Marilyn's Mystery Reads

Golden Oldies

Is it as simple as it appears in A Shock to the System to become a killer, even a serial killer?  Can someone live thirty or more years as a law-abiding citizen only to have a seemingly insignificant action be the beginning of a series of murders?  In this English novel published in 1984, the answer is yes.

Graham Marshall was, in his own mind and that of his proud parents’, “a success.”  With a great deal of sacrifice on the latter’s part, he was sent to a public school (what in the United States is a private school) and then to a university, all to put him on the road to a meaningful career.

He is now the assistant director of personnel in a multi-national firm with a near certainly to be made director upon the upcoming retirement of the present director.  But then it all falls apart as the job is given to a much younger man, new to the firm.

Stopping into a pub for a few drinks after receiving the bad news, Graham is on his way home when he’s accosted by a vagrant asking for a quid.  When the man demands money for the third time, Graham reacts angrily and hits the man with his umbrella, then throws the unconscious body into the river.  After a few days of remorse and fear, Graham puts the death out of his mind…that is until he thinks about how much better his life would be without his wife.  As they say in mystery novels, the second murder is always easier than the first.

At the beginning of the novel, the reader may feel some sympathy for Graham.  He’s been at the international oil company for nearly two decades, certainly long enough, in his mind, for him to prove his worth.  His self-value is determined by his position there, to say nothing of the five thousand pounds he was expecting to receive on his promotion, and now he has to pretend in front of the other corporation members that he’s fine with being passed over for a younger, less experienced man.

At home, there are more problems.  He and his wife overspent on their house, anticipating Graham’s rise in the company, and now they are very close to having major financial problems.  Their two children are in public schools, his wife doesn’t want to go out to work, and her mother, a difficult person at the best of times, has moved into their house almost full time.  There’s only one way out of this situation, Graham thinks.

The author has written a novel in which we know from the start who the villain is and why he is committing these murders, but readers nevertheless will be inexorably driven to read to the end.  Graham’s slow descent into becoming a serial killer, and his self-deluding rationale, make A Shock to the System a terrific read.

Simon Brett is the author of five detective series and many stand-alone novels.  In 2014, Brett was chosen as the recipient of the Cartier Diamond Dagger from the Crime Writers’ Association for “an outstanding body of work in crime fiction.”  You can read more about him at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

John Wilkins and his wife May are most definitely a mismatched couple.  Given his background dealing with a controlling mother and her background as the daughter of an alcoholic ex-convict father, they didn’t have a healthy framework to guide their marriage.

The two met at a dance and started dating.  John is a very good tennis player, May doesn’t like the game; May likes to play bridge, John thinks it’s a waste of time.  May is socially ambitious, John is not.  In this way they slowly drift apart.  As he put it, “What can you say about a marriage?  You peel off the years…like the skin of a onion, and there’s nothing inside.”  Still, he doesn’t think he is really unhappy until he meets Sheila.

John is immediately attracted to Sheila, a librarian at the local library, where he takes takes books out for May but tells Sheila they’re for his invalid sister.  He pretends to have gotten complimentary tickets to a local theater production and invites Sheila to go with him, which she does.  As is usual with John’s luck, always bad, he runs into his mother’s friend at the play, and of course she’s aware that the woman he’s with is not his wife.  He’s certain that she can’t wait to give the news to his mother.

Then, after a disastrous day with Sheila at the tennis club, she tells him she knows he’s married.  Somehow he convinces himself that if he were single things would be different, then he and Sheila could become a couple.  At that point he starts thinking about murder, although he tells himself it’s nothing he would ever do.

The novel is divided into two parts.  In Part One, John is giving his statement to Dr. Max Andreadis, a consulting psychiatrist, and he tells the doctor the story of his marriage and his infatuation with Sheila.  In Part Two, a young couple comes across Sheila’s body, and John is put on trial.  We see the inner workings of John’s mind, or at least as much of it as he himself is aware of.  One of the issues in his life is recurring blackouts, after which he has no memory of what has occurred during those times.  That, of course, makes any legal defense very difficult.

