Two Shooter

"Locked rooms and mysterious disappearances smack of deliberate subterfuge."

- Sabina Carpenter (Bill Pronzini's "Gunpowder Alley," a 2012 uncollected short story)

Bill Pronzini and Marcia Muller's The Dangerous Ladies Affair (2017) is the fifth in their recent series of historical locked room mysteries about a pair of private-investigators, namely John Quincannon and Sabina Carpenter, who operate in the San Francisco of the late 1890s, but their first recorded case dates back more than thirty years – beginning with the eponymously titled Quincannon (1985). The characters would go on to appear in the splendid Beyond the Grave (1986) and a whole slew of short stories. Some of them were collected (e.g. Quincannon's Game, 2005), but the most recent ones are, as of now, uncollected.

Several years ago, the stories about Carpenter and Quincannon were, sort of, rebooted as a series of full-length detective novels and sometimes materials from the short stories were expanded upon. Such as "The Bughouse Caper," from Quincannon's Game, which was taken apart and used as the basis for ongoing story-line about a scattered-brain figure, who claimed to be Sherlock Holmes, that began with The Bughouse Affair (2013) – finally concluding two novels later in The Body Snatchers Affair (2015). That last title was also an expansion of a short story, "The Highbinders," which was originally published in Carpenter and Quincannon: Professional Detective Services (1998).

I bring this up because The Dangerous Ladies Affair consists of two separate, non-overlapping investigations and Quincannon's case is an expansive rewrite of two short stories, but still managed to be my favorite part of the book.

Quincannon is engaged by the President of the Woolworth National Bank, Titus Wrixton, concerning "a matter of some delicacy that demands considerable discretion." Someone is trying to extort money from the bank president and the blackmail material is related to a personal indiscretion. And he already coughed up five thousand dollars! As to be expected, there's another demand for money and now Wrixton wants Quincannon to retrieve the indiscreet letters he wrote, which gave the latter an idea.

Wrixton handed over the money to "an emissary" of his blackmailer, a short, hooked nose person, who'll probably be at the bar of the Hotel Grant to receive the second payment and Quincannon is determined to follow him back to the person behind the blackmail scheme – except that what he finds is of those "seemingly impossible conundrums." The name of the emissary turns out to be Raymond Sonderberg and he owns a small cigar store in Gunpowder Alley, but when Quincannon arrives shots ring out from the locked store.

After two doors are broken down, Quincannon and a passing patrolman find the body of Sonderberg with two bullet holes in the chest, but how did the murderer manage to vanish from what is, essentially, a double locked room? Sonderberg's body was found in a bolted room with the only window latched from the inside and the front door of the shop was also locked from the inside. So how did the murderer enter and leave the premise?

The locked room part of Quincannon's case had an earlier life as "Gunpowder Alley," originally published in a 2012 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, which made the explanation not as big a surprise as it could have been. However, this is still a nice little section that focuses on the how of the crime, because the murderer never makes an appearance in the first half of this case, but the observant reader can probably make an educated guess out of which direction the wind is blowing – as well as working out the locked room trick based on a thud and a description of something at the crime-scene.

Where it all began

Second half is basically a chase tale in which Quincannon is trying to bring the cheeky murderer to earth and the source material of this part is "Burgade's Crossing," which came from the pages of a 1993 issue Louis L'Amour Western Magazine and was collected in the aforementioned 1998 short story collection. So lot's of old material was reused for this case, but, as said above, it's still my favorite part of this novel.

Meanwhile, Sabina Carpenter is consumed by an entirely different kind of problem: she has been participating member of the Golden Gate Ladies' Bicycle Club for several weeks and she did so at the encouragement of her new friend, Amity Wellman – who's the head of an organization dedicated to getting women the right to vote in California. Lately, she has been getting religiously tinged letters that could be perceived as a threat and she has a fair share of potential enemies. Such as the leader of the anti-progressive Solidarity Party, named Nathaniel Dobbs, but there's also a man with whom she briefly had an extramarital affair, Fenton Egan. A married man with a very jealous wife, Prudence.

So there was more than enough plot-material for an interesting case, especially after an attempt on Wellman's life, but practically the entire story consists of Sabina poking a stick in Wellman's opposition. A murder is committed towards the end of this story-line, but one that's solved almost as quickly as it was presented and only seemed to be introduced to give the story a morally ambiguous ending when Sabine covers up the murderer's guilt.

I found it increasingly difficult to get into this part of the book and even became annoyed at times by Sabina's partisan behavior. Such as when she decided to play apologetics on behalf of her friend at the home of the Egans. Sure, Prudence is a vengeful woman with her own dirty linen, but saying that Wellman's work as a woman's activist makes her especially "entitled to understanding and forgiveness" is not an argument. She was basically asking Prudence why she was such a sour puss about Wellman sleeping with her husband when she was doing such a good job as suffragette. Hey, I borrowed your car for a week or two without you knowing, but don't be mad, I also feed the needy and homeless at the soup kitchen.

