200 authors I would recommend (Part 4)

Another ten authors whose work I’d recommend. You’ll find Part 1 that explains this list here; the immediately previous article, Part 3, is here; I’ll link here to Part 5 as soon as it’s written.

31. Caudwell, Sarah

The late Sarah Caudwell only wrote four novels about a professor of mediaeval law, Hilary Tamar, who is both the narrator and the principal detective, and a group of young lawyers who all investigate crimes together. All four novels have a taste like fine old Scotch whisky. The degree of literacy needed to understand all the offhand references is phenomenal; this style of writing is what was meant by the “don’s delight” mystery, very little practised today. The language is elegant and difficult — so are the plots. The mysteries are frequently based on obscure points of tax law or inheritance law; not especially realistic characters, but quite modern despite the antique flavour of the language. And there’s one tiny but delightful point that it takes a while to grasp — it’s never mentioned what sex Professor Tamar is. 1981’s Thus Was Adonis Murdered is a good place to start, since it’s the first novel of the four.

32. Cecil, Henry

Two legal eagles in a row — Henry Cecil was a British County Court Judge who wrote mysteries and novels in his off-hours. It’s hard to call some of his books “mysteries”, in the strict sense, although they frequently have to do with criminals and legal processes, but his fiction is worth reading whatever you call it. I think I’d have liked to have been in his courtroom; he has a wicked sense of humour and, of course, a huge knowledge of the back roads and byways of the law. Many of his plots have to do with people who go to great lengths to exploit a legal loophole. He was also great at writing mystery short stories that turn on a single point, something like Ellery Queen, and the collections are certainly worth looking into. Even the most serious pieces have a lovely sense of sly fun in them, especially in the language, and there’s a recurring character named Colonel Brain, the world’s most unreliable witness, who is good value whenever he appears. No Bail for the Judge is a story about a judge who finds himself on trial for the murder of a prostitute and can’t remember anything that happened on the night in question; Alfred Hitchcock was going to make a film of it before his death.

33. Charles, Kate

Kate Charles writes quite traditional British mysteries, most of which are based around, or have something to do with, the Church of England, its background, rituals, and people. She started in the 90s, kicking off her first series about an artist with a solicitor boyfriend. I found the first book quite gripping, A Drink of Deadly Wine; it was based around the then-current topic of “outing”. Her second series deals with a woman who is a newly-ordained cleric (with a boyfriend who’s a police officer) and the issues she faces, of course complicated by murders. These books have a uniformly high quality, excellent writing, and are by a writer who has really dug deeply into many issues that crop up when religion intersects with crime.

34. Chesterton, G. K.

Two religious mystery writers in a row! As my readers are almost certainly aware, Chesterton was responsible for creating that well-known figure of detective fiction, Father Brown, a Catholic priest who investigates crimes and saves souls in the process, over a long series of short stories. I was surprised to note that the stories started as long ago as 1911, since the fifth volume came out in 1935; Chesterton wasn’t prolific but the stories are clever and fascinating. Of course these famous stories have formed the basis for films and television series, and there’s currently one in process, but you’ll have to go back more than 100 years to read about the origins of this meek little cleric. I recommend you do just that; each generation that reinvents Father Brown does so in a way that the original stories usually don’t support.

35. Christie, Agatha

There are many well-known names in the mystery field whom you will NOT find me recommending here, but Agatha Christie has sold more fiction than anyone else in the history of the world, and there’s a reason for that. She’s simply a great, great mystery writer. I can’t imagine anyone reading my blog who hasn’t at least dipped a toe into the large body of Christie’s work, so I won’t go on about Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, since you pretty much have to know who they are already. I’ll merely say that if you’re looking for a place to start that is not with the most famous works (Ten Little Indians, Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, The Body in the Library) that have been made into films, some of my favourites are Five Little Pigs, Crooked House, Sad Cypress, and The Moving Finger. And I think Spider’s Web is an excellent play, if you have a chance to see it!

