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Mysteries

“The Unquiet Bones” Provides Comfortable Medieval Entertainment

November 23, 2011

If you’re mourning the end of Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael novels, you could do a lot worse than giving a try to Mel Starr’s series of medieval mysteries featuring Hugh de Singleton, Surgeon. Especially if you’re a Christian. The Unquiet Bones begins with the discovery (in a castle waste pit) of a human skeleton. Hugh de Singleton is called by the Baron, Lord Gilbert, to examine the bones and determine if they belong to one of two castle visitors who disappeared a few months before, a nobleman and his squire. Hugh soon realizes that these bones belong to a young woman. And nobody in the neighborhood is missing a young woman. Hugh, narrating his own story, explains that he is the younger, landless son of a minor nobleman, and studied to be a surgeon at Oxford and Paris (his Oxford mentor, John Wyclif, appears in a couple scenes). His fortunes in his profession were unremarkable until he sewed up a wound for Lord Gilbert, who was impressed enough to invite him to move to his own castle to serve his household and tenants. Hugh is all the more eager to do this as he has fallen in love with Lord

Connelly’s ‘The Reversal’ a Strong Return to Form

October 26, 2011

By Lars Walker

I still haven't entirely warmed to Michael Connelly's “Lincoln Lawyer” character, Mickey Haller, who strikes me as somewhat irresponsible (a useful quality, perhaps, in a criminal defense lawyer). But The Reversal, “A Lincoln Lawyer” novel, is as much a story of Mickey's half-brother, police detective Harry Bosch, as it is one of Mickey's, so I had no problem getting on board. And the story as a whole seemed to me as engaging and sympathetic as anything Connelly has written in some time.

Cusack-Poe Movie: Maddest Thing Ever?

October 20, 2011

By S. T. Karnick

The upcoming theatrical film The Raven, evidently based verrrrrrrrry loosely on the stories and poems of the brilliant nineteenth century American writer Edgar Allan Poe, and starring John Cusack as Poe, looks as if it could be very good fun or just poopawful. Certainly it looks like quite possibly the maddest thing ever, which is saying a lot these days. Based on the trailer, however, I find myself strangely interested in seeing the great American writer battle evil on the mean streets of antebellum Baltimore even though I don’t like Cusack and never have. (That’s not a criticism of him or his movies, just a personal reaction.) See the trailer, and decide for yourself—if you dare:

A Marriage of Reason and Horror: ‘The Burning Court,’ by John Dickson Carr

October 3, 2011

By Shmuel Ben-Gad

A Marriage of Reason and Horror: ‘The Burning Court,’ by John Dickson Carr

Halloween approacheth, a season in which it is particularly appropriate to read horror stories. One of the more unusual sub-categories of such tales is the one that melds the supernatural tale with the detective story (e.g., the Dr Taverner series by the occultist Dion Fortune). The fact that these elements are essentially incompatible make the successful ones rather remarkable. Perhaps the best one is the 1937 novel The Burning Court, by John Dickson Carr, republished this year by Langtail Press (www.langtailpress.com). Carr (1906-1977) is one of the giants of the detective story, on a par with Agatha Christie. He wrote well and specialized in seemingly impossible crimes, like corpses found in locked rooms, and often combined this with an eerie atmosphere. However, he rarely wrote tales that partook of the supernatural. I would say The Burning Court is Carr at his best. There is no impossible murder; instead, the body of a man, possibly murdered, impossibly disappears from its tomb. Ted Stevens, the central character, whose friend’s uncle is the dead man, winds up being concerned about his French Canadian wife, Marie, who seems to be the descendent of two murderous witches. The love between Ted and Marie is depicted

ABC’s ‘Castle’ Is Back on Its Surrealistic Track

September 27, 2011

By S. T. Karnick

ABC’s ‘Castle’ Is Back on Its Surrealistic Track

The most recent episodes of ABC's surrealistic, popular crime series Castle are entertaining and convey some important lessons about genre fiction. There are reasons people enjoy formula fiction.