So, plot-and storywise, I feel very divided about The Dangerous Ladies Affair and would not rank it as high as, say, the first two entries in this series, but still very much enjoyed the case and chase handled by Quincannon. I always liked him as a character and consider him to be one of the great detective-characters who emerged in the modern era. So the ending of this novel is a much deserved one. And also showed that, perhaps, the series is winding down and drawing to a close.

Well, that was my rambling for this blog-post and not sure what will be next, but it might be a re-read. Because, you know, that TBR-pile does not really need any continued and sustained trimming or anything. ;)

A Stuffed Bag of Tricks

"There was a bang, a plock, and a hiss, then a smell of beer incongruously spreading into the air."

- Nicholas Blake (There's Trouble Brewing, 1937)

The Plague of Thieves Affair (2016) is the fourth in a series of historical mystery novels by Bill Pronzini and Marcia Muller, which began with The Bughouse Affair (2013), but originated in a Western-style novel, Quincannon (1985), that spawned a long-running series of short detective stories – some of which were collected in Carpenter and Quincannon: Professional Detective Services (1998).

John Quincannon and Sabina Carpenter solved a preponderance of their cases in magazine stories and the basic structure of the plot of The Plague of Thieves Affair seems to hark back to the short story form. There are a number of cases in the book that solved without wasting any time and could easily stand by their own as short stories.

The Plague of Thieves Affair embarks with Quincannon nearing the final stages of an investigation at Golden State Steam Beer. Owner of the brewery, John Willard, engaged the services of Quincannon to probe the bizarre death of the head brew-master, Otto Ackermann, who had been stunned with a blow to the head and pitched into a "vat of fermenting beer to drown" – which differs from the scenario of a freak-accident that the "incompetent minions of the law" had pieced together "after a cursory investigation." Obviously, the motive was the appropriation of the brew-master's secret recipe and implicated a rival brewery lead by "a morally bankrupt businessman."

Meanwhile, Sabina Carpenter has a meeting with several clients: Marcel Carreaux and Andrew Rayburn are the first arrivals. Carreaux is the assistant curator of the Louvre Museum in Paris and Rayburn is the owner of the "well-regarded Rayburn Art Gallery on Post Street," who were brought together by an exhibition of "rare and valuable antique ladies' handbags" – dubbed "Reticules Through the Ages." One of the items on display is the Marie Antoinette chatelaine bag, valued at several thousand dollars, which requires special protection because "thieves abound in the Barbary Coast." It's the reason why they approached Carpenter and Quincannon.

A dandy, "gay blade," by the name of Roland W. Fairchild, is the second client of the day and he wants to hire the agency to find his missing cousin, Charles P. Fairchild III, who became the sole inheritor of a multi-million dollar estate and Carpenter is "uniquely qualified to locate him" – since the patrician-sounding cousin is none other than the scattered-brain, bughouse Holmes who made his first appearance in The Bughouse Affair. A growing case-load, but manageable as long as complications are kept at bay, which is not going to be case.

Quincannon practically has the murderer by the scruff of the neck, but the person has cornered himself inside a building that houses the utility-and storage rooms. There are two solid oak doors, "installed as a deterrent to both rodents and human pilferage," separating Quincannon from his quarry. However, the report of a gunshot is heard inside and when the doors are finally opened they find the body of the suspect sprawled on the ground: a gunshot wound in the chest and a revolver near at hand. Quincannon privately scoffs at the idea of suicide, but murder requires a gunman and nobody was found hiding in the storage room. It was Quincannon who stood guard at the only door giving access to the rooms and heard the gunshot. But nobody entered or left the room while he was standing there!

It's a classic locked room murder, but not a particular difficult one to explain and this plot-thread soon becomes part of a chase-type of story, in which Quincannon pursues a second, slippery customer with bloody hands and attempts to locate the stolen recipe – which brings him to several interesting locations and comes across some colorful folks.

However, Sabina is faced with a number of complications as well as a seemingly impossible problem. During the exhibit of the antique handbags, the lights are extinguished for "a period of no more than two minutes" and when they came on again the Marie Antoinette bag was gone! All of the exits were guarded, but a thorough search of the premises failed to retrieve the stolen handbag. Luckily, the crackbrain Sherlock turned up again to help Sabina wrap up the case in record-time.

