[This list has been reduced to less than 50 books,
but you might have to crop it further--you are only allowed a yard-wide
shelf for mysteries on this particular desert island; the rest of your book
shelves are reserved for Science Fiction and 'Literature'. You also need
room for some records and videos, provided you have the equipment. And
you should save some space for 'dirty books'.]
NOTE: When you see a symbol like
{@} click on it for some digressive observations/opinions. I am not
a purist when it comes to defining what a mystery is, so there will be entries
that you might object to. Tough! There's enough information here for you
to discard things you don't like, such as hard-boiled eggs or tea cosies.
- First of all, whether you want them or not, your desert island collection will
contain:
- The Complete Sherlock Holmes (Short Stories & Novels) [Doyle]
- The Father Brown Anthology [Chesterton]
- World's Great Detective Stories [Walter J. Black, Inc. 1928]
- Uncle Silas (Sheridan Le Fanu)
- Bleak House (Dickens)
- Tales of Mystery and Imagination (Poe)
- There are also some books of criticism about the mystery genre (optional*):
- A Catalogue of Crime (Barzun & Taylor)
- Murder for Pleasure (Howard Haycraft)
- Mortal Consequences (Julian Symons)
- Gun in Cheek (2 vols) (Bill Pronzini)
[*It might be tormenting to have these on a desert island, to learn about books
you would love to read but don't have access to, but I would at least retain
the Pronzini, which is a very readable book about mostly unreadable books,
liberally salted with quotations and plot summaries.]
- Thumbnail reviews (books are taken from the Grobius Shortling Top 50 list):
- Ambler: A Coffin for Dimitrios
- This book reeks of Lorre, Greenstreet, and company (and indeed it was made into
a movie with Lorre as the unlikely hero); one of the great noir books of the 1930's.
Balkan intrigue at its finest.
- Barnard: Death of a Mystery Writer
- Can't make up my mind which is my favorite Barnard; will have to do some
re-reading. The one listed here is representative of this author at his best,
describing some really nasty characters with wit and withering precision.
- Beeding: Death Walks in Eastrepps
- One of the best 'least-likely-suspect' mysteries (don't blame the author for
writing a cliché--he invented this one, well, almost). English village setting.
[Note: Beeding wrote Spellbound, which Hitchcock made into a
great movie with Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck.]
- Berkeley: Trial and Error
- A classic on the theme of a non-entity who finds himself fatally ill and decides
to make his mark on the world by killing the most evil person he can find. Naturally,
things go wrong (an innocent person is convicted, the police won't accept his
confession -- what was your motive?), so he has to sue himself in
court for Wrongful Death or some such technicality to set things straight
(Mr. Todhunter is hardly O.J. Simpson).
- Block: When the Sacred Ginmill Closes
- Those of you who have followed that great modern detective series about the
alcoholic Matt Scudder, will enjoy this one a lot because it takes place before
his reform through AA. Plot is not necessarily as good as the later ones (which
have some truly corrupt and psychopathic villains), but the sleaze is wonderful.
- Bradbury: Death is a Lonely Business
- A killer stalks the eccentrics of old Venice, California, during its 1950s transition
into its current state of LaLaDom; nostalgia as only Bradbury can do it. Evocative and
eerie 'dime novel' set in a dying city. Very highly recommended.
- Brett: Dead Giveaway
- Charles Paris, the detective, is a third-rate sottish (not Scottish) actor, very
amusing character, and the settings are novel and funny--TV soap operas, commercials,
repertory, etc. As with Barnard, it's hard to pick the best; the listed title is a good
representation of the series. This one has a game show host poisoned right on
the air.
- Brown: Night of the Jabberwock
{#}
- As you might gather from the title, this is a 'phantasmagoria'; hero is the editor of
a small-city newspaper (for those of you who like old-fashioned newspaper settings
for mysteries). Bizarre caper. [Brown is a neglected author these days.]
- Carr: He Who Whispers
- I'll go with this one for the moment; it has all the classic elements of a Carr
story--impossible crime (two of them), great settings (e.g., top of a ruined castle
tower in France with only one entrance, which was observed at the time--and of
course, no murderer went in), supernatural (can a ghost shoot a gun?), and a
nasty villain who doesn't appear so on the surface.
