Magic Makes Murder (1943) by Harriette R. Campbell

Harriette Russell Campbell was born in New York as the daughter of the state's Attorney-General, Leslie W. Russell, but settled down in London following her marriage to a Scotsman and produced eight detective novels between 1936 and 1949 – all but one featuring her regular sleuth, Simon Brade. Campbell appears to have cut her teeth on detective fiction for children having published at least two short stories, "The Escape of Pandora" (1927) and "The Mystery of the Brass Key" (1928), in St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls. 

Several years ago, Campbell's detective novels were reissued by a dodgy, short-lived publisher with an overzealous editors who tried to "improve" on the original text, which is why I gave all their editions a pass. Fortunately, Black Heath decided to give Campbell another print-run and began reissuing her novels last year as cheap ebooks. Magic Makes Murder (1943) stood out to me for obvious reasons, but it also helped Anthony Boucher praised how the plot "satisfactorily blended" horror, humanity and logic. Not to get ahead of to the end of the review, but, if Magic Makes Murder is representative of her overall work, Harriette Campbell could very well become another Harriette Ashbrook! 

Magic Makes Murder is the sixth case for Simon Brade, "well known to connoisseurs as a single-minded collector of Chinese porcelain," who used his "special gifts of observation in the detection of crime" to finance his expensive hobby. The story begins with three men, Brade, Blackett and Jerrold, sitting in front of comfortable coal fire to discuss a macabre case that had been forced upon the collector. Their discussion is interspersed with the pages from a manuscript written by one of the central characters in a family drama as bizarre as it's fascination. One that had been brewing for decades.

So the second chapter is the first, more lengthier, excerpts from Sylvia Shirley's manuscript, written at the request of Simon Brade, which begins with an extensive piece of necessary family history covering several decades – beginning towards the end of the First World War. John Shirley moved his family to Howells Farm in 1918 where he prospered as a farmer and devoted his spare time to studying the occult. Shirley had built two tower-like ends on the farmhouse where his son, Victor, witnessed him talking or controlling “impish creatures” and “astral shapes” who came from "a lower world," but John Shirley was not a practitioner of the dark arts. He picked the side of light and "he warned the public in grim terms against dabbling ignorantly in occultism." Over the years, Shirley created a happy household at Howells Farm. A household comprising of Nannie, a devout Catholic and utterly devoted to the family, who has looked over Shirley ever since she became wheelchair-bound as a 10-year-old girl. Denis Ridge came to Howells Farm to be Shirley's live-in secretary, but eventually became part of the family and now basked in the charm and comfort of Howells. The widowed Charlotte Lesurier came to keep house for them, but did so much more. Charlotte lightened up the whole place by making "it easy to be gay, difficult to be gloomy." She brought along her 8-year-old daughter, Frankie, who grew up to become Victor's wife. Its "happiness spread to the village, the neighborhood" and wherever his "influence was felt." Where there's light, darkness follows like the night the day.

There were three seminal moments that slowly descended Howells into darkness. Firstly, the death of John Shirley which freed his son to dabble in dark magic and began to impose his will on the household. Secondly, the birth of Victor and Frankie's son, Timmy, who his father intended to train, "as some Indians boys are trained," to become a master of magic. Thirdly, the outbreak of the First World War, but there was a five-year reprieve as Victor went abroad to further his study of the occult, but intended to take over Timmy's education when he returned. Those were both happy and troublesome year as Frankie fell in love with Dr. Warren Lang. So the stage had been set for the return of the evil magician.

Victor Shirley's ambition was gather a circle of adepts to control demons and 5-year-old Timmy had "to excel Hitler himself as a Witch Doctor of the future," but Victor's treatment of his son was "unnatural and wrong" – filling Timmy's receptive mind with images which terrified him. The entire household tried to undermine and subvert Victor's corrupting influence over the child, but he was in full control of their lives and their futures. Victor's corrupting influence even intruded upon their neighbors and the village itself. However, the household began to make serious plans to counter him and a clairvoyant warned him that he would find himself in danger from its members, which is why he dragged Simon Brade to Howells. But then the Nazis intervened!

Howells Farm was near enough to London "to see and hear the Battle of Britain and hostile planes frequently unloaded bombs" near them. One night, a bomb landed on the lane outside the farmhouse and left an enormous crater, which was immediately secured by the air-raid warden set out ladders and a warning lights to guard the crater. But did someone took advantage of the situation? Did someone remove the safe guards? Victor is an excellent driver with great eye sights, but drove his car straight into the crater and was left critically injured. So, while the doctors begin to operate on Victor, Brade finds himself as "an embodied threat" of Victor's power over the household as he tries to piece together what exactly has happened. The question whether Victor survives or dies will have consequences for everyone. Not just the culprit.

