4/11/22

The Hangman's Handyman (1942) by Hake Talbot

There's one thing readers and publishers of detective fiction have in common: comparing writers to their illustrious predecessors, which is either done to give other readers an idea where a new name fits in the lineage of the genre or simply as a marketing ploy. I remember when an untranslated Paul Halter was talked about as the heir of John Dickson Carr and every new female mystery novelist, since the publication of P.D. James' Cover Her Face (1962), is billed as the second coming of Agatha Christie, but rarely is the comparison accurate or entirely fair – acting more as a millstone around an author's neck. Halter had somewhat of an uphill battle during the 2010s following the translation of his first novel-length locked room mystery, Le roi du désordre (The Lord of Misrule, 1996). Not a story that delivered on the promise of what a novel-length Father Brown tale by G.K. Chesterton would have been like. 

But every now and then, the comparison between two authors click into place like puzzle pieces. And when that happens, it's both a huge compliment and glowing endorsement. Although it happens very rarely.

One such rarity is represented by an American magician, Henning Nelms, who penned two highly regarded locked room mysteries, The Hangman's Handyman (1942) and Rim of the Pit (1944), which were published as by "Hake Talbot" and often likened to the works of two masters of the form – namely John Dickson Carr and Clayton Rawson. Robert Adey noted in Locked Room Murders (1991) that Talbot was "the only author to successfully emulate Carr" and "in fact a very satisfactory mixture of Carr and Rawson" combining "Carr's flair for atmosphere and the bizarre with Rawson's magic tricks." I agree! And it was high time to revisit Talbot's classic contributions to the impossible crime story. So where better to begin than with The Hangman's Handyman! 

The Hangman's Handyman brings Talbot's regrettably short-lived series-detective, Rogan Kincaid, to a desolate, rocky island on the Carolina coast. An island curiously named The Kraken with a bay named Gallows Cove where drowned bodies are carried to by the local current and a great stone house. The island is the property of a manufacturing chemist, Jackson B. Frant, who decided to throw a house party. The invitees comprises of his half-brother, Evan Tethryn, who's an English lord and most of the guests were his friends. Such as the girl Evan intends to marry, Miss Sue Braxton. She's accompanied by her father, Dr. Stirling Braxton. Nancy Garwood is another friend of Evan who was introduced to her host only a few days before in a New York night club. Finally, there are the previous owners of the island, Miss Julia Makepeace and her brother, Arnold, who brought along their nephew, Bobby Chatterton. A young man who loves magic tricks and locked rooms.

Rogan Kincaid is a late arrival and finds the gloomy mansion as "quiet as a catacomb" with Nancy Garwood apparently being the only living soul in the place, but she has trouble remembering what, exactly, happened or what happened to the others – until she suddenly recalled that the host had died. Jackson Frant had continued to needle his half-brother during dinner about the family curse that came with his father's title, but not an ordinary family curse. Oh no! This is a "curse that worked backwards" as Evan inherited "the power to curse others," which he demonstrated to half-brother once he had enough of his taunting and sneering jokes. Evan pointed to Jackson and spoke the curse words, "Od rot you, Jack! Od rot you!" Jackson dropped dead on the spot. The body of Jackson was carried up to his own bedroom where, once everyone has come back into the story, a gruesome discovery is made. Jackson had been dead for only two hours, "lying in this cool, wind-swept room," but the body has rotted and decomposed at an almost supernatural rate. And throughout the story evidence is unearthed proving the decomposed body is that of Jackson Frant.

This is not the only impossibility that earned The Hangman's Handyman a permanent place among the most popular and beloved locked room mystery novels. Kincaid is attacked in his dark bedroom by "something smooth, slimy, impalpable," like "a wet slither," who nearly chokes and strangles him to death. This rouses the household and they have to break down the door, because it's locked and bolted on the inside with the key sticking in the lock. But, when the door is busted open, the only person they find inside is an unconscious Kincaid. This attack forces Kincaid to act as a bedridden armchair detective during the second-half of the story.