Sabina was also hired to find the self-proclaimed Holmes by supposed relatives of him, but that soon developed in a case of murder with the bughouse Holmes as the chief-suspect, which they also solved within the length of a short story – and could have easily been called, "as the good Doctor Watson might have" titled it, "The Adventure of the Wrong Detective."

It's these short story-like plot-threads, in combination with the compartmentalized nature of Quincannon's investigation, that gives the impression of reading a collection of short stories converted into a novel with bridging material. Pronzini has done that previously with Scattershot (1982), but I'm not sure if a similar route was taken with The Plague of Thieves Affair.

However, the rather unfortunate result is that The Plague of Thieves Affair comes across as a relatively minor series-entry, which mainly contributed character-development to ongoing story lines – such as the back-story of the bughouse Holmes and the relationship between the series protagonists. 

As a fan of the series, I very much enjoyed reading The Plague of Thieves Affair, but, judged purely as a mystery novel, it's a notch below the previous books in the series.

The Carpenter & Quincannon reviews:

Beyond the Grave (1986)

Carpenter and Quincannon: Professional Detective Services (1998)
The Bughouse Affair (2013)
The Spook Lights Affair (2013)
The Body Snatchers Affair (2015)

The Plague of Thieves Affair (2016)

On Matters of Grave Concern

"Though everything will seem dark to you now, remember that even behind the darkest clouds of night there shines the moon of dawn."

- (Robert van Gulik's "The Wrong Sword," from Judge Dee at Work, 1967)

The Body Snatchers Affair (2015) is the third, full-length novel in the historical Carpenter and Quincannon series, which began with a standalone book, Quincannon (1985), that formed the basis for a series of magazine stories and an excellent selection of those stories – collected as Carpenter and Quincannon: Professional Detective Services (1998). 
 

In 2011, I announced on my blog that the William Roos and Aubrey Kelley of our time, Bill Pronzini and Marcia Muller, were collaborating on a series of novels starring the duo of gumshoes operating in the San Francisco of the late 1890s. The Bughouse Affair (2013) and The Spook Lights Affair (2013) were the first to appear and The Plague of Thieves Affair (2016) is slated for release early next year, but first let's take a look at The Body Snatchers Affair. 

The lion's share of The Body Snatchers Affair is modeled around the plot of a short story, "The Highbinders," from Carpenter and Quincannon: Professional Detective Services, in which the body of a Tong leader, Bing Ah Kee, is unceremoniously snatched from his coffin – a potential triggering move for a small-scale civil war on the streets of Chinatown.

Quincannon is hired to fetch a drug-addicted lawyer, James Scarlett, from an opium den, but his half conscious quarry is fatally shot while attempting to carry him out of the Chinese Quarters. The last words Scarlett uttered, "blue shadow," amounts to a dying message, however, the explanation for this part of the plot is the same as in the short story. So it won't yield any surprises, if you've read and remember that particular story, but a good and interesting expansion nonetheless.

While Quincannon attempts to quell a rising fire in Chinatown, Sabina Carpenter has one or two problems of her own to take care of, one professional in nature and the other personal, but in both cases she tries to keep Quincannon in the dark as much as possible.

The professional problem concerns a client of hers, Mrs. Blanchford, who received a $75,000 ransom note for the return of her late-husband's remains. Mrs. Blanchford's husband was interred in the family mausoleum and the door can only be opened with a key that was in a safety-deposit box inside a secured bank building, but the note contained Ruben Blanchford's wedding ring and a piece of satin cut from the lining of a casket.

It's completely impossible to enter the solid looking, family crypt and take away the body, but the casket proved to be indeed empty upon inspection – which is what is being carefully kept from Quincannon. Sabina knows he would insert himself in her investigation, because Quincannon "fancied himself an expert on that sort of mystery" and wants to solve this locked room case herself. If, like me, you fancy yourself a student of the Grandest Game in the World (the obligatory John Dickson Carr reference) then the disappearance from the crypt won't pose much of a challenge for you, but that doesn't make withholding an impossible problem from a locked room enthusiast any less reprehensible. That's like taking painkillers from a sick person. You just don't do that.

Coming: 2016

However, I enjoyed how the two seemingly unrelated cases of body snatchings dovetailed with each other without actually being intertwined. 

The personal problem begins with Carson Montgomery, a metallurgist, who's vying for spot coveted by Quincannon, but Sabina (a former Pink Rose operative) has always been resistant to male advances (especially Quincannon's) ever since losing her husband in the line of duty. Just when Sabina thinks Carson may be the new man in her life, she notices an old, familiar face is watching them. The crackpot who claims to be Sherlock Holmes, first appearing in The Bughouse Affair, has been shadowing them and this eventually leads to a mining scandal from a decade ago and an (unsolved) murder in the background. But more importantly, it casts an interesting light on the bughouse Holmes and his possible role in the next novel. 