36. Clark, Douglas

Douglas Clark’s series of mysteries about Scotland Yard’s Chief Superintendent Masters and DCI Green is well overdue for a revival or at the very least a complete reprinting, start to finish. These are charming, low-key mysteries of the police procedural variety, almost an 80s take on the Humdrum school exemplified by Freeman Wills Crofts. Masters and Green are friends as well as colleagues, and their respective families are also part of the background; the books have the gentle, nearly cozy, flavour that may remind TV viewers of Midsomer Murders. Clark knew a lot about poisons and frequently each volume’s murder has a rare poison as its cause. Perennial Library printed a lot of these titles in the 80s, and Dell did a couple as part of their “puzzleback” series at around the same time. For a while you couldn’t be in a used bookstore without finding a stack of them, and now they seem to have disappeared. There are a bunch of titles that are all equally good places to start; perhaps you’d like to find out from Roast Eggs why a man seems to have burned his house down in order to kill his wife. (It’s from an old quote about selfishness; “He sets my house on fire only to roast his eggs.”) Any of the Perennial Library or Dell titles will get you started, though.

37. Clason, Clyde B.

Clyde Clason wrote ten novels featuring the elderly Theocritus Lucius Westborough, expert on the Roman emperor Heliogabalus and amateur sleuth, between 1936 and 1941. Quite a pace! These books are intelligent and packed with information, with a very elegant writing style; Professor Westborough sprinkles his observations with classical references. Perhaps the most well-known novel is Murder gone Minoan, which reminded me somewhat of Anthony Boucher‘s The Case of the Seven Sneezes; one of a group of people isolated on an island that can be reached only by speedboat is murdered, and Professor Westborough takes a hand to solve the murder as well to try to restore a millionaire’s piece of Minoan treasure. Many of the ten novels feature a locked-room mystery or an “impossible crime”. Rue Morgue has recently brought these novels back into print, and you’ll have a much easier time than I did in getting hold of them; I envy you the opportunity to stack up all ten and knuckle down, since they’re both pleasant and difficult puzzles.

38. Cleeves, Ann

Ann Cleeves is the author of the novels upon which the currently popular television series Vera is based, about a dogged and emotional Scotland Yard DI in Yorkshire; there are six original novels and they’re all in print. My exposure to this writer came long before, when I picked up the eight novels about George Palmer-Jones and his wife Molly. George and Molly are from the cozy amateur school, but Ann Cleeves has a lot more up her writing sleeve than can be covered by the word “cozy”; she has a great deal of insight into how people’s minds work and why they do what they do, and her art makes George look as if he’s quite intuitive. I really enjoyed this series; the other three Cleeves series are a bit harsher, but not really hard-boiled. I recommend the first George and Molly story, A Bird in the Hand, as a good place to start.

39. Clinton-Baddeley, V. C.

Another “don’s delight” writer, although not so much for the erudition as the attitude and background. The author wrote many things, including film scripts as far back as 1936, but produced this lovely set of five mystery novels featuring Dr. Davie of St. Nicholas College, Cambridge, between 1967 and 1972 at the end of his life. Dr. Davie is an elderly don with an almost childlike delight in the wonders of everyday life, and a general unwillingness to do much in the way of exercise. But his bright, intelligent eye takes in everything around him and he finds himself in the middle of mysterious murder cases that only he is able to solve. Death’s Bright Dart mixes a stolen blowpipe with the murder of an academic — in the middle of giving an address to the college — and Dr. Davie takes a hand, mostly by pottering around and chattering with people. All five novels are good fun and contain interesting puzzles at their core. The writing has a great deal of gentle humour of the observational variety. I’ve always felt Dr. Davie was gay, mostly due to a brief passage in one of the books where he observes what must be a group of gay men chattering over drinks, but it’s never mentioned and not really relevant. Any of the five books is a good starting point.

40. Cody, Liza

Every so often I find a book that just sets me back on my heels, it’s so powerful and strongly observed. That’s how I felt about Bucket Nut, the first Eva Wylie novel about a young woman wrestler/security guard/minder in 90s England who goes about her business as best she can despite being what I think of as an emotional basket case. She is rude and crude and powerful and very damaged by her past, and you won’t forget her in a hurry. I’d been following Liza Cody’s work from a previous series about Anna Lee, a woman PI, but the “London Lassassin” stories are, I think, Cody’s best work. There are three Eva Wylie stories and six Anna Lee novels; Anna Lee is a great private eye and worth your time, but you must read the Eva Wylie novels. (I’ve been told by some that they had the reverse of my reaction; they couldn’t get beyond a few pages because the character was so unpleasant. Your mileage may indeed vary.)