- Chandler: The Lady in the Lake
- Actually, a play-by-the-rules classic mystery, in spite of Chandler's criticism of
such in the English manner; wonderful setting in 1940s California (it seems to
have been totally different, and much for the better, back then, but who can
actually say?). Marlowe does some real investigating instead of waiting for
the villain to hit him on the head.
- Christie: The Body in the Library
- Up the creek trying to pick the best Christie, so I've gone for the most
representative of the Miss Marples, with the perfect English village setting.
The plot is a good, if not classic, example of its kind, and the characters are
wonderful, even if type-cast as most of Christie's are. (However, if you prefer
a darker, more sinister book, you can't go wrong with And Then There
Were None.)
- Collins: The Moonstone
{$}
- Doesn't have the rich characters and atmosphere of The Woman in
White, but is more of a 'formal' mystery, and in fact set many standards
for the detective story genre. A very effective technique (much used) is to
have the story told from various eye-witness accounts via journals, letters,
etc.; this works especially well when the teller comes across as an honest,
interesting, and observant person--you're going to buy what they say, even
if you get mislead in the process (this is one of the best ways for a detective
story author to pull the wool over the reader's eyes and still play fair).
(There was a very fine rendition of The Woman in White, by the way
on Masterpiece Theatre 5/25/98, with Tara Fitzgerald as Marion and a
skinny Count Fosco -- who is supposed to be a Sidney Greenstreet type
according to tradition -- but this really worked out well. Excellent. Collins
was really quite 'advanced' for a Victorian writer in having feisty heroines
and no nonsense about moral trivia.)
- Crispin: Buried for Pleasure
- Crispin is usually too 'whimsical' for my taste, but this one hits on all cylinders.
Gervase Fen is running for Parliament in the small village of Sanford Angelorum,
but someone starts distributing poisoned chocolates.... Need I say more?
- Dexter: Last Bus to Woodstock
- I'm reserving judgement on which is the best Inspector Morse novel; the
TV versions are so good that one's attitude toward the books is affected.
This title was selected because the story is very moving about Morse's
emotional involvements.
- Dickens: Bleak House
- You already have this book (see above). It is not a Mystery, although it
has mystery and thriller elements, but your life will be much the poorer if you've
never read it. (If you don't like Dickens's length and style, watch the BBC
serial version with Diana Rigg, if they ever repeat it.)
- Dickinson: The Glass-Sided Ants' Nest
- This author has done some fine 'historical' (i.e., 1920s) mysteries
recently, but start with his first to pick up his distinctive eccentricity: Imagine
a tribe of New Guinea aborigines transplanted intact into London 'bed-sitter'
land; their chief is murdered....
- Dickson: The Judas Window
- A classic Old Bailey trial à la Witness for the Prosecution; Merrivale
triumphs in the role of barrister for the defence. The accused has been found
locked into a room (key inside) with a murder victim, so who else could possibly
have done it? HM keeps alluding to the 'Judas Window' during the trial
(although why he doesn't just come out up front and explain it is problematical,
but then we wouldn't have all the fun of sitting through this drama--lots of good
m'ludding). You should be able to figure it out, but the use of terms will mislead
you.
- Doyle: The Hound of the Baskervilles
- This is on your required list (see above); you have to have been brought
up on Mars not to be familiar with the story, at least in its Basil Rathbone
incarnation. It may not be the best Sherlock Holmes novel in a classic mystery
sense (it's more a thriller than detective story--The Valley of Fear might
be better in that way), but it has everything going for it.
- Fearing: The Big Clock
- One of the best thrillers set in a journalistic milieu (was made into a fine
movie with Ray Milland and Charles Laughton); the hero, a crime reporter,
is set the task of tracking down -- himself, no less. Great suspense.
- Fleming: Live and Let Die
- The early James Bond books have more in common with the pre-LeCarré
British spy adventures (Bulldog Drummond, etc.) than with the movies. They
are great fun, and I'm listing this one to represent the whole sub-genre. It
is not necessarily the best Bond (On Her Majesty's Secret Service or
You Only Live Twice probably are), but it's the first one I ever read
and had consequently a greater impact.
- Freeman: The Penrose Mystery
{%}
- A dry-as-dust scientific mystery starring the methodical Dr. Thorndyke;
this is a typical Freeman, but I especially enjoy the archeological setting
(is the body found in the ancient burial mound a contemporary mummy, or
a modern victim?). You always pick up some interesting arcane knowledge
in a Thorndyke mystery--the man knows absolutely everything (and in
depth, unlike the amateur Philo Vance)!