So, once you get past the introduction to the investigation, it becomes evident Campbell partially modeled her work on the so-called British "Humdrums," like J.J. Connington and John Rhode, but her handling of the vital (very original) clues places her closer to John Dickson Carr and Agatha Christie. There are some physical clues like two missing postage stamps, footsteps in the snow or instructing the reader to "get the position of the garden gate into your," but all of the important, tell-tale clues can be found in the personalities and actions of the characters. What eventually exposes the truth to Brade is combination of what was being said, heard and done at the time of the accident. A solution that more than lived up to Boucher's promise of a blend of horror, humanity and logic with a clearly stated and logical solution, but made complicated and morally murky by various, very human elements running through the case. There is, however, a very well done and original piece of alibi-breaking that hinged on (ROT13) gur orqgvzr evghnyf bs Gvzzl yvxr uvf orqgvzr fgbevrf naq ubj ur fnvq tbbqavtug. But even that excellent piece of plotting was dictated by the personalities and actions of the characters involved.

That's all I can say about Magic Makes Murder without giving anything away and whatever you think now regarding the direction of the solution, you're wrong. I, too, was reminded of those three detective novels (Puevfgvr'f Zheqre bs Ebtre Npxeblq, Zheqre ba gur Bevrag Rkcerff naq Pebbxrq Ubhfr), but Campbell pieced together a very different kind of solution that was only loose in its moral resolution. But this is one of those instances where you can't help but sympathize with the guilty party. 

Magic Makes Murder is a very unusually-structured detective novel with an opening recalling John Dickson Carr and Paul Halter, but began to take on the shape of the humdrums the moment the crime was committed (complete with diagrams) while the graceful handling of the characters, clues and red herrings is something to be expected from one of the top-tier Queens of Crime. So expect more of Harriette Campbell and Simon Brade on this blog in 2022!

The Frozen Teacher: "The Touch of Kolyada" (1989) by Edward D. Hoch

December is nearly upon us and, if you're an incurable mystery addict, you probably have some of festive detective novels, short stories and perhaps even an anthology, or two, lined up to read during the Christmas season – a Victorian tradition that is still very much alive in the detective story. One of my reasons to always start relatively early with reading and reviewing these seasonal mysteries is that the holiday season has the habit to begin prematurely in my country. You can usually get Sinterklaas (St. Nicholas) candy as early as September or October.

Another reason is that I want to give my fellow mystery addicts a recommendation or two, before December, which is why I have tackled so many of the lesser-known Christmas-themed mystery novels. Such as Moray Dalton's The Night of Fear (1931), C.H.B. Kitchin's Crime at Christmas (1934) and Francis Duncan's Murder for Christmas (1949).

So, today, I have a festive, quasi-impossible crime story that was intended for last year, but didn't get around to reading it then.

Edward D. Hoch's "The Touch of Kolyada" was originally written for a Christmas-themed anthology, Mistletoe Mysteries: Tales of Yuletide Murder (1989), edited by award-winning mystery writer, Charlotte Macleod. The detective of the story is the first detective-character Hoch ever created, Simon Ark, who claims to be a 2000-year-old Coptic priest wandering the world in the hope of meeting the devil in combat.

When the story opens, Simon Ark has been living at a university near "the northern tip of Manhattan," where he has been studying medieval legends, but "an unusual situation" has developed among some of his academic friends – a situation Ark described as "a mystery of good rather than evil." There are many Russian emigres on the faculty, who moved there with the family over the past twenty years. But a figure from Russian folklore appears to have followed them to America.

Kolyada is a beautiful elf maiden, cloaked in "a luxurious white robe and hood," who's said to ride a sleigh, from house to house, delivering gifts much as "Santa Claus does in Western countries." Recently, the children of the faculty members claim to have seen Kolyada. She has even entered homes to leave gifts for the children. So a very benevolent mystery, but it takes a dark, sinister turn when Ark and the narrator witness Kolyada appear behind the window of Professor Trevitz house.