 

 

200 authors I would recommend (Part 3)

Another ten authors whose work I’d recommend. You’ll find Part 1 that explains this list here; the immediately previous article, Part 2, is here; the next piece, Part 4, is found here.

21.  Brean, Herbert

This author only wrote a handful of books, but all seven are worth your time. Wilders Walk Away is a spooky tale about the Wilder family, who has this funny habit of walking out of the house never to be seen again. Supernatural shenanigans not far off the approach of John Dickson Carr, where everything is resolved un-supernaturally at the end. Really classic American detective fiction, well-written and smart, and frequently with a strong flavour of what I’ll call “Americana”; Brean takes the flavour of the English village mystery and transplants it to the US very successfully. The Traces of Brillhart is an interesting mystery that used to make my life hell; a paperback publisher had mistakenly attributed it to Carr in the back pages of the book and every so often someone would come in and insist that this was the last Carr on their list to track down and read. I hate disappointing a Carr fan!

22. Brett, Simon

I first came to appreciate Simon Brett through his very funny series about hard-drinking second-rate actor Charles Paris, who is constantly hard up and wondering where his next bottle of Bell’s whisky is coming from. Brett takes his protagonist through murder plots set against nearly every type of acting job, from crummy rep theatres to radio drama to cheesy horror films, all with a knowing wink and a great deal of sympathy for the long-suffering Mr. Paris. Lately Brett’s very active writing career has branched out into three other series; not my all-time favourites but still worth a read. Brett is one of the few writers who, for me, successfully balances light humour with murder.

23. Brown, Fredric

It’s always astounding to me that an author can find success in both the mystery and science fiction fields; when you couple it with a talent for writing great short stories and superb work at the novel length, you have a recipe for great success. Unfortunately the hard-drinking Mr. Brown never found great financial success in his lifetime; rather like Philip K. Dick, he’s more esteemed today than when he was alive. Brown has the ability to convey seedy and disreputable and poverty-stricken backgrounds wonderfully well — carnivals and cheap printing operations and sad rooming houses. You can just about hear the sad jazz score in the background. His most successful novel is probably The Screaming Mimi, which was made into a film, but Brown-lovers esteem the Ed and Am Hunter series most highly. Start with The Fabulous Clipjoint and be prepared to not put it down till it’s finished — it’s that good. Be warned; if you want to actually own physical copies of his books, it’s likely to cost you a small fortune.

24. Bruce, Leo

Leo Bruce is the mystery pseudonym of Rupert Croft-Cooke, who actually spent time in prison because of his homosexuality (see the Wikipedia article here). His Sergeant Beef mysteries are broadly amusing and still excellent puzzle mysteries; there’s a strong flavour of parody. His best known Beef novel, Case for Three Detectives, features the beer-swilling detective beating out thinly-disguised portraits of Peter Wimsey, Hercule Poirot and Father Brown to the solution. The series featuring acerbic schoolmaster Carolus Deene is much longer and was less successful towards the end of the author’s career, as frequently happens, but there are more than enough good ones from the 50s and 60s to keep the reader of classic British puzzle mysteries happy. Bruce is a sadly overlooked writer who deserves a revival; his writing is excellent, his plotting is first-rate and his general approach is classic.

25. Bude, John

John Bude is another classic British mystery writer overdue for a revival and I’m happy to say that his first novel, The Lake District Murder, is now back in print and gaining him a generation of new fans. I haven’t read The Cornish Coast Mystery but it too is easily available now. Both will serve as excellent introductions to this author’s many novels, which I found delicate and sensible, without too much blood and thunder; rather like the Humdrum school exemplified by Freeman Wills Crofts. When I was searching them out, these novels were rare and expensive; they were worth savouring as well-written examples of the classic English mystery. Humdrum expert Curtis Evans refers to Bude (in the comments below the linked article) as a “competent third-stringer”; I might be a little more generous. Perhaps it’s merely scarcity that prompts me to recommend him but I think you’ll enjoy his books.

