"The burning ghost without a name"

"Watching tomorrow with one eye, while keeping the other on yesterday."

- The Real Folk Blues.

When I first started reading detective fiction, I was fascinated with stories of unremembered crimes and their effect on the living when their faded memory is exhumed from oblivion – where they've lain dormant for decades. I mean, just imagine that someone goes missing and two decennia's later a pile of earth-caked bones are discovered by construction workers, confronting family and friends, whom all lived a full life in those twenty years, with the incarnate past – and even though they've become different people in the intermediating years, what matters is what happened twenty years ago. A skeleton has crept into the clock and turned back time.

I guess the concept of the past rising up to obscure the present captivates me, because I suffer from a relatively mild form of chronophobia and although time cultivated my taste and preferences, I still perk up when a detective story focuses on a crime buried deep in the past or uncovers a bundle of dusty bones and a grinning skull. So you can imagine my joy when I discovered that Bill Pronzini's Bones (1985) has his then unnamed detective not only investigating a 35-year-old suicide of a famous pulp writer, but also made him discover a stack of old bones and busting open the door behind a cleverly executed locked room trick. Hey, is it my birthday already!? 

As most of you've noticed by now, I've been zigzagging through this series and it's interesting to observe that none of the books I have picked up are really alike – not only in style but also the constant evolvement of the characters. In this book, nameless already shed his lone wolf persona and has gone into a partnership with Eberhardt, who retired from the force after a fifteen year run as a homicide detective, while the story itself is a Carrian mixture of a dark, but understated, atmosphere and sometimes complete farce. There's a painfully funny sequence, in which nameless and his fiancée are, more or less, forced to spend an evening with Eberhardt and his voluptuous breasted wife-to-be, who, by the way, is also an annoying blabbermouth, at a shabby, second-rate Italian restaurant – and the ensuing diner "conversation" just wants to make you slump to the floor, crawl under the table and die as fast as possible. What else can you do when you're caught in the cross fire of a fatal four-way of that magnitude?

I also enjoyed the parts in which he compared an aggressive guard dog, belonging to one of the suspects, to the burbeling Jabberwock, or when he decided to play Sherlock Holmes and deduced by the state of Eberhardt's clothes that he got laid mere hours ago. Oh, and we should try our hands at that stupid game Russell Dancer and Harmon Crane use to play and come up with the worst possible book titles using the word death. Here's my first shot: Death's Inexhaustible Customer Base. Cringe, my friends! Cringe!

But it's not a story that's entirely compounded of laughs and giggles. It's an exceedingly dark, brooding and sinuous problem that nameless is facing, which begins when he's summoned to the home of a very ill man, who wants him to look into the death of his father, Harmon Crane – a once famous pulp writer who shot himself in his locked study more than three decades ago. His son wants a motive pinned to the deed. The prospective of satisfyingly concluding an assignment like that is nearly non-existent, but nameless, the always enthusiastic pulp fanboy, takes on the case and gives it his best shot – and he acts more as a detective cut from the classic mold here than in any of the other novels I read. He diligently pursues suspects, hears witnesses, follows up on leads and sniffs around for clues while stumbling over no less than three bodies in the process! Jessica Fletcher is a rank amateur compared to this guy.

One of these macabre routine discoveries is made when he's prowling the grounds around the remains of an old cabin, used by Harmon Crane during his lifetime, when the titular pile of bones are brought to light by a recent earthquake, which conveniently reopened an old fissure that was used as a makeshift grave many decades ago, warming up a dead cold trail that eventually leads our gumshoe to the guilty party. I have to say, though, without giving too much away, that the solution is a bit too busy and I wish more attention was bestowed upon the problem of the locked room – but those are minor quibbles, really. I have only one real complaint about this book. Nameless alluded to Sherlock Holmes, but made a small, but not entirely unimportant, mistake: the Victorian maverick detective didn't snort cocaine; he shot-up heroine. Not that that is any better, but hey, with detective stories the importance is in the details. 

I normally have some insightful observations to make on how Bill Pronzini effectively made a statement regarding the genre or how perfectly he dropped off the classic detective story in the real world, like he did in the previous two books I read, but this is not that type of book. Bones is a return to Hoodwink (1982), in which he refuses to make any excuses to have some old-fashioned fun. This is a just a detective story, plain and simple, and you can take it or leave it – and it's your lost if you pick the latter.

On a final note, I want to thank our nameless gumshoe for helping me find the words needed to express my appreciation and gratitude to the author who gave us these little hybrid gems: Mr. Pronzini, "I think you're the cats nuts!" ;)

All the books I have reviewed in this series:

Hoodwink (1981)

Bones (1985)

Shackles (1988)

Nightcrawlers (2005) 

EDIT: the title of this blog entry is a line from the song Gotta Knock a Little Harder. 

Too Many Skeletons, Not Enough Closets

Sgt. Scott: "Is the body count always this high around here?" 

