Dead Men Don’t Ski, by Patricia Moyes (1959)

Dead Men Don’t Ski is the first in a series of mystery novels about Inspector Henry Tibbett whose wife Emmy plays an important role in the detection and the plot. This book, and others by the same author, seem to me to bridge the gap between the strict-form puzzle mystery and the modern cozy mystery. Dead Men Don’t Ski is actually a timetable mystery a la Freeman Wills Crofts, but bundled with a great deal of excellent characterization and a charming writing style.

Please be warned that this essay concerns a work of detective fiction; part of its potential enjoyment is based on surprising the reader. If you read any further, you will learn something about the titular novel and perhaps some others. I do not reveal whodunit, but I do discuss elements of plot and construction. If you haven’t already read this novel, it will have lost its power to surprise you to greater or lesser extent, and that would be a shame. So please go and read this book before you spoil your own enjoyment. If you proceed past this point, you’re on your own. 

What is this novel about?

Scotland Yard Inspector Henry Tibbett takes his wife Emmy on vacation in the Italian Alps, where both hope to improve their skiing. They meet an engaging cast of characters, many of whom are vacationing English skiers, and some of whom are locals in the picturesque little town. Very soon we learn of the mysterious death of a local ski instructor in the previous year, and the possibility of there being some sort of international smuggling operation based around a mysterious gentleman who comes to the local hotel every year. The reader will not be surprised to learn that one of the hotel guests is soon discovered dead at the bottom of the mountain on the ski lift, although he was apparently alive when he embarked from the top.

Inspector Tibbett seems ready to abandon his vacation in order to investigate any and all of the circumstances surrounding the death on the ski lift, including a second related murder, and in the process resolves the smuggling issues, a couple of serious problems with various marriages, and last year’s corpse on the ski hill.

Why is this novel worth your time?

This is a very well written debut novel from a writer who went on to a very strong career writing light, charming murder mysteries. It may well be that Moyes’s work was overlooked in her lifetime precisely because she chose the mode of light entertainment, but her career came at an interesting time in the history of detective fiction.

I remembered reading this novel many years ago (and all the other books in the series, because I’m that guy LOL) and upon reacquainting myself was surprised to learn that, at its core, this really is a classic timetable mystery. A timetable mystery, cherished by aficionados of Freeman Wills Crofts and others of the Humdrum school, is one where you have to follow along and figure out exactly where everyone was at every moment of a crucial period — someone is lying and this has generated an impossible crime.

Chapter 17, for instance, contains an extensive written timetable generated by the local police that goes for hours: here’s a snippet.

• 1.45: Mario takes the lift up. Rosa talks to Pietro.
• 1.59: Staines, Buckfast and Gerda leave the Olympia.
• 2:00: Pietro takes the lift up, followed by the other three.
• 2.25: They reach the top. Pietro speaks to Mario, overheard by Staines, who tells the others.

And so on. The idea is that you should be able to identify where the police have gone wrong before Inspector Tibbett, although it’s unlikely.

In the hands of a Freeman Wills Crofts, of course, this sort of plot line is a paean to the dogged determination of large numbers of faceless police officers under the direction of Inspector French, who interview everyone in the vicinity to make sure that (a) it actually WAS 1:59 when those three people left the Olympia Hotel, and (b) they were the people whom they were believed to be, and not someone impersonating them. Et cetera. In the wrong hands it can be tedious, and Crofts was not known for leavening this grinding down of alibis with much human interest.

Here, though, Moyes gives us full value in terms of characterization. All the characters are interesting on the surface and interesting in depth; they have a certain degree of realism and, frankly, the reader is enticed to speculate what it would be like to spend a holiday among these people having a good time on the slopes. This writer creates vivacious characters doing interesting things against a background of normal behaviour; everyone is polite and intelligent and nice, by and large. and the whole experience is a very pleasant one. The assessment of the timetable’s details is not a Croftsian grind, but rather the reader gets to know these interesting people a little bitter and figures out exactly why they may have lied about buying ski wax or a paperback novel at 2:48. It’s not always guilt; often, merely veniality.

Indeed Moyes surmounts a number of the problems that plague first authors and does so with skill and intelligence. There is just enough plot to keep the reader interested throughout; the smuggling and the village history and the murders all have skeins of plot that must be untwisted from the others. (A common first-novel issue is too much plotting — too many twists, which keeps the reader interested but is ruinous to believability. Not here.) The characterization is excellent. There are a couple of false notes; I was unable to believe in the Baron, for instance, especially his final actions within the novel, and the Baroness is not particularly realistic either (if she had really wanted to have an affair, she could have done a much better job of covering her tracks). But it’s clear that Moyes has been skiing in the Italian Alps and knows the types of people who make their living in that milieu, and also she has a keen eye for observing the types of people who take those skiing vacations.

