Mount TBR #21

I read this book for Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2019.

The Case of the Drowning Duck – Erle Stanley Gardner

In early 1942 a wealthy landowner near Palm Springs, John L. Witherspoon, consults crack lawyer Perry Mason on a family matter. Mason warns him that he takes on only cases that appeal to him as the routine does not interest him. He tells Mason that his only daughter Lois is about to marry Marvin Adams, a young man who is finishing up his studies at college in physics and chemistry. But Marvin does not know who he is in the sense that his mother gave him a cock and bull story about him being kidnapped at the age of three. The reality is that his father was executed for murder of a business associate in 1924. Proud of his family name, Witherspoon detests the idea of killer genes polluting his family. He hires Mason to investigate the old case see if Marvin’s father was in fact guilty.

Mason goes over the trial transcript and deplores the fact the defense attorney assumed his client was guility. But as Mason sics his PI Paul Drake on the trial of the witnesses who may or may still be among the quick, a blackmailer appears and threatens the happiness of the Witherspoons and the future of Marvin Adams. The blackmailer is done to death with a homemade blend of gasses. Of course this points the finger at chem major Marvin – whose duck in found at the scene, according to a police officer, drowning in a fish bowl. Another murder carried out in the same way occurs in Witherspoon’s house. Mason does much of the PI legwork on his own; he is shamelessly manipulative when interviewing people to get them to talk. The courtroom scene is comparatively short, with a down-home judge unlike any other judges in a Mason mystery.

The writer's treatment of desert scenery and the scene-setting of the discovery of the first corpse are vivid, for Gardner. The story is intricate with a strong subplot involving a Hollywood scandal sheet that engages in extortion and blackmail by using corrupt PI’s to collect dirt and threatening to release damaging information on victims shy of publicity. It’s arbitrary to cut up Gardner’s long writing career into periods but the ones written during WWII are classic puzzles well-worth reading: The Case of the Empty Tin, The Case of the Buried Clock, The Case of the Drowsy Mosquito, The Case of the Crooked Candle, and The Case of the Black-Eyed Blonde.         

Back to the Classics #22

I read this book for the 2019 Back to the Classics Reading Challenge.

Classic in Translation. Eileen Ellenbogen translated many Maigret mysteries and “gray novels” by Simenon. The web is totally unhelpful as to whether Ellenbogen taught French besides translating.

The Delivery – Georges Simenon

In this pitiless gray novel of the early Forties, Bergelon is a country doctor in a parish he has lived in all his life except for med school. Dr. Mandalin, a surgeon new to the town and with a wealthy wife, makes him an offer: for the first client Bergelon refers to the sumptuous private clinic that Mandalin owns and operates, Bergelon will receive the full fee; then, for every following referral he will get half. Thirty-year-old Cosson, a highly-strung bank clerk, wants his pregnant wife to have a reputable doctor. Though he feels ignoble for involving himself in Mandalin’s little racket, Bergelon advises Cosson to choose Mandalin's clinic.

And it ends badly, of course. One night Mandalin has Bergelon and his abjectly grateful wife over to his ritzy house. The clinic makes multiple calls about the difficult labor of Cosson’s wife. Mandalin, of the paternalistic old school, refuses to be pushed around by a mere patient and does not go to the clinic with Bergelon until many hours pass and many drinks drunk. Afraid to be regarded as a Nervous Norvus, Bergelon does not insist on their going to the clinic right away.

Mother and child die. Cosson, enraged and smelling the stink of malpractice, pursues Bergelon. Cosson feels that the local country doc let down one of his own.  Cosson dreams of killing Bergelon with a gun or a bomb. Bergelon does not try to avoid Cosson but instead seeks him in out in various dives where Cosson drinks himself mean and stupid. Bergelon is tongue-tied and ridiculous and cowardly when he does engage his nemesis. Cosson settles in with Cécile, his mistress, a young prostitute who visits Bergelon every week for the required health inspection. Canny Cécile advises Bergelon to make himself scarce until Cosson cools down.

On the beaches of Riva-Bella where Bergelon flees to rest, without wife and kiddies, for a few days, he dallies with Edna, whose name constantly reminds him of a volcano. Edna-Etna is a single mother he met the day before. But Bergelon spies from afar Germaine, his wife, arriving unexpectedly. So he decides to flee. Flee Germaine the melancholy pessimist.  Flee daughter Annie and son Emile, who judge him and find him wanting. Flee Cosson who, having obtained his address from a mail carrier, wrote him a letter that shows no signs of him cooling down.