My theory: the twist is that the bughouse Sherlock Holmes was Professor Moriarty all along, who thought Quincannon was the actual Holmes in hiding and that gray-flecked, bootleggers beard one of his disguises. The Plague of Thieves Affair could be a hint at Moriarty's next big caper. 

Conclusion: The Body Snatchers Affair has everything what you've come to expect from Pronzini and Muller, but be warned, the book contains material that readers who were onboard with series before 2013 are already familiar with. That being said, I can't wait for the release of The Plague of Thieves Affair. I'm sure it'll contain another impossible problem or two.

"A" is for Antique

"Have we ever... handled any murders for him before?"

- Lutie Beagle (Torrey Chanslor's Our First Murder, 1940). 

Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini are acclaimed crime-and mystery writers in their own right, creating the celebrated private-eyes Sharon McCone and the Nameless Detective, but their masterstroke came when they decided to merge their universes and throw everything together – even when the characters were a century apart (e.g. Beyond the Grave, 1986).

I have reviewed many of their collaborations on this blog, from Double (1984) to the recent Carpenter and Quincannon novels (The Bughouse Affair and The Spook Lights Affair, 2013), but a bulk of the exposure has gone to Pronzini's work. In my defense, Pronzini's contagious enthusiasm for fiction has formed a treacherous pool of quicksand, normally known as a bibliography, which is hard to escape from. And the abundance of locked room mysteries! You can't forgot about that. However, the end result is that I have only read two solo-works by Muller: The Tree of Death (1983) and The McCone Files (1995). So I decided it was about time to tackle a proper Sharon McCone novel and where better to start than at the beginning...

Edwin of the Iron Shoes (1977) was the debut of "the founding mother of the contemporary female hardboiled private eye," but the plot is very traditional and that's how I really prefer my private-eyes – not too hard boiled.

The epicenter of Edwin of the Iron Shoes is Salem Street, where the careworn buildings provide housing for a clutter of antique stores and junk shops, but, recently, their owners have been on the receiving end of vandalism mingled with arson. Intimidation that eventually culminates in murder of one of the shopkeepers. Joan Albritton owned a small shop, Joan's Unique Antique, which is where her body was found – stabbed with a bone-handled knife snatched from an open display case. The inoffensive antique dealer was a client of All Souls Cooperative, a legal firm to help the unfortunate ones in society, and they sick their staff investigator on her murderer.

Sharon McCone has more than enough leads to sort out and suspects to follow up on. Firstly, there's the possible connection between the acts of vandalism and an impending real-estate deal with a cold and vindictive mogul, Cara Insgall – which also attracted the attention of a shady bail bondsman, Ben Harmon. A character who's about as hand tame as Max Hook from the mystery stories by Craig Rice. Secondly, there are the suspects that are a lot closer to home. Oliver van Osten was one of Joan's antique dealers and more than willing to put his knowledge at McCone's disposal. Or Charlie Cornish, owner of the Junk Emporium across the street, who had a relationship with Joan and disapproved of her seeing Harmon. What's the role of the wood-carved little-boy mannequin, named Edwin, wearing ornate iron shoes?

Muller penned an ambitious first mystery novel that stands pleasantly closer to the works of the then (semi) retired generation of writers than the hardboiled private-eye Muller is associated with today, but hey, that's just my personal bias for pure detective stories rearing its ugly head again. Edwin of the Iron Shoes does reflect the talent Muller (and Pronzini) has for creating characters without sacrificing the plot, which is commendable, but my favorite part was when McCone spend the night at the crime-scene – where she had a brush with a night-time intruder after a vivid dream and probably had her first argument with a police lieutenant over the course of a murder enquiry. Or how McCone sneaked into places she wasn't suppose to be and how her theory was crushed when her handpicked murderer became another victim. The inevitable confrontation with the murderer got a smile, because, this being the first in the series, the training wheels were still on and McCone only had to fear for her life at knifepoint – instead of arguing over the barrel of a gun. What I'm trying to say is that characterization can be a wasted effort when I'm reading the book.

The only (minor) complaint I have is the identity of the murderer. I kept hoping it wasn't this person, because it was too easy, but absolutely forgivable for a debut novel. So, all in all, not a bad start of what blossomed into a successful series.

A Fling With a Ghostly Thing

"This world is far more mysterious than we give it credit for."

- Victoria Coren (Q.I.: J Series, "Jargon")

Back in late November of 2011, I was handed the scoop on a new, collaborative series of mystery novels, concocted between Bill Pronzini and Marcia Muller, starring their 1890s San Francisco-based gumshoes from Carpenter and Quincannon: Professional Detective Services (1998) – among other uncollected short stories and some earlier, full-length adventures (e.g. Beyond the Grave, 1986).