The Colour of Murder was written in 1957 and won that year’s Gold Dagger Award, given by the British Crime Writers Association.  It was republished in 2018.  The novel is a deep look into John Wilkins’ life, or at least the part he tells both the psychiatrist and himself.  The characters–including John, May, John’s mother, and Sheila–all have hidden parts of their lives that don’t allow them to fully function as adults.  Reading it, one is struck by the emptiness and futility of their lives and their inability to address what is holding them back and to start anew.

JULIAN SYMONS (1912-1994) was a notable writer of British crime fiction from the 1940s and ’50s until his death, publishing more than thirty novels. He served as President of the prestigious Detection Club, won two Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America, and is well known as the author of Bloody Murder, a classic history of crime fiction.  You  can read more about him at several sites on the web.

Although released in English in 2024, Point Zero was written in Japanese and published in Japan in 1959.  It was kind of a conundrum for me–was it actually a Golden Oldie or a current release–but I decided to review it in the former category, as it is a mystery over sixty-five years old.

Although it takes place more than a decade after World War II ends, Seicho Matsumoto’s novel seems to reflect an even earlier time.  That’s probably because it begins with an arranged marriage between 26-year-old Teiko Itane and Kenichi Uhara, a man a decade older than his bride.  Although Teiko is described as a professional, the reader will have no sense of what her work consists of and why she stops working the day she got married.

Kenichi is a manager at an advertising agency.  At the time of their marriage, Kenichi is working twenty days a month in Kanazawa City, several hundred miles from Tokyo where Teiko lives.  He works in the capital ten days each month, however, and he tells his wife he plans to move there as soon as possible.

Their honeymoon is a delight, and all is well when they return to Tokyo.  Teiko accompanies her husband the following day to the train station so he can return to work in Kanazawa City and makes him promise that the next time he takes this train she will be with him.  Then he boards, and that “was the last time Teiko ever saw her husband.”

The day before her husband is due to return to the capital, Teiko decides to start rearranging their apartment.  She opens several of the cartons of books he left, finding a number of law books, and she wonders why an advertising salesman would be interested in them.  Had he hoped at some point to be a lawyer or judge?  She will ask him when he returns, she thinks.

Then, as she’s closing one of the volumes, two photos fall out.  There are no people in the photos, just two houses.  One is of a very luxurious Western-style home, something one would find in an upscale residential section of Tokyo; the other is a Japanese-style farmhouse that appears to be set in the countryside.  Why did her husband take these particular pictures?  What do these houses mean to him?  And why are there no people in the photos?  These would be other questions to ask him.

When Kenichi still hasn’t returned to Toyko two days after the date he was due, Teiko begins her search for him.  She questions his brother and the staff at the agency where he works, but no one has heard from him.  They don’t appear to be especially worried, however, telling her that he’s obviously been delayed and will certainly come home soon.  But he doesn’t.

Point Zero offers readers a fascinating look into Japanese society in the middle of the twentieth century following its defeat in World War II.  The introduction of American culture, from dress to music, has a major impact, and the importance of pan-pan girls, or young women who adopt Hollywood ways and seek romantic relationships with their foreign conquerors, is a major part of this story.

The late Seicho Matsumoto is credited with popularizing detective fiction in Japan.  He won multiple prizes for his work, which include novels, short stories, and non-fiction historical studies, and several of his mysteries were made into films.  You can read more about him at various sites on the web.

Serendipitous.  That’s the only word that comes to mind to describe how I came upon this novel, published in 2007, that I am certain I had never seen before.

I had gone into our family room to chose a particular book I had in mind; when I reached for it, Mistress of the Art of Death came out with it.  I have no memory of ever purchasing this book before it tumbled out of the bookshelf, but somehow it was in my hand.  The author, as well as this book, was unfamiliar to me, but as long as I had it I decided to start reading to see what it was about.

In 1171, a group of English pilgrims is returning from Canterbury, where they prayed at the site of the martyred St. Thomas à Becket, and three visitors from Italy are among them:  Mansur, an Arabian Saracen; Simon of Naples, a Jew; and Vesuvia Adelia Rachel Ortese Aguilar, a foundling raised by a Jewish physician father and his wife.