A figure in a white-hooded robe carrying a basket, crammed with candy and fruit, who goes from the kitchen into the living-room where she bends over Professor Trevitz, who's sitting in a chair, touches his cheek with her outstretched fingers – only to flee when Ark yells out her name. When they enter the place, they discover the icy cold, solidly frozen body of the professor sitting in the chair. Suggesting that he had instantly frozen to death the moment the robed figure had touched him.

Unfortunately, Hoch never developed this premise into a full-fledged impossible crime and the story, which is not one of his greatest, sheds the intrigue of the opening pages to become regular, somewhat routine, detective story. This was a bit disappointing. Nonetheless, it was still a fun and unusual Christmas-themed detective story with a memorable set piece. I also enjoyed how much of the plot resembled the kind of stories you often find in Gosho Aoyama's Case Closed (Detective Conan) series. I can easily imagine Conan becoming involved with an utterly bizarre, borderline impossible murder apparently committed by ghostly figure from folklore and the motive didn't help dispel that illusion.

A note for the curious: I took "The Frozen Teacher," in the title of this blog-post, from an early Detective Conan story collected in volumes 14 and 15, which have been translated and are currently available in English. Just a friendly reminder that there's gold in those hills.

Anyway, "The Touch of Kolyada" is hardly one of Hoch's greatest detective stories, but a perfectly suitable Christmas read with a great premise, a memorable scene and a serviceable ending. So a little average, perhaps, but certainly not bad.

Yokai Attack: Case Closed, vol. 69 by Gosho Aoyama

In my previous post, I reviewed a short story by Rintaro Norizuki, "Toshi densetsu pazuru" ("An Urban Legend Puzzle," 2001), which cleverly used the popularity of urban legends as a premise for a good, old-fashioned detective story, but Japan is home to much older, often more rural legends of monsters, spirits and demons – commonly known as yokai. The legend of the single most famous yokai in Japan is at the heart of a Detective Conan story.

The 69th volume of Gosho Aoyama's Case Closed, published in most countries as Detective Conan, opens with Richard Moore, Rachel and Conan traveling to the Kora Inn, in the village of Kuchibashi in Gunma, to meet with a client.

Moore had received a letter alluding to a murder that had happened there 11 years ago and asked him to use his "remarkable deduction skills" to the clear the name of the writer, which was signed Mika Tatezato. However, the local police told Moore that there was no murder in that village 11 years ago. Mika Tatezato is not a name that figures on their wanted list.

As to be expected, Moore's client no-shows their appointment and it appears he has fallen for a very unfunny prank, but along the way, they learn a child was drowned in the river and the police concluded that the boy got his foot stuck between some rocks along the riverbank – before drowning in a flash flood. But why was the boy playing in the water in January? More interestingly, the region is rife with legends of the Kappa, "water monsters that lure the unwary," of which there was a rash of sightings 12 or 13 years ago. Rachel even spots one near the riverbank on their first day in the village.

On the following morning, the father of the boy and inn keeper is found dead in a dimly lit attic room overlooking the river. His body was drenched in "a putrid fishy-smelling liquid." As if the Kappa had grabbed him and "dragged him into the depths of a swamp."

This is an excellent story that was very reminiscent of Gladys Mitchell's Death and the Maiden (1947), in which two young boys are drowned in a river following sightings of naiads (water nymphs), but Aoyama crafted a much tighter plot. The central puzzle of how the putrid water was brought from the swamp to the attic can be classed as a quasi-impossible situation, but here the trick is used to establish an unusual kind of alibi. My only complaint is that the murderer telegraphed his identity to the reader practically from the start. However, this was more than made up with the tragically misunderstood motive and sad ending. An excellent story with good atmosphere and back-story. Easily the best story in this volume.

The second story brings Doc Agasa, Conan, Anita and the Junior Detective League to a hot spring resort. Doc Agasa has invented a gadget for the owner of the hot springs, but lately, it has been malfunctioning and he has been asked to repair it. So he brought along the kids.

At the resort, they find out that the hot springs is used by a film crew to shoot a remake of the greatest movie in The Bloodsteam Hitman franchise, The Crimson Spring-Head, which is about a hitman who works at a hot spring and in the movie he "creates a perfect locked room murder" – solution to this fictional murder is briefly used as a false solution. Unsurprisingly, the screenwriter is murdered in one of the hot springs, but these are lake-top hot springs and you can only reach the pavilions by crossing a bridge. Nobody crossed between the time the victim entered, early in the morning, and when the body was found. It's a locked room murder on a lake!