Despite being the one who broke the news, I was fairly late with actually reading The Bughouse Affair (2013) and I didn't do much better with The Spook Lights Affair (2013). In my defense, however, the book wasn't supposed to be published until this year. But enough of this palaver and lets see if I can add anything of substance to the pile of reviews of this still recent release.

The Spook Lights Affair has John Quincannon, formerly attached to the U.S. Secret Service, and Sabina Carpenter, an ex-Pinkerton detective, assigned (once again) to separate cases, but you can't complain in what are still economic rough times – especially if your clients can afford to squander money on a private-eye. Sabina finds herself in the role of matron and has to "baby-sit" Virginia St. Ives, who's being watched by her family to prevent her sneaking off with Lucas Whiffing. The family does not approve of the young family, but the surveillance of Virginia cumulates in a confrontation at a fancy dress party and storms outside with Sabina in hot pursuit. Unfortunately, the only thing Sabina can do for Virginia is getting help after watching her jump to her death from a fog-enwrapped parapet, however, a search beneath the spot only turns up a handbag containing a suicide note and a piece of cloth. The body is nowhere to be found!

Somewhere, around the same time, the ghosts of Quincannon's forebears, who left the Old World for the New One, must've been living vicariously through their descendent as Quincannon goes above and beyond to get his hands on a ten percent reward in the case of the Wells, Fargo Express heist. A daring and masked robber relieved the company of $35,000 and Quincannon is determined to get his $3,500 cut for giving it back to them. Regrettably, a tip from a squeamish gambling addict, Bob Cantwell, leads the detective straight to a days old crime-scene and the traditional scuffles with suspects. I sometimes get the impression detectives related to the Hardboiled School take more bumps than a pro-wrestler on a Pay-Per-View night. All of the (semi)-hardboiled detectives I remember reading ended up trading blows or gunfire with one character or another in pretty much every single story I have read, which sometimes makes them come across as overconfident, street-level Batman's – all they need is alcohol, prospect of a fee, two fists and an ugly mug to land them on. I understand it’s tradition, but, writers, do you have to aim for the head every single time? Can't a guy get a door slammed in his face or his tires slashed every once in a while to get shaken off by his quarry? I'm just suggesting it doesn't always has to be an assault or attempted murder.

A third case is introduced when Mr. Barnaby L. Meekers, from the Western Investment Corporation, wants to engage on a "matter of bizarre nature," which turn out to be spook lights haunting a scattering of abandoned horse-traction cars nearby a beach at a place named Carvill-by-the-Sea (a.k.a. Spook Central). Meeker chased the apparition twice and described as a humanoid shaped, white glow and "the dune crests were unmarked along the thing's path of flight." There weren't impressions of any sort with exception of claw marks on the walls and roofs of the cars "as if the thing had the talons of a beast." 

The explanation for the mysterious disappearance of Virginia’s body and the appearances of the Carville Ghost takes a page from the type of impossible crime stories dating from roughly the same period (in mystery terms) in which The Spook Lights Affair is set such as L.T. Meade and Robert Eustace's A Master of Mysteries (1898) and The Thinking Machine's dismissals of the supernatural. However, even though Pronzini and Muller weren’t able to fool me with their seemingly impossible trickery this time (nice try though), they were able to herd every part of the plot into a coherent narrative and The Spook Lights Affair simply works as a well put together mystery novel brimming with fascinating characters, exciting scenes and places from a by-gone time now forever altered by time. The brief interruption from the bughouse Holmes, which annoy Quincannon to no end, were also more than welcome and it's still funny picturing him as Jeremy Brett – playing the part of the "Scattered-brain" Holmes with the same conviction as that of the original. I hope he'll be back in the next novel.

I couldn't fit this in anywhere else, but if you've read Carpenter and Quincannon: Professional Detective Services, you'll notice that a scene towards the end of The Spook Lights Affair was borrowed from one the stories from that collection. I also posted in December on an actual (solved) spook lights case in my, ahum, popular series of real-life locked room mysteries and you can find that post here.

Well, in closing, I think it was the previous novel with a blurb saying Pronzini and Muller make beautiful music together, but Carpenter and Quincannon, like Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, must be wonderful instruments to play on.

Bill Pronzini: That 70s Crime Writer

"The private detective of fiction is a fantastic creation who acts and speaks like a real man. He can be completely realistic in every sense but one, that one sense being that in life as we know it such a man would not be a private detective."

- letter, 19 April 1951, published in Raymond Chandler Speaking (1962) 

Raymond Chandler was right. The great detectives of fiction, if they exist, would probably not be private eyes, of some renown, but occupy a seat in front of a computer and dream up the plots they would have solved if they had existed on the pages of a Dashiell Hammett or John Dickson Carr story.