- Garrett: Too Many Magicians
- A locked-room mystery that takes place in an alternate world where
magic is a real science and actually works. Murder at a Magicians'
Convention; it is a tour-de-force to come up with a locked-room gimmick
that doesn't use magic where it actually should (standard forensic
techniques in this world involve spell-detection, psychic 'sniffing', and the
like). The alternate world is fun too--Richard the LionHeart survived the
Crusades and united England and France. Now it is 'today' and the agents
of the evil emperor of Poland are on the prowl....
- Gash: The Judas Pair
- Welcome to the wonderful sleazy Balkan underworld of the Antiques
Trade. Lovejoy is a joy. These books are thrillers rather than mysteries,
but what the reader picks up on the side, obscure facts regarding
antiques of any kind, is very interesting. The early books are better
because they are more coherent; the later ones have too many recurring
characters that you'll have trouble keeping track of unless you go on a
tear and read several in a row.
- Gilbert: Smallbone Deceased
- The mummified body of Marcus Smallbone is found in a deed box in the
offices of a wonderfully Dickensian London law firm. The atmosphere and
satirical aspects are beautifully done, and there are some nice lawyerly
scams too. Gilbert has been around forever and always surprises.
- Gill: The Twelfth Juror
- Don't really know why this one got selected. Probably to represent one of
the best of a sub-category in the mystery genre that involves jurors interreacting
with a murder trial (usually, one of them has some personal involvement in the
case that would have them right out of it in an American court). There was
a London Times Crossword clue recently: 'Humble outlook of one threatened
by the beak (5-3-4)'. Answer is 'Worms-eye-view' (note: beak is also British slang
for magistrate)--that's what this sort of mystery provides for murder trials.
- Hammett: The Maltese Falcon
- Huston's classic movie with Bogart, Lorre, Greenstreet, et al, lifted dialogue
intact from this book--that's how vividly written it is. One of the early but hardly
surpassed (if ever) hard-boiled detective stories. The mood of this
masterpiece puts it right up there with the best of the 'noirs' (cf. Ambler and
Thompson). [It can be fun to point to later movies like Chinatown,
Bladerunner, and yes, Batman, that sort of capture a similar mood.]
- Hare: Tragedy at Law
- Yet another British law-court mystery. Takes place in the provincial circuit
court, and is included here as much for its description of a lost world than for
any other reason. But rank Hare right up there with the best mystery authors.
(Try Tenant for Death for something in a less legal domain.)
- Hill: A Killing Kindness
- An early Pascoe/Dalziel; Hill is one of the best of the new 'Golden Age'
mystery writers. This one sets it all up perfectly, if you are not yet ready for
the later, more (psychologically) complex books that do tend to wear one down.
Hope I'm not giving too much away by saying that there is a critical clue
revealed in the very first sentence! Supt. Andrew Dalziel (pronounced Dee-ell) is
a true original who has to be experienced rather than described. [For some reason,
I link this book with Carr's Till Death Do Us Part; maybe it's just the
similar settings, although that makes for an interesting contrast.]
- Hillerman: Skinwalkers
- America's response to Australia's Napoleon Bonaparte. To a dweller on the
East Coast, the Navajo/Hopi Indian reservations of Arizona might as well be
in Mongolia. Fascinating, and the anthropological/religious/superstitious elements
add a lot to explain the mystery, which wouldn't necessarily make sense
otherwise.
- Himes: Hot Day, Hot Night
- Couldn't be more of a contrast to Hillerman. But this also involves a different
anthropology--the reservation called Harlem. Hilariously funny and one might think
politically incorrect, but Himes was actually a very sophisticated black left-wing
author who lived in Paris for the most part, under exile from the McCarthyites.
- Hubbard: The Holm Oaks
{&}
- Unrelentingly creepy and depressing. There is something that will haunt you
forever about the fate of the hero's wife in the dark holm oak copse behind the
flat seashore, where she goes at night to hunt the wild nicticorax (a bird
that sounds like someone vomiting) with her tape recorder, not knowing that their
hostile neighbor has introduced a herd of Tamworth pigs, particularly revolting
animals, into the wood. The final sentence reads: "I stumbled...along the beach,
with the empty gun in my hands, full of a growing consciousness of total and
intolerable loss."