This is another good story with a solid plot, but, sort of, figured out the plot. However, I was only able to do this because the locked room situation was very reminiscent of an obscure, little-known impossible crime novel from the 1950s. I doubt Aoyama has read the book, but I thought the similarities were still interesting.

The third story is an inverted mystery in which Hoshie Urai plots to murder her husband, Taruto Urai, who are president and vice-president of Urai Confections. He's specialized sweet candies and she's specialized in sour, which she uses to poison him during party and gave herself an unshakable alibi. Unfortunately, Richard Moore starred in a commercial for their Spy Chocolate White, "an ultra-sour white chocolate," which landed him an invitation to the party, along with Conan and Rachel – who is promptly used by Hoshie to cement her alibi. You'll never be able to figure out the poisoning-trick, because it requires a specialized piece of knowledge. One part of the trick could potentially have killed the murderer. Cyanide is not something you want to have on your skin.

On a whole, a pretty decent, but not especially good, detective story. This series has had better stories and two of them preceded this one.

The last two chapters begin a story that will be concluded in the next volume and has Conan, Anita and the Junior Detective League a dark, empty house filled with fragments of mysterious piano music. And diary entries hinting that a murder has taken place.

All in all, this was a great volume opening with the beautifully-done Kappa story followed by a good locked room mystery and a passable inverted mystery. Ending with the promise of another good story. So I was very satisfied.

Spell Bound

"Who can be shown to be the one person, and the only one, with direct access to the toys of both withcraft and murder?"

- Dr. Gideon Fell (John Dickson Carr's The Crooked Hinge, 1938)

I wrote several years ago how the traditional detective story is in the middle of a renaissance and this era began as a slow drip of reissues of long-forgotten, out-of-print mystery novels during the 2000s that became today's flood of truly rare titles – making it all but impossible to keep up with all the releases. Ah, luxury problems!

There is one particular title, recently reissued, that caught my eye, because its emergence out of the dark abyss of literary oblivion might have set a new speed record for comebacks.

Back in October of 2016, John Norris of Pretty Sinister Books posted a glowing review of The Hex Murder (1935). The book was written by Alexander Williams, using the nom-de-plume of "Forrester Hazard," which Norris described as a remarkable modern, fast paced, well told and gripping story steeped in the old religions and superstitions brought to the Americas by the German settlers known as the Pennsylvania Dutch – labeling the book as, what he called, "country noir." Norris ended the review with a lamentation that there were hardly any copies for "anyone to get their hands on to enjoy." Well, that situation persisted for only four more months!

In February of this year, Coachwhip brought The Hex Murder back into circulation and this brand new edition is introduced by one of the usual suspects, Curt Evans. According to the introduction, Williams wrote three more detective novels, The Jinx Theatre Murder (1933), Death Over Newark (1933) and Murder in the W.P.A. (1937), which are all scheduled to be reprinted by Coachwhip. Some of those titles are really tantalizing, but sincerely hope they've a stronger plot than the subject of today's blog-post.

Yes, I fear my review of the book is going to be a cold drizzle on Evans and Norris' infectious enthusiasm. So you've been warned!

You can divide the plot of the story into two separate parts: the first half that takes place in bohemian Greenwich Village, New York, where a ghastly murder is discovered and an innocent man is arrested. And the second half that takes the investigation to the backwoods of Amish country, Pennsylvania, where the roots of the crime are buried. But let's begin at the beginning.

The Hex Murder opens with Patrolman James Bates pounding the pavement on his beat when he hears someone yelling, "Help! Help! Police!" A man clad in pajamas, "splotched and spattered with blood," tells him there's a woman bleeding to death, but when Bates enters the apartment he discovers the body of a woman with her throat viciously cut – a "terrible wound" that had nearly severed the head from the body. The name of the woman is Marguerite Scholl and she's in a modern relationship with the man in the pajamas, Bob Crocker, who's a struggling artist and the small apartment they occupied is a known source of trouble in the neighborhood. They regularly host loud, late-night drinking parties. On the night of the murder was no different.

However, Crocker's memory is very foggy and since his hands are caked with blood (basically covered in the stuff) they arrest him on suspicion of murder. The police end of the case, detailed in the opening chapters, reads like a hardboiled police procedural. Crocker is on the receiving end of long, exhaustive (verbal) third degree and has a desk lamp, "a burning horror," shown full in his face during the many hours of questioning. Even the policemen talk and quip like you expect from a stereotypical, 1930s homicide cop ("Oh, she got that slit throat from a cough, did she?"). Crocker would have been headed to the chair if it weren't for the interference of a young newshound.