Fleeing, Bergelon lands in Antwerp. He sees an opportunity for his entire life to begin anew when he chances upon a childhood friend who offers him as job as ship’s doctor and thence to Trebizond in Turkey where he can get a job doctoring easily. Bergelon plays with this idea for a time and then – you guessed it in one – flakes out of the chance to walk away from everything, a chance many Simenonian anti-heroes have taken up.

After a final weird meeting with Cosson, Bergelon returns to his monotonous uneventful life in Bugle. Simenon could care less about messages, I think, but I’m the kind of guy that likes stories about the pitfalls of choosing mediocrity, choosing fear over bravery, folly over wisdom, the cup over coffee.

Mount TBR #20

I read this book for Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2019.

The Case of the Haunted Husband – Erle Stanley Gardner

Aspiring actress Stephanie Claire is fired from her hat-checking job after fending off her sleazy boss' advances. Brave Stephanie hitchhikes to L.A. to get closer to Hollywood and the breaks it might offer. In Bakersfield she is picked up by a handsome confident man in a big fast sedan. He’s been at the bottle and offers her a pull so to keep on his good side she takes a swig. In attempting to make a move on her, the driver loses control of the car, which causes a multi-vehicle accident in which another man is killed. Stephanie is rescued from the wreck, at the steering wheel and with the liquor on her breath. The driver of the car has vanished. She faces a charge of negligent homicide.

Talk about one of life’s little dirty tricks.

Investigation reveals that the owner of the wrecked car is one Jules Homan, successful Hollywood writer and producer. He says the car was stolen. So Stephanie lands in trouble deep. One of Stephanie’s friends persuades ace lawyer Perry Mason to take the case, which he is drawn to because he likes cases in which the little guy seems to be pitted against the rich and powerful. Gardner’s view of Hollywood as ultimate company town rings true. Even the cops are afraid of their careers being stopped by its malign influence.

This is the background for one of the most convoluted Mason stories that Gardner ever wrote. Plot and incident abound. The writing is a little looser than usual with hints that are not followed up and conversations that don’t move the story along. On the other hand, these extended conversations reveal Perry Mason’s philosophy of life and death (he’s a bit of a mystic) and Lt. Tragg’s fair but fundamentally authoritarian personality. Della and Paul have a lot to do. Paul is his usual aggrieved self, Della is always game and smart. Ham Burger does not appear and the courtroom scenes are abbreviated.

This was written in the early 1940s, when Gardner was really on fire, churning out Mason and Cool and Lam stories at a rapid pace. Despite the output, I think quality did not suffer. I highly recommend this mystery to hardcore fans and green novices wondering why Gardner was the top-selling mystery writer of the 1940s.

Back to the Classics #21

I read this book for the 2019 Back to the Classics Reading Challenge.

20th Century Classic.  Le locataire was published in 1934 but not translated until 1983.

The Lodger – Georges Simenon

It’s the early Thirties in Europe and the world-wide economic slump has forced young people to extreme measures – such as going overseas for work. A young Frenchwoman, Sylvie, leaves her family in the dreary Belgian mining town of Charleroi for a job as a “taxi dancer” in places like Cairo, Istanbul, and Bagdad. A young Turkish guy, Elie Nagéar, has left his native country to do clinch a deal in – what else? – carpets. Sylvie and Elie meet on the boat returning to Brussels.

November in Northern Europe is wet, blustery, leafless and dismal. Elie comes down with flu and allows himself to be mothered and then bossed around by his mistress Sylvie. Sylvie relieves him of a chunk of cash in order to buy her mother, father, and sister in Charleroi some presents. Inappropriate gifts and incongruous reactions to such gifts are a theme in this little novel.

Sylvie’s father works crazy hours but gets steady pay from the railway. Still, the wolf is never far from the door so Sylvie’s mother takes in lodgers, mainly apprentices and poor foreign students from Poland, Romania, and Russia. Simenon evokes a dreary lodging house with absolute assurance because his mother took in lodgers during Simenon’s childhood. One wonders if like the young Gant in Look Homeward Angel, young Simenon couldn’t stand strangers in the house all the time.

Anyway, though he has no history of dysfunctional family, abuse or crime, violent or otherwise, Elie commits a brutal murder for money on a train.  Sylvie has him hole up in her mother’s pension. Elie pays more than the other boarders so Sylvie's mother likes him, while the other boarders are jealous that he gets more and better food than they do. Sylvie’s sister, with the natural suspicion of a kid sister, quickly senses something is up with Elie and Sylvie.

