Reading in September 2016

I cannot believe it is already October and only three more months left in the year. I do love this time of year. The promise of cooler weather coming (but not here yet for sure). Many holidays coming up. Veteran's Day, Thanksgiving holidays, and a long break between Christmas and New Year's Day.

In September I read seven books total. Two of the books were not crime fiction. The first book I read was a classic novel written for children, The Wind in the Willows. My first time reading it and I enjoyed it a lot.

The second book I read in September was also not crime fiction although it does have elements from that genre. Death Warmed Over by Kevin J. Anderson is mainly classified as a novel in the urban fantasy genre. The protagonist is a zombie who was formerly a private detective before becoming undead.

Then I moved on to straight crime fiction books:

The Diamond Feather by Helen Reilly

Helen Reilly wrote over 30 mystery novels between 1930 and 1962 and almost all of those were police procedurals featuring Inspector McKee.  This was her first Inspector McKee novel, and my favorite of the ones I have read so far.

A Deadly Thaw by Sarah Ward

This is Sarah Ward's second novel featuring Detective Inspector Francis Sadler and his team. It is a good police procedural, focusing as much on some of the people related to the crime as on the investigative team.

Thirty-Three Teeth by Colin Cotterill

Set in the 1970s. Dr. Siri Paiboun, a 72-year-old medical doctor in Laos has been appointed the national coroner under the new Communist regime. This is the second book in a series. Very enjoyable, but it was heavy on supernatural elements. 

Grifters & Swindlers edited by Cynthia Manson

A collection of 17 short stories taken from Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. The stories all center on tricksters and con artists who are plotting to cheat someone of their money or valuables. The contents are variable, but there were several stories I liked a lot, and all were worth reading. The stories were published between 1950 and the late 1990s.

Quoth the Raven by Jane Haddam

This was a reread. Quoth the Raven is the 4th book in a long-running series about Gregor Demarkian, retired FBI agent, living in Philadelphia. I discovered this series in 2005 and read the first 20 books in three months. This one is set in rural Pennsylvania at a small college, where Gregor has been invited to give a lecture. Set around Halloween.

I have been participating in the R.I.P. event in September and continuing in October. That event celebrates reading of books of mystery, suspense, dark fantasy, and horror. All of the books listed above except for The Wind in the Willows -- which I finished in early September -- fit into that type of reading. Four were on my list of proposed books for the event. In October I have read two more: The Coffin Dancer by Jeffrey Deaver and Strong Poison by Dorothy Sayers. And I am now reading another from the list: All the Lonely People by Martin Edwards. So that event has been good for motivating me to read several books that have been on my TBR stacks for years.

The Diamond Feather: Helen Reilly

Roger Cram was visited by Godfrey Thorne right before he died, and Roger was left with a piece of jewelry called the diamond feather. It is a family heirloom, designed in the shape of a peacock feather, which Godfrey had taken to pawn only to discover that it was a fake. Later Roger visits Thorne's family to return the diamond feather to Godfrey's mother. While Roger is at Greystone, the family estate in New York, a family member is murdered.

The story is told mainly from  Roger's viewpoint; he stays on at the Thorne mansion after the death not because he is an old  friend of the family, but because Inspector McKee, the policeman in charge of the investigation, asks him to. McKee wants a source of information on the family and their actions. Roger's only connection to the family was Godfrey, and thus he is an outsider, not necessarily resented, but not welcomed either. He does get very involved with the investigation in a amateur role, so he and Inspector McKee share center stage in the activities. There is a small circle of suspects, but the plot is exceedingly complex, and lots of red herrings.

Of the four mysteries by Helen Reilly that I have read, this is my favorite. The story had me under a spell and I would gladly have stayed up all night to finish the book. That might be because this was closer to a police procedural and had much less of the "damsel in distress" element than I noticed in previous books. And less romance.

From what I have read, the first books in the Inspector McKee series were more straightforward police procedurals, as this one is. Police procedurals vary quite a bit as to how much detail of police work is included, and this seems to be true in this series. Later on the books entered the "had I but known" territory, and all the others I have read were much more centered on romantic involvements. This is discussed in some detail in an extensive article at Mystery*File written by Mike Grost and at a post on The Doll's Trunk Murder at Killer Covers of the Week.

This book is not easy to find at an affordable price. When I reviewed Mourned on Sunday, a commenter noted that The Diamond Feather was the first book in the series. I had never heard of that one. I found a hardback with no dust jacket for $25 at AbeBooks.com, and decided that was acceptable under the circumstances. Right now at that site there are two copies available, both with dust jackets, one for $100, the other for $300. I am now very glad I purchased the book because I enjoyed it so much. It doesn't always work out so well with first books in a series.