The trio has been sent to England, Cambridge in particular, to look into the death of one boy and the abduction of three other children.  The townspeople, led by Roger of Acton, are blaming this on the Jews of Cambridge and demanding their expulsion from the town.  King Henry II (of “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?” fame) doesn’t want “his Jews” to depart, since he depends on their taxes and financial acumen to augment his coffers.

Thus he asks the king of Italy to send “a person versed in the causes of death,” and that is how Adelia comes to Britain.  She, like her adoptive father, is a physician trained in Salerno and knowledgeable in finding the reasons for death.  However, since there are no female doctors in England, Adelia must present herself as the assistant to Simon, who is pretending to be a doctor.

The Jews of Cambridge have been secured for a year in an old castle belonging to Henry, and thus they are unable to work and contribute to his treasury.  In addition, their danger increases daily as it’s now Easter, always a fraught time for the Jews as the calumny of their being responsible for Christ’s crucifixion is always as its height at this time of year.

Adelia, not one to suffer fools gladly, is displeased by having to hide her expertise and skills, but, as the English say, “needs must.”  She has to be careful to pretend to be no more than an assistant to Simon or else the trio may be expelled from England or worse, be imprisoned like the town’s Jews.  With the help of Glytha, a townswoman acting as their housekeeper, and Ulf, her grandson, Adelia must discover who has taken the kidnapped children and why.

Mistress of the Art of Death is a brilliant mystery.  The characters are realistic, the plot mesmerizing, and the time period, between the Second and Third Crusades, is fascinating.  Ms. Franklin has done a masterful job in bringing a time period nearly one thousand years in the past to vivid life.

You can read more about the author at various sites on the web.

It’s been just over three years since I published a review in the Golden Oldies section of this blog.  My only reason/excuse is that I was kept busy reading so many outstanding current mysteries that I received from publicists, and novels that I read years ago somehow got lost in the shuffle.

But as I was walking in the mystery section of my local library (a shoutout to the Needham, Massachusetts Free Public Library) I saw an old familiar title:  Triple Zeck, A Nero Wolfe Omnibus by Rex Stout.  Stout has always been a favorite author of mine, so much so that I took a course on his writings at Boston College given by his biographer, Professor John J. McAleer.  I had to miss the last class of the semester as I was in the hospital giving birth to my younger son; he celebrates his 53rd birthday next week!

Triple Zeck consists of three full-length novels–And Be A Villain, The Second Confession, and In the Best Families–all of which I had read previously.  That being said, I enjoyed them as much this time.  The books were published individually from 1948 to 1950, and each one is a complete novel on its own.

In case you are not a Wolfe aficionado, a little background is necessary.  Wolfe is an oversized man whose weight varies from an eighth of a ton (250 pounds) to a quarter of a ton (500 pounds), depending on the book.  I’ll split the difference and say he weighed about 375 pounds, hefty by any standard.  That explains, at least in part, why he never (or almost never) leaves his brownstone in Manhattan to physically investigate the cases that are brought to him; Archie Goodwin, his trusted assistant, takes care of that.  Wolfe’s job is simply to sit back in his chair and be a genius.

What connects the three mysteries in this single volume is the fact that in each case Wolfe agrees to investigate a case a client brings to him and then receives a phone call ordering him to drop the case.  In the first phone call, the caller, whom Wolfe identifies as Arnold Zeck, says,”The wisest course for you will be to drop the matter,” which of course Wolfe will not do.

Zeck is the major crime boss in the New York City area and beyond, apparently untouchable, although his many illegal enterprises are known to the city police, the state police, and the FBI.  By the third volume, Wolfe realizes that it’s now a case of Wolfe vs. Zeck and that the only way it can end is with the death of one of them.  So he makes his plan and hopes he will be the survivor.

As is the case with reading the Sherlock Holmes oeuvre, part of the joy of reading Wolfe and Archie’s adventures, in addition to the crime in each novel, is spending time with the two of them.  The similarities with Doyle’s creation are there–Holmes’ pipe, Wolfe’s beer; Inspector Lestrade, Inspector Cramer; Professor Moriarty, Arnold Zeck.  And note that three letters in each protagonist’s name are the same:  Sherlock/Nero, Holmes/Wolfe.  