DCI Barnaby: "It's been remarked upon."

- Midsomer Murders.

Well, how do you open a review when you have literarily nothing to set it up with? The book under review today, Peter Hunt's Murders at Scandal House (1933), was randomly selected from my mountainous pile of unread detective stories by slingshotting rocks at its top, and whatever toppled down from its lofty heights would be my next read. What? It's an absolutely flawless method, but, admittedly, left me this time with a tiny problem: Peter Hunt is so obscure that he doesn't even have a page on the GADwiki – which is a who's who of who the hell are these guys? So I have decided not to bother with a cutesy introduction and dig right in.

Murders at Scandal House starts off with Alan Miller, Chief of Police of Totten Ferry, who's on holiday in Adirondacks, when a local game warden drags him along to a swamp island – above which buzzards soar suspiciously. They expect to stumble upon animal carcasses, left behind by poachers, but are instead confronted with the body of a naked man, tied to a tree, who's been eaten alive by a swarm of mosquitoes – and a track of mysterious, elephantine paw prints are leading away from the body into the drassy swamp. Here's where the problems with the story begin to manifest themselves. The author evidently understood that a detective story needs good, intriguing and puzzling plot threads, but seems to have been clueless as to how to follow up on them. He actually explains the otherworldly paw prints a few pages later by ascribing them to the murderer walking on swamp shoes, and gives a similar, premature and mundane explanation to the origin of a ghostly prowler!

 

In fact, it's almost as if this book was written by someone who suffered from dual personality: with one individual being a reasonable gifted writer, equipped with enough imagination to churn out a half decent mystery, and the other a second-rate hack who couldn't plot his way through a lunch appointment. This dualistic personality also strongly reflects in the fluctuating quality of the chapters. Some of them were very readable, interesting even, while others were dull at best – and tempted me to skim through them to the next one.

But let us return to the story, and the victim who has now been identified as the private chauffeur of the Burrell clan, who are local royalty around those parts, with the elderly and opinionated Lydia Whyte-Burrell as their matriarch – reigning over her relatives with a firm, but generous, hand. And like nearly all families, particular ones with a long pedigree like theirs, they have embarrassing secrets that are best forgotten or ignored – but the murder coincides with the bursting of their overstuffed closets and all of the family skeletons come pouring out to parade their past sins in front of them. From illegitimate children to an unresolved death, which, in turn, leads to the creation of new skeletons and will leave a trail of half a dozen or so fresh bodies.

In general, I'm afraid that this is not a very good detective story at all. There are some good and even absorbing excepts to be found between the covers of this book, but they're hardly enough to elevate the story even slightly below an average attempt – which is also partly due to the fact that Hunt neglected to emulate his murderer who spend a lot of time and effort in putting out a trail of red herrings. If only Hunt had been as liberal with sowing actual clues this could've been a passable endeavor by a second-stringer. The motive, however, has one interesting feature, but, again, nothing to make up for the annoying fluctuation in quality of the chapters and the lack of actual clues or a stunning conclusion. This one is for collectors of Dell Mapback editions only!

This has been a rather depressing review, but the next detective story on my list promises to be gem and coincidently seems to continue the theme of this book: skeletons in the closets. Oh, and it has a locked room mystery!

Killed in All Kinds of Ways

"Maybe the truth is that Bill was a man who believed that fairy tales came true, and that we can live happily ever after – but his fairy tales were more like fractured ones from the old Rocky and Bullwinkle Show than anything that might have been written by brothers named Grimm. These stories are fairy tales in their way, and at the same time homage to the genre he spent his life immersed in."

- Jane Haddam

Yes, another review of a book that has William DeAndrea's name plastered across the front cover, but this one is special – a posthumous compendium that's an exhibit in miniature scale of his considerable talents as a storyteller and plotter. The first fistful of stories feature Matt Cobb, a specialized trouble shooter for a television network, handling everything that's too ticklish for security and too nasty for public relations, who's job often drags him into high-profile and baffling murder cases connected to the world behind the small screen. The book also includes two Holmesian pastiches, one of them narrated with the voice of the hardboiled detective, and the remaining tales are standalones – one of them the standout story of this collection. Lamentably, he never wrote any short stories that chronicled one of the many cases that were handled by Niccolo Benedetti and Ronald Gentry, and which were alluded to in The Werewolf Murders (1992). 

Murder – All Kinds (2003) opens with a short introduction from his wife, Jane Haddam, who's an accomplished mystery author herself, telling briefly of one of those domestic tragedies that most of us, unfortunately, are all too familiar with from personal experience. But optimistically noted that he produced a lot of work in the final year of his life, and that "it's impossible to tell which were written when he was sick and which when he was well." I found myself agreeing with her, more and more, with each passing story!

