I sign up for this Challenge at the level of Five Star (Deluxe Entourage), but may go to six or seven. I won't compete for the Jet Setter Prize.
Malicroix - Henri Bosco - France
Professor Martens' Departure - Jaan Kross - Estonia
Sharks and Little Fish: A Novel of German Submarine Warfare - Wolfgang Ott - Germany
Visas for Life – Yukiko Sugihara - Lithuania
Entangled in Terror: The Azef Affair and the Russian Revolution - Anna Geifman - Russia
Note: In the Roman calendar, the Kalends, Nones, and Ides were three special days that marked the month's counting period. In a hat tip to those tough old Romans (may their example inspire our endurance), on the first, fifth or seventh, and the fifteen of every month, I will run an article about Erle Stanley Gardner's contributions to the mystery genre (Perry Mason is mostly Late Stoic). Fact is, so many articles are in the can, I figure why not release more often? Saving them doesn't earn interest and it's not like I'm exempt from the universal experience of humankind.
The Case of the Crying Swallow - Erle Stanley Gardner
Collected in 1971 after the author’s death in 1970, the centerpiece is a Perry Mason novelette but it also presents three short stories. All the tales involve stolen jewelry.
In The Case of the Crying Swallow, a distraught husband seeks lawyer Perry Mason’s assistance in locating his missing wife. The search uncovers rummy characters up to no good, blackmail, and murder. Mason uncovers clues with his sidekicks Della Street and Paul Drake. Interesting is Gardner using a different length for a Mason story, but this experiment is just OK.
Gardner learned to write in the 1920s and 1930s by churning out hundreds of novellas and short stories for weekly magazines. The Candy Kid was published on March 14, 1931 in Detective Fiction Weekly. It stars Lester Leith, who played a gentleman crook, a stock character in those bygone days, such a remote time that there actually existed a market of working-class males that read genre fiction. It’s a comic story, in fact, that narrates Leith's scheme to recover stolen rubies. Like one of Gardner’s other pulp series heroes Ed Jenkins, Phantom Crook, Leith pulls cons on other crooks and donates the proceeds to charity, after he deducts expenses to support his opulent lifestyle.
Sidney Zoom was another independently wealthy advocate for the underdog. With the assistance of his police dog Rip, he aids the police to enmesh crooks in his web of deceit in a good cause. The story The Vanishing Corpse first appeared on August 15, 1931 in Detective Fiction Weekly. A murder occurs and then the corpus vanishes.
Lest the gritty settings of the worst years of the Depression get us down, the final story is in 1949, as post-war prosperity was starting to rock and roll. The Affair of the Reluctant Witness features Jerry Bane and his assistant with the prodigious memory, ex-copper Mugs Magoo (got to work in an alliteration somewhere). Jerry is a trust-fund kid, with the spendthrift account managed by a stingy family lawyer that is prone to lecture him about the virtues of penny-pinching and hard work. This doesn’t sit well with Jerry. With two years of malnutrition and abuse in a Japanese POW camp under his belt, he feels entitled to a little fun. The story is pretty straightforward: Jerry constructs a counter-con to undermine a real con by a real bad guy.
A snappy collection of short stories. All the stories
were interesting. A fast tempo, concise narrative, tight mystery makes this
book a light and frothy read.
成人の日 Seijin no Hi (literally Adult’s Day). This Japanese national holiday was established in 1948 as a day to congratulate people who have reached the age of legal adulthood (20) at any point during the year. On Coming of Age Day local governments all over the country hold morning ceremonies for these new voters. Women tend to dress up. When I was in Japan (1986-92) it was held on January 15, but in 2000 it was changed to a Monday holiday, to make additional three-day weekends. Let’s celebrate by reading a non-fiction book about Japan.
East Asian Medicine in Urban Japan - Margaret M. Lock
A McGill University anthropologist conducted fieldwork in Japan from 1973 to 1974 to describe how ordinary Japanese people viewed and obtained treatment from practitioners of traditional East Asian medicine. The setting was Kyoto, a decidedly conservative place, culturally speaking (though radical, politically speaking). She also interviewed the practitioners of kanpo (traditional Chinese medicine), herbal pharmacists, and providers of acupuncture, moxibustion, and massage techniques such as shiatsu.
The writing is very clear even for the non-specialist reader and covers interesting topics such as the historical development of East Asian medicine; Japanese attitudes relative to health, illness, and individual responsibility to keep well; description of different clinics that deliver different care and how their atmosphere and interactions range from the cool and formal for upper class patients to the relaxed and matter-of-fact mood for working class customers. Practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine have MD degrees and don’t pay attention to classical Chinese medical texts and have no truck with notions of yin/yang and meridians. They also tend to treat patients who are apparently just beginning to feel sick or discomfort or those who are suffering only mild symptoms.