For he's a jolly good fellow!

On April 13, 1943, a mystery writer was born who would not look inconspicuous wearing a fedora and raincoat, prowling those mean streets of Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe, or stalk the hallways of a decaying mansion were people have disappeared as if by magic – spurting cryptic remarks and chuckles that drives the official policeman up the wall. Alas, common criminals are rarely known for their storybook-like ingenuity and that's why Bill Pronzini criminal ties are merely fictional ones. 

Pronzini's career began in the early 1970s with the publication of The Snatch (1971), which was selected by our common deity hero, John Dickson Carr, as one of the best detective novels of the year, and solidified his name as one of the top crime/mystery readers in the succeeding decade. I'm fairly much a novice when it comes to his work, but what I have read was enough to list him among my favorites and not just because Pronzini is a damn good writer. 

What lights the fire in Pronzini's stories, that keeps most of us drawing to his work like moths, is that he's an avid mystery/collector himself and brings 170 years worth of insight into detective, thriller and private-eye fiction to the game – drifting himself quite naturally between those styles. Pronzini prefers to vary his style and approach to keep it fun and his long-running series fresh, which means that you can bounce with the Nameless Detective from an impossible crime buried in the past (Bones, 1985) to soul-searching suspense (Shackles, 1988). Historical mysteries, stand-alone thrillers, short stories, and that rare beast of crime fiction, properly done crossovers are part of Pronzini's repertoire, but more importantly, characterization reflects the modern era without turning a story into a collection of mini-biographies – adding instead of distracting from the stories. You get to the learn the (main) characters, bit by bit, which I always thought was much far more realistic and makes me care about what happens to them then when I would've waded through hundreds of pages of personal misery with a backpack full of past angst. 

Exactly the same can be said about a number of other post-GAD era writers that I, as a staunch classicist, nonetheless enjoy reading, such as Marcia Muller, William DeAndrea, Herbert Resnicow, Paul Halter and M.P.O. Books, and they have one thing in common with Pronzini: they all love(d) to sink their teeth in a good detective story and sometimes possess an encyclopedic knowledge of the genre. Personally, I believe that their grasp on the genre has enriched their stories and continued to a tradition that others seem to have forgotten. You don't believe me? Xavier Lechard has a gem buried on his blog, a post from 2009, which reports on an Edgar-winning author, Tana French, chortling about how she carries on "the traditions of mystery fiction," and that's true, but than she blasts everyone with a nodding acquaintance with detective stories in the face with a shotgun blast of ignorance: "...my book is narrated in first person, which is an old convention of the genre except that in this case the narrator lies." I wonder if she spend a couple of days in an isolation tank for inspiration, but Agatha Christie was probably struck by that idea when she was doing the dishes. 

That’s why I find it hard to warm up to today's best-selling thrillers and popular police procedurals. They not only lack the historical depth, but I genuinely don't care about the troubled cop with his messy private life – if that's the only thing they have to offer. I want to be entertained or captivated with clever and imaginative plots (clues abound!), engaging characters, atmospheric settings and memorable scenes. Give me the tale of John Quincannon and Elena Oliverez, kindred spirits separated by a hundred years, who managed to help each other solve an even older case (Beyond the Grave, 1986; with Marcia Muller). Give me Nameless and Kerry Wade for a couple, whose mutual love ignited amidst "Carter Dickson-effects" in Hoodwink (1981) and Scattershot (1982). Give me any case that passes through the offices Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services (The Bughouse Affair, 2013). Give me the kind of "fictionalized realism" that drives a good plot (Dragonfire (1982) & Savages, 2005), because actual realism would result in a 600-page novel painstakingly describing a stakeout of a suspect without a payoff. That's what realism in crime fiction would be like. 

But this celebratory post is threatening to turn into a diatribe, and yes, this is embarrassing heap of praise is a mea culpa for not having a proper review ready to mark Bill Pronzini's 70th birthday – unlike some of my fellow bloggers. Rest assured that I'm thoroughly assumed of this fact and will review one of the Nameless novels I have kicking around later this/next month. Until then, I want to congratulate Bill Pronzini and Marcia Muller with reaching this personal milestone and hope they've a great day tomorrow, and many more years together to trust their nefarious schemes to paper.

A Twist in Time

"I started playing so I could link the distant past to the far future."

- Hikaru Shindo. 

I've always had an affinity for crossovers, which, alas, are scarce in the mystery genre, but every now and then, one rises to the surface. The rotating writing team that once operated under a number of pennames, including Patrick Quentin and Jonathan Stagge, wrote one, Black Widow (1951), where Lt. Trant cast Peter Duluth as the main suspect of his murder investigation and The People vs. Withers and Malone (1963) has Craig Rice and Stuart Palmer's series detectives facing off against Murphy's Law – and gave me one hell of a dream!