Although the time period is not as far away and difficult to understand as might be the details of everyday life in, say, 1921, there are still elements of the social fabric that will pique your attention. I wasn’t aware that currency restrictions were still in place in 1959 for British citizens traveling abroad; as I understand it, Britain was worried about its balance of payments and insisted that its citizens would not be allowed to take large sums of money out of the country and spend them. This adds interest to the plot when we realize that although you might have lots of money available in England, if you want to buy an expensive Italian sweater with the cash in your pocket, it affects the rest of your holiday. So there’s lots of opportunity for petty criminality in circumventing the currency regulations.  Similarly there is a smuggling sub-plot and for once it is reasonably realistic in its scale and economics.

I think this novel, and Moyes’s entire oeuvre, is also interesting in terms of when it was written, and how it fits into the overall flow of detective fiction. In 1959, the classic puzzle mystery was pretty much not being written at all. The readers of the time had access to material that was much more exciting — it was the time of Ross Macdonald and long-dead secrets from the past that come bubbling to the surface, not lighthearted mysteries where everything turns out happily. Women writers like Dorothy Salisbury Davis and Charity Blackstock and Charlotte Armstrong and Margaret Millar were writing novels of domestic suspense and the “light mystery” was rather a thing of the past.

I don’t suggest that Moyes got a lot of critical attention for bucking the trend; perhaps she was considered to be turning out merely commercial fiction, but she seems to have been alone and mostly on her own, working away in a niche that no one else seems to have wanted to occupy. She wrote with intelligence and skill, and that evanescent quality that is so hard to attain, charm — and seems not to have been interested in domestic suspense. Is it fair to say she was an early precursor of the modern cozy? Maybe, and maybe not. Certainly the focus on characterization might lead us to think so, but the rather antique form of the timetable mystery is too strict and rigorous for most cozies.

I do recommend this novel, and all her earlier works. In Moyes’s later years she moved to the British Virgin Islands and set many of her books there, and they seem to me to be much less interesting. When you consider that Moyes was Peter Ustinov’s personal assistant for eight years, and also worked at British Vogue, that’s the vein of material that seems to provide the most interesting novels — she’s good at writing about fashion and leisure and the arts. I remember being particularly impressed by Murder a la Mode (1963) and Johnny Under Ground (1965); your mileage may vary.

A note on editions

Patricia Moyes has been frequently in print in the years between 1959 and now; you’ll easily find an inexpensive paperback copy of many of her early works. Rue Morgue, for instance, brought out a trade paperback edition of this title in 2011. I note that a Fine copy in a Fine jacket of the first edition that’s personally inscribed to friends of the author is on sale today for US$450, and that seems about right for her first book. My favourite edition is an early Ballantine paperback seen here, with the skull wearing sunglasses in a red knitted ski helmet. Delightfully lurid and yet not too gruesome.

 

 

 

My favourite strict-form puzzle mystery films (part 1)

I suggested that I’d make this list in a recent post: it seems like a good time to get started.  These are in no particular order. “Strict-form”, to me, means that there is a mystery as a major part of the plot and it can be solved by an intelligent and observant viewer, because all the clues are displayed fairly. And I’ll note here that I say “favourite”; not necessarily the best, but these are the ones I can watch again and again, and recommend to friends.

Green For Danger (1946)

Starring Alistair Sim as Inspector Cockrill; based on the novel of the same name by Christianna Brand.  This is a story about a WWII hospital and some violence and fatal ill-feeling among a group of doctors and nurses who are staffing it.  Patients keep dying on the operating table for no reason that anyone can find … then a crabby senior nurse is stabbed in a deserted operating theatre.  A tight and intelligent puzzle based on who/what/why/when/where/how as much as personality and sociology, although both are important.  The background is fascinating and well observed, and Alistair Sim is absolutely wonderful as a somewhat nitwitted Scotland Yard inspector who looks around to see if anyone saw him dive for shelter when he hears a flying bomb.

Miracles For Sale (1939)

You can read my entire opinion here. Stars Robert Young and Florence Rice in a rocketship-fast puzzle about spiritual mediums, escape artists, and stage magicians.

The Last of Sheila (1973)

With James Coburn, Richard Benjamin, Dyan Cannon, James Mason, Joan Hackett, Ian McShane and Raquel Welch in a great ensemble cast. The most important part is that this was written by Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins; Sondheim’s a puzzle fanatic and a linguistic genius (as well as every other kind).   A year after Sheila dies at a Hollywood party, her widower (Coburn) invites a group of six party guests to spend a week on the Mediterranean on his luxury yacht, playing a complicated parlour game that soon turns to murder.  A brilliant script and a subtle and intelligent mystery with devilishly tiny clues, including the photo you see here. The small cast and restricted locations put the focus on the actors, who all rise to the occasion; this is the first time I ever knew that Raquel Welch could actually act. And apparently Dyan Cannon provides a not-very-loving portrait of Hollywood agent Sue Mengers.