Peter Adams of the New York City News Association is the first reporter to nose around the scene of the crime and believes Crocker to be innocent, but the District Attorney believes the evidence is more than sufficient "to force the jury to bring in a verdict of murder in the first degree" and some of the evidence was found by Adams – i.e. a bloody razor blade. So the reporter takes a leave of absence to follow up on some clues that point to Erwinna, Pennsylvania. The small home town of the victim.

Admittedly, the second half of the book seems to have broken new ground in the genre. As Norris said in his review (and he should know), The Hex Murder may be "the first cultural detective novel of its kind" with a plot that relies "so heavily on Amish life, culture and folklore." I agree that this second half of the story constitutes the best part of the book.

Adams is accompanied to this part of the United States by a friend of Crocker, Miss Houston King, who wants to help clear his name and they come across a host of unusual characters in the rural community. First of all, there is Marguerite's dying father and the old man appears to have been very upset that his daughter defied his wish, which would see her married off to their neighbor, Conrad Reifmayer, who's a religious fanatic and powwow man – reputedly hexed his neighbors. She had a much more forgiving mother and the letters she had been secretly sending to her daughter was one of the clues that lead Adams to their doorstep. The household also has a son, Henry Kruger, a "tall, ungainly youth" who, as it turns out, knows more about what took place in his home than his other relatives.

Adams and King receive help from Sheriff John Reed and Doctor Schneider. They provide a lot of background information about the community and their customs, religion and superstitions.

So that alone makes this part of the book an interesting read and culminates with the destruction of the murderer's cover during a public stunt involving an apparently stupid dog herding a flock of sheep. Norris rightfully called this scene one of the "better and more original denouement in a Golden Age detective novel." However, the gruesome details of the murder, the hexing business, the rural setting, the cultural snippets and some admittedly well written scenes are only the dressing on the bare bones of the plot, which not only failed to impress me in any way, but also left me completely disappointed – because the book had so much going for itself. You can not really deduce the identity (or motive) of the murderer based on the given information, but you can, instinctively, guess who did the throat-cutting after while. But that's hardly a satisfying way to reach a conclusion. Not to mention that said conclusion was really sordid and underwhelming.

Well, I guess I should have expected a sordid, simplistic explanation for a novel described as "country noir," but really hoped for something grander. Particularly since the entire book was pretty much structured like a slightly hardboiled detective novel.

So, The Hex Murder is definitely an interesting read, as far as its background and cultural elements are concerned, but the plot missed that final knock-out punch to elevate it to the status of a genuinely great and classical detective novel. And that's a real pity. However, you should keep in mind that my opinion on this one appears to be a minority one. If you were initially intrigued, you should allow me to keep you from acquiring a copy.

Well, now that I'm done raining on this effort of bringing a truly obscure title back into print, I'll promise to get my hands on that delicious sounding impossible crime novel Coachwhip recently reissued. So stay tuned!

There Are No Minor Cases

"The deeper one digs, the closer together they are."

- Yor, the Blind Miner (Michael Ende's The Never-Ending Story, 1979)

The Mystery of the Vanishing Treasure (1966) is the fifth entry in a long-running series of fun, adventurous and imaginative juvenile detective stories about The Three Investigators, which was penned by the series creator, Robert Arthur, who only wrote the first ten of the total of forty-three novels – before passing away in 1969. But the general opinion seems to be that he contributed some of the best stories to the series.

I picked The Mystery of the Vanishing Treasure as my next read from this series on the strength of this particular review and the book delivered on the promise of being a lively, roller-coaster of a tale. It was also a pleasure to learn that there was a seemingly impossible theft from a museum attached to one of the plot-threads, which is where the story begins for the three young investigators.

Pete Crenshaw and Bob Andrews are un-mathematically outvoted, "one to two," by Jupiter "Jupe" Jones to exchange an afternoon of scuba-diving lessons for a trip to the Peterson Museum.

At the moment, the museum is hosting an exhibition by the Nagasami Jewelry Company and the centerpiece of the exhibit is "a special display of fabulous jewels," which comprises of the legendary Rainbow Jewels and an emerald-studded belt of heavy golden plates – which represents a combined value of several million dollars. Jupe is of the belief they could gain valuable experience, for "solving future jewel robberies," by trying "to figure out whether or not the Nagasami jewels could be stolen." However, the only piece of knowledge they can take away from their excursion is that Jupe was not the only person who gave the subject of stolen jewels some thoughts.