- Hull: The Murder of My Aunt
- The nasty little narrator of this comic gem lives with his aunt in the tiny
Welsh town of Llwll (pronounced 'Filth'). It falls into the category of the 'inverted'
detective story where you know who the villain is up-front, but not how he's going
to come to his just deserts (Freeman and Vickers pioneered this, and Iles was also
a practicioner). This is a comedic counterpart to Malice Aforethought (q.v.),
which is also the chronicle of the murder of a middle-class worm. Good fun, with
a nice turnaround surprise at the end.
- Iles: Malice Aforethought
- And here that is. Many critics call this book overrated, but if you have ever
seen the BBC serialization, you'll love it. You know from the first that the mousey
Mr. Bickley murdered his wife--but will he get away with it? This type of story
has been done so often since then (e.g., Freeman's Mr Pottermack's Oversight)
that it has become a sub-genre of mystery fiction. Note: Iles is also Anthony
Berkeley.
- Innes (Hammond): The Wreck of the Mary Deare
- A classic along the lines of the deserted ship found sailing (steaming) along,
with warm food still in the galley (Mary Celeste; Flying Dutchman; 'Ancient
Mariner'). Then a dramatic and heroic struggle to save the ship during a fierce storm,
followed by a long and complex admiralty board hearing, exposing all sorts of
villainous shenanigans, and almost leading to the total ruin of the lonely
protagonist. Finally, the climactic Vindication. Beautifully done, but this is not a
detective story (if you're a purist).
- Innes (Michael): Lament for a Maker
{+}
- A quintessentially Scotch book (the paranoid laird who has barricaded himself
into the top of his castle tower and paces the ramparts declaiming from Dunbar's
poem "Lament for the Makers"). Something of a tour-de-force: Innes pays tribute
to Collins (using the memoirs narrative technique) and Doyle (with the background
story of betrayal and greed in the desert, in this case Australia). There's the avenging
twin, here actually a triplet, brother; the snowbound house; the eerie poem; Innes's
habitual erudition, etc. etc. (But this particular book is not a typical Innes, which is
usually more in the line of a comedy of manners.)
- LeCarré: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
- LeCarré's masterpiece is the Smiley/Karla trilogy (Tinker, Tailor... etc.).
Include that on your desert island shelf if you still have room, otherwise settle
for the seminal book listed here, which was also one of the great movies, with Richard
Burton. Although Childers, Maugham, Ambler, and others had established the
serious and realistic spy-novel school (vs. Sapper and company), LeCarré started a
whole new revival and set the standards of perfection in this form with this book.
The story of the suffering this deep-cover spy underwent in establishing his role,
and the outright betrayal by his expedient bosses, is devastating.
- McShane: The Crimson Madness of Little Doom
- (Wonderful title!) Little Doom is a tiny village in Cornwall that has a total population
of 15 people. One of them starts a poison-pen letter campaign--four people end
up dead. And Then There Were None in a humorous vein. Possibly a unique
mystery. [McShane also wrote the book that led to that excellent movie Seance
on a Wet Afternoon.]
- MacDonald: The Last One Left
- One of those big-cast big-scam novels set in Florida (a la Hiaassen, Thomas, etc.).
Written in 1967 and still the best of them all (only thing dating it is that the prize is a
mere $800,000, and some police slang for newshounds -- "cronkies"). Not part of the
Travis McGee series, but probably because the author wanted to write a 'real' novel
instead of the paperback originals he made his living on. The good people are good
and the wicked are wicked and everybody else is in-between, as it should be. Crissy
Harkinson is one of the worst monsters in crime fiction -- she'd have
made mincemeat of Hannibal Lecter if he wasn't able to take the first bite.
This is JDM's masterpiece, his Schubert Sonata in A.
- Murray: The King of the Nightcap
- A Racetrack book involving a whole bunch of beautifully sleazy characters. One
of the best of its kind (Dobyns's Saratoga series is right up there too; note that I
have not included any Dick Francis books in this list, much as I enjoy them, perhaps
because I can't really tell them apart). Murray's Shifty Lou Anderson, a Holiday Inn
performing magician, is the hero of several books. This one is the best so far.
