7/10/20

The Devil Drives (1932) by Virgil Markham

Virgil Markham was a strange mystery writer who eschewed the common tropes and conventions in his detective novels, eight in total published between 1928 and 1932, which have been practically forgotten today and Curt Evans wrote, in a 2012 blog-post, that the books may have been "victims of their own originality" – or "to say strangeness." A writer who steered his "narratives over worn-out ruts" to find "different and exciting ways of working with the form." And it's not easy to decide whether, or not, he succeeded in cutting new pathways through the genre.

Curt referred to one of my reviews of Markham's first and most well-known mystery novel, Death in the Dusk (1928), which I described as rivaling Joel Townsley Rogers' The Red Right Hand (1945) and Fredric Brown's Night of the Jabberwock (1950) in the race for most outlandish detective story ever contrived. The outlandish plot and story-telling is also the reason why I didn't break my neck to get all of Markham's detective novels.

Death in the Dusk is a massive, nearly 400-page long, detective novel posing as a grim, blood-soaked fairy tale with bleeding portraits, levitating bones, immortal cats and an enchanted duel between medieval sorcerers, but turgid narrative makes it a slow, plodding read – requiring your undivided attention. A book that is hard to warm to and only can be appreciated for what's it trying to and not how. So was brought Markham back under my attention?

Back in 2018, The Invisible Event and The Green Capsule posted glowing reviews of Markham's third mystery novel, The Devil Drives (1932).

JJ began his review with "someone who venerates plot to the extent I do should not have enjoyed this book as much as I did," while GC praised Markham for coming up with "a completely unique solution to a locked room murder." What I gleaned of the erratic plot from their reviews, I expected something along the lines of R.H.W. Dillard's The Book of Changes (1974), but with more lucidity and substance in the writing and plotting. My expectations were exceeded, because The Devil Drives had no right to be this good and entertaining! A story that's not easily described, or defined, but absolutely wonderful to read.

The Devil Drives is narrated by the "sinfully young" warden of New Jersey's Franklin Penitentiary, George Peters, who receives a visit in the opening chapter from a representative of the Woman's Press Association, Miss Louisa Matthews Carmody – who wishes to inspect all of the parts of the prison. Peters has the unshakable feeling that Miss Carmody's primary interest was in the prisoners rather than the conditions of the prison. In the second chapter, Peters goes down to the death house to have one final talk with "a gunman with a long New York record," named Frank Holborn, who claims to have been framed. And tries to ask the warden a favor. Peters turns him down and the story really begins after the, more or less, successful execution of Frank Holborn. This is the point where the narrative becomes jittery and episodic.

Peters receives a packet of old, undated love letters written by a 13-year-old girl, "Pat," to an obviously older man, "Dubrosky," which are full of references to "the loveliest doll's house" with a pigmy tribe inside and a buried treasure that no one will ever find – except "by earth, air and water." Someone wants to give Peters the job to find that treasure, but, in order to do so, he has to burn all his bridges behind him. And descend into the criminal underworld.

Fascinatingly, Peters assumes a false-identity and uses it to set himself up as a fixer. The underworld equivalent of a private investigator and can't remember having ever come across a character who had to play detective in that role.

What comes his way is a notorious murder trial that has taken the place of the Hall-Mills and Gray-Snyder affairs in the newspaper headlines and its unfortunate aftermath. A flamboyant gangster with fresh flowers in his buttonhole, an eccentric blackmailer, a gun-wielding countess and a long-missing, Raffles-like house thief. Everything is all over the place and it takes until the last quarter of the story to follow the twisting, winding path of the plot down to a small, lakeside cabin that looked like "a pumpkin-house in fairy tale" with its sides and back bulging "a bit like the pumpkin." When Peters looks through the window, he sees the body of man laying a puddle of water surrounded by muddy footprints, but the solid, pinewood door and windows are locked, bolted or hooked on the inside. So how did a man drown, on dry land, while locked inside a cabin?

I've to agree with JJ that the locked room-trick is not wholly original and hinges on a principle that's not exactly popular among puzzle-purists (burn the heretics!), but Markham came up with an entirely new and satisfying variation on the trick – a solution that was audaciously clued and hinted at. So have to side with GC's enthusiasm over the locked room-trick, even if it's not an outright classic.