Matt Cobb, Special Projects:

Snowy Reception

In this opening story, Matt Cobb is escorted to an airport by two federal government agents to identify a notorious terrorist – who procured a spot on the most wanted list by taking the anchorman of the Evening News hostage and murdering several security guards. The consequences of this on-air killing spree made the fame-seeking terrorist a bit camera shy and upon his escape abroad, he drastically altered his appearance. Cobb identifies him by pointing out the one thing even the best plastic surgeons in the world couldn't alter. This is a fun, but slight, story that reminded me of some of the tales from Detective Conan, in which a single suspect has to be deduced from a suspicious lot of characters.

Killed Top to Bottom

With the sole exception of a sobbing clown, everyone started hugging the concrete floor when an unobserved assailant took aim at the host of a local cable show – a noted professor of linguistics. The smoking gun proves to be as elusive as the shooter and the solution as to how it was obscured is exemplar of DeAndrea's creativity. There's also a hilarious scene, in which Matt Cobb wrestles the half hysterical clown to the ground and is stunned by a security guard, who was under the impression that he had stopped an attempted rape, and this skirmish turns out to contain an important clue!

Killed in Midstream

Justice Quest is a true-crime show that asks its viewers to help them shed some light on unsolved mysteries, but the ratings have been lagging behind that of its competitors and it's given one more shot at reeling in viewers with a high-profile, mind blowing case – and dispatches Matt Cobb and one of the shows executives to the island of an ex-diamond merchant. The merchant and his cat were the only ones who survived a massacre at his store, in which the lives of twenty-seven people were extinguished to safely obtain a pile of precious stones, and whomever was responsible got away with it. But when Matt Cobb and his TV station starts probing the case again, it becomes evident that the police were looking for the mass murderer too far away from home. And the method for hiding diamonds is one of the cleverest I have ever come across in a detective story!

Killed in Good Company

Matt Cobb receives an invitation to partake in a round-table discussion with other famous investigators for a documentary, but the discussions are interrupted by the noisy rattling emanating from the cupboards of skeletons demanding to be let out – with deadly results. Cobb nearly lost his life when he attempted to save a retired private eye from the poisonous fumes that filled his room and the method employed here is both brilliant and original. The story also very much reminded me of Rex Stout's novella "Too Many Detective" (collected in Three for the Chair, 1957) and the gathering of detectives in volume 30 of Detective Conan/Case Closed.

Other Stories:

Hero's Welcome

A short-short Cold War spy story, in which a Soviet agent returns home and there's an expected twist ending. Not a very interesting story, I'm afraid.

Sabotage

This is the standout story I referred to earlier, and I can't tell too much about it without divulging any of its surprises. But it's a story that keeps you guessing until the end which direction the plot is going to take and involves a dedicated psychiatrist, questing for the reason behind the suicide of one of his patients, a promising teenage genius, and its connection with a radical figurehead of the pro-environmental movement – and ties it neatly together with one of the most dreadful tragedies of the modern era. Why can't more modern crime stories be like this?

Friend of Mine

Even in the broadest interpretation used these days, it's impossible to pigeonhole this story as one of crime or detection, however, there is a sense of genuine mystery – but one that's more at home between the crumbling pages of classic tales of horror and adventure. In this modern fable, a soldier, stationed in the artic region, has a brush with Victor Frankenstein's monstrous creation – who has been elevated to Godhood by the locals. It's completely out-of-place in this collection, but nonetheless a very engaging read and a first-rate pastiche of Mary Shelley's immortal horror yarn.

The Adventure of the Cripple Parade (ascribed to Mickey Spillane)

Depending on where you stand, this is either one of the most successful or one of the most disastrous attempts at bonding the European and the American detective story. Here we have the personification of the conventional detective story, who's voice suddenly vibrates with the violent poetry of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and Mickey Spillane – and vows revenge to whoever beat Watson to a bloody pulp. I guess this is a nod to The Maltese Falcon (1930). Although Sam Spade's motive for finding his partner's assailant wasn't driven by the kind of friendship that Holmes feels for Watson. Anyway, it's a surprisingly amusing story, but not that everyone is going to like.

The Adventure of the Christmas Tree

This is a bona fide attempt at recreating Conan Doyle's magic, in which the forester of a Scottish lord brings Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson a most singular problem: the Christmas tree he hand picked and marked for his master was spirited away from his private woods, but nevertheless turned up in the ancestral home of his employer! Coincidently, the Lord is entertaining an important German diplomat, while they negotiate the terms of important business deals between their nations, and the tree has an important bearing on these talks. In the end, Holmes and Watson foil a devious conspiracy that might have kicked started WWI prematurely. However, it's not one of the most ingenious Sherlock Holmes stories I have ever read, original or replica, but it's amusing enough and would've made a fun episode with Jeremy Brett.