- Price: Gunner Kelly
- No final judgement at the moment. They are all excellent spy novels, with great bits
of obscure lore (see my note below about Arcane subjects). I have picked Gunner
Kelly because of its fascinating premise that the old feudal loyalties and social
system still survive in modern times in the traditional English village--this is definitely
not St. Mary Mead. Beautifully done book. Price does the academic spy novel, with
its British university background (which, after all, was the foundation of the classic MI5/6
of history, even if it led to your Philby's et al), very well; these people are cultivated
to a high degree without losing their virility or humanity.
- Queen: The Egyptian Cross Mystery
- A mass murderer who is truly insane and fiendishly clever. Beheads his victims (it
turns out, for a very good reason). This contains nearly all the classic elements of
an Ellery Queen novel, without the annoying presence of Inspector Queen or the
unspeakable Djuna. One of the last of the 'national whatsis' series, which EQ gave
up (I feel, erroneously), to go to Hollywood. It was only later that he got back into
really bizarre situations, without an excess of whimsy--and those were sometimes
ghostwritten by Avram Davidson (And on the Eighth Day is mind-blowing,
and in a way complements this book).
- Ruell: Urn Burial
- Ruell is Reginald Hill, no great secret. This is one of those learned spy novels in the
Price manner that I love so much, also the area is very familiar to me from vacations.
So here it is. (No, it is not one of the great mysteries of all times, but it can be re-read
over and over with equal pleasure.)
- Stout:Too Many Cooks
- Nero Wolfe books are more fun for the eccentricities of the detective than they
are for their plots. This one is probably the best in that way. NW is actually persuaded
to leave his W. 35th St. Manhattan brownstone (now one of the approach roads to
the Lincoln Tunnel--I actually went searching for it once) to attend a chef's convention
in White Sulphur Springs WV. A murder occurs, of course, and NW is actually even shot.
The Wolfian greed over obtaining the recipe for saucisse minuet will leave you
gasping from laughter.
- Thomas: Chinaman's Chance
- Thomas is king of the caper novels (well, co-king with Westlake). This is just a
typical one of his, actually one of the best. Artie Wu is a pretender to the throne of
China, and his buddies in crime are equally self-inflated, but all amiable enough when
they are not involved in double-crosses. Nice sleaze, complicated caper, good fun.
- Thompson: Pop. 1280 / The Killer Inside Me
- Breaking a rule here listing two books (but they are both slim-jims in size). In effect,
they are the same novel written from different points of view. Small-town sheriffs, killers
both, corrupt as hell but true to themselves for the most part. Black comedy of the
highest order. Treat them like the heads and tails of the same coin.
- Upfield: Death of a Lake
- Upfield was a pommiebastard who went to Australia and invented one of the most famous
detectives in the world, the half-caste aborigine Napoleon Bonaparte (how accurate the
portrait of the abos is is questionable, but comes across as well grounded). Bony specializes
in months-old crimes, but since there is hardly any weather in the Outback he can usually
still find footprints or whatever and gets into the locals' personalities by posing as a migrant
sheepherder or cattleman and chatting them up (this is one of the joys of these books). Here,
however, you will encounter one of the most awesome descriptions of a natural event that
can be listed in the mystery genre EVER--a desert lake that totally dries up every 50 years
or so before being refilled by flash floods. (The body, of course, is at the bottom of this
lake.) Highly recommended.
- Van Dine: The Bishop Murder Case
- You really have to get this one in a used hardcopy with the original fold-out maps, etc.
It even smells good in this format. 'Who killed Cock Robin?'--somebody is killing the
intellectual elite of the gilded New York of the 1920s, following some mad scheme based
on the Mother Goose rhymes. Unbelievably quaint, and Philo Vance doesn't show off his
erudition too much--this is a real nostalgia trip, although nostalgia implies a return to old
memories, and I don't think anyone has memories of such a place as this. Let's call it
old Gotham and leave it at that.
- Vine: The Brimstone Wedding
- Barbara Vine is Ruth Rendell. Any of her novels could be chosen, but each one she writes
is better than the last one. TOP50 lists A Dark-Adapted Eye; then there was
Anna's Book, which was amazing. They are all one-of-a-kind books, guess that's
why she doesn't write them as Rendells. This one is an emotion-wrenching mystery told
in retrospect by a dying woman in a nursing home.