The mystery writing husband-and-wife team of Bill Pronzini and Marcia Muller have occasionally pooled their talents, and as a result, The Nameless Detective and Sharon McCone inhabit the same universe and I recommend Double (1984), if you have never seen them on a case together. However, Beyond the Grave (1986) may have been their best collaboration from that period. It presents the reader with the alluring problem of a hidden treasure of religious artifacts, hidden in 1846, that leaves a streak of crime through history – and it takes the combined skills of two detectives, a hundred years apart, to solve it.

Beyond the Grave opens with the only part of the novel that takes place during 1846, when Rancho Rinconada de los Robles, the estate of Don Esteban Velasquez, fell during the Bear Flag Revolt, but not before trusting Padre Urbano with stowing away his family treasure. The padre died during the siege of the ranch and the cache of artifacts evanesced from history. We move from the 1840s to the 1980s, where Elena Oliverez, curator of the Museum of Mexican Arts in Santa Barbara, who solved a locked room murder there in one of Muller's solo novels, The Tree of Death (1983), finds a sheaf of papers in a marriage coffer she purchased at an auction. It's part of a report dating back to 1894 from a private investigation firm named Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services!

According to the report, Felipe Velasquez, son of Don Esteban, engaged Quincannon after a golden statuette of the Virgin Mary, the name of his father and date etched into the gold, turned up and wants him to follow the trail – in the hope of recovering more of his father's lost collection. Meanwhile, in the future, Elena tries to piece together the past and find other scraps of Quincannon's report. The construction of the plot is not entirely dissimilar to Ellery Queen's A Study in Terror (1966), in which Ellery Queen devours one of Dr. Watson's unpublished manuscripts accounting Sherlock Holmes' involvement in the Jack the Ripper case, but Elena is much more involved than Ellery and does more than providing a part of the solution. Not to mention that she actually has to look for Quincannon's papers in order to read them and it was a nice touch to show that she was still a museum curator, and that she couldn't just take time-off to indulge in a personal interest at her leisure. Ellery also didn't have to deal with a present day murderer near an abandoned grave.

But than again, Pronzini and Muller are as good at shaping characters as they are at crafting plots, but that also gave this book an aura of melancholy. Elena Oliverez has a fair share of personal issues troubling her, like a hospitalized mother and a wrecked relationship, and Quincannon has sworn off the demon rum and convinced that Sabina's resilience against his advances are weakening, but it's sad to think about when they're referred to in the 1986-parts as the long-dead detectives. The separation in time makes Quincannon's problems, and Elena's own worries, seem like trifles that are, or will be, dust particles in time. I have mentioned before that Carpenter and Quincannon are my favorite Pronzini/Muller characters (sorry Nameless and McCone) and I like to think that they were cut from the same ephemeral material as Sherlock Holmes and Nero Wolfe.

However, Carpenter and Quincannon's mortality does not damage the pleasure I got from Quincannon and Oliverez, a private-eye from 1890s and an amateur snoop from the 1980s, tying together an intrigue that began in 1846, picked up in 1894 and finally ended in 1986 – and thought almost the same as Oliverez before she shared this final sad reflection, "I wished I could tell him the way it had ended." Luckily, there’s nothing deterring you from learning how this bloody 140 yearlong treasure hunt ended, but to fully appreciate this story, you should be acquainted with the characters before picking this one up.

Finally, I have to point out a continuity problem when compared with The Bughouse Affair (2013): Quincannon mentions in Beyond the Grave that he’s a read a collection of short stories by Conan Doyle and purposely mimics Sherlock Holmes' speech, but in The Bughouse Affair he's talked about as an actual person – a contemporary detective of Quincannon! Of course, we can assume that in this universe "Conan Doyle" is merely a pseudonym for Dr. Watson choose and probably picked that name because it was the name of a young a man who published a prosperous story, "J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement," that some people took as a true eye-witness account of what happened aboard the Mary Celeste. Who would take any thing that guy wrote now as anything but fiction! It was a perfect cover and the reason why everyone at the time of Beyond the Grave assumed he was a storybook character. Their real names were probably Sheringford Homes and Dr. John Smith. It also explains why the real Doyle was fed-up with Sherlock Holmes overshadowing his other actual work and must have been thrilled when Dr. Smith send him the account of his friends final adventure at Reichenbach Falls. I think I would made a great conspiracy theorist.

I hope the time between now and the next review will be a lot shorter.

A Thieving Lot

"He thinks he's Sherlock Holmes in the flesh."