Prince Charming

A cutesy retelling of the titular fairly tale trope in a contemporary setting with a kidnapping plot woven into the story telling. The story actually managed to utterly fool me, because I was convinced that Prince Charming staged the kidnapping of a young heiress in order to cast himself in the role of her savior and get his hands on all of her fathers money by marrying her – completely forgetting that in fairly tales lovers are supposed to live happily ever after. Oh well...

Murder at the End of the World

This previously unpublished story, set in the 1970s, is basically Orson Welles The War of the Worlds Hoax as perceived by a scribbler of detective stories, in which the military accidentally sends out an erroneous emergency notification to all radio and television stations – entailing that a nuclear strike against the country is imminent. This causes a panic at a small student radio station that leads to a vicious assault on one of them, but what possible motive still stands in the face of a nuclear fall-out? The solution, unfortunately, is uninspired, but that's more than made up by the premise of the story and the surprise of the hidden and understated identity of the detective!  

Altogether, this is a solid collection, comprising of all the short stories William DeAndrea produced during his life time, which is certainly worth acquiring if you're already a fan of his work – or just enjoy kicking back with a bunch of well written stories.

The Ties That Bind

"Nero Wolfe would never start tramping through the woods in twilight"

"No," Benedetti conceded. "He would remain home in comfort reading a book while his assistant went tramping through the woods at twilight. At least you have me here to complain to."

In a previous review, I briefly told the story of how William DeAndrea had softened my pessimistic, anti-modernist attitude towards everything published after the 1940s – and his novels starring Niccolo Benedetti and Ronald Gentry were instrumental in converting me. The HOG Murders (1979) and The Werewolf Murders (1992) are elaborately plotted intrigues, with well-drawn and eccentric characters, that assure the reader that the larger-than-life detectives, from the grand old era, never really strayed that far away from the printed page.

Niccolo Benedetti is a world-renowned professor of criminology, who prefers to be perceived as a philosopher in pursuit of truth behind human evil, and poring over my notes he struck me on his first appearance as a benign and hand-tame Hannibal Lecter – and his character is loaded with eccentricities. To begin with, he's a prodigy artist whose paintings reflect the state of the investigation: at the start of his hunt they are almost hyper-realistic and gradually become more abstract as he closes in on the truth. He also loves to flirt and hates spending money, always fobbing off the bill on someone else, in spite of receiving astronomical fees. There is a delightful scene in The Werewolf Murders, in which he shows how to collect an enormous fee and still come across as the embodiment of generosity and patriotism. Nero Wolfe could learn a thing or two from him!

The Archie Goodwin to his Nero Wolfe is the private investigator Ronald Gentry, who was personally trained by the professor, and the team is rounded out by Ronald's wife, Janet – a psychoanalyst who provides her insight into the human psyche to their investigations. Yeah, this is not exactly like Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, to which this series is often compared, but the nucleus of their partnership is essentially the same: Niccolo Benedetti is the brilliant European detective and Ronald Gentry is the smart-mouthed American gumshoe.

The Manx Murders (1994) is their last recorded case and it's very dissimilar to the prior books in this series, in which they were close on the heels of serial killer who either threw an entire town into a frenzy or stalked a sumptuous mountain resort packed with international scientists – and compared with that this is a rather domestic affair that involves a rivalry between elderly twin millionaires.

Clyde Pembroke, a bird-lover, and his twin-brother Henry Pembroke, who breeds Manx's, have been at odds for years, but now their feud seems to prevent the production of an important air filter – and the government implores the eminent criminologist to act as an intermediary between the quarreling brothers. He's not very keen on accepting this assignment, but when all the birds disappear from their private nature preserve he recognizes a glimpse of evil and heads down to their estate, consisting of a lap of ground and two Victorian mansions, Alpha House and Omega House, with his assistants, Ronald and Janet, in tow. Regrettably, the tantalizing semi-impossible situation of the vanishing birds is shoved to the background, and the book needs half a dozen warm-up chapters before it starts picking up steam.

The unfathomable incident of the birds could've been a merely malicious prank, but when a stray cat is brutally killed and basically dumped on their doorstep, everyone becomes aware of the malevolent presence whose ominous shadow looms over the estate – and nobody can ignore this being when one of the twins is kidnapped and a ransom of $1.000.000 is demanded for his safe return. But when the ransom money is delivered, completely according to the given instruction, they are lead back to an abandoned barn where they discover the murdered and still warm remains of the abductee!

Basically, the plot has enough clever bits and pieces to satisfy its readers, however, it's not as intricately constructed as the previous stories and the shallow, almost dried-up, pool of suspects makes it more suited for a short story or novella than a full-length novel. You could easily trim a hundred pages from the book and it would only strengthen the plot, because the main trick of the easily identified murderer, which, admittedly, is very canny and retrospectively somewhat of an impossible crime, just came up short to justify all of its two hundred and some pages.