Book Review: ‘The Duel of Shadows’

September 26, 2011

By Mike Gray

The Duel of Shadows: The Extraordinary Cases of Barnabas Hildreth — Vincent Cornier (1898-1976) — Mike Ashley, editor — Crippen & Landru Publishers — 2011 — Short mysteries collection: 11 stories — #33 in C & L’s “Lost Classics” series — Trade paperback: 163 pages — ISBN: 978-1-932009-98-9. Vincent Cornier (real name: Vincent Corner) was a British newspaperman and mystery writer who could, on occasion, produce stories with the complexity and atmospherics usually associated with John Dickson Carr. Doug Greene at Crippen & Landru has collected most of the known stories featuring Cornier’s series sleuth Barnabas Hildreth and his “Watson”, newspaper editor Geoffrey Ingram, with indefatigable researcher Mike Ashley acting as able editor. If it weren’t for Frederic Dannay, editor of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (EQMM), Cornier’s fiction might never have come to the attention of American readers. Dannay reprinted the stories in the immediate post-World War II period, after having Cornier revise them — and/or changing them himself. (Note: It would be interesting to compare the original stories with their EQMM “revisions” to see how many changes, if any, Dannay wrought on them — he was known for making editorial alterations at will. One story in particular, “The Monster”,

New Novel by Noir Master Cain Discovered

September 22, 2011

By S. T. Karnick

New Novel by Noir Master Cain Discovered

James M. Cain, a prominent crime-fiction novelist in the 1920s and ’30s, is enjoying a bit of a revival these days, thanks largely to the recent HBO miniseries based on his novel Mildred Pierce. The interest in Cain and his writings may soon increase, as a previously unpublished novel, The Cocktail Waitress, of his has been discovered and will be published next year by Hard Case Crime. There may well be good reasons that this manuscript disappeared and was not published (meaning, poor quality), but then again the may well have been truly an accident and this novel a real addition to his list of accomplishments. We shall have to read it to find out. Hard Case Crime publisher Charles Ardai is quoted in USA Today as considering the book to be an important find, as one might expect: “For fans of the genre, The Cocktail Waitress is the Holy Grail. It’s like finding a lost manuscript by Hemingway or a lost score by Gershwin – that’s how big a deal this is,” said Charles Ardai, founder and editor of Hard Case Crime, a line of mystery novels published by Titan books, in a statement. Cain was a very skilled

“Pattern of Wounds:” Bertrand Scores Again

September 14, 2011

By Lars Walker

One of the keys to a long career in law enforcement is learning how to tell police psychologists what they need to hear without sounding deceptive. The only alternative is good mental health, which to me has always seemed too unrealistic a goal. That’s Houston Police Detective Roland March, hero of J. Mark Bertrand’s crime novel Pattern of Wounds, a sequel to Back On Murder. I liked the first book very much, and I think I liked this one even more. Bertrand is doing almost exactly the thing I’ve tried to do (with far less success) in my own fantasy novels—to portray the real world through eyes of faith, giving both believers and unbelievers a fair chance to make their cases. Roland March is a Houston cop, at once admired and disliked in his department because of his erratic career history. Successful enough as a crime solver to have been the subject of two true crime novels, he went through a slump period (following the death of his daughter in a car accident with a drunk driver) during which he seemed to be on the way out. In this book he tells us something we didn’t know before about that

Fred Steiner, R.I.P.

August 25, 2011

By Mike Gray

Most people don’t know who Fred Steiner was. As a musical composer and conductor, his work, both credited and uncredited, contributed to the sound of many Hollywood productions from the early ’50s to this year. I always associate him with the original Star Trek series (25 episodes) and Gunsmoke (11 episodes). However, he didn’t compose the themes for either show. But he was responsible for one unforgettable TV series theme tune: Perry Mason. We’re told Steiner’s original title was “Park Avenue Beat.” You can listen to Steiner’s most famous composition here (YouTube, 4 minutes 3 seconds). The series is slowly coming out on video.