26. Burley, W. J.

Burley is best known as the author of the Inspector Wycliffe (WICK-liff) mysteries set in the British West Country, which became the basis for an interesting television programme that my American friends possibly won’t have seen. When you see the television episodes, you realize that the amazing countryside is indeed a strong underpinning of the books; without that knowledge, they’re merely above-average Scotland Yard mysteries. I also enjoyed the two early novels about amateur detective Henry Pym, including Death In Willow Pattern, but you’ll find it much easier to acquire a handful of the 22 Wycliffe novels and settle in for a relaxing weekend.

27. Burton, Miles

Miles Burton is actually a major pseudonym of the prolific Cecil Street, who is probably better known as mystery writer John Rhode. I wanted to recommend both names (you’ll find John Rhode listed later in this series) because the author’s work deserves to be better known. I have to confess I haven’t read many Miles Burton novels, but the few that have passed through my hands have been uniformly interesting. I recommend Murder, M.D. and Death Takes The Living from personal knowledge as being excellent, and A Smell of Smoke has many points of interest. I note here that Ramble House Publishers have brought a couple of Burton titles back into print in recent years, as has a publisher called Black Curtain Press. I must say that I’m not certain that Black Curtain has permission to reprint these titles; if respect for copyright is as important to you as it should be, you may wish to investigate before you purchase.

28. Carlson, P. M.

P. M. (Pat) Carlson deserves to be much better known for the eight-volume Maggie Ryan series of mysteries (there are others from this writer but I haven’t managed to read them). I’ve read bunches and bunches of “spunky but loveable young woman takes an amateur hand at solving mysteries” and rarely have I found it better done than this series. Carlson knows what she’s talking about in terms of academic backgrounds — Murder is Academic and Murder is Pathological are, to my certain knowledge, accurate as all get-out, and it’s nice to see these settings portrayed by someone who knows them. (Murder is Academic will absolutely delight the professorial types on your Xmas list; guaranteed.) The backgrounds are interesting, the characters are unusual but not outré, and have depth; the mysteries are clever, and the writing is fine. One of the few times when a “spunky but loveable” character doesn’t make me want to throw the book across the room.

29. Carnac, Carol

Another instance of a great author (Edith C. Rivett) being published under two names, both of which are worth looking for; you’ll find E. C. R. Lorac further down this list.  And another instance where I have to recommend you try to find these books even though I haven’t managed to read all of them myself; Carnac/Lorac novels are scarce, sought-after, and expensive — but for good reason. I really enjoyed A Policeman at the Door and It’s Her Own Funeral, and every other Inspector Rivers/Inspector Ryvet novel I’ve ever managed to find. Classic British detection at its best; an undercurrent of sly humour and a strong knowledge of human behaviour coupled with solid writing make these books very worth finding.

30. Carr, John Dickson

There isn’t much I can say about John Dickson Carr if you haven’t found your way to him already; I’m just going to hit the high points. He’s one of the most famous — justly famous — mystery writers of all time. You’ll also find his major pseudonym, Carter Dickson, further down his list; these are the two faces of an absolute Grand Master of mystery. JDC is the master of the locked-room mystery, and my Golden Age Detection Facebook group has spent hours discussing which of his many, many books is the best. Carr as Carr writes mostly about Dr. Gideon Fell, an elderly lexicographer who unerringly puzzles out how murders were committed in impossible circumstances, and a smaller series about juge d’instruction Henri Bencolin. Everything with Carr’s name on it is worth reading (there are a few clunkers at the very end of a long and honourable career, but even those are worth your time). Carr knew how to write melodramatic mystery; not much on characterization, and a bit sexist at a time when that was more acceptable, but holy moly the man could plot mysteries. He’s well known for introducing supernatural elements which turn out to be necessary to the down-to-earth murderer’s plotting. The Three Coffins has a huge reputation as one of the best locked-room mysteries of all time (and stops for a chapter to explain the mechanics of the locked-room mystery). I like to recommend some lesser-known minor* novels as being good places to start, notably The Sleeping Sphinx, He Who Whispers, and To Wake the Dead. Wherever you begin with Carr, I trust you’ll acquire the taste for everything he ever wrote.