- Robert Arthur's "The Adventure of the Single Footprint" (Mystery and More Mystery, 1966)

In November of 2011, I reviewed Carpenterand Quincannon: Professional Detective Services (1998), a collection of short stories originally penned during the 1990s, in which John Quincannon abandoned a dwindling career with the United States Secret Service to begin his own detective agency with Sabine Carpenter, a former Pinkerton operative, in San Francisco of the 1890s.

The collection turned out to be a splendid farrago of period stories filled with colorful character and beloved tropes that trudge around in evocative settings, but the finishing touch came when Bill Pronzini informed me that he and Marcia Muller were collaborating on series of Carpenter and Quincannon novels – and gave me permission to announce The Bughouse Affair (2013) and The Spook Light Affair (2014) to the public. And yes. Considering the fact that I had the scoop, I should've reviewed this one a lot sooner. I was late with placing the order, and when the book finally arrived, I was deeply immersed in Jan Ekström's Deadly Reunion (1975). But enough excuses. 

In this first of what's hopefully to be an annual affair, Carpenter and Quincannon have separate assignments to take care of that are a part of the daily routine of a detective agency. 

Sabina has to snuff out an elusive and particular nasty pickpocket from the crowds patronizing an amusement park, a torch-lit bazaar and the throng of people walking the evening Cocktail Route, but the trail soon leads away from San Francisco's entertainment district to a seamier part of town. And a rather nasty murder. Somewhere else, John Carpenter is spending an uncomfortable evening in the shrubbery to stake out a house, in the hopes of catching a burglar in the act, but when his reward is almost within in his grasp he lets it literally slips through his fingers. Oh, and he's also held at gunpoint, mistaken as a fleeing thief in the night, by a venerable colleague from England. Or at least he claims to be.

During the opening of The Bughouse Affair, a newspaper scribbling by Ambrose Bierce touted that the world's most-celebrated detective, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, has emerged from Reichenbach Falls and found his way to their city where's spending a period of leisure a the home of a prominent family – who happened to be neighboring the burgled house. Quincannon shares Bierce's opinion that he's a crackbrain, adding that he also has the routine of a conman, and that appears to be the opinion of everyone who's aware that Sherlock Holmes disappeared alongside his arch nemesis in the gorge of Reichenbach Falls, which makes it even funnier if you imagine Jeremy Brett as the bughouse Holmes.

Whether he's an impostor or the actual Sherlock Holmes, he's playing the role like a violin, and even accompanies Quincannon on his next stake-out, where the case goes from bad to worse after the furtive burglar assaults the owner of the house – leaving him dead inside a locked room and than manages to disappear from the house unseen!

Pronzini usually dabbles in two kinds of illusions: practical ones that might actually work off-page and complex trickery that would not disgrace the stage of a famous illusionist (e.g. "The Arrowmont Prison Riddle," collected All But Impossible, 1981). I won't divulge under which header I place this impossible crime, but I definitely enjoyed it. Now that I think about it, the only one of these kind of stories (by Pronzini) that I disliked was "Proof of Guilt" (collected in Murder Impossible, 1990), which left me under whelmed after the editors praised it as "one of the very best impossible shorts written over the past 50 years." The solution was also a take-off on a trick that I loath and, IMHO, as dated as poisonous snakes and trapdoors. I hated it when Clayton Rawson used it and hated when Pronzini gave it a spin. Not to mention that Pronzini wrote at least a handful of other impossible shorts that were miles better (e.g. "Where Have You Gone, Sam Spade?" and "Booktaker," collected in Casefile, 1983, or "Medium Rare" in the previously mentioned Carpenter and Quincannon: Professional Detective Services). Anyway, back to the review at hand! 

As to be expected in a detective story, evidence from Sabina’s pickpocket case turns up in Quincannon’s investigation, and slowly, everything begins to come together in a most satisfying way. The manner in which Quincannon, Sabina and the presumptive Mr. Sherlock Holmes take part in the explanation was very reminiscent of Leo Bruce's Case for Three Detectives (1936) – especially how the bughouse detective's solution echoed one of the tales from the canon. A conscious nod to one of their predecessors whose most famous novel is also one of the most successful parodies of the storybook detective ever written?

The Bughouse Affair is more than just flight-of-fancy through a time and place now long gone by, however, the busy tourist strip, chute-rides at the amusement park, fire-lit bazaars, crowded brothels, moldy pawnshops and the many gaudy underworld figures that populate this story adds color and details to an already imaginative and absorbing plot.

If your taste runs in the direction of a classically-styled whodunit, inexplicable crimes committed in sealed rooms, Holmesian pastiches and/or historical fiction than The Bughouse Affair is your book and I recommend you track down a copy ASAP. It might give publishers an incentive to publish more of these stories.