Elie‘s taking refuge boarding house is the lion’s share of the book and the atmosphere is the main attraction. Simenon describes sights and sounds and smells with his usual detached economy. On the boarders putting on the feed bag: “Like an orchestra tuning up, there began a confused, steadily increasing noise, the rattle of knives and forks on plates, the chink of glasses.”

Ridden by anxiety at being caught and guillotined and exhausted by depression that saps his energy, Elie never leaves the lodging. Sylvie’s mother is torn between wanting him out of the house because he is semi-hysterical and not paying rent and wanting to protect him because what’s left of her material instincts is being stirred. I suppose. The reason is not really made clear. 

And lack of clarity is the problem. We don’t detect a plausible explanation was to why Elie turned into a cold-blooded killer. He didn’t have any existential ructions that would send him over the edge. He even seemed used to travel, which sometimes strikes angst into the inexperienced. Nor do we have good motivation as to why Sylvie’s mother wants to mother him. He helps her in the kitchen. He gives her a sense of the wider world with his travel stories. Not enough motivation. One wonders if this major flaw kept the novel from being translated for 50 years.

So this is worth reading for the atmosphere, but more time and care with characterization and plotting would have been in order. In his early career, Simenon was writing like crazy, so some projects were written too damn fast.

The Ides of Perry Mason 3

The 15th of every month until I don't know when I will post a review of a Perry Mason mystery. For the hell of it.

The Case of the Reluctant Model - Erle Stanley Gardner

Millionaire collector of pictures Otto Olney wants to sue art maven Colin Durant for slander, claiming that Durant is saying that a painting purchased by Olney is a fake.

Lawyer-series hero Perry Mason discourages the slander suit but provides his usual sage legal advice. He later realizes that Durant might be plotting an intricate scam with the coerced help of model Maxine Lindsay. Maxine ends up in trouble deep after Mason and Della Street find a body in Maxine's apartment and Maxine nowhere to be found. DA Burger and Homicide Detective Lt. Tragg are not amused that Mason keeps finding corpses.

I liked this one because it did not follow the lockstep stages of a typical Mason novel. Also, I clearly shouldn’t read too many Mason novels because Gardner’s antique Americanisms – “no doubt of it on earth” or “take a powder” or “the shank of the evening” or “as dead as a mackerel” -  seep into my vocabulary and make 50-something women at work say wonderingly to me, “You sound like my dad.”

Mount TBR #19

I read this book for Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2019.

The Ampersand Papers - Michael Innes

In this 1978 mystery, series hero Sir John Appleby, retired from Scotland Yard, comes in only after the author has introduced us to Lord Ampersand and his peculiar and confrontational family. Sir John is taking a stroll along a Cornish beach near the Ampersand castle when a body plummets down from the North Tower and almost lands on his head. A speleologist suitably named Cave also happens to be on the spot.

The presumably unhappy corpse turns out to be that of Dr. Sutch, an academic who has been hired by the Ampersand family to go over the family papers. The family has found out there is good money to be fetched in papers and letters about and from luminaries Shelley, Byron, and Coleridge. Dr. Sutch is also getting to the bottom of a family legend that posits the existence of a treasure from a Spanish argosy in the time of the first Elizabeth.

As in the other late novels in this series there are plenty of incidents. If you thought the portrayal of aristocrats in Trollope is mean to the land-owning classes, you haven’t seen Innes. Lord Ampersand loves routine to a fault and knows absolutely nothing about his own ancestors. The conversation between Sir John and Lady Ampersand about her husband’s feuding family, while the Lady works on her jigsaw puzzle, is the high point of the novel; this is a good thing to say, believe me, because the dialogue is so witty and insightful.

The kind of reader that would like these mysteries is the kind that likes Josephine Tey and Nicholas Blake or who likes genre fiction between serious books.

Other Reviews of Michael Innes’ Mysteries

Lament for a Maker (1938)

Appleby on Ararat (1941)

From London Far a.k.a. The Unsuspected Chasm (1946)

One Man Show (1952)

Silence Observed (1961)

A Connoisseur’s Case (1962)

Money from Holme (1964)

A Change of Heir (1966)

Death by Water aka Appleby at Allington (1968)

Death at the Chase (1970)

Appleby’s Answer (1973)

The Mysterious Commission (1974)

The Ampersand Papers (1978)

Lord Mullion’s Secret (1981)

Sheiks and Adders (1982)

Back to the Classics #20

I read this book for the 2019 Back to the Classics Reading Challenge.

