by thinking. There is local color and plausible action in Lathen stories, like fires, riots, and intense confrontations, but ultimately reason takes center stage.

I highly recommend this one to Lathen fans and novices.

Mount TBR #55

I read this book for the Mount TBR Reading Challenge hosted over at My Reader’s Block from January 1 – December 31, 2016. The challenge is to read books that you already own.

Not Quite Dead Enough – Rex Stout

This Nero Wolfe double mystery is a double. That is, it contains a pair of novellas that first came out in The American Magazine (1906 - 1956), "Not Quite Dead Enough"  in December, 1942 and "Booby Trap" in August, 1944. Stout makes them topical, given the nation is at war against fascism, so Wolfe’s sidekick, Archie Goodwin, serves in the Army. Like Conan Doyle did in the Holmes stories, Stout is adept at throwing out tantalizing hints as to what Archie is doing to serve. A counter-intelligence officer, perhaps?

The WWII backdrop is unique in the canon. Archie is driven to set himself for arrest in order to snap Wolfe out of a patriotic frenzy. The wartime fever has driven the agoraphobic and gastronomic Wolfe to actually go outside and do some brisk walking. Well, as brisk as the rotund Wolfe (and the poor cook Fritz) can manage.

The book has plenty of funny characters. Also, Stout writes more tightly than usual, perhaps because the tales were originally conceived as short novels. The reveal and the ending, too, depart from the norm in that it occurs not in the office, with only Archie in attendance, with Wolfe proposing and disposing. Hey, ethics smethics, whaddaya want, there’s a war on!

I highly recommend this one to both Wolfe fans and novices.

Five Roundabouts to Heaven

Five Roundabouts to Heaven - John Bingham

ISBN-10: 141654044X

John Bingham (1908 - 1988) worked in British counter-intelligence. He was also a writer of crime novels, spy novels and mysteries. Readers that like novels by John LeCarre, William Haggard, Patricia Highsmith, or Ruth Rendall’s Barbara Vine novels will like Bingham’s psychological realism and unflinching view of fallible human beings.

In this novel, also known as The Tender Poisoner, the characters feel driven to adultery. This leads to lying, scheming to steal the GF’s of other guys, and plotting murder for tender and compassionate reasons.

Definitely not escapist fiction, but a solid crime story. Not a mystery, but rather an exploration of the psychology that could prompt an average person to contemplate murder, and ultimately to be able to commit murder.