Honor in a Dark World: John Huston’s ‘The Maltese Falcon’

August 25, 2011

By Shmuel Ben-Gad

Honor in a Dark World: John Huston’s ‘The Maltese Falcon’

John Huston’s 1941 film version of Dashiell Hammet’s novel The Maltese Falcon is, in my opinion , the superior work of art (though the novel is no mean accomplishment itself). The plot centers on the search for an extremely valuable statuette of a falcon, made centuries ago on the island of Malta , with people killing others in order to obtain it. The villains are mostly colorful, sophisticated, and at least superficially upper-class. Indeed, one of the two ways the film, in my opinion, is superior to the novel is that Mary Astor’s portrayal of Brigid O’Shaughnessy is three-dimensional, whereas in the book she is nothing more than a beautiful temptress. The hero, private eye Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart, in his breakthrough role) , is capable, tough, and edgy. I have used the word hero, but he is at best a tarnished one. Though he seems tired, and even sickened, of it by the time the film begins, Spade has been cuckolding his partner, Miles Archer (Jerome Cowan). Regarding Archer’s murder, Spade says, “When a man’s partner is killed, he’s supposed to do something about it.… When one of your organization gets killed, it’s … it’s bad for business to

Raymond Chandler and British Detective Fiction (Part 2)

August 11, 2011

By Editor

Raymond Chandler and British Detective Fiction (Part 2)

Clearly the sophisticated and genteel milieus found in the detective novels of Dorothy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, and Margery Allingham could not have been much better designed by deliberate intent to grate on Chandler’s class-sensitive nerves. The testy hardboiled author felt much differently, however, about the plainer mystery fare offered by Freeman Wills Crofts and, especially, R. Austin Freeman. Even in “Simple Art” Chandler praised Crofts, best known for his methodical tales of patient criminal investigation and determined alibi busting, as “the soundest builder of them all when he doesn’t get too fancy”; and in his correspondence Chandler admitted that he knew Crofts’ work (and Freeman’s) “very well.”

‘The Amateur Detective Just Won’t Do’—Raymond Chandler and British Detective Fiction

August 10, 2011

By Editor

‘The Amateur Detective Just Won’t Do’—Raymond Chandler and British Detective Fiction

The brilliant British-raised U.S. detective writer Chandler was infected with a disease that knows no borders: class envy. But he was no socialist. Part 1 of 2 By Curt Evans Reading Englishman Nicholas Blake’s mystery novel The Beast Must Die (1938) for the first time in 1950, the great American hardboiled detective novelist Raymond Chandler was moved to comment (in a letter to future mystery critic James Sandoe) on his disappointment with the tale. Chandler wrote that he initially had found the story “damn good and extremely well written.” He went on to lament, however, the “devastating effect” on the tale “of the entrance of the detective, Nigel Strangeways, an amateur with wife tagging along.” Chandler conceded that the “private eye”– the type of detective associated most prominently with his own work (and that of his contemporary Dashiell Hammett)–”admittedly is an exaggeration—a fantasy.” Nevertheless, he asserted of the private eye that “at least he’s an exaggeration of the possible.” Contrarily, Chandler declared, the “amateur gentleman who outthinks Scotland Yard is just plain silly.” In fictional mystery, Chandler concluded peremptorily, “the amateur detective just won’t do.” Raymond Chandler’s most famous (or notorious) expression of hostile views toward British detective fiction is found

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Mysteries

“The Unquiet Bones” Provides Comfortable Medieval Entertainment

Connelly’s ‘The Reversal’ a Strong Return to Form

Cusack-Poe Movie: Maddest Thing Ever?

A Marriage of Reason and Horror: ‘The Burning Court,’ by John Dickson Carr

ABC’s ‘Castle’ Is Back on Its Surrealistic Track

Book Review: ‘The Duel of Shadows’

New Novel by Noir Master Cain Discovered

“Pattern of Wounds:” Bertrand Scores Again

Fred Steiner, R.I.P.

Honor in a Dark World: John Huston’s ‘The Maltese Falcon’

Raymond Chandler and British Detective Fiction (Part 2)

‘The Amateur Detective Just Won’t Do’—Raymond Chandler and British Detective Fiction

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