I understand that Hollywood is talking about remaking this, as of about 2012; nothing has apparently come to fruition.  I’m not holding my breath; the original is nearly perfect. Perhaps someone needs to see Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds in this, but I don’t think I need to.

Lady of Burlesque (1943)

Based on The G-String Murders as by Gypsy Rose Lee; actually ghosted by the great Craig Rice. [edited August 22, 2014] I have been convinced by the research and writing of Jeffrey Marks, whose comprehensive analysis in his book, Who was that Lady? (2010) that Lee did most or all of the writing herself. I have to say although Mr. Marks has changed my mind, I do think there’s plenty of evidence in the other direction and I don’t mind having been fooled. [end of edited portion] Rice was an experienced ghost writer who took credit for the novel, the writing style and humour are very like her other books, and the second book in the series, Mother Finds A Body, written without Ms. Rice and published a year later, is simply awful.

Since the novel was the best selling mystery since The Thin Man, the movie version garnered Barbara Stanwyck (playing Dixie Daisy, the headliner in a bump-and-grind burlesque show) and a host of supporting players. I have to be honest and say this is not a truly strict-form puzzle mystery — you’ll find it impossible to solve, I expect — but once Barbara Stanwyck gets through singing “Take it off the A String, Play it on the G String” and the bumps and grinds begin, you’ll be hooked anyway. The burlesque background is fascinating, the supporting players are delightful, and the musical score was nominated for an Academy Award. It’s cheerful, funny, bawdy and occasionally acidulous. Best of all, the film is apparently in the public domain and you can get a copy via archive.org, here.

After the Thin Man (1936) and The Thin Man Goes Home (1945)

My full reviews are here and here of these great mysteries starring Myrna Loy and William Powell. I would also add the great original masterpiece, The Thin Man itself; it certainly qualifies as a strict-form puzzle. All I can say is that I tend to cherish, cultivate and curate the lesser-known gems that might escape people’s notice, and The Thin Man will endure for a long, long time without any curation by me.  The two I’ve mentioned here are difficult mysteries but not impossible; Goes Home is particularly devilish because the central clue is negative in nature.  A character does something in front of your eyes, but if he had not already known that another character was dead, he wouldn’t have done it in quite that way. You’ll slap your forehead when you get the answer.

Evil Under the Sun (1982)

This list wouldn’t be complete without at least one Agatha Christie title; I have two for this list, but this is my favourite. After the success of 1974’s Murder on the Orient Express with its ensemble cast of stars, producers found it easy to finance such productions and festoon them with famous names. 1982 brought a very nearly perfect production of Christie’s novel about Hercule Poirot (here represented by Peter Ustinov) relaxing sur la plage at an isolated quasi-Yugoslavian island resort (actually working on the case of a missing diamond). He finds himself surrounded by a glamourous stage star, Arlena Stewart (Diana Rigg), and her family, and a group of guests who all seem to have some connection to Arlena. These include Roddy McDowall, Maggie Smith, James Mason, Sylvia Miles, Jane Birkin, Nicholas Clay, Colin Blakely and Denis Quilley. Almost every single detail of this film has been lovingly assembled: brilliant costumes, detailed sets, polished dialogue — oh, especially the dialogue, which is jam-packed with quotable lines delivered with relish by actors who seem to be enjoying themselves. (Maggie Smith: “Arlena and I were in the chorus of a show together, not that I could ever compete. Even in those days, she could always throw her legs up in the air higher than any of us <beat> and wider.”)

My only problem with this film is Peter Ustinov making a fool of himself playing Hercule Poirot. Or, rather, playing “beloved character actor Peter Ustinov playing Hercule Poirot” and doing everything but bite his own arm to get a laugh. There are many reasons to laugh at Hercule Poirot, but none of them should be that he is a buffoon.

At any rate, the plot is extremely complex and recomplicated, with every character having a sensible motive. It requires a considerable parsing of a large amount of evidence to correctly assign guilt, and the traditional “gather them all in a big room and explain the crime” scene at the end goes on and ON; to the great satisfaction of those of us who want every I dotted and every T crossed, but even so … And it all ends happily and beautifully.

This will do for part 1: I need to do a little research and thinking before I proceed with part 2; it will, however, contain the other Agatha Christie piece I mentioned, 1945’s And Then There Were None.

Availability:

To the best of my knowledge, each of the above-noted films is available from the usual sources: Amazon and eBay are where I would start, but there are many inexpensive sources if you know where to look.