Classic Novella. Anthony Trollope is known for big Victorian novels, bulked up with fox-hunting scenes and sub-plots of worthy girls staving off worthy guys for reasons the worthy girls think are, well, worthy. His shorter novels offer tempting attractions too. The gateway Trollope novel for many readers is The Warden. Then unwary readers find themselves slamming with the light as air Rachel Ray. Before they know it they are taking a cruise with The Claverings. Saddest are readers that end up mainlining hardcore like The Belton Estate and, stop me before I read more, The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson.

Cousin Henry – Anthony Trollope

Some Japanese like to think their puppet dramas and kabuki plays deal with uniquely Japanese moral dilemmas. But in Cousin Henry, Trollope examines the conflict between ninjo (human feelings) and giri (social obligation). In the early chapters, the more time an uncle spends with the title character, the more bitter and confused the uncle feels that he must will the family lands and chattels to his nephew, not to his niece upon whom he dotes. But he feels he can’t subordinate duty to love:

It was a religion to him that a landed estate in Britain should go from father to eldest son, and in default of a son to the first male heir. Britain would not be ruined because Llanfeare should be allowed to go out of the proper order. But Britain would be ruined if Britons did not do their duty in that sphere of life to which it had pleased God to call them; and in this case his duty was to maintain the old order of things.

The uncle writes a pro-nephew last will and testament, then one pro-niece, which he fears undermines the natural order of things. He writes and re-writes, but never destroys superceded versions because he has a superstitious dread against destroying a will, any will. A lawyer observes, "There are men who think that a will once made should never be destroyed." Not merely ink on papers held together by string like deeds and stocks, last wills exert an uncanny fascination on beholders, like precious gems.

Later in the novel another character tortures himself about whether to burn a will:

… He could not take the will from its hiding-place and with his own hand thrust it into the flames. He had never as yet even suggested to himself that he would do so. His hair stood on end as he thought of the horrors attendant on such a deed as that. To be made to stand in the dock and be gazed at by the angry eyes of all the court, to be written of as the noted criminal of the day, to hear the verdict of guilty, and then the sentence, and to be aware that he was to be shut up and secluded from all comforts throughout his life! And then, and then, the dread hereafter! For such a deed as that would there not be assured damnation? Although he told himself that justice demanded the destruction of the will, justice could not be achieved by his own hand after such fashion as that.

Trollope has no shortage of perverse characters who will act against their own best interests. See The Small House at Allington. In this novel, both the uncle and the nephew are world-class procrastinators when it comes to destroying wills. Their vacillation causes the nephew, among others, a world of trouble. The inevitable romance features two stubborn lovers that drive the people around them crazy:

The father no doubt felt that the two young people were self-willed, obstinate, and contradictory. His daughter wouldn't marry the clergyman because she had been deprived of her property. The clergyman now refused to marry his daughter because it was presumed that her property might be restored to her.

It’s funny but the reader is grateful the lofty posturing doesn’t go on for too many pages. Trollope’s nice characters – Isobel in this one - have so much pride; and pride leads the parade of the seven deadly sins in my book.

To recommend or not? I think this novella is worth reading for the deep, probing character study of the title character. When he arrives in the Welsh village of his uncle, prior to the uncle’s death, everyone hates him despite the fact that Cousin Henry does nothing to deserve blatant disrespect. He inspires contempt and suspicion from his uncle and his cousin because of his manners and lack of poise, which he can’t help because he simply doesn’t know any better. He’s just a London insurance clerk. Totally cowed by the cruel treatment and lack of charity, Cousin Henry the city fish in country water acts like cowardice personified, and what little confidence he has evaporates.  His only wisdom consists of slogans like “Honesty is the best policy,” hardly enough philosophy to support him in the situation he finds himself in after his uncle’s death. Without self-control, he is caught between anxiety and anger, whining bitterly at his fate, his own indecision.

I’ve kept the plot obscure (even confusing, I hope) for fear of spoilers. Don’t let my obscurity put you off an opportunity to see Trollope deploy his talent for psychological analysis. A sensible and sympathetic observer of flawed human nature, he shows us the devastating effects of irrational dislike and procrastination.

Mount TBR #18

I read this book for Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2019.

The Mysterious Commission – Michael Innes

Portrait artist Charles Honeybath starred in four mysteries, of which this novel was the first. The mysterious commission is to paint the portrait of a subject who must remain anonymous and to do after being taken to an undisclosed location about an hour’s drive from London. Honeybath is between jobs in the recession-ridden Seventies so he accepts the commission.