However, all things considered, The Manx Murders is still a pretty good read, despite some of its shortcomings, and a solid enough effort from an author who was usually in the habit of turning out brilliant stuff – and pass experiences shouldn't take anything away from this book that, alas, doesn't quite reach the heights of its predecessors. But hey, if this is the type of stuff you produce on an off day, then wow, you're something else!

A Darkening Horizon

"A policeman's lot is not a happy one."

- Gilbert & Sullivan

Well, I have now officially tagged more blog entries with the post-GAD label than with the GAD one, which goes to show that things seldom turn out the way you envisage them – and how fitting that today's subject of discussion is H.R.F. Keating's Under a Monsoon Cloud (1986).

The long-suffering Bombay police inspector, Ganesh Ghote, has faced many formidable adversaries, from an infamous confidence trickster to a vexatious ex-judge, but the dueler he'll be crossing swords with in this book may be the toughest opponent he has ever faced: himself!

Inspector Ghote is temporarily transferred to a small place named Vigatpore, several miles removed from his familiar stomping ground, to take charge of its police station and whip it into shape for an important inspection by the referred "Tiger" Kelkar – whom we've met before in Bats Fly Up for Inspector Ghote (1974). Over the course of that book, he became an example to the servile Bombay detective and this respect, dangerously crossing the border into blind hero-worship, drove him into making one of the biggest mistakes of his career: covering up a murder committed by his fiery tempered senior officer! In a fit of uncontrolled rage, the respected policeman chucked a brass inkwell at the head of a clumsy and exasperating police sergeant – leaving one of their own dead on the floor of the police station. Ghote voluntarily becomes an accessory after the facts by coming up and providing a helping hand in staging an elaborate accident.

Upon his return to Bombay, he quells his conscience with the conviction that he saved an important policeman for the force, whom he allowed to return to his invaluable duties in service of their country, and as the weeks turn into months the unfortunate incident is stored in the attic of his brain – where it rapidly starts accumulating a layer of dust that obscure most of our memories. But then one day, a new challenger appears a relative of the unfortunate sergeant turns up, one who doesn't buy the official story of a tragic accident, and a new investigation is launched that prompts "Tiger" Kelkar into taking his own life. He graciously takes full responsibility for the murder in his suicide note, but it's obvious to everyone that Ghote, at the very least, must have known about the murder – and he's suspended pro-tempore.

The second half of the story consists of a disciplinary inquiry hearing, with all the trimmings of a courtroom drama, in which the cross-examiner creates a convincing case against the always-downtrodden police inspector and squires off with his legal representative. However, the real battle waged in that semi-courtroom is not between the accuser and defender, but between Ghote's conflicting sense of duties to the truth and his family and it's fought out in the confines of his own mind. Ghote is well aware that he must be found innocent, not only to cling on to his beloved job, but also to safeguard a future for his wife and son, whose horizons have been darkened by black clouds gathering in the sky above them. But he's also painfully conscious of his own guilt and the lies he's been telling and wishes he could unburden himself without ruining his career and his family.

The story came very close to matching Inspector Ghote Draws a Line (1979), but I felt that the ending wasn't handled with the same skill as the rest of the book. In the end, Keating wanted it both ways and that just didn't work – not for me anyway. But in spite of the botched ending, this is an engrossing read that allows you to peek in the darkest nooks and niches of Ghote's psyche and demonstrates why its author was one of the most innovative crime writers of the previous century.

On a final note: this is one of four books currently brought back into print as Penguin Modern Classics.

The Perfect Murders (1964)

Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg (1970)

Inspector Ghote Trusts the Heart (1972; didn't like this one, though)

Under a Monsoon Cloud (1986)

Cobb's Night With a Frozen Fright

"I went to the bar and made a bourbon and soda for myself. Ralph had one too. He looked as exhausted as I felt. I had no idea how guys like Hercule Poirot and Doctor Fell managed it. Yes, I did. By not being real, that’s how they managed it."

- Matt Cobb

If you know me just a little bit, you're probably aware that I look at the post-GAD era as a dry wasteland, barren of any creativity, and it must have come as a mild shock to see my rigidly frozen, anti-modernist stance thawing over the past few months – as I discovered and enjoyed the stories from many different contemporary crime writers. I still think the oasis patches of green and blue are few and far between, but it's gratifying to know they're still out there and escaped being buried under an ever increasing pile of bloated, third-rate mush that the lion's share of publishers like to barf out on their reading audience.

William DeAndrea probably is the one who's responsible for swaying me into reconsidering my standpoint on modern detective stories. This transition from fundamentalist to moderate happened last year, when I read Killed in Paradise (1988), The HOG Murders (1979) and The Werewolf Murders (1992). I had bought them, more or less, on a whim, but was amazed to learn that they possessed all the qualities of the past masters of the genre – it was like being confronted with a living fossil from the Cretaceous Period!