The final section of the book covers the doctor-patient relationship in the Western-style doctor’s office, which she calls “cosmopolitan.” The national health care system delivers low fees in its array of programs so to generate income physicians see up to a hundred patients a day. This works out to about five minutes a client. One wonders about the number of misdiagnoses and late diagnoses in such conditions and if this is still the situation 50 years down the pike.
I gather that this was a well-regarded and seminal book
when it was released. I was engaged by the book because since the pandemic I’ve
been absorbed by books about medicine and pharmacy, epidemiology and medical
anthropology. Other readers may be tantalized, wondering how much the patient
and doctor experience has changed in urban Japan in the last 50 years. It’s a
long time but I would guess Japanese doctors still see tens and tens of
patients in a day.
The Hammersmith Maggot - William Mole
The sleuth in this outstanding literary mystery is Casson, rich wine-merchant and amateur detective. Motivated by an itch to explore the margins of crime, he closely observes his fellow dwellers of London in the middle 1950s. Onto Casson’s radar appears the Hammersmith Maggot. As a consummate blackmailer, the Maggot stalks his victims, armed with information that he’s wormed out of a bank. He then levels false allegations that are impossible to refute without gross damage to one’s reputation. Collecting his cash, he disappears and never taps the same victim twice.
Casson extracts a detail from a victim that is reluctant to be interviewed. The detail enables Casson to identify the Maggot, whom he puts under surveillance. Casson also enlists the official assistance in the form of the gruff Inspector Strutt.
Mystery writer Frank Gruber said that an outstanding mystery must have a theme and invention. The theme in this mystery is the sheer villainy of the blackmailer. Casson, Strutt, and the reader feel sorry for the victims and feel so disgusted at the Maggot’s motivation and actions that we want to pound the Maggot down through the ground all the way to hell. Mole’s invention is copious. Though we know the identity of the Maggot by the half-way point, Mole builds suspense as to how Casson is going to nail him.
William Mole Younger (1917 – 1961) was a long-serving
officer in the British anti-terrorism and counter-espionage agency. Educated at
Christ College Oxford, he began his writing career with three volumes of poetry
and a travel narrative Blue Moon in
Portugal. He wrote three mysteries. Released in 1955, The Hammersmith Maggot was a best-seller, won the approval of Queen
Elizabeth, and was listed as “a best mystery” in Barzun and Taylor’s “Classic
Crime Novels 1908 – 1975.”
The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
Victorian era novelist Collins (1824 – 1889) is known for two long novels that were originally published in installments in a weekly magazine. The Woman in White, say some critics, was one of the first mysteries, published in 1859, and The Moonstone, published in 1868, is considered – by no less than T.S. Eliot – the first police procedural.
In The Woman in White, a young drawing master is unfortunate enough to fall in love with a young woman who has been promised by her father to a milord. After the marriage, the milord turns out to be neither rich nor a gentleman in any sense. Mystery revolves around the milord’s secret, known to a furtive lady dressed in white, who roams, forlornly but conveniently for the plot, near our main characters. I cannot give away an inexplicable death, which adds to the whydunnit aspect of the story.
True, there are slow spots, since we are, after all, in the world of the Victorian novel whose audiences liked drawn-out scenes and situations. Also true, in a couple of places Collins over-uses indirect speech, in which one character merely reports to another character what was said in a conversation with a third character. Overall, however, the various narrative techniques hold interest. The story unfolds from different points of view, thus forming a chain of evidence that is at once plausible and engrossing. A contemporary critic said Collins’ special merit is “that he treats a labyrinthine story in an apparently simple manner, and that the language in which he writes is plain English.”
And what characters! Sir Percival Glyde is an exasperated and desperate villain. His henchman Count Fosco is oily, cold, cautious, and ruthless. Hollywood well cast Sydney Greenstreet – the heavy in The Maltese Falcon – in the worthless 1948 movie version of this novel. The drawing master writes of the startling and ingenious Fosco, “Sincerely as I loathed the man, the prodigious strength of his character, even in most trivial aspects, impressed me in spite of myself.”
Lady Fosco is a malign influence. Laura, the love interest of the artist, is ineffectual, inept, weepy, and subject to the vapors. But her weaknesses are balanced by the brave and reliable Marian Halcombe. As it was published as a serial, Collins reports that single male readers wrote to him, asking who was the living model on which Marian’s character was based, so that the writers could presume to ask her for her hand. No stones cast by this reviewer, who had a crush on Zelda Gilroy when a boy and fell for Elizabeth Benett at the age of 61.
For its riveting plot, memorable characters, enthralling
narrative techniques, and ominous atmosphere, this novel has never
been out of print since its first publication 150 years ago. Collins wrote
about 30 novels, but he considered this novel to be his best. So much so that
he had inscribed on his tombstone the epitaph “Wilkie Collins, author of The
Woman in White and other works of fiction.”