Coincidence?  I think not.

Rex Stout was a remarkable man.  Encouraged by his father, he had read the Bible twice by the age of four.  At age 13 he was the Kansas state spelling bee champion, and some readers of a certain age will remember a school banking system in which elementary school children brought money to school every week to be deposited in their bank account.  I was one of those children.  That system was invented by Stout.

The first Nero Wolfe novel (Fer-de-Lance) was published in 1934, the final (A Family Affair) in 1975.  Just think about that for a moment–41 years of Nero and Archie!  That is something to celebrate!

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

It’s been almost two years since I’ve written a post about a Golden Oldie.  That’s probably because there have been so many outstanding newly-published mysteries that I didn’t give ones I’d read years ago a second thought.  But I started feeling guilty about all the old “masterpieces” that may not be familiar to everyone, so here is a classic.

Malice Aforethought begins with a sentence that will surely grab the reader:  “It was not until several weeks after he had decided to murder his wife that Dr. Bickleigh took any active steps in the matter.”  Honestly, if that doesn’t make you want to continue reading, I don’t know what will.

The good doctor (emphasis mine) is a general practitioner in a small town in England.  I’ve noticed before that in English society in the early/middle part of the last century, a doctor was considered more of a working man or a skilled laborer than a professional.

Dr. Bickleigh’s marriage to Miss Julia Crewstaton, spinster, was a tepid one, lacking any warmth or passion from the start.  The Crewstatons were a family of position if no longer of means, due to the profligate spending habits of Sir Charles, the twelfth baronet.  Julia, at age thirty five, had given up hope that she would ever marry.

But marry she did, although to a country practitioner.  As she frequently reminded him, her grandmother “would have no more contemplated sitting down to a meal with her doctor than with her butler.”  Marrying him was “enough to make that grandmother turn in her grave.”  But, as the English say, “needs must,” and so Miss Crewstaton and Dr. Bickleigh were wed.

Dr. Bickleigh had carried on a number of flirtations during his marriage, some more serious than others, and his wife didn’t appear too bothered about it.  After his attempt to kiss one neighboring woman is rebuffed, and a steamy relationship he has with another is ending, more on his part than hers, he is ripe for a new affair.

Thus when he meets Madeleine Cranmere, newly arrived to town and obviously very wealthy, he decides she is his soul mate, the love of his life, and he cannot go on without her.  And thus the idea of murdering his wife becomes an obsession.

In a crime novel, as opposed to a detective story or mystery, there is, in fact, no mystery.  The reader knows from the beginning who the criminal is, and the story is told from the criminal’s viewpoint.  Malice Aforethought is a perfect example.

Francis Iles (1893-1971) is one of several pen names used by the English author Anthony Berkeley Cox.  He was a journalist and short story writer as well as a novelist, and along with Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and several others he was a founder of the Detection Club.  You can read more about Francis Iles at various internet sites.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

Did you know that August 18th is Serendipitous Day?  Neither did I until I was Googling the best way to use serendipitous in a sentence to describe how I came across The Bellamy Trial on the mystery shelf of my local (Needham, MA) library.

Who knows why that date was chosen by Horace Walpole, an 18th-century English author and politician?  Perhaps something unexpected and pleasant (the definition of serendipitous) had happened to him on that day?  It really doesn’t matter, but Walpole gave the world an absolutely perfect word to describe my experience after I read Frances Noyes Hart’s novel.

The book is based on the true-life Hall-Mills 1926 murder trial, called the “trial of the century,” in which an Episcopal priest and one of his parishioners were murdered.   The defendants were the Reverend Hall’s wife and her three brothers, but I won’t disclose the outcome of that trial as it might spoil the ending of this novel.

In Mrs. Hart’s book, the site of the murder (there is one victim in the book, as opposed to two in the Hall-Mills case) was moved from New Jersey to New York; the people involved were members of a small upper-class community.  The fictional murder victim was Mimi Bellamy; the defendants were her husband, Stephen Bellamy, and Sue Ives, the wife of Mrs. Bellamy’s alleged lover.  The novel is considered one of the first fictional courtroom mysteries, a sub-genre that would grow to include all of the books in the Perry Mason series, Anatomy of a Murder, To Kill a Mockingbird, and many others.