Killed on the Rocks (1990) is another fine example of William DeAndrea adjusting the traditional detective story to a modern surrounding without sacrificing any of it's authenticity – as Matt Cobb solves an seemingly impossible murder at a snowbound mansion. 

Matt Cobb is the quintessential American detective, whose narrative voice echoes the tone of the hardboiled gumshoe, especially Archie Goodwin's spirit reverberates through his lines, but what sets him apart from Archie Goodwin, Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe is that he's not a licensed private investigator. Cobb is the Vice President of a TV-station simply known as The Network and he's in charge of Special Projects, which basically means that he's a specialized troubleshooter – and one that's much needed when dealing with the rich and famous. 

His current assignment focuses on overseeing and protecting the negotiations between The Network and the billionaire Gabby Drost, a corporate raider and economic pirate, who wants to buy the television station and the wheeling and dealing is to take place at his mountain mansion – and Matt Cobb is send along after a series of anonymous letters that put question marks to Drost's sanity and that a deal with him will mean certain ruin for The Network.

A slightly eccentric, soon to be departed, billionaire? Check!

An isolated mansion? Check!

Populated with an ill-assorted cast of characters? Check!

A paralyzing snowstorm? Check!

A sort of unofficial detective who just happens to be around whenever bodies start hitting the floor? Check!

The game's afoot? You bet!

On the morning after their first night at the luxurious mountain retreat, they awaken at the sight of their host's body laying outside of the house – squashed on the rocks and there's field of unbroken snow between the unsightly remains and the front door! There's not even a single track of footprints leading up to the macabre composition in red and white!

I've read many different solutions to these kinds of miracle problems, but this one takes the cake for sheer complexity – sporting one of the most contrived answers on how to trod through a blanket of virgin snow without leaving any footprints. Don't get me wrong, I mean this in the best way possible. It's true that impossible crimes are often best explained with a simple, yet brilliant, solution, but sometimes overly elaborate ones can be just as satisfying. However, I have to stroke my own ego here for a moment by saying that my solution would've been a lot easier to execute and still being just as clever as this one.

But the entire plot doesn't just orbit around that single question of how the murderer pulled off this illusion, but is also loaded with enough pressing questions to keep Cobb and the reader occupied until the final chapter – and shows how the traditional detective story benefits from an upgrade when it's done by someone who knows what he's doing. There are a number of queries raised in the story that you won't find in a classic whodunit from the 1930/40s. For example, why did the wife of Drost make a pass at one of the female representatives of The Network, denying it fervently the following day, and how did a TV set transmit image and sound of the dead man, pointing an accusing finger from beyond the grave, when it wasn't hooked up to anything and was only fed power from the electric socket? 
 

DeAndrea proved here that he was a first-rate all-rounder as he skillfully sets-up a story that's both meticulously constructed as well as having it moments of thrilling suspense – and has an eye for developing his regular character in more well-rounded characters, but he never, for even single moment, forgot that he was writing a detective story and not a soap opera. In effect, he was one of the few who showed that tradition and innovation aren't mutually exclusive in this genre. What a terrible loss for us that he died so young! If only we could trade him back for writers such as Dan Brown, Gilbert Adair or any other second-rate reject who couldn't make it as a "serious" writer and decided to fluff up their shallow musings on live with a few crimes and euphorically present it as a literary thriller. 

 William L. DeAndrea  (1952-1996)

 

Matt Cobb series: 

Killed in the Ratings (1978)

Killed in the Act (1981)

Killed With a Passion (1983)

Killed On the Ice (1984)

Killed in Paradise (1988)

Killed On the Rocks (1990)

Killed in Fringe Time (1994)

Killed in the Fog (1996)

Niccolo Benedetti series:

The Hog Murders (1979)

The Werewolf Murders (1992)

The Manx Murders (1994)

The Tumbling Tower

"As a rule," said Holmes, "the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify."

- The Red Headed League.

Note: my apologies for this poorly written review, but I was constantly drawing blanks and was really struggling to find the right words – which shows how little I cared for the book I was attempting to critique. I promise to be my old self again next time.    

This is a follow-up to one of my recent commentaries on Martin Méroy's Meartre en Chambre Noir (Murder in a Darkened Room, 1965), which I pored over after a brief, but enlightening, conversation with Xavier Lechard that sprang from a discussion on the merits of French detective stories – and their locked room mysteries in particular. One of the books brought up was Maurice-Bernard Endrèbe's Elvire a la Tour Monte (Elvire Climbs the Tower, 1956), but, being the nescient illiterate that I'm, I had to plead ignorance and was schooled again on who's who in French crime literature:

"Maurice-Bernard Endrèbe was more or less the French equivalent of Anthony Boucher, being both a critic and a writer. He is best remembered here as the "father" of the country's top mystery award, the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière. Elvire A La Tour Monde is part of a series featuring Elvire Prentice, "the old lady without mercy" who was kind of a French answer to Miss Marple. The book takes her to London and indeed includes an impossible crime, in the Tower no less."