The trio of detectives went to the museum on Children's Day and as a result the place is swarming with Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and Cub Scouts, which causes the place to drown in pantomime and "a bedlam of sound" when the lights are cut and alarm bells began to wail. Security immediately rushes to the center of the room and form a protective ring around the famed Rainbow Jewels, but when the lights come back on they discover that the glass case, which held the Golden Belt, is smashed to pieces – leaving a painfully empty spot where a treasure was displayed only mere seconds ago. But nobody seems to have been in a position to smuggle the belt out of the building.

No one could have slipped out of the back entrance, because "it had been sealed immediately after the alarm sounded" with "a guard posted outside." All of the windows had been bricked up when the place was converted into a museum and "everyone had been searched," but nobody was carrying the belt. The place itself was searched, top to bottom, but nothing was found. Naturally, the boys offer their assistance to the head of security, Mr. Saito Togati, but he dismissed them as "silly American boys" and stated "this is work for men, not for children." It seems they had no other option than letting this case slip through their fingers.

Luckily, they're soon contacted by their friend and mentor, famous movie-director Alfred Hitchcock, who has a problem for them to look into: one of his friends, Miss Agatha Agawam, is a retired author of children's fiction, but recently she has been plagued by the fabled creatures from her own stories – a gang of pickaxe wielding gnomes! They sneak into Miss Agatha's home to throw stuff about and she wakes up in the middle of the night to "the sound of someone using a pickaxe to dig," which seems to come from basement. She also saw the gnomes in her garden playing leapfrog and doing somersaults! 

As unbelievable as that sounds, Bob is soon convinced gnomes roam the place as one of them, "wearing a peaked cap" and carrying "a tiny pickaxe over its shoulder," is "scowling ferociously" at him through the window. It is decided that they should hold a nighttime vigil to capture one of them on film or even attempt to catch one of them, but Bob has family obligations. So this ungrateful job falls on the shoulders of the other two and their encounter (and scuffle) with the gnomes must have given some of the youngest readers of this series nightmares.

It's an encounter leading them straight to an abandoned, rundown and bat-infested theatre, which is where Jupe and Pete find both an explanation for the gnomes and a considerable amount of danger – one of those dangerous spots provided an image for the cover-illustration. I really like that cover image!  

I’ll refrain from elaborating on the thriller-ish and adventurous parts of the story, which you should discover and enjoy for yourself, but I have to commend Arthur for his excellent and convincing motivation. I guess most of you can probably deduce the true nature of the gnomes and how it related to certain plot-threads, but Arthur uses them to full effect and provides a logical answer as to why there are so many of them in the neighborhood. I thought it made sense. 

It's still extremely pulpy and carny, but the good kind of pulp. Like something from a Fredric Brown story. 

Finally, there's the impossible theft from the museum, which is most prominently used in the opening and closing chapters of the book, but the truly enjoyable parts of this plot-thread are the many proposed solutions. Before the theft happened, Pete suggested a method echoing Hergé's Le Sceptre d'Ottokar (King Ottokar's Sceptre, 1939) and Jupe's first explanation was a variation on Edgar Wallace's "The Missing Romney," which I read in Murder Impossible: An Extravaganza of Miraculous Murders, Fantastic Felonies and Incredible Criminals (1990). David Renwick used a very similar explanation for the Jonathan Creek episode The Scented Room (1998).

The final explanation for the impossible theft was fairly routine and the false explanations were definitely better, but I won't complain about that, because the overall story was solid and fun to read. So I'll continue to dip in and out of this series for the foreseeable future.

I also reviewed the following books from this series: The Mystery of the Whispering Mummy (1965), The Mystery of the Vanishing Treasure (1966), The Secret of Skeleton Island (1966), The Secret of Phantom Lake (1973) and The Mystery of the Invisible Dog (1975).

The Game's Afoot

"But when the third... gets killed, and all three of them in the same territory, I begin to get suspicious."

- Capt. Daniel von Flanagan (Craig Rice's The Fourth Postman, 1951) 

Jakob van Schevichaven (1866-1935) is considered here to be the first professional Dutch mystery writer, under the single-name pseudonym "Ivans," who paved the way for later popular writers such as "Havank" and A.C. Baantjer.

