The 17th Letter, by Dorothy Cameron Disney

 

9798886011210

Stark House Press, 2024

originally published 1945

212 pp

paperback

Published just this month, The 17th Letter is my introduction to the work of Dorothy Cameron Disney.  She was the author of nine novels, written between 1936 and 1949; The 17th Letter comes in at number seven.  According to the introduction in the Stark House edition by Curtis Evans, the novel "draws heavily" from the real-life story of Franz von Werra, a German prisoner of war in England who, after being transferred to Ontario, Canada along with other prisoners, escaped by jumping out of the window of a train and eventually made his way back to Nazi Germany.  The 17th Letter is, as Evans says, a "flight-and-pursuit thriller," and somewhat of a departure for the author, whose previous books were more in the "classic style of mystery godmother Mary Roberts Rinehart."   For someone like me who devours vintage crime, that departure and the turn to something different is most welcome.  

The main characters in this novel are Mary and Paul Strong, two journalists who live in a New York apartment overlooking Washington Square.   Their best friend is Max Ferris, who has been away on assignment for News Review documenting a picture story of a convoy destined for Murmansk.  With his task completed, Ferris made his way to Iceland, where he had been stuck for "six long weeks," waiting for some way to make it back home.  In the meantime, he'd been sending his friends a series of letters, sixteen in total, with a number denoting their order on the envelopes.   Now he was expected back home via "the Clipper" from Reykjavik, where he'd been staying with some Danish fishermen, but Paul learns that not only had Max not made the plane, but he had actually given up his ticket.  While Mary thinks that Max might be ill,  Paul believes that "Something important kept him off the Clipper", but he has no conceivable idea of what it might be.   His suspicion increases when he and Mary receive a cable from their friend telling them that there will be a seventeenth letter in the mail, and that they should "be understanding."  The weirdest part of the message is in Max's signature, where he adds a strange middle name -- Icarus. The promised missive arrives, but again it's obvious that something out of the ordinary is going on, since all it contains is a theater program for a show that had run five months earlier.   Add to all of this the theft of some of Max's letters, new neighbors in the building and a strange man in the park who seems to know a great deal about Paul and Mary and finally some devastating news about Max, and Paul decides that it's time to go and find out what's going on with their friend, setting off aboard a ship.  Mary, who has stayed behind, comes across some dangerous information that needs to be acted upon immediately, and knows she must relay it to her husband at any cost, finding herself aboard the same ship as a stowaway.  They manage to make it to Halifax in Nova Scotia, and it is here where their adventure truly begins; unfortunately, they have no idea who they can trust as they find themselves in a great deal of trouble. 

1945 first edition, from Abebooks

I love espionage stories, especially those set during the first and second world wars as well as the cold war era.  Here, Disney starts with a strange mystery which leads to a slow-building suspense before moving on into full-blown page-turner mode.   I have to share that while reading The 17th Letter, I had to employ the old suspension of disbelief here and there, and I noticed myself doing the inner eye roll at the coincidences that pop up, but when all is said and done, this story worked well for me.  What comes through very strongly is the wartime setting which highlights the urgency of the Strongs' plight as they desperately try to find anyone in authority they can trust to share the information they carry, all the while trying to prevent themselves being captured.  And finally, who wouldn't love a dog named Bosco? 

I can recommend this one to people who are looking for something a bit off the beaten path in vintage crime, or to those who would like to read more by lesser-known American women mystery writers, or to people who enjoy books featuring husband-and-wife crime-solving teams.  My review copy came from the publishers, to whom I owe many thanks -- hopefully there will be more books by this author in the works.  

PPL#6: The Voice of the Corpse, by Max Murray

 

9781915530318

Galileo Publishers, 2024

originally published 1947

218 pp

paperback

(read in August)

Although The Voice of the Corpse is set in the UK,  Max Murray was actually born in Australia.   A very quick scan through online resources shows very little in the way of biographical information, but the back-cover blurb reveals that:

"The author, Max Murray (1901-1956) began life in Australia as a bush boy. His first job was that of a reporter on a Sydney paper but after a year he set out to work his way round the world. During WW2 he wrote scripts for the BBC Overseas Programme. After the war, with intervals for travel, he devoted himself primarily to writing fiction. He published 12 novels during his life, most of which had the word 'Corpse' in the title." 

 He is also an author who is new to me, so I'm getting in on the ground floor with this guy's work.  I've already bought the next book (also from Galileo), The King and the Corpse, and I'll keep buying the series if more are published.   

Set in the small village of Inching Round, this story begins with the death of Angela Pewsey, a forty-nine year old woman who evidently never married, waiting for someone to return from Ceylon.  She's been expecting him for fifteen years, ever since their meeting on a boat where he had asked her to wait for his next visit home "on leave from the plantation."  Up to the moment of her death, she'd been  singing "appropriate folk songs" while sitting at her spinning wheel, working on a sweater made from the hair of her Chow, so she never heard her attacker come up on her.  Angela, it seems, has made it her business to know everything about everybody in Inching Round, and she didn't shy away from letting people know, in her own way, that she knew.  As we learn, "the method of these revelations was in itself enough to make most most reasonable people feel capable of murdering her," so right away there is a village filled with victims turned suspects.  The time of death was "half past three," when one of her neighbors realized that Angela was no longer singing as the church clock noted the half hour.   The local police are called in, and come to the conclusion that the deed was done by a tramp. 