However, the medical miracle of Jackson Frant's rapidly decomposed body and the assault in the locked bedroom are not the only story elements that makes the book standout. Talbot actually gave his detective an origin story. Rogan Kincaid is a professional gambler and somewhat of an adventurer whose character was formed by the carnival lot, card table and "the crooked little Swiss" who brought him up and taught him "to be cleverer than the other fellow" – which is how Kincaid can make a living by playing "smart poker." A dangerous occupations with people who don't always want to pay their debts, but "the gambler's ruthlessness was matched only by his prowess" and reporter remarks at one point he had seen Kincaid "clean out a poolroom once with eight guys in it." Some were carrying guns, but Kincaid "could throw pool balls faster than they could shoot" and "the way he handled a cue would make your mouth water." This is the only real difference between Talbot and Carr. Talbot leaned ever so slightly towards the better pulp writers like Fredric Brown and Theodore Roscoe. But a mystery writer nonetheless. So the backstory of Kincaid has a thread directly tied to the central puzzle and that spells trouble for the detective when people begin to propose false-solutions. That places him in cross hairs of the police.

So there you have it. A dark, lonely island with a house where people get attacked or perish under seemingly impossible circumstances replete with discussions of elemental spirits, magic trick and locked rooms. Not to mention a man with a grudge and loaded gun roaming the island and the whispered, formless presence of the titular handyman ("the sort that whistles at his work and can tie a noose or pull a customer’s heels with equal alacrity"). The Hangman's Handyman is a remarkable debut brimming with promise, but not without a few imperfections that need to be mentioned. Firstly, while the impossibilities are excellently handled, they are only original in their presentation ("...it dropped on me, as if it had been hanging from the ceiling"). The solutions to both impossibilities are clever variations on tricks seasoned mystery readers have seen before. Secondly, the overall solutions is slightly marred by the fact that the culprit is pretty bad at time management. And being difficult for difficulty's sake. This is what ultimately betrays the murderer even if you fail to figure out how everything was engineers. Talbot badly showed his hand in one brief scene (ROT13/SPOILER: gur puvyqubbq fgbel bs Rina phefvat n xvggra naq svaqvat vgf qrpnlvat pnepnff n qnl yngre vzzrqvngryl pbasvezrq ur jnf ng yrnfg va ba vg. Fhpu na boivbhf cybg-fjrrgrare. That's why the book will always stand in the shadows of Rim of the Pit, but don't let those minor flaws take anything away from The Hangman's Handyman as a delightful, well-handled and slightly pulpy take on the John Dickson Carr-style locked room mystery. Very much recommended to every dedicated locked room reader!

20 comments:

  1. Both Henning Nelms and Clayton Rawson are both well-known in the magic community. As someone who have interest in both detective fiction and magic, I wish more magicians would write more detective novels, especially of the impossible crime variety. Even today, many magicians still came up with genuinely clever new tricks on monthly basis. I would like to see how they translate those creativity into crating locked-room mysteries.

    Also, I think there is a substantial overlap between interests in magic and detective mystery. I noticed that a lot of detective story authors have interest in magic. The converse might also be true. For example, a lot of magicians used 'Sherlock Holmes' or 'Cluedo' as presentations while performing mentalism.

    Lastly, I think one modern author who often used magic tricks into their detective stories to great effect is Seimaru Amagi. A lot of magic principles are used in his tricks, such as in "Prison-Prep Murder Case" or "the Third Phantom of Opera Murder".

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Agreed. More magicians should write impossible crime fiction and the converse, you mentioned, is true, but perhaps not consciously. Penn and Teller's Fool Us is the detective and impossible crime story applied to stage magic. You have an apparent impossible situation with Penn and Teller playing the role of detectives. I'm sure those two could pen one hell of a locked room mystery!

      I largely agree with you on Seimaru Amagi's plotting technique with one small caveat. You can break down his locked room and alibi tricks into three categories: architectural, illusions and a combination of the two. There are some truly large scale trick involving utilizing entire, sometimes bizarre buildings like The Prison Prep School Murder Case and The Antlion Trench Murder Case. While the smaller scale locked room mysteries apply the art of stage magic to the detective story. My favorite example is the light novel of the second Opera House case. These two techniques were folded together in stories like The Rosenkrauz Mansion Murders (truly excellent!) and The Legendary Snow Demon Murders combine those two techniques.