(*Corrected on the date of publication; my friend Xavier Lechard is correct, He Who Whispers isn’t “minor”, it’s merely lesser known.)

The Layton Court Mystery, by Anthony Berkeley (1925)

Author:

Anthony Berkeley Cox wrote under a number of names but Anthony Berkeley might be the best known; admittedly he wrote a couple of wonderful novels as Frances Iles, notably Malice Aforethought and Before the Fact, which was filmed by Alfred Hitchcock as Suspicion.  Indeed, he pretty much invented the “inverted mystery” as Frances Iles. As Anthony Berkeley, though, he chronicled the adventures of yet another Silly Ass detective named Roger Sheringham, whose first adventure this is.

2014 Vintage Mystery Bingo:

This 1944 volume qualifies as a Golden Age mystery; fifth under “L”, “Read one country house mystery.” The titular house is the scene of the crime and almost all the action of this novel. For a chart outlining my progress, see the end of this post.

Publication Data:

The publication history of this novel is quite interesting. Its first publication was as by ? — yes, Berkeley published two early novels as by a question mark. (Examine the green volume to the left carefully.) Perhaps this was some sort of publicity idea whose concept is beyond my understanding. Can you imagine how frustrating it must have been for librarians, who had to figure out how to shelve these? Anyway, it was next published in the U.S. in 1929 as by Anthony Berkeley, and it has remained thus ever since.

I found the publication history particularly interesting because it includes the edition from which I wrote this post: it was electronic and found here. My practice is to show the cover of the book I used, and it is at the head of this post; it’s also at the head of the page containing the novel. I have to say, this was my first on-line book. It was an interesting experience. I have an e-reader but have found that not much of a decent antiquity is available for reading in those formats; I expect that will change as the copyright freedom date creeps slowly forward.

About this book:

Standard spoiler warning: What you are about to read WILL discuss in explicit terms the solution to this murder mystery. Please read no further if you wish to preserve your ignorance of its details. You will also probably find here discussions of the content of other murder mysteries, perhaps by other authors, and a similar warning should apply. 

Roger Sheringham is your basic wealthy upper-class British nitwit who talks a great deal of piffle, as Maggie Smith once put it, and is staying at a country house when his host, wealthy Victor Stanhope, is found dead in the final sentences of chapter two, shot through the forehead in the library at his country house, Layton Court. And all the doors and windows are locked from the inside.

Victor is a bachelor whose widowed sister-in-law, Lady Stanhope, keeps house for him. He has a secretary, Major Jefferson, and a chauffeur who used to be a boxer. Other than the usual household full of servants, Victor enjoys a house full of guests, it seems. Lady Stanhope’s friend Mrs. Shannon has brought her daughter Barbara, and Mrs. Plant is a beautiful young woman whose husband is in the Soudanese Civil Service.  Barbara, as our story begins, becomes unaffianced to the handsome young athlete Alec Grierson, who has been asked to the house to keep Barbara entertained; Alec has brought his friend, aforementioned silly ass author Roger Sheringham.

In the pages that lead up to the discovery of the actual murderer on page 291, certainly there is a great deal of piffle proffered for the amusement of the reader. Alec quickly takes on the role of Watson to Sheringham’s Sherlock Holmes, a combination acknowledged specifically by both of them, and Sheringham soon begins to speak in great gusts of rolling sentences, almost like a detective stream of consciousness. He has ideas about everything, he pokes his nose into everything, and he soon begins to learn that very nearly nothing in the house is what it seemed upon the surface.

He is helped along in this by the police, who seem relatively uninterested in further investigation. After all, the man was found clutching the gun that killed him, with a kind of suicide note in front of him, and all the doors and windows of the room locked from the inside.