- Watson: Hopjoy Was Here
- Watson writes true comic mysteries (like Westlake in the US); he hasn't been published
much in America, more's the pity. This particular book is a great spoof on James Bond and
the like. The author deals with small towns and suburbia, and local minor fraudulent
people like the medium Lucilla Teatime. Here, I guess, is what would happen when you put
a seasoned agent into such a 'safe house' place.
Digressions
There is something fascinating
in the way we intuitively accept or don't accept made-up words in the English
language, which itself is composed to a large extent of borrowings from other
tongues. Jaberwocky, and all the other words Carroll invented in that poem
(gallumph, borogrove, etc.) hits the nail on the head; it is perfect for what it
describes. Lovecraft's Cthulhu is another good example. Whereas, a word like
"twokthwonknip" would be an instant reject. Too many bad science fiction/fantasy
writers trip up when it comes to coining words.
(Back)
I have alluded
to the device of narrating a mystery story via eye-witness journals, letters, etc. in the
comments on The Moonstone. This is an effective way of covering up 'clues';
they are presented, but not perceived to be such because the observer does not
recognize them. Most mysteries, especially of the 'hard-boiled' detective type, use
the first-person narrative (I haven't actually kept statistics, but that's the general
impression); this adds liveliness, and is also a good way to cover up clues ('I could
have kicked myself for not seeing this at the time'), but lacks verisimilitude--Marlowe
could never have made a living as a gumshoe if he spent all his time writing up
novelizations of his cases. The straightforward third-person approach (whether or
not using a 'point-of-view' stance in the preferred literary manner, or just sticking
with outright omniscient narration) is probably the most effective, but is harder to
pull off when it comes to following the play-it-fair conventions of the detective story.
One has to put things in plain sight and still disguise them somehow. I think I prefer
Carr's usual method of pretty much sticking to a single perceived-by-one-person
account, with an occasional interjection by the authorial voice. Of course, this
violates the standards of pure 'literature', where consistency of viewpoint is
critical--but I'm not about to complain and dismiss mysteries as junk-food writing.
(Back)
Having a grab-bag
mind, I am a sucker for any good mystery that has the added attraction of introducing
or expanding upon a 'learned' subject. This might bore people who don't want to be
diverted from a fast and complicated plot, and there's nothing ignoble about that
attitude. But, to me, the big attraction of a book like Dorothy L. Sayers The
Nine Tailors is its treatise on the fine art of 'playing the changes' (traditional
English church-bell ringing, which is wonderful to hear, by the way, especially at
night in the countryside--sometimes they will let you watch from inside the church,
or you can sneak in and hide behind a pillar--or just go to St. Paul's in London
about 4 o'clock on a Sunday afternoon and stand in the plaza). Such a thing does
not have to be a diversion, either; there are fascinating gobbets of stuff in the
James Bond novels about the international gold market, how to play baccarat, etc.
There is Lovejoy with his great interpolations on how to fake an 18th-Century
snuff-box or a Ming Vase; Reginald Hill with his descriptions of life in No-Mans-Land
between the trenches; the forensic techniques of Garrett's Magician detectives.
Anything to do with obscure aspects of the law is intriguing, even if lawyers are
the scum of the earth; the Perry Mason books (as opposed to the TV shows) are
great in this way. Archeology, Roman Britain and King Arthur, mechanical chess
players (automatons), Count Cagliostro, Houdini, World War I, the Australian Outback,
Arctic Wastes, the Great Ocean Liners, religious heresies of the Middle Ages--keep
on feeding me! (However, I prefer to smoke cigars rather than examining their
ashes.) ** [Here is a NOTE to this NOTE:
{!!} Lemel and Floorsweep.
(Back)
Hubbard wrote a mystery called The Country of Again, set in post-Raj
India, that is a great complement to the Jewel in the Crown series:
well-recommended although not as a detective story. The contrast between
what the English expected of the rule of law back in the 'Golden Age' and what
happens now is very effective. A similar book relating to the effect of anarchy
on normal British middle class life (here, the occupation of Shanghai by the Japanese in
World War II) is Ballard's Empire of the Sun, which ranks with classics
about children thrown into similar chaotic circumstances such as A High Wind
in Jamaica and Lord of the Flies. We are all bloody barbarians when
you cut under the surface. [Footnote: I knew a very interesting man named Jack
Weinblum who lived through the Shanghai occupation by the Japanese. He had
some incredible tales to tell on quiet evenings when he wasn't too busy being
the floor manager of the NYMMS restaurant/bar in Manhattan on Madison Square,
now Joe Mayo's (he's interesting too, if you are into Jack Dempsey stories).
