Life of the Party

"For in the long run, either through a lie, or through truth, people were bound to give themselves away..."

- Agatha Christie's After the Funeral (1953)

On February 19, 2011, I published a summary review of Pat McGerr's Pick Your Victim (1946) on this blog. It was the first serious review I wrote and have been babbling incessantly on here ever since. So after I was done remodeling and re-branding this place, I thought it would be a nice, symbolic touch to return to this criminally neglected mystery writer and dug one of her books out of my pile of unread books – and she did not disappoint! Without further ado, here’s the first new review on this new and (hopefully) improved blog:

"Oh my, Rocky has a few screws loose!"

Follow As the Night (1951; also published as Your Loving Victim) plunges straight into the story with its prologue, which, retrospectively, could also function as an epilogue – depicting the shape of a human silhouette falling from a balcony clinging to the exterior of one of the expensive, top-floor penthouse suits. The tenant is one Lawrence "Larry" Rock, a syndicated newspaper columnist and writer, who clawed a way from his roots, extending all the way down to the lowest strata of society, up to the nectar-filled blossoms of the upper class. But one of the women in his life has the power to undo all of his hard work and that put him in the mood for a killer party.

A poorly looked after, raggedly balcony provides Rock with a cover for murder and summons his four tormentors, women he used to get on in life, to come over for a party and this assemblage include his first and second wives, the red-head Shannon Moore and the gorgeous Claire Forrest, as well as his domineering mistress, the illustrator Maggie Lang, and his young and pregnant mistress Dee Inglesby – who also happens to be the daughter of his boss. There is, however, one snag: the reader is kept in the dark on whom of these four women is the intended victim until the final chapter, or, if you're observant enough, figure it out before you arrive there.

The pages between the prologue and solution are taken up, for the most part anyway, with flashbacks and memories that tell the story of Larry Rock and the four who were a part of an important period of that life – showing that McGerr's grasp on characterization had not weakened. However, Follow As the Night is not just another variation on her "who-will-be-done-in" gambit, which was her favorite ploy, but mixes a bit of suspense and turns this in a bit of a cat-and-mouse game when his ex-wife, Shannon, stumbles to his plans and stands guard over the other three women.

It's almost like a bizarre, inverted, game of clue, in which you possess the winning combination of cards that spell out the solution ("It was Larry Red Rock, on the balcony, with a loose guard rail...") without getting any nearer to the conclusion. You really have to reason from the given information to find that final piece of the puzzle before it's being given to you in the final chapter, which is what keeps her name ascending on my list of favorites. McGerr's take on the genre made the books I read not only a pleasure for a classicist like me, who appreciate a clever plot and fair-play clueing, but also to a contemporary audience whose preference goes to crime novels and thrillers.

Follow As the Night would also lend itself perfectly for a television drama. You could even set the story in modern times, and it would still work. That is, if such an adaptation would stay true to its source material, but that should go without saying. One last interesting thing I noticed about this book is that it sort of borrowed the backdrops of the previous two books I read. Pick Your Victim took place on the work floor, while The Seven Deadly Sisters (1948) was strictly a domestic affair. Follow As the Night combines the two as the four women in this book came into Rock's life through his work at the newspaper. 

But to sum it all up: Pat McGerr, simply the best at what she did!

Even in the Best Families

"But, my family being what it is, even those short periods furnished plenty of incidents that might have been the prelude to a murder..."

- Sally Bowen (The Seven Deadly Sisters, 1948)

When you closely scrutinize the list with names of novelists that have one or more detective stories to their credit, it's not always an inexplicable enigma how a bunch of them ended up, knee-deep, in the boggy mire known as biblioblivion and are sinking ever deeper with each passing year. They may have had a feeble grip on their plots or sketched their characters without turning them into portraits. Their dialogue may have reverberated with the buzzing of insipid babbling or they were competent, but lacked that modicum of originality necessary to stand out in the crowd. On the other hand, if you see a writer trudging through that slough and bog who had everything, from a way with words that gave the illusionary thumbing of a heartbeat to their characters to a surprisingly effective and novel way to tackle plotting, you can't help but stare in disbelief as they slog pass you.

Pat McGerr was one of those mystery writers who had the ability to draw convincing characters, construct ingenious plots without being over-elaborate and presented them in an unconventional way – which also had a surprising touch of realism. McGerr reasoned that the basic formula, for penning a traditionally-styled whodunit, hinges on figuring out whom of the suspects planted a dagger in the neck of the body, but what if a detective story kicks-off with divulging the identity of the culprit and you have to work your way back in order to figure out who was murdered? This simple reversal allows a writer to turn even the simplest of crimes into genuine puzzlers and her first effort with this plot device, Pick Your Victim (1946), is one of the authentic masterpieces of the genre, but McGerr outdone herself with her second novel, The Seven Deadly Sisters (1948), in which we are unaware of both the identity of the murderer and the victim – an absolute gem of a who-was-done-in-and-by-whom!

Sally Bowen has moved with her newly acquired spouse, Peter, back to his native England to settle down and start a family of their own, but a frantic letter from a friend, expressing condolences and sympathy over the fact that her aunt committed suicide after poisoning her uncle, throws a sizeable peddle in the tranquility of her mind – especially since the letter neglects to mention any names. The problem is that Sally Bowen has seven aunts who are all, more or less, unhappily married and equipped with adequate motives to act on the "till death us part" line from their wedding vows.