I've read and heard about the Fathers of Dutch Crime Fiction, Ivans and Havank, but never got around to reading any of their detective stories, because there's mainly biographical information on the web – while the available plot summaries tend to be vague, unappealing or spoiler ridden. So I never gave them to good old college try. Well, recently, I found a copy of De bosgeest (The Forest Spirit, 1926) on my shelves and thought: why not. It has to happen sometime.  

Book has a ton of these illustrations!

Ivans' series characters are a well know, celebrated English detective, named Geoffrey "G.G." Gill, and a Dutch lawyer, Willem Hendriks, who has been chronicling his cases since De man uit Frankrijk (The Man from France, 1917). Gill and Hendriks were obviously cast from the same mold as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson, but, interestingly, Hendriks was presented as a more developed, individual character while G.G. acted more as one of the stereotypical, lower-ranking Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, i.e. Martin Hewitt.   

The Forest Spirit was originally published in 1926, but Hendriks informs the reader the story took place several years before The Great War (i.e. First World War) and began with a telegram from G.G. announcing his arrival the next day. G.G. invites Hendriks, alongside with his family (wife and daughter), on a trip to the Eifel (Germany) where they soak up the landscape of hill-and low mountain tops, ruins of medieval strongholds, circle-shaped lakes (maar) and lots of green – even the rude, inhospitable locals can't dampen the mood. The problems begin when a mistake, made at the hotel they booked, forced them to take refuge in a familiepension (hostel). Hendriks wakes up in the middle of the night to see a dark form with yellow/green eyes peering at him through the open bedroom window, but, naturally, there was nothing to be found upon investigation.

I think there was something positively tantalizing about a ghostly apparition in an early 1900s mountain hostel in Germany, followed by the striking of matches and flickering, dying lights of fire, as a household of guests awakes in utter confusion. It was a brief, but nice, scene, I thought! Moving on...

Old-fashioned spelling of De Bosgeest

The next day, during one of their daily hikes, G.G. and Hendriks, see a frightened road worker running and screaming "murder" and "bosgeest," which leads them to the body of a forest ranger and he wasn't the first one to be murdered in the region. Previously, three forest rangers have been murdered, back of their heads caved in, but the police have never been able to find any trace of the murderer. In the last case, the victim was found by following his footsteps, it had rained just before, but they were also the only footprints discovered on the scene – fanning the flames of superstition. Amazingly, the impossible situation of the footprints is mentioned only once and the problem explained itself in the end, which became a slight disappointment as I read on. No theorizing? False solutions? Boo!

Seasoned mystery readers familiar with the early classics will probably experience an "aha" moment at this point, but, first, I have to credit Ivans here for not blatantly copying Edgar Allan Poe or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was also a good idea to split the interest for the only real suspect in the game in two camps: the official police, who think he's guilty, while G.G. is convinced he's afraid of the spirit. I was never quite sure if I was on the right track, even though I picked up on an obscure clue, which is what I liked. What I don't like, however, is that I still don't know if I like The Forest Spirit. Ivans went full "Weird Menace" with the solution, and I grunted when it was confirmed, but the explanation is unsettlingly convincing and the motive has a lot to do with it. That, and the villain of the story. Mary Gregor from Anthony Wynne's The Silver Scale Mystery (1931) and Mr. Ratchett from Agatha Christie's The Murder on the Orient Express (1935) were saints compared to this character!

So, yeah, I'm divided on The Forest Spirit, which began as a mysterious travelogue set in Caspar David Friedrich Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer (Wanderer Above the Mist), merging into Holmesian-era detective story and ending on an unsettling weird note... but I can't get pass the how of the murders. I don't think I like it, but than again, I'm probably too traditional minded for the alternative crime novel. That is John's department.

P.S.: Good news for the non-Dutch readers of this blog. According to this website, there have been translations of some G.G. novels in English, German, Swedish, Norwegian and Esperanto.

Malice With Mischief

"A fairy tale in terms of blood--a world in anamorphosis--a perversion of all rationality... It's unthinkable, senseless, like black magic and sorcery and thaumaturgy. It's downright demented."

- Philo Vance (S.S. van Dine's The Bishop Murder Case, 1928)

Well, I told you the next review wouldn't take another month to appear, didn't I? O ye, of little faith! However, I did found myself in a spot of trouble in finding my next read, because I'm still waiting for a package to arrive. So I was forced to climb Mt. To-be-Read to pick something from the old stack of unread detective stories, which became surprisingly easier when I decided it had to be something obscure and The Monk of Hambleton (1928) seemed to fit that description.