      Delete
  2. I think Anonymous is right about the overlap between mystery fiction and magic. It's not just the (seemingly rather large) overlap between the interests, but also how they draw on the same psychological principles of misdirection. Henry Hay's The Amateur Magician's Handbook (I don't know what edition) has an introduction laying out those principles, and despite the fact that it's about preforming magic, it doubles as one of the most preceptive analyses of mystery fiction that I've read. I'd say it should be required reading for aspiring mystery writers. (I know a while back you did a post asking what non-mystery writers people wished had written one, and Hay would have been my nomination.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I remember that very, very old blog-post and nominated the above mentioned Penn and Teller. Magicians and murder mysteries simply go together like clues and red herrings.

      There's another group of "outsiders" who have knack for writing excellent, often inventive detective fiction and in particular impossible crimes. Namely, the science-fiction writer. I can understand why magicians have a talent for locked room mysteries, but not science-fiction writers as they come from a genre where they can cheat and cop-out (by our standards) to their hearts' content.

      Delete
    2. I can understand why magicians have a talent for locked room mysteries, but not science-fiction writers

      Maybe it's a suspension of disbelief thing. A science fiction writer presents us with bizarre and sometimes scientifically impossible situations and bizarre aliens but he has to make us believe (at least while we're reading his book) that such things could really happen.

      A magician has to make us believe we've really seen something that is not just a trick. We saw him lock the girl in the cabinet and we know there's no way she could get out, but she did get out.

      Golden age detective writers present us with impossibilities (not just locked rooms but unbreakable alibis which end up being exposed as false) and they have to make us believe that they're not just playing a cheap trick on the reader.

      Magicians, golden age detective writers and science fiction writers must all make us believe in impossible things. And presumably they're all people who love the challenge of persuading us to believe in impossible things.

      Delete
    3. I get that part. That's only step one of two. A detective writer, who writes an impossible crime story, not only has to make us believe something impossible has happened, but then bring it back down to earth by showing how it was done. I can understand why magicians tend to be naturals at the locked room mystery, but where did science-fiction writers pick it up? I mean, why don't you see the same with fantasy or horror authors?

      Delete
    4. I guess science fiction authors like the idea that everything has a logical rational explanation. They like the idea of explaining stuff. Fantasy and horror writers don't have to explain things - they just tell us that dragons or vampires exist or that magic just works because hey, it's magic.

      Delete
    5. dfordoom beat me to the punch, because that's exactly what I was thinking. Writers and readers (at least this one) of science fiction want explanations for things. To different degrees in different types of SF, of course. (In hard sf it's not unusual for authors to toss in mathematical equations and mini science lectures, whereas that wouldn't fly on the pulp end of the spectrum.) But no matter the amount or kind of detail, it's expected that the author will have thoroughly thought things out. I think that this logical impulse carries over to the construction of plot.

      Delete
    6. I don't entirely agree with you two. Even hard science-fiction has its dragons and vampires in advanced aliens, technology indistinguishable from magic and time travel, which are vastly different materials to work with than cast-iron alibis or sealed rooms. While I know even less about fantasy than science-fiction, I don't think you can dismiss the detailed world building of writers like Tolkien as orcs and elves hobnobbing with a dash of wizardry thrown in. But from all the outside (genre) visitors to the detective story, it's science-fiction writers who had the most success. One of those small, often overlooked details I find fascinating and a little humorous. We actually had extraterrestrial visitors, like Isaac Asimov, who left a strange, alien-looking artifact, The Caves of Steel, that keeps picking up weird signals from space.

      Delete
    7. I get what you're saying, but cast-iron alibis and locked-room murders are things that really only exist in detective fiction, just as faster-than-light travel and time travel only exist in science fiction. And many of the solutions to cast-iron alibis and sealed rooms are rather fanciful, even if they're strictly logical.

      Real-life murderers mostly just bash someone over the head or shoot him.

      I'd say that both puzzle-plot detective fiction and science fiction take place in a universe that is not quite the real world, but the writer has to make us believe that it's real and that it behaves according to logical rules.