Here's how the titular sisters are introduced in the dramatis personae in the Dell edition:

Aunt Clara:

The oldest sister, a determined matchmaker. Her domineering tactics force all of her sister in more or less unhappy marriages.

Aunt Tessie:

The schoolteacher sister, remains a spinster into her thirties. She finally marries a man younger than herself.

Aunt Agnes:

The shrewish sister, is a redhead who makes life miserable for two husbands.

Aunt Edith:

The weak sister, was maneuvered into an unhappy marriage and finds solace in the "magic bottle."

Aunt Molly:

The beautiful sister, is a free-lance artist. Too much prodding toward matrimony has made her afraid of men.

Aunt Doris:

The glamorous sister, very frankly likes men, and she doesn't let the conventions cramp her style.

Aunt Judy:

The youngest sister, is only a few years older than Sally. She has been spoiled by too much indulgence.

The knowledge that one of her aunts poisoned her husband without knowing which one prevents Sally from immediately establishing contact with the home front, but the uncertainty wages a war with her peace of mind and begins to tell her husband all about her family during an all-night conversation – from which a picture emerges of a family that could've been a happy one if one of them didn't do all the wrong things for all the right reasons.

This on-going flashback covers a period of several years and tells how most of the sisters were married off to the wrong husbands, recounting heated domestic disputes and uncovers underlining relationships that could've been lifted from the storyline of a second-rate, mid-day soap opera, but the way in which McGerr exploits these elements is everything but corny – and would make for a great television drama! But within this narrative there are also a few neat clues tucked away, accompanied with some clever misdirection, but I have to beat my own drum, once again, for being extremely lucid in picking up on all the hints and pointing the finger at the murderer before arriving at the final chapter, however, this took nothing away from a very effective conclusion – which felt both logical as well as an inevitability.

The only part that gave me pause for thought was the feasibility of Sally being able to give her husband an accurate, detailed and uncolored account of events stretching back several years that provided him with the information needed to positively identify the murderer and her victim, but if you can accept that premise you have a brilliantly executed and original detective story on your hands. I recommend this one without hesitation.

I have one more Pat McGerr novel on my to-be-read pile, Follow As the Night (1951), but I will safe that one for the one-year anniversary of this blog – which began with a review of her first novel.

Geniuses at Work

"A picture says more than a thousand words."

While browsing through my files, I came across the following snapshot – depicting ten core members from the early days of the Mystery Writers of America who were evidently hard at work and strenuously taxing their mental dexterity. You have to love the fact that Pat McGerr, who was known for fooling around with unidentified bodies, completely immerged herself in the role of corpse in this picture. What dedication! ;-)

The Gang: Georges Simenon, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Blochman, Harold Q. Masur, Burke Wilkenson, Dorothy Cameron Disney, Fred Dannay, Leslie Ford, Manfred Lee and Pat McGerr.  

Update: I was searching for a website to attach to Burke Wilkenson's name when I found the place I originally snatched this picture from, but I still haven't the faintest idea who he was or what he did.

Pick Your Victim (1946): a detective story in reverse.

Pat McGerr's Pick Your Victim is a comparatively little-known entry into the annals of crime fiction, but which is nevertheless held in high esteem among a small group of knowledgeable and well read Connoisseurs of Crime – praising the story for its unique take on the classic detective format, that's both original and successful.

This unique approach to the formal detective story is basically telling it backwards: you start with the identity of the murderer and than work your way back to figure out whom the victim was. So you first meet the murderer, followed by searching for clues, and conclude with the corpse.

The story opens with a group of Marines, stationed in the Aleutians, whom are threatened to succumb to boredom and the monotony of daily routine, when one of them discovers that his package from the home front is padded with a heaping bundle of torn newspaper scraps. Needless to the say the scraps of paper are eagerly devoured, however, among the bits and pieces on boxing bouts and advertisements for women's garments is an incomplete account of a murder committed at the Society to Uplift Domestic Service (SUDS for short) back in Washington. Paul Stetson strangled one of the SUDS officers to death at their office, but parts of the article, that would've informed them on the victim's identity, are missing.

Well, this still being a detective story there's an incredible coincidence that one of them, Pete Robbins, just so happens to be an former employee of SUDS – and he can tell his comrades quite a lot about his time there. They set-up a pool and try to deduce the victim's identity based on the information provided by Robbins during an on-going flashback that covers several years and most of the book.

A drawn-out flashback, detailing office gossip and troubles, perhaps sounds a bit dull, but it wasn't tedious for even a single sentence, and there's much more beneath the surface than mere work floor rivalries – like serious attempts at usurping the society's presidential seat and nearly driving someone to commit suicide. Not to mention several violent outbursts that almost resulted in a couple of early murders.

I agree with the experts' opinion that the book truly offers a most singular problem, and not just for its original take on the detective story, but also for its fair play and brilliant simplicity – most brilliant ideas are brilliant because they're simple, and this is a textbook example of that. 

In short: a one-of-a-kind masterpiece!