Unfortunately, Weinblum died of cancer shortly after my drinking buddies and I
'discovered' his background. Amazingly enough, he gave the Japanese credit
for maltreating all Europeans equally--they wouldn't give in to German pressure
to send the Jews back to Germany.]
(Back)
You are about to get some culture (poetry) rammed down your throat, or if
that's no good arrow down to (Back) and click it:
I that in heill was and gladnes,
Am trublit now with gret sicknes,
And feblit with infirmitie;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
Our plesance heir is all vaneglory,
This fals warld is bot transitory,
The fleshce is brukle, the Fend is sle;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
The stait of man dois change and vary,
Now sound, now seik, now blith, now sary,
Now dansand mery, now like to dee;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
..... blah blah, Death takes all the following:
- Princis, Prelotis, and Potestatis
- Baith riche and pur of al degre
- On the moderis breist soukand, the bab full of benignite
- The campion in the stour
- The capitane closit in the towr [the laird in the novel]
- The lady in bowr full of beute
- Art-magicianis, and astrologis
- Rethoris, logicianis, and theologgis
- Lechis, surrigianis, and physicianis
- Chaucer, the Monk of Bery, Gower
- Sir Hew of Eglintoun, Heriot, and Wintoun
- Johne Clerk and James Affleck; Holland and Barbour
- Schir Mungo Lokert of the Le; Schir Gilbert Hay
- Blind Hary and Sandy Traill
- Roull of Aberdene; Roull of Corstorphin
- Maister Robert Henrysoun; Schir Johne the Ros
- Gud gentill Stobo and Quintine Schaw
- Gud Maister Walter Kennedy
-- William Dunbar (1460-1520)
Well that pretty much covers all of poor Dunbar's friends; no wonder he was
depressed. Innes's captain in his tower is obviously a basket case to roam
around at midnight spouting this bumf (with a Timor Mortis after every round:
Shouting out into the snowstorm, 'Blind Harry and Sandy Traill, Timor Mortis
Conturbat Me! The babe full of benignity. All you bloody leeches and
damned astrologists. Ralph of Corstorphin. Gentle Stobo. Poor Sir Hugh.
Timor mortis--Aargh!'). Great stuff! ...well, excuse me. Go back to your Miss Marple.
(Back)
There is a point where you have to draw the line. What do you make of these
two clues (which were fragments on paper strips used to stuff a hat lining to make
it fit the wearer -- and isn't it amazing to us now that 50 years ago and before, men
were practically considered naked if they didn't wear a hat in public? Hats were very
important to early detectives, and the state of one provided very important clues)?
"--N
--don WC"
and
"--el 3 oz 5dwts
--eep 9 1/2 oz"
Dr. Thorndyke, with the help of the Post Office Directory (equivalent of the Yellow
Pages back then), almost instantly deduces the solution to the crime, but in his bland
clam-faced manner doesn't reveal anything about it to his compatriates until it's time for
the denouement (who all then tsk tsk in amazement).
The murderer can be tracked to a gold assayer's office in Clement's Inn.
Little do they realize that the dust he inspected on the hat had certain giveaway
elements in it that immediately led him to the conclusion that the second clue meant
"three ounces five pennyweights of lemel and nine and a half ounces of floorsweep,"
then from the Directory concluded that there was only one place in London that fit that
that ended with an "N" in West Central London.
His capacious mind knows that LEMEL is what they in the precious-metal trade
call the bits of gold and stuff that gets in the crevices of a workbench, and FLOORSWEEP
is what can be gathered up underneath same, and that there is actually a recycling
market for this crap, hence there is a jargon for it.
Is this fair "clueing" even though it is revealed to the reader right off? Naah! But it
was acceptable in the early days. Seems quaint now, and fun, but it isn't really playing
fair, and it took a few years before the genre really got into rules of fair play. I'll tell you one
thing, though -- I now know what Lemel and Floorsweep means, and dammit I won't forget it!
[Lemel could also mean "to travel haphazardly, not knowing where one will end up."
This is not in any dictionary -- you have to go to the
Jargon Basement Recycling Catalogue Web Page.]
(Back)
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