      Delete
    8. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    9. Rereading my comment, it seems I was a bit unclear. When I say that SF is thoroughly thought out and prizes explanations, I meant it not in the sense of worldbuilding, but in the sense of (for lack of a better word) something more mechanical. Tolkien (who is one of my favorite authors), is a good example of the difference. Tolkien's legendarium is, as you say, exceedingly well thought out. However, given the rules of the setting, we don't need to know the detailed fundamental principles of magic in order to accept the presence of wizards. Indeed, such an explanation would be antithetical to Tolkien's stated, explicitly mythological, aim. And this is true of a large part of the fantasy genre, though certainly not all of it.* Whereas, in SF, at least some degree of technical explanation is expected. These explanations aren't all equally good, but authors who are good at coming up with them arise more often, since the genre incentivizes that.

      *This isn't, of course, to suggest that fantasy writers can't be good mystery writers. Or, for that matter, to say that there isn't a large overlap between writers of fantasy and SF. But I think these trends do hold true in the aggregate.

      (This comment reposted because of an alarming number of typos and poorly worded sentences. ^^')

      Delete
  3. I always feel this title gets overlooked because of Rim of the Pit -- hell, even I've overlooked it, writing about RotP but not this on my own blog -- so it's lovely to see Handyman getting some love. I remember loving the eerie atmosphere of the first half, with the barely-lit rooms used to great effect, so I'll attempt to revisit this before too long.

    Man, it's difficult not to wonder what the lost third manuscript of Talbot's might have contained, eh?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. But it's difficult trying to imagine what kind of impossible crime Talbot had concocted with a title like The Affair of the Half-Witness. Maybe someone heard a murder right in front of him, a loud struggle ending with a gunshot, but without seeing either the killer or victim. As if they were both invisible. Or the half-witness overheard a fight in a locked cabin, looked through the window and saw it was empty, but when he went inside discovered a body in the middle of the room. So many possibilities!

      Enjoy your return trip to the Kraken.

      Delete
  4. Have not read this. I don't really care for the Talbot/Rawson/Sladek school of impossible crime writing, but you make it sound surprisingly readable. I might put this somewhere in the middle of my multi-hundred TBR pile based on the weight of your review, TomCat!

    By the way, off-topic, have you read Lord Gorell's IN THE DARK (1917), apparently a minor landmark of the early days of the fairplay mystery novel. I jumped through a million hoops to get my hands on a copy from a library, and I figured you'd be the person to ask about what my expectations should be.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I can see why Rawson is not to everyone's taste, even to locked room enthusiasts, because his output is very uneven in quality, but you don't care for Sladek (Black Aura!!!) or Talbot? So, yeah, I definitely recommend tossing The Hangman's Handyman back on the hillside of your TBR pile. You might like Sladek more in his short stories. Maps: The Uncollected John Sladek comes highly recommend with a wide variety of short stories ranging from his locked room and inverted mysteries to science-fiction with criminal intent.

      I've heard of Lord Gorell, but never read or came across one of his novels. John Norris, Curt Evans or Martin Edwards can probably enlighten you more than I can. Lord Gorell sounds like the kind of obscure, practically forgotten mystery they happen to know all about.

      Delete
    2. Sladek more than Talbot, and I don't like DEATH FROM A TOPHAT at all. I actually really did enjoy both Invisible Green and Black Aura well enough, I just feel like this particular school of writers tend to prioritize effect and resolution is kind of secondary (hence, magic trick). I like the novels enough, I'm just not in love with this brand of impossible crime plotting Personally. Who knows, though, it's been a few years, (and I don't want to sound pedestrian...)

      Delete
    3. Prioritizing effect over resolution describes Rawson and, to some extend, Talbot, but not Sladek! Black Aura is perhaps the best example of how magic and illusions can be reshaped into a detective story, but the balance between effect and resolution of the levitation-trick is nigh perfect. And has one of those brilliant, illuminating clues planted in plain sight. Sladek came up with an entirely new, non-magic related locked room-trick in Invisible Green and, to this day, I've only come across one variation on it. So he could have easily picked up, where John Dickson Carr left off, but, apparently, writing locked room mysteries in the 1970s wasn't going to pay his bills.

      Delete
  5. Great review as per usual. I think I preferred this to Rim Of The Pit. I liked them both well enough to buy my friend each.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They are both great for different reasons and a perfect gift for your friends.

      Delete