The Death of a Worldly Woman (1948) by A.B. Cunningham

A.B. Cunningham was an American teacher, professor of English and the author of over twenty detective novels featuring the backwoods Sherlock, Jess Roden, who's the sheriff of Deerlick, Kentucky – a county with a shockingly high bodycount. Cunningham's Sheriff Jess Roden series belong to the American school of regional mysteries with writers like Todd Downing and Eunice Mays Boyd. So each book in the series is basically a slice of locally flavored, small-town Americana and country noir.

Cunningham's appeared to have enjoyed some popularity and success with his Sheriff Roden mysteries during the 1940s. Anthony Boucher was a fan ("Cunningham's studies in Americana are unique in the mystery field") who praised "the solid reality of Cunningham's backwoods setting" and "Roden's uniquely effective sleuthing." However, the series has been out-of-print since the end of the 1950s and has regrettably remained out-of-print through out the reprint renaissance of the past ten years. I liked Cunningham's The Strange Death of Manny Square (1941) and Death Haunts the Dark Lane (1948), but it was not until recently I came across another one of Cummingham's mystery novels. In fact, I got my hands on one, of two, Sheriff Roden novels listed in Robert Adey's Locked Room Murders (1991). More on that in a moment.

The Death of a Worldly Woman (1948) is the 15th title in the series placing Sheriff Roden, the best detective in the Kentucky Mountains, in a fish-out-water situation.

The backdrop of The Death of a Worldly Woman is the young, bustling city of Norton, situated along the bank of the Green River, which normally doesn't take notice of a short newspaper report about "a woman dying from an overdose of sleeping powders" – until the primarily police investigation made them "sit up and take notice." Miss Dimple Guest, two-time divorcee and leading figure of the Norton smart set, died in her bedroom at Riverside Apartments of an apparent overdose. A bottle of sleeping powders was found on the bedside table. So all the policeman in charge, Myron Tyner, has to do is find out whether she took the overdose by accident or on purpose. Only for evidence to quickly point towards murder.

First of all, the cause of death was not an overdose of sleeping powders, but a classic case of cyanide poisoning. And, considering, how peaceful the scene appeared it obviously had to have been staged. So murder and Chief Polk decides to call in their specialist from the mountainous backwoods across the river, Sheriff Jess Roden, who's clearly out of his element on the streets of Norton and the carpeted hallways of the Riverside Apartments. Fortunately, the small pool of potential suspects were contained to the Riverside Apartments (“she was poisoned in her apartment after the house was locked for the night”). So the sheriff and chief have about nine people to consider. Kirk Leach, a young bachelor, Mrs. Blaze, a widow, the Haneys, Garry Wade and his mother occupying the first and second floor. The basement is occupied by the caretaker and her daughter, Stellie and Fay Mankin. They share their basement room with Stellie's brother-in-law/uncle, Vic Mankin, who even in today's fiction would standout as a Hall of Fame creep.

Like I said, Sheriff Roden is somewhat out of his element even though his (core) methods, or principles, don't differ all that much from most fictitious detectives. Sheriff Roden at one point explains to Chief Polk that "unless the murderer is a madman, he has planned his crime with the same sort of mind you and I have." So what he does is "examine the little group of out of which the victim was taken," because within that closed circle, someone had motive and opportunity – only difference is how the sheriff tackles these problems. Sheriff Roden is not your regular amateur sleuth or city cop and can understand how his character alone garnered Cunningham a fanbase during the 1940s. Even in an atypical novel like this one.

The Death of a Worldly Woman is essentially a Van Dinean-style detective novel, not a Kentucky flavored regional mystery, which is why the backwoods Sherlock's usual approach initially fail. Bumping into proverbial brick walls, getting thrown down the steps of the Riverside Apartments and finding himself in some uncomfortably tight corners. I found one scene rather emasculating when Sheriff Roden, hat in hand, had to ask Chief Polk to tell one of the characters at the Riverside Apartments to stop bullying him, but eventually pulls himself and the case together. So, on a whole, The Death of a Worldly Woman should have been a true vintage elevated by its decidedly non-Van Dinean detective and Cunningham's unvarnished depiction of post-WWII America. For example, on the very first page, Mrs. Blaze hysterically announced she was leaving Riverside Apartments and only for the various agencies to laugh at her ("...there were dozens of families living in tents and trailers and other dozens crowding in together..."). On the surface, it has enough to warrant a reprint. There are, however, a few imperfections and shortcomings keeping it from a place in the first-rank and why this series is never getting reprinted. Not until the copyright expires.

Firstly, the problem of the locked room that's not a locked room at all. This is not a problem, or shortcoming, because neither Cunningham nor Sheriff Roden treated the murder as an impossible crime. If anything, The Death of a Worldly Woman is a blunt example of the closed circle situation and never would have assumed otherwise had it not been for its inclusion in Adey's Locked Room Murders. I think Adey was a little unfair when he called it "the poorest solution of all," because it's not a locked room mystery. What's definitely a shortcoming is the rushed ending crammed into the last, 10-page chapter. I don't know if Cunningham was pleasantly writing along when he realized he had to conclude it and raced towards it, which made for a weak and unsatisfying ending. There were a few details that needed to be elaborated on and explained a little bit further. Cunningham just called it a day and ended the book on this short note, "I guess that's it."

The Death of a Worldly Woman has some points of interest, but the last chapter is too much of a rush job to recommend it. I know who reads this blog and what they want. They would be sore about how this ended. Unfortunately, that's not all.

I mentioned in the review of The Strange Death of Manny Square a recurring character in the series by the name of Big Nig. He accompanies the sheriff across the river to Norton and plays a peripheral role in the case. Let's say that the character has not aged gracefully and likely the reason why publishers have shied away from reprinting the series. So I wish I had something better to report back on, especially as The Death of a Worldly Woman had been on my locked room wishlist for ages. I remember Cunningham had a firmer grasp on the plot in The Strange Death of Manny Square and Death Haunts the Dark Lane. So I still keep an eye out for Who Killed Pretty Becky Low? (1951), the other title listed in Locked Room Murders, and any stray copies of titles like Murder at Deer Lick (1939), Murder at the Schoolhouse (1940) and Death Visits the Apple Hole (1945). Well, I'll try and pick something good next.