This book is my selection for a book published in 1930 for the Crimes of the Century meme, hosted by Rich at Past Offences. It is also my second book read for the R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril XI event. That event celebrates reading of books of mystery, suspense, dark fantasy, and horror, and continues through the end of October.


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Publisher:  Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1930.
Length:      309 pages
Format:      Hardcover
Series:       Inspector McKee, #11
Setting:      New York
Genre:       Police Procedural
Source:      I purchased my copy.

Mourned on Sunday: Helen Reilly

Mourned on Sunday is the ninth book in the Inspector McKee series by Helen Reilly and the third book by Reilly that I have read. The first one, Lament for the Bride, also featured Inspector McKee of the Manhattan Homicide Squad. In my review, I described that book as a "hybrid, part romantic suspense, part police procedural." That description fits this book as well. The second one was The Dead Can Tell; I found that book too focused on romance and not enough detection. However in all the books I have read, I have enjoyed the depiction of Inspector McKee.

In Mourned on Sunday, Nora Dalrymple has returned to the small town of Silverlock after her husband's death. She hopes to reunite with Roger Thew, a man she had fallen in love with while stil married to her much older husband. However, it turns out that he has married another woman from Silverlock, whose mother has inherited a lot of money. Through a series of strange events, Nora is lured away from her house late at night, and is later accused of the hit-and-run accident which occurred at that time.

The plot is very complex. The injured woman, Sylvia Thew, wife of Roger, remains in very bad condition and cannot testify about her attacker. Inspector McKee shows up in Silverlock and investigates the death of Sylvia's mother, who had fallen from a balcony of her hotel room in his precinct in Manhattan just a few weeks earlier. The reader, being privy to Nora's whereabouts during the attack on Sylvia, knows that she cannot be guilty of that crime. Reilly provides us with many possible suspects from Sylvia's circle of friends and acquaintances with a variety of possible motives. Roger behaves suspiciously and erratically, but no one can prove he has a connection to either crime. In the eyes of the local police, Nora is the most likely suspect for the hit-and-run attack on Sylvia, and there is a witness who saw her car nearby. McKee, however, is almost immediately convinced that someone is trying to frame her.

Mourned on Sunday has elements of the "damsel in distress" story and also bears some resemblance to the "had I but known" sub-genre, but doesn't fit neatly in either. The reader sees most of the story from the point of view of either Nora Dalrymple or Inspector McKee. Nora is a strong woman, capable of taking care of herself, but keeps her own counsel about some facts that could help clear her. McKee stays around in Silverlock with a team of his detectives, working alternately on the suspicious death of Sylvia's mother and the case of the hit-and-run accident.

I enjoyed reading this book, more than any of the other Reilly books I had read previously. I found the ending to be rather outrageous, but there were many clues I missed. I have a few more Inspector McKee books to sample and then I will seek out some others that get the best reviews.

I read this book for the Crimes of the Century meme at Past Offences. The year for this month is 1941. This book did seem to reflect the times, although I remember no mention of the politics at that time. It depicted both big city and small town New York. The focus seemed mostly to be on fairly well-to-do families, although they often complained about having fallen on hard times. Some of them had formerly been relatively poor and then inherited money.

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Publisher:  Dell, 1944. Orig. pub. 1941.
Length:     240 pages
Format:     Paperback
Series:      Inspector McKee, #9
Setting:     New York
Genre:      Police procedural
Source:     I purchased this book.

The Dead Can Tell: Helen Reilly

This is the second book that I have read by Helen Reilly, a mystery author who wrote from 1930 through the early 1960's. I found this as a reasonably priced e-book right before my trip to Alabama, and I was glad I had it to read on the airplane, when my paperback mystery was placed in a bag that I could not get to.

Most of the mysteries by Helen Reilly feature Inspector McKee, also referred to as The Scotsman. Per Michael Grost (at this page), her mysteries "were among the first American novels to stress police procedure." Some of her later books ran more to romantic suspense, though they still included detecting by Inspector McKee.

In September of this year, I read Lament for the Bride, and my review is here. I had mixed feelings about that book. I also profiled Helen Reilly in this post.

The Dead Can Tell is similar to Lament for a Bride in that a lot of the focus is on a young woman and her romantic entanglements. She becomes involved in a crime which goes unsolved for quite a long time. The plot follows her relationship problems and Inspector McKee's investigation. I was glad to see that this one featured McKee and his coworker, Todhunter, more than the previous book.