However, Inching Round isn't just the site of a murder -- it seems that someone has been sending the inhabitants of the village poison pen letters, causing not only a stir but distrust and fear.  As Celia Sim says in conversation with her friend and family solicitor Firth Prentice on a train journey to Inching Round,

"There's something in the atmosphere. There's something furtive about it: the way they look at each other as if they were wondering, suspecting; and then their eyes slide away as if they were ashamed of their thoughts. It is pretty awful."

 Once off the train though, the two hear about the murder, and Firth believes he knows the identity of the person yielding the poison pen:

"When somebody is writing anonymous letters and somebody is murdered, it's not hard to guess who was the author of the anonymous letters, is it?"

 He doesn't, however, believe in the mysterious tramp as Angela's killer, leaving, as Celia so aptly notes, "someone in the village ... one of us."  And when there are so many people who've suffered at her hands, it's not surprising that they're not only happy about her demise but also have a possible motive for getting rid of her.    Celia's mother wants Firth to investigate Angela's murder, but when Inspector Fowler from Scotland Yard enters the case, she is not at all forthcoming, explaining  to him that "the pain you will cause to so many of us will be out of all proportion to the good you do."  And, as it turns out ...

from Abebooks, 1947 First Edition 

While there is an intriguing whodunit at play here, the author also engages in a bit of romance,  humor and the scattering of some pretty good red herrings throughout the story.   There are two little boys who completely steal the show for a while,  offering Firth information they've obtained using their strange skills, including the recognition of the sounds of footsteps made by various people in the village.  I couldn't help it -- these kids were funny and they made me laugh out loud.     The Voice of the Corpse isn't as strong on the detection front as it might have been, but there's a huge twist (or two) that I did not see coming at all that made reading this book on the whole more than satisfying.  It was a fine introduction to the work of Max Murray, whose remaining mystery/crime stories I'll be very much looking forward to exploring.   I also can't believe my good fortune in this book being published while I've been engaged in reading as many poison-pen stories as I can in 2024! 

I can  recommend this novel to readers of vintage crime and to readers who are interested in fictional poison-pen phenomena but want something just a wee  bit different.    It's a bit off the beaten path and definitely not same-old same-old, which makes it majorly attractive for me.  

PPL #5: The Moving Finger, by Agatha Christie

"The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,

Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it."

--- The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

9780062073626

William Morrow, 2011

originally published 1942

240 pp

paperback

read earlier in August

 The Moving Finger, is quite possibly the most well known of all of the poison-pen letter mystery novels from yesteryear (at least of the books I've collected)  and even though I've read it before and knew the who, it was still a fun read. 

Jerry Burton and his sister Joanna have come to the small village of Lymstock where he has come to recuperate after a "bad crash" while flying.  His doctor had told him that "everything was going to be all right," but he had to "go and live in the country" where he should have "absolute rest and quiet" for at least six months.  Obviously, as Jerry's looking back on things and telling the story that's about to unfold,  we get the sense that the complete opposite has occurred -- as he notes, "Rest and quiet! It seems funny to think of that now."  They hadn't been there too very long when they receive a "particularly foul anonymous letter" suggesting that Jerry and Joanna ("the fancy tart") are not really brother and sister.  Jerry wonders if their presence in the village is resented by someone, but he finds out that they're not the only people in Lymstock to have received one -- that "They've been going about" for a while now.   He also believes that "the best way to take it" is as "something utterly ridiculous," but his doctor, Owen Griffith, tells him that the problem is that "this sort of thing, once it starts, grows."  He also notes that "crude, childish spite though it is, sooner or later one of these letters will hit the mark. And then, God knows what may happen!"   The people of Lymstock are about to find out when one person commits suicide and there's a murder shortly after.  It seems that even in "such a peaceful  smiling happy countryside," there is "down underneath something evil."  

The village "looks the most innocent, sleepy, harmless little bit of England you can imagine," but as one character notes, it has "plenty of wrongdoing" and "any amount of shameful secrets."  Strangely though, the letter writer doesn't hit on any of those, sending out wild accusations instead.  At the same time it's enough to make people distrustful and leave them with a sense of fear wondering which of their neighbors is cruel enough to do such a thing.   Jerry does a bit of his own sleuthing and the police do their best, but it's only when Jane Marple, who "knows more about the different kinds of human wickedness..." is brought on the scene (rather late in the game here) by the vicar's wife that the case is finally solved.   

1942 edition; from Abebooks

My guess would be that anyone reading it for the first time would be hard pressed to figure out the identity of the letter writer; due to potential spoilers I won't say why, but trust me on this one.  I will say that the discovery of the culprit, along with the motive behind it all, came without much excitement, as Miss Marple unspools the answers quietly among a small group of people.  Otherwise, it's difficult to not get caught up leading to that point, since Christie lays out a compelling story with a clever plot that you won't want to put down.   Every time I read one of her books, I come away the sense that this author must have been much like her elderly detective, having a keen eye for human nature, and  The Moving Finger  is no exception.  Definitely a no-miss for Christie readers, for people interested in the poison pen in mystery novels and for vintage readers in general. 

There are two television adaptations that I know of (and that I've seen), one from 1985 with Joan Hickson as the erstwhile Jane Marple and the other from 2006 with Geraldine McEwan in the role.  I'm a huge fan of the older two-part episode because it's more like the novel,  but you'll have to watch both and decide for yourself.