The Monk of Hambleton was penned by Armstrong Livingston, who's apparently one of those mystery writers too obscure for even the GADWiki, but the capsule-biography in front of the book notes that the author was born in New York City, made his home in Algiers with his wife and began writing in 1918 – which resulted in such novels as The Mystery of the Twin Rubies (1922), Trackless Death (1930) and the (now) ambiguously titled Light-Fingered Ladies (1927?).

I have Trackless Death jotted down on my never-ending wishlist, because Robert Adey has it listed in Locked Room Murders and Other Impossible Crimes (1991), but The Monk of Hambleton is my first, favorable exposure to Armstrong Livingston's work. The best way to describe the story is Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol (1843) as perceived by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with a pinch of Scooby Doo. There's even a young, female investigative operative, named Kitty Doyle, who plays the Miss Climpson to Peter Creighton's Lord Peter Wimsey in the endgame of the story. But that’s skipping ahead of the story.

Varr & Bolt Tannery occupies a couple acres of ground nearby the village of Hambleton and while the weather-beaten, shabby looking buildings of the leather plant may give the appearance of a neglected company, it's actually a thriving business – under the harsh, unrelenting rule of Simon Varr. The opening of the story mentions that it's said of Varr that "he knew how to exact the last ounce of efficiency from men and material without the expenditure of a single superfluous penny," but a strike has brought his efficient machine to a grounding halt. On top of that, Jason Bolt, "a minor partner in the business," is suffering from expansionism and his son, Copley, wants to marry the daughter of the tannery's manager, Mr. Graham – who, in turn, finally wants to be a partner instead of drawing a regular salary.

However, Varr is determined to bend everyone and every situation to his will, including a radical end to the strike, but it seems the universe itself has turned against Varr: his kitchen garden is raided, the first love of his wife, Leslie Sherwood, unexpectedly returns to the village, as did his wife's sister, October "Ocky" Copley, after spending twenty odd years in Asia followed by arson and theft! Varr's stalwart determination is really tested after a late-evening encounter with the legendary and titular monk of the village – who points an accusing finger like the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.

Livingston even included an imaginary passage from The History of Wayne County about the origin of the legend and included this foreboding doggerel:

"Who meets the monk at crack o' dawn

Shall rue the day he was born.

Who meets the monk in light of day

Woe goes with him on his way.

Who meets the monk when dusk is nigh

Within a fortnight he shall die."

It's simply a play on the Irish Banshee legend, but fun nonetheless, especially in a detective story!

Simon Varr took a different path

Simon Varr didn't fare as well in this story as Ebenezer Scrooge did in his, because he simply couldn't catch a hint, and the spectral monk strikes him down in his kitchen garden with an old, Persian-inscribed dagger – reading "I Bring Peace." This scene was delightfully old-fashioned, second-tier stuff, in which Varr dramatically removed the mask in a "What? You!" moment right before being stabbed. So cheesy.

Peter Creighton is a reputable private investigator from the Big City, who was supposed to come, anyway, to investigate the arsons at the tannery, thefts and the ghost, but now has a fresh murder on his hands. I think Livingston purposely made Creighton the exact opposite of his more famous colleague of the time, Philo Vance. Creighton is a modest, nondescript professional instead of a posh dilettante with an intimate knowledge of obscure subjects, which Livingston made a point of by making Creighton say he couldn't read Persian. You just know if this had been Van Dine's The Strike Murder Case, Vance would've revealed himself as an amateur expert on the ancient Persian Empire often consulted by genuine historical authorities on the subject. It would've also been his most terrifying and challenging murder case since triumphantly ending the previous one.  

Anyhow, Creighton's woolgathering technique gathers more tangible clues such as the chips of blue steel, finger prints, written notes, shadowing witnesses and the implications of the shallow footprints concerning a small educated man or a large illiterate one. A nice dash of Chesterton, I think!

And nice would be a good summarization of The Monk of Hambleton. Livingston has a nice, pleasant, albeit dated, writing style suiting the backdrop of a now bygone era, but the plotting was still (partly) in a previous era – making it not all that difficult to anticipate the eventual ending for the seasoned mystery reader. The normally clichéd ending of the dying murderer/confession was handled better that I could've hoped for. So there's that.

In closing, The Monk of Hableton is a better-than-average, second-tier mystery novel from a period that didn't count the most prosperous years of the Golden Age in its decade, but this book definitely was a sign of things to come. (I consider the 20s as the start-up years with the 30-and 40s as the Golden Decades and winding down in the 50s).