Overall, I was not impressed with this book. Too much emphasis on the romance for me. There were clues to the culprit and I was surprised to discover who it was. My next foray into the mysteries of Helen Reilly will be a book that emphasizes the police and detection more, I hope.

However, the descriptive passages in some parts of the book were superb. I don't usually pay much attention to that aspect, but they really stood out here.

Some samples:

November sunlight streamed gaudily through the wide windows. It couldn't dissipate the fog banks of mounting bewilderment and the ever-increasing dread folding themselves around her, drawing closer in.

His eyes rested moodily on the big black Cadillac beyond the rickety white gateposts waiting to take him back to New York. Poison ivy wreathed a flaming mantle of scarlet in and out of the fence pickets and spread itself over the tawny grass below. Wind whipped the leaves. The weather had turned cold.

One of my favorite things about Helen Reilly is that she has a lot of books in lovely Dell mapback editions. I have a few of those, but I don't have this one.You can see some examples at my other posts on Helen Reilly and her mysteries.

It is getting close to the end of the year and I am trying to finish up some challenges. This book gets me close to completing the Vintage Mystery Challenge.

New (to me) Authors, July - September

Today I am joining in on the meme on best new-to-me crime fiction authors 2012 at Mysteries in Paradise. The goal is to share authors that are new-to-us this year, especially the ones we liked. This meme runs at the end of each quarter. Check out other posts for this quarter.

This quarter I have read books by five authors that I have never read before. None of them are new authors. Several of them have established continuing series.

1. Whiskey Sour by J. A. Konrath
2. The Suspect by L. R. Wright
3. Lament for the Bride by Helen Reilly 
4. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
5. The Tattoo Murder Case by Akimitsu Takagi

Whiskey Sour is the first novel of a mystery series written by J. A. Konrath. Lieutenant Jacqueline 'Jack' Daniels is a detective in the Chicago Police Department. Her partner is Herb, a family man. He is supportive and a calming influence on Jack. The book was a quick read and enjoyable. The story is told in first person, with Jack as the narrator. There are chapters giving the killer's point of view. Those chapters were creepy and graphic, but I do find I enjoy novels that give us more than one point of view. However, the humor in this series did not appeal to me and I probably won't continue the series.

Of all the new authors I read this quarter, The Suspect by L. R. Wright was my favorite. This book won the 1986 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel of the year, and it was the first Canadian novel to do so. This is an inverted mystery; we know from the beginning who committed the murder. Since the reader knows whodunit, the reader is more concerned with how the culprit is caught. And, in the case of this book, why did he do it? The novel is set in Sechelt, which is on the Sunshine Coast in British Columbia, Canada.

Lament for the Bride, published in 1951, is a vintage mystery novel, part of a long series featuring Inspector McKee of the Manhattan Homicide Squad. It is a hybrid, part romantic suspense, part police procedural. This is a story of its time -- the 1950’s. The characters are mostly rich and powerful, or once rich and powerful. People who are used to having money being about to do what they want. The bride is from outside of that world, a woman who worked for a company her husband owns. Only the bride's motivations and character are fully fleshed out. The remaining characters are murky and threatening. This is the first Helen Reilly novel I have read. I would like to read some of the earlier mysteries that focus more on McKee and his police work.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie was a fun mystery to read. The story, narrated by a precocious 11-year-old as the detective, is set in 1950, and reflects some of the hardships of post-War Britain. Set in an English village, this is the typical cozy with quirky characters and a kindly policeman. Flavia de Luce, our charming protagonist, lives in a decrepit old mansion with her father, her two sisters, and an old friend of her father’s, Dogger, who is now the gardener. Dogger and her father were both soldiers during the war, and Dogger came back with severe psychological problems.

The Tattoo Murder Case is a vintage mystery by a Japanese author, Akimitsu Takagi.  It was published in 1948 and translated into English in 1998 by Deborah Boehm. The story is set in Tokyo and it involves the tattoo culture in Japan. At the time, tattoos were illegal in Japan. I enjoyed the book for the picture of Japan at the time. I found this to be a good and enjoyable mystery, at times, but I did have quibbles with some elements. Nevertheless, I recommend it highly.

R is for Helen Reilly

Today I am featuring a vintage mystery author, Helen Reilly, for the Crime Fiction Alphabet for 2012 hosted by Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise.

The following biographical overview was included in the Ace Double edition that includes two books: Not Me, Inspector and The Canvas Dagger (abridged). That edition was published "ca. 1965".

Mrs. Reilly grew up in New York City, where her father, Dr. James Michael Kieran, was president of Hunter College. She herself received her education there until she married the late Paul Reilly, artist-cartoonist. Her brother, John Kieran, is the distinguished sports writer and naturalist. Ursula Curtiss, the well-known mystery writer, is her daughter. Mrs. Reilly was an active member, and past president, of the Mystery Writers of America. In recent years she made her home in New Mexico.