Delving further into his work, I unearthed an international interchange in his stories as Elvire tours the continent of Europe, crossing through England, Italy, Germany and Holland, disembroiling tangled crimes wherever she goes – and her stop-over in the Low Country is of special interest to me. Not only because I'm Dutch, but also for a crossover appearance of a series-detective from a Dutch mystery writer. I have to admit that I'm not very well-known with the detective stories that have flown from the pen of Pim Hofdorp, only with his reputation as the national innovator of the topographical politieroman, but I'm going to familiarize myself with one or two of them before tackling the Gallic-Germanic alliance between Elvire Prentice and Commissioner Aremberg.

I hope, however, that Fromage de Hollande (Dutch Cheese, 1960) and Gondoles pour le Cimetière (Gondolas to the Cemetery, 1955) are less of a tribulation to wade through than Elvire a la Tour Monte, which stands as one of the most tedious, mind-numbing and disappointing impossible crime stories I have ever had the misfortune to endure. And, mind you, that's coming from someone who survived The Big Atrocity! Our grand and great-grand parents had their war stories, but one day we can tell our grandchildren of the devastating impact Gilbert Adair's The Act of Roger Murgatroyd made when it hit book stores everywhere and the countless innocent lives that were lost that fateful day. 

The novel opens with a prologue which has Pablo Sanchez, a stage performer who's billed as one of the most beautiful mulatto's the populace has ever sat eyes upon, dying violently at the hands of an unnamed woman and his death is officially written off as a suicide – and from then on the plot plummets into a morass of mediocrity as the cast, comprising of the members of an up-and-coming theatre company, chatters on ad infinitum and making occasional social observations. It's a very talky novel and all that jabber did brought a few motives to the surface, but that was incidental as Endrèbe's main concern was evidently in keeping the conversations going and the story only started to resemble a detective story when one of them, gracefully, allowed herself to be murdered at The Tower of London. 

The eye-witness testimonies take on the part of a solid door and a single key that seal off the scene of the crime, creating an inescapable area from which a murderer bolted without being seen, however, the answer isn't only disappointing and uninspired, which would've been forgivable, but also downright contemptuous to everyone with an I.Q. slightly above room temperature! The false solution, involving a mirror image of the only witness in the room where the murder was committed, was unexciting and psychological unsound, but at least it reflected a thought process on the authors part that had a glimmer of wit – and I wish he had gone with that one. It would've also improved the whodunit part of the novel and made Elvire Prentice look somewhat competent as a detective – whose method mainly seems to consist of sloppy guesswork.

Xavier Lechard remarked that the Gallic way of detection differs from the Anglo-Saxon one, which they've deemed as too cold and mechanical, but if this book is a paradigm of that attitude I can sort of understand why so few of them have reached the shores of Britain and America. I can see scholars being interested in the way minorities are portrayed in this book, but not as pleasurable read or an intellectual challenge – which is the main reason why most of us read these books.  

I will end this vague, incoherent rambling on a positive note and assume that I caught Maurice Embrède on a bad day. The next book will no doubt be absolutely brilliant and hopefully the same can be said about my next blog entry. Once again, sorry for the poor quality of this post.

Solomon in Kimono

"Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot, which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie."

- Jean Cocteau

Bertus Aafjes (1914-1993) was a Dutch poet, literati and a world traveler whose oeuvre includes several volumes of short stories and one novella length mystery featuring the venerable and sapient Judge Ooka – an 18th century magistrate who presided over Edo. It's understandable that people see him as the counterpart of Robert van Gulik, but the comparison is a superficial one. The tales about Judge Ooka are more poetical, saturated with haiku's, and seldom deal with murder or any other kind of violence. Instead, they focus on complicated disputes, moral problems and secondary crimes such as theft or blackmail. This makes Aafjes a lot closer related to Chesterton than to Van Gulik, however, they do share a literary kinship as both men drew their inspiration from the same ancient texts.

These poetical mysteries also take a new and interesting approach to the impossible problem: that of the seemingly insoluble answer. Judge Ooka doesn't investigate thefts from locked rooms or bodies found in virgin fields of snow or mud, but unties complicated Gordian knots that are presented to him in his courtroom – and coming up with a suitable solution appears to be as impossible as any of the locked rooms dreamed up by John Dickson Carr and his followers. The best example is probably the superb short story "The Case of the Indivisible Horse," in which the judge has to divide thirteen horses, between two quarrelling merchants, and the solution requires more cunning than merely threatening to chop-up the horse in equal pieces and awarding the hole horse to the one who relinquishes his rights in order to keep the animal alive. 

The Trampled Peony (1973) was his last volume of detective stories in which the historical Judge Ooka solves deviously plotted crimes and knotty problems. It's a nice overview of the series and includes nearly every type of problem encountered in his previous cases.