Only to go through a series of adventures which beggar belief. Innes’ goal was to entertain the thinking reader. He deploys learned vocabulary and makes allusions he expects the reader to get. In a quintessential Innes paragraph, our hero has been given refuge after an attempt has been made on his life and he considers while falling asleep:

… They had got him off to bed, and might by now be supposing that he was fast asleep. It was true that he had locked what appeared to be the only entrance to the room. But might it not run to a trap-door, or something of that kind? What about the bed’s being so constructed that, at the touch of a distant lever, it would vanish through the floor? What about a deadly snake crawling down a bell-rope? It was true there didn’t seem to be a bell-rope – but in a large way the possibility held, all the same. For the point was – that they had now got what they wanted from him. Indefinably but beyond cavil – this was just a sudden retrospective revelation – his tea-time colloquy with the Mariners had concluded on a note of something like relaxation and ease. They had, those two, as it were, coaxed the cat out of the bag.

I think Innes’ goal was simply to entertain the reader with fun. Thrill at the narrow escapes and loony chases. Smile at the farce. Be amused at the improbable plot twists.

It seems that Innes is becoming a neglected writer. This is the natural course things as tastes in humor, fantasy, and detective stories change. But readers who like intelligence, dry English wit, and a slightly academic tone will like Michael Innes’ mysteries.

Other Reviews of Michael Innes’ Mysteries

Lament for a Maker (1938)

From London Far a.k.a. The Unsuspected Chasm (1946)

Silence Observed (1961)

Money from Holme (1964)

A Change of Heir (1966)

Death by Water aka Appleby at Allington (1968)

Death at the Chase (1970)

Appleby’s Answer (1973)

Lord Mullion’s Secret (1981)

Sheiks and Adders (1982)

Back to the Classics #19

I read this book for the 2019 Back to the Classics Reading Challenge.

Classic Comic Novel. Sadly, I have the reputation for being a funny guy so it’s disconcerting when I say what I think are serious things in meetings and people laugh. Most disconcerting. So along with a reputation I wouldn’t wish on anybody, I have excruciatingly  high standards when it comes to comic novels. They can be too mean, like Waugh’s Vile Bodies. Too bitter and relentless like Catch-22. Too silly like Three Men in a Boat. Too fey like Thank You, Jeeves. Too affected like Cat’s Cradle. My patience seeps away with a satire sized beyond a novelette – see Waugh’s The Loved One or Dahl’s My Uncle Oswald, both of which are worth reading but feel long at the three-quarter point. Henry Cecil (said “sehsil”, not “seesil”) is good because his comic novels are always the right length.

The Asking Price – Henry Cecil

In Just within the Law, Cecil describes his writing with, “The basis of my stories is the occurrence of an extremely improbable event, followed by completely logical action by all the characters in the story.”

In this comic novel, the extremely improbable event comes out of a situation.  In a London neighborhood in the mid-Sixties, Ronald Holbrook lives on a small competence that he built from lucrative dealings on the black market right after WWII. The house bought on the ill-gotten proceeds has been his home for twenty years. At fifty-seven, he finds himself unmarried and unlikely to marry. However, seventeen-year-old Jane Doughty, the daughter of his next-door neighbors, has been infatuated with him literally her entire life. Her single goal in life – her steely obsession - is to be married to her Ronnieboy. This situation is first comic, then gradually becomes discomfiting and sinister, and we get the extremely improbable event which precipitates another situation.

That’s all the story you’re getting out of me lest I spoil the surprising twists and turns that Cecil puts his characters through. Not only is Cecil gifted as to plotting and characterization (even the walk-ons live and breathe), but he builds suspense as skillfully as, say, Ruth Rendell. The dialogue is sharp and witty. Jane asks her Ronnieboy, who’s been putting off lovemaking, “Do virtuous women have fun? I don’t want to be like the Albert Memorial, all stuck up and nowhere to go.” I don’t wonder that many of his books were adopted for BBC Radio and he wrote plays too.

The only other practitioner of comic legal fiction that I can think of is John Mortimer and his excellent Rumpole stories. Cecil has more generosity and charity than Mortimer does; Cecil spends more time explaining British law. I can’t recommend Henry Cecil high enough for his lucid prose, original tale-spinning, brilliant characterization, deft plotting and spellbinding surprises.

More reviews of Henry Cecil novels

·         Independent Witness

·         Way and Means

·         Settled out of Court

·         According to the Evidence

·         The Painswick Line