Note: In the Roman calendar, the Kalends, Nones, and Ides were three special days that marked the month's counting period. In a hat tip to those tough old Romans (may their example inspire our endurance), on the first, fifth or seventh, and the fifteen of every month, I will run an article about Erle Stanley Gardner's contributions to the mystery genre (Perry Mason is mostly Late Stoic). Fact is, so many articles are in the can, I figure why not release more often? Saving them doesn't accrue interest and it's not like I'm exempt from the universal experience of humankind.
Bats Fly at Dusk – ESG writing as A.A. Fair
This story from 1942 kicks off when a blind man hires PI Bertha Cool in a complex case. It involves a hit and run on a young secretary, her employer that met an untimely demise, the division of the inheritance of his estate among his staff and a venal nephew, nervous insurance companies, and an impersonation by a cruel roommate.
Bertha's nitty-gritty concern with her question “How much moolah is in it for me” distracts her from identifying the pith of the case. Though her realism is the best thing about her, she misses the intuition of her partner Donald Lam (serving in the Navy) and his ability to home in on the essential. Her police force nemesis, Sgt. Sellars, puts in a worthy turn in which he is not as astute as Perry Mason’s worthy antagonist Lt. Tragg but not nearly as dumb as Sgt. Holcomb.
Gardner turns stereotypes on their head, making Lam the intuitive and sympathetic one while Bertha is the hard-charging one getting down to brass tacks. Though Bertha does all the legwork, she is bested by the absent Donald Lam who solves the case through brainpower alone. She is also snookered by Sgt. Sellars who gives her an unwanted kiss.
Gardner makes a point, however: Bertha Cool is decidedly not the gruff softie that hides her kindly soul under a cross shell. Bertha is in fact obnoxious, profane, and greedy. Her impulses must be anticipated by secretary Elsie Brand so she can warn Bertha to dial it down. Her partiality for going to strong-arm tactics from the get-go has to be countered by Donald Lam, who knows that compassion and tact with witnesses will get Cool and Lam closer to the solution sooner.
Most readers may miss the "real" detective Donald Lam. Long-time readers of the series will miss the interplay of the two “Cool without Lam” novels (the other is Cats Prowl at Night). hilarious when Bertha and Donald each on in conflict with each other, clients, and the cops.
Gardner’s stories nearly never indicate when they are taking place, because he thought dating content would hurt sales. But in this outing he mentions exact dates in 1942. Giving a feel for the wartime era in California, Gardner points out how dim-out regulations forced people to use blue flashlights, which gave off a weird light. The new regs also compelled drivers to drive as slow as 15 mph to decrease the risks of night driving with dimmed headlights. No wonder blackouts caused so many accidents, increased the incidence of crime, and lowered home front morale.
The Singing Sands – Josephine Tey
Tey didn’t follow the usual rules and conventions of mystery writers during Golden Era of whodunnits from 1920 to 1950. For one, her series hero is not an aristocrat and he ends up in hospitals fairly often.
This mystery, released in 1952, is the last one starring the series hero Yard Inspector Alan Grant. Down with anxiety and depression, Inspector Grant of Scotland Yard goes on vacation to visit cousins in Scotland to recover himself. Understandably, he wants to get over the panic attacks that occur when he finds himself in an enclosed space like a bedroom, train compartment, or in the cabin of an auto. His superior is utterly unsympathetic, wondering why Grant can’t just shake it off, an attitude people with mental health issues must deal with today.
On the train to Scotland, he is a witness when the conductor discovers dead man, apparently the victim of a drunken fall. Tey’s focus is not on the departed one, but on Grant's inner thought processes, his motivations and his fears. That makes him, compared to characters such as Poirot and other thinking machines, a character distinctive and human.
Thanks to that dead man in the train, he recovers from his strained state of mind by investigating the death, getting a clue in the poetry that the young victim wrote on the margin of a newspaper. With the aid of fishing excursions with a six-year-old cousin, a professional Scotch patriot, as well as a friend of the dead man, Grant manages to shed light on a murder that had been considered an accident.
This also belongs to the class of detective novels that doubles as a travel narrative; Patricia Moyes springs to mind, setting her stories in rural England, Amsterdam, and Geneva. Tey has Grant take a side-trip to the Hebrides archipelago, specifically Cladda, a fictional island with miles of deserted beaches with the Atlantic slamming into it.
While there, Grant gets no further with his investigation but he relaxes enough to cure himself of his anxiety with long walks and philosophical ruminating. The atmosphere is rendered vividly, besides advocating the restorative powers of travel, especially to places where where’s nothing to do in the classic vacation sense. Oddly, on the other hand, Tey looks down on Scottish identity and independence; born Elizabeth MacKintosh in Inverness, she seems to have been a staunch Unionist.
Tey may have been dying when she was working on this novel. The manuscript was found in her papers after she passed away in 1952. So we don’t know if it was in its final form. Suffice to say, the ending breaks so many conventions that even mystery fans looking for something different will be dissatisfied with the ending. Still I recommend it to Tey fans, especially if they liked her unusual novels like immortal The Daughter of Time or well-regarded Miss Pym Disposes or Brat Farrar.