The Case of the Trampled Peony

The story that lends its name to this book starts with Judge Ooka at his country estate, philosophizing about nature and poetry, when he receives a distressing note from an old man whose daughter has just committed suicide – and he's convinced that someone drove her into taking her own life. It's a longer than usual story, in which the judge spends most of his time reconstructing the life of the tragic woman, who was divorced after a charge of infidelity and remarried a drunk writer, and breaks down the hidden identity of the person who's morally responsible for her hanging – based on witness testimonies, a trail of flowery haiku's and a trampled peony. The whole plot is a testament to Aafjes interest in reworking these classical sagas into a contemporary puzzle plot mysteries, even though this story is more reminiscent of Conan Doyle's iconic Sherlock Holmes stories rather than those of his literary, puzzle orientated descendants. But that's really a compliment and makes for a good opening story.

The Case of the Theft in the Tea House

Judge Ooka is visiting a tea house, to admire the life-like murals adorning the interior of the establishment, when he learns that the proprietor was robbed of several pieces of gold, silver and copper. It's obvious who the sneak thieves are, but there's not sufficient evidence to secure a conviction and force them to fork over the stolen money. The shrewd judge hatches another one of Machiavellian schemes, however, it's based on a presumption and relied too much on luck to bring the case to a good ending. Not a bad story by any means, but not up to the best of the series, either.

The Case of the Willow Tree Witness

One of the shortest stories in this collection, in which the presiding magistrate of old Edo is presented with a most singular problem: a man claims to have been robbed of a pouch of coins and the only witness is a willow tree he was praying to. Judge Ooka comes up with another off-the-wall solution to trap the pickpocket, but his pitfall only worked because he was up against an incredibly dense and slow-witted criminal. Nobody with half a brain would've fallen for that ruse!

The Case of the Red Lacquer Box

Judge Kujou of Kyoto, an old friend and rival of Judge Ooka, visits Edo to hunt down a notorious conman who fled his district, but to capture this slippery fellow he requires the help of his friend – and here he finally starts exhibiting his familiar, fox-like cunning and his vice for courtroom theatrics! This is a pleasantly told story that shows plenty of cleverness and it's always a joy to see Judge Kujou put in an appearance. 

The Case of the Bronze Water Reservoirs

The stand out story of this book, in which the architect of the shogun, who's in the process of rebuilding his burned down castle, seeks the magistrates advise concerning a pending order for several bronze water reservoirs. The bronze reservoirs will be a new fixture in the palace, but they are gigantic and the caster has never made them before and refuses to state his price until they've been cast – and the architect has good reasons to assume that he will jack up his price by saying that he used more bronze that he actually did. Remember, this is the 18th century, and there was no way they could accurately weigh these huge reservoirs and check it for themselves. What your left with is a problem that comes very close to being an impossible one, but the sly judge devised a clever stratagem that's almost on par with the one from "The Case of the Indivisible Horse." I really wish these stories were available in English because I would love to know the opinion of my fellow Connoisseurs in Crime in how far these stories can be considered as impossible ones.

The Case of the Deceived Draftee

A surprisingly boring and mediocre story. Judge Ooka is forced to waste his considerable talents to investigate an infidelity charge and a house cat is his star-witness in identifying a woman's secret lover.

The Case of the Demon at the Flower Festival

Judge Ooka has been invited to attend the annual Flower Festival, where he learns of a woman deep-sea diver, now retired, and her equally skilled daughters who are haunted by the local demon residing at the bottom of the bay. The magistrate, however, suspects a clever set-up for murder, but he's unable to prevent it and ends up saving the murderer. The story rambles on for too long and the pay-off is hardly worth the journey. There's not much of a mystery once the murder is committed and Judge Ooka saves the killer from being burned at the pyre by exploiting local superstitions – unworthy of a nearly unrivalled plotter and schemer like him.

All in all, not a bad short story collection, consisting of the usual hits and misses, but overall enjoyable enough – and makes you wish Bertus Aafjes had devoted more of his time in writing them. He penned the entire series between 1969 and 1973 and is only a blip in his literary career - that began in 1936 and ended a year before his death in 1993. 

Bertus Aafjes (1914-1993)

The Judge Ooka Mysteries:

Een ladder tegen een wolk (A Ladder Against a Cloud, 1969)

De rechter onder magnolia (The Judge Underneath the Magnolia Tree, 1969)

De koelte van een pauwenveer (The Coolness of a Peacock Feather, 1971)

De vertrapte pioenroos (The Trampled Peony, 1973)

Een lampion voor een blinde (A Lantern for the Blind, 1973; a novella length story) 

Best-of collections:

Rechter Ooka mysteries (Judge Ooka Mysteries, 1982)

De mysterieuze Rechter Ooka (The Mysterious Judge Ooka, 1986)

Query: any one interested in me revisiting the whole series and reviewing them here?