The Bellamy Trial takes place in Redfield, New York in 1926.  As in the real-life trial, the fictional case became a media circus, with reporters from newspapers and radio stations across the country filling the courtroom to capacity; the actual trial took thirty days, the fictional one took eight.

Hank Phillippi Ryan, the recipient of multiple Agatha Awards for her mysteries, has written an outstanding introduction to the book.  She notes the anachronisms in the novel – an all-male jury, the same attorney for both defendants, hearsay evidence that is sometimes forbidden and sometimes allowed – but she happily disregards these issues, as will discerning readers, to better enjoy this excellent story.

Frances Noyes Hart was primarily a short story author and wrote only a handful of mysteries.  If the others are as well-written and riveting as The Bellamy Trial, she certainly deserves a special place in the pantheon of American mystery authors.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

And now for something completely different, as Monty Python would say.  In this book, the late Robert L. Fish created the most clever and enjoyable pastiche I’ve ever read.

The Incredible Schlock Homes deconstructs and “destroys” twelve of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s beloved stories featuring Sherlock Homes.  In the process the reader, or at least this reader, is completely captivated by Fish’s word play, his twisted logic, and his obvious devotion to the most famous detective in fiction.

Do the stories’ titles–“The Adventure of the Adam Bomb,” “The Adventure of the Spectacled Band,” and the “The Adventure of the Artist’s Mottle”–give you a clue about Fish’s style?  In “The Adventure of the Adam Bomb,” Homes arranges a fake funeral for himself because his disappearance is essential to solve a crime.  When his colleague Watney questions the amazing disguise Homes needs to wear while presumably dead and yet be able to investigate, Homes explains.  The body in the casket?  “An excellent example of Madam Tussand’s art.”  The “corpse’s” extra weight?  “One of Mrs. Essex’s pillows.”  His present stature, at least a foot shorter than Homes’ actual height?  “Special shoes,” responds the detective.  Are you beginning to get the idea?

True to the style of Sir Arthur, Fish begins each story with the year it takes place and a brief history of other cases the celebrated detective solved.  In the intro to “The Adventure of the Spectacled Band,” Watney describes the mystery of a gang of Parisian cabbies as “The Adventure of the Taxi Drivers’ Métier.”  Honestly, I was laughing and rolling my eyes at the same time.

The two men live at 221-B Bagel Street (truly) on the second floor of Mrs. Essex’s boarding house.  While trying to get to the location of the house featured in “The Adventure of the Artist’s Mottle,” Homes and Watney need to decide what train to take.  “There is a train that runs on even days that fall on odd dates,” Watney complains.  “Besides, it has the notation M-W-F listed above, which I frankly do not understand.”  “Milk, Wine, Food,” replied Homes curtly.  “It has a combination restaurant car and bar, is all.”

“But that one is annotated T-T-S,” Watney continues.  “What can that mean, Homes?”  “Most probably, Tewksbury Temperance Society, indicating that on that train the bar is closed,” is Homes’ thoughtful explanation.  Who wouldn’t come to that same conclusion?

With the brilliant introduction by Anthony Boucher, for whom the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention is named, the reader is swept away into the nineteenth-century world of telegrams, hansom cabs, and veiled women.  Boucher is quick to point out Fish’s other, more serious achievements–winning the 1962 Edgar from the Mystery Writers of America for the best first novel of the year (The Fugitive), penning police procedural short stories and novels, and his completion of Jack London’s unfinished The Assassination Bureau, Ltd., in which Boucher contends it’s impossible to detect any difference between the writings of London and Fish.

In his closing paragraph, Boucher writes, “Robert L. Fish, I am by now pretty thoroughly convinced, can do anything….but I shall never forgive him if his unpredictably assorted output does not continue to include, from time to time, a fresh triumph/fiasco of Schlock Homes.”

I will leave you with this from Robert L. Fish:  “Author’s note:  The characters in this book are all real, and any similarity to fictional characters is strictly coincidental.”  Want to have a feel-good hour or two?  Start reading The Adventures of Schlock Homes asap.