On a side note, when the body was found and it came to light he had a non-fatal head wound, I began to suspect the pumpkin-like cabin somehow had been flooded with water and drained again, which could have been done through the chimney or those suspicious weatherstrips that helped seal the place (could they have been removed to let the water in or out?). And he had sustained the wound when he bumped his head to the ceiling when he floated to the top. But what killed him was not ordinary drowning, but delayed drowning, which would explain the muddy footprints inside (he walked around before collapsing). A hypothesis I had to abandon because it didn't fit the timeline of the story, but still wanted to share that pulp-style locked room possibility with you.

The Devil Drives is a strange animal and a bundle of contradictions. A simplistically complicated story with a loose, episodic plot tried together with a string of coincidences, some harder to swallow than others, but somehow, it worked – punctuated with an ending that gave everyone involved déjà vu. There's no logical reason why it worked, but, somehow, it did and the result was very pleasing. One of the most unorthodox and curious (locked room) mysteries I've read in a long time!

10 comments:

  1. I've come across this book but I've never bought it. The locked room aspect intrigued me, but the horrible (to say the least) cover in the Ramble house edition dissuaded me. Now you review it, I'll give this book another chance.
    PS: your solution reminds me of a Case Closed's murder.

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    1. Yeah, there's a reason why I didn't include the Ramble House cover in this review, but the story itself is well worth your time. Even with that awful cover wrapped around it.

      The Case Closed story you mentioned is what put the idea in my head.

      After reading back my solution, I seriously have to start making an effort to proofread my reviews before hitting that post button.

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  2. TomCat - I enjoy reading your blog and have found many great books from it including in your Muniment Room index.

    I have had this one in my TBR pile for some time. Priority is now bumped up after reading your review.

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  3. I don't think I knew you hadn't read this one, so welcome to the club at last! In many ways, this feels as close as I'll ever get to genuinely liking Harry Stephen Keeler, because it has that same sort of looseness and weirdness...but it's actually good. In fact, no, it's great.

    I need to find more Markham. Wonder if anyone has any plans to reprint him...and how he'd go down with a modern audience...

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    1. I would welcome reprints of The Black Door, Red Warning and Inspector Rusby's Finale with open arms, but I can't see a modern audience warming to him. One thing everyone seems to agree on is that Markham is not an easy read most of the time. Death in the Dusk is a good example of this, which feels like you're in an exhausting, early 1900s style, catch-as-catch can wrestling match requiring your undivided attention. Not a leisurely read at all.

      So he probably always will be a niche writer who'll be mostly appreciated by readers who have consumed an ungodly amount of detective fiction, because only they can truly appreciate his often off-the-wall originality.

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    2. Yeah, that's a very perceptive interpretation of the situation -- if this is anything to go by, Markham is never going to shift enough copies with a general interest audience. So my hopes of reading him further rest on the shoulders of Ramble House, then...!

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  4. Thanks for recommending this. I wasn't sure what I was reading at first as the plot changed courses multiple times and this is not my usual type of GAD mystery, but it was a quick, fun read.

    Even though the plot was a bit all over the place, I liked Markham's writing style and was pleased that all parts of the story were tied together neatly at the end. For me, the locked room impossibility was reasonably good and there were clues along the way ... although I did not pick up on them.

    Question for you: I want to read my first Christopher Bush. Given you are an advocate of his work, where should I start (e.g., Missing Minutes, Chinese Gong, Dead Shepherd, April Fools, something else)? Thank you.

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    1. If you want to cherry pick, The Case of the Missing Minutes is the best place to start. An unsung masterpiece from the 1930s. The Case of the Green Felt Hat is a very close second and The Case of the Chinese Gong is Bush's attempt to write a John Dickson Carr-style impossible crime novel. Good but not perfect. Dead Man Twice, Dancing Death, The Case of the 100% Alibis, The Case of the Dead Shepherd, The Case of the Bonfire Body and The Case of the Tudor Queen are all very good to excellent titles from the 1930s. After that period, it's best to begin with the homefront trilogy, The Case of the Murdered Major, The Case of the Kidnapped Colonel and The Case of the Fighting Soldier.

      Ramble House reprinted more of these weird, quick and incredibly fun locked room mysteries. I listed most of them in the review of Bruce Elliott's You'll Die Laughing.

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  5. Thank you - I will start with Missing Minutes.

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