Per Goodreads, she had another daughter who also wrote mystery and suspense novels: Mary Reilly Wilson wrote under the pseudonym Mary McMullen. 

There is an extensive article at Mystery*File written by Mike Grost which analyzes Reilly's writing style and the genres she fit into. What I gleaned from that article is that her novels were among the first to feature police procedures, and that later novels lean toward the Had I But Known sub-genre. Most of the novels featured New York City police Inspector Christopher McKee.

Earlier this month I read my first book by Helen Reilly. It was Lament for the Bride, and my review is here. See the lovely front and back cover art for this book at that post.

This book was one of her Inspector McKee novels. However, he is offstage in much of this book and the action does center around the bride of the title. I would call this more a "damsel in distress" story. Even though that type of book would not be high on my list of favorites, I found this book enjoyable and definitely want to sample more of her mysteries. This one was set in Florida. Most of the McKee books are set in New York and some of the later ones are set in New Mexico.

 



















Many of Reilly's mysteries were published in beautiful paperback editions. This may have been how I first discovered her. I collect (on a very small scale) vintage paperbacks, usually mysteries. My favorites are Dell mapback editions, Pyramid Green Door mysteries, and any with a cover featuring a skull or skeleton. 

Per Wikipedia, here is a description of mapback editions from Dell:

Mapback is a term used by paperback collectors to refer to the earliest paperback books published by Dell Books, beginning in 1943. The books are known as mapbacks because the back cover of the book contains a map that illustrates the location of the action. Dell books were numbered in series. Mapbacks extend from #5 to at least #550; then maps became less of a fixed feature of the books and disappeared entirely in 1951.  

The first Helen Reilly mapback pictured above is the The Opening Door. The Mike Grost article mentioned earlier notes that this book is of the Had I But Known type, and discusses some of the characters in that novel. He rates that novel as one of Reilly's poorest works. But the cover is beautiful.

Another mapback edition I have is for Mourned on Sunday. See this review at Beneath the Stains of Time. 

Bev at My Reader's Block has reviewed several books by Helen Reilly. Check out this review of The Silver Leopard. There is a mapback edition for that one too and I hope to get that someday.

Please visit the post at Mysteries in Paradise for other entries for the letter R.

Lament for the Bride: Helen Reilly (RIP #2)

Lament for the Bride, published in 1951, is a vintage mystery novel, part of a long series featuring Inspector McKee of the Manhattan Homicide Squad. It is a hybrid, part romantic suspense, part police procedural.

The events unfold primarily from the point of view of the damsel in distress, a young woman (Judith Fescue) who has married a man she does not love (Horace Fescue) after losing the man she does love (Charles Darlington) to another woman. And this situation might not be so bad, except that her new husband is manipulative and controlling, and they keep running into the old love interest.



This book is almost equally divided into two parts: the first part leading up to the crime and the second part focusing on the detection of the crime.  This is similar to the structure I noticed in Ngaio Marsh’s Night at the Vulcan (review here).

In this case Inspector McKee, shows up at the beginning of the book, because the husband’s life has been threatened. To this point the story has taken place in New York, which is where McKee is based. The couple moves on to St. Augustine, Florida, in preparation for a cruise to “southern waters.” 

They end up at a "big white colonial house in the middle of the town that was as shut away as though it were on a desert island." And right next door is Horace's first wife and her entourage of relatives and friends. There is eventually a murder, and the death threats take on more gravity.

This is a story of its time -- the 1950’s. The characters are mostly rich and powerful, or once rich and powerful. People who are used to having money being about to do what they want. The bride is from outside of that world, a woman who worked for a company her husband owns.  A lot of the Nero Wolfe books by Rex Stout also focused on the well to do, who could afford Wolfe's fees. In this case, McKee is following the case because the husband is an important New York financier.

Only the bride's motivations and character are fully fleshed out. The remaining characters are murky and threatening. The main suspense is in determining what is really going on with this group of people gathered in Florida, and discovering who is what they seem and who is not. I did not get a full sense of Inspector McKee... he is referred to as “the Scotsman,” and he is doggedly trying to solve the puzzle. 

This is the first Helen Reilly novel I have read. I would like to read some of the earlier mysteries that focus more on McKee and his police work.

I have started a 50 State Mystery Challenge at Goodreads, and this novel, set primarily in Florida, is my first book for that challenge.

This post is my second for the R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril VII event. That event celebrates reading of books of mystery and suspense.