Of course, all the house’s inhabitants immediately start acting guilty as hell, one by one. One by one, so that each person can be interviewed in a chapter that provides a piece of information that takes us to the next chapter. There are occasional false starts and false trails. At one point, the principal characters spend a couple of chapters chasing down the lead of a name which, to everyone except the dim-witted detective and his even dimmer-witted assistant, it is obvious is that of an animal. We soon learn how to lock a certain kind of window from the outside so that it looks like it’s been locked from the inside, disposing of the locked-room problem. Suspicions shift from one house guest to the next, but each time something is learned that pretty much eliminates the individual from further consideration.

Finally, Roger Sheringham works out whodunnit. If you are anything like me, the identity of the murderer will have been screamingly, patently obvious from about page 100, but given the fact that the puzzle mystery was at the time in its complete infancy, the contemporaneous reader will have been gobsmacked to realize that his morally upright assistant, Alec, is the killer. The book ties off its loose ends and closes.

Why is this book worth your time?

One thing it’s important to note at the outset is that this book was published in 1925. In 1925, to give you some context, Agatha Christie had published five novels and was probably working on The Murder of Roger Ackroyd for publication next year. Chesterton had only published two small volumes of Father Brown stories more than ten years previously. Philo Vance showed up a year later; Ellery Queen’s debut was four years in the future; Raymond Chandler’s debut novel was 14 years away. Movies were silent and the publishing industry was much more active, and considerably different, than it was today. And the Golden Age of mysteries was in its earliest period.

Specifically, John Dickson Carr was five years into the future and the locked room mystery was in its infancy — which is one of the reasons why this book is so interesting, because its clever author was making things up as he went along and yet influenced an entire genre. Yes, it was absolutely bold-facedly obvious that the assistant was the killer. But in 1925, before the publication of very nearly every single book that contained such a twist, this must have been astonishing and avant-garde and even thrilling. I expect that the Silly Ass narrator idea was also in its infancy and no one had yet done much with it — in fact everything here that is presently a boring cliche was fresh and new. Even the country house mystery hadn’t been done to death at this point.

The other main reason is that this is the first book by an author who went on to write some of the most important and influential puzzle mysteries in the history of the genre. This is by no means his best book, not even close, but you can see the bones of a major talent beginning to fill out with flesh. This book is filled with cleverness. Some of it doesn’t come off — the two chapters where the action grinds to a halt while the detectives track down a suspect who turns out to be an animal are excruciatingly awful — but the author is not copying anything, or riffing on anything, or providing variations on a theme. He’s inventing things that we think of as absolutely classical trophes of the genre.

You will probably find this volume difficult to take seriously, because you have read its imitators so many times before. Ngaio Marsh lifted the idea of interviewing a subject per chapter for about 90 percent of her own books, and ground us all between millstones of boredom while doing so. The false solution then the true was not yet the basis of 90 percent of Ellery Queen’s activities. The locked room mystery was not yet the bailiwick of John Dickson Carr. And at this point in his career, Anthony Berkeley was not yet a polished writer. There’s certainly an artificial air of “jolly hockey sticks and a ha’penny’s worth of chocs a fortnight come Michaelmas” — a forced bonhomie coupled with a deep vein of Anglophilia — that is hard to plough through. Indeed, if this book had been written in 1935, it probably wouldn’t have seen publication. But in 1925, this is the bomb, and you should suspend your critical facilities long enough to slog through it. And you will thereby learn a lot about how mysteries work and where they come from.

Notes for the Collector:

The first edition (UK, Herbert Jenkins, 1925, as by ?) first printing is completely unavailable, it seems. One bookseller suggests that none has come to light in his 34 years of experience. The second printing is available VG, without jacket, for a maximum of $320. The American first, 1929, as by Anthony Berkeley, from Crime Club/Doubleday Doran, is in a similar range of prices. None of these firsts comes in jacket, but there are excellent reproductions available (two of which are shown in this post). Honestly, if I had a book like this without a jacket, I certainly wouldn’t mind having a repro jacket for it; it would add beauty, if not much value.

The contents of the book have apparently now fallen into the public domain since it is available on line from a library as a PDF file here. It is also available in various print on demand formats available over the internet, including Kindle.