This past weekend, I read a few Sherlock Holmes stories that I found strangely relaxing, even though at least one of them involves murder. Maybe because each story is like an orderly, manicured garden with well-defined paths. Holmes and Watson are ever the same, with Watson admiring the genius of his friend, and his friend saying that it's nothing at all, you just have to observe things. (In some cases, you also have to be able to distinguish between different kinds of cigar ash, topsoil, etc.) The endings aren't mystifying. Just take the route Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has laid out for you, and you'll be entertained.
(You can also amuse yourself imagining Holmes in lockdown. When not on a case, he enjoys being indoors, experimenting with chemicals, playing the violin, or getting a little coked up.)
All of these are from Sterling Publishing Co.'s volume, The Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle). You can also find the Adventures and the Memoirs online on Project Gutenberg. ("The Crooked Man" is in the Memoirs, and the last two stories in the Adventures.)
Title: The Crooked Man
Crookedness can refer to a physical characteristic or to a moral one. In this story, a man is dead after an argument with his wife, who has fainted away at the scene. There's also evidence that a third person was in the room. Holmes probes a little deeper and discovers a horrific betrayal from decades ago.
Title: A Scandal in Bohemia
Irene Adler is in this one, a woman who looks after herself capably and stays a step ahead of Holmes. Is she the villain of the story, or someone who has been wronged and is trying to protect herself? Holmes falters slightly in this one, I think because he bases his predictions on what a woman would typically do in Adler's situation, and she's unusual.
Title: The Speckled Band
This story involves a country house, a cruel stepfather, and an elaborate method of premeditated murder. What I liked most about it was the sense of dread that builds to the point where everything is revealed.
Showing posts with label detectives. Show all posts
Showing posts with label detectives. Show all posts
Monday, April 20, 2020
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
The Thin Man (1934): Murder, wit, and martinis
Title: The Thin Man
Director: W.S. Van Dyke
Language: English
Rating: Unrated
There are few movie couples more fabulous than Nick and Nora Charles. Their electric banter, chemistry, and continuous boozing make for great entertainment.
Nick (William Powell) is a retired private eye whose only ambition now is to enjoy the wealth of his heiress wife, Nora (Myrna Loy), a "lanky brunette with a wicked jaw" (his words). They're very much in love, rib each other constantly, and enjoy drinking and doting on their terrier, Asta. But as they're taking a trip to NYC at the start of the film, they're approached by Dorothy Wynant (Maureen O'Sullivan), the daughter of a crotchety, absent-minded inventor who once worked with Nick. She doesn't know where her father is, and as the movie progresses, it appears he's in trouble - first because he's gone on a trip without telling anyone where, and secondly because he's implicated in a murder.
The movie is clever and funny with great dialogue. And while Nick and Nora are the ones who truly shine, there's also an amusing cast of supporting characters made up of crooks, greedy opportunists, soft-hearted romantics, a young man who's overly attached to his mother, and police officers who aren't so much stupid as unimaginative. Nick gets pulled into the mystery surrounding the case, and Nora both helps out and watches, concerned and entertained. The climax of the movie is a dinner party where all the suspects (and police) are invited.
Whimsical, funny, doesn't take itself seriously - it's a great movie to relax with.
*The images link back to their source (Flixster Community).
Director: W.S. Van Dyke
Language: English
Rating: Unrated
There are few movie couples more fabulous than Nick and Nora Charles. Their electric banter, chemistry, and continuous boozing make for great entertainment.
Nick (William Powell) is a retired private eye whose only ambition now is to enjoy the wealth of his heiress wife, Nora (Myrna Loy), a "lanky brunette with a wicked jaw" (his words). They're very much in love, rib each other constantly, and enjoy drinking and doting on their terrier, Asta. But as they're taking a trip to NYC at the start of the film, they're approached by Dorothy Wynant (Maureen O'Sullivan), the daughter of a crotchety, absent-minded inventor who once worked with Nick. She doesn't know where her father is, and as the movie progresses, it appears he's in trouble - first because he's gone on a trip without telling anyone where, and secondly because he's implicated in a murder.
The movie is clever and funny with great dialogue. And while Nick and Nora are the ones who truly shine, there's also an amusing cast of supporting characters made up of crooks, greedy opportunists, soft-hearted romantics, a young man who's overly attached to his mother, and police officers who aren't so much stupid as unimaginative. Nick gets pulled into the mystery surrounding the case, and Nora both helps out and watches, concerned and entertained. The climax of the movie is a dinner party where all the suspects (and police) are invited.
Whimsical, funny, doesn't take itself seriously - it's a great movie to relax with.
*The images link back to their source (Flixster Community).
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Worth Watching: In the Heat of the Night (1967)
Title: In the Heat of the Night
Director: Norman Jewison
Language: English
Rating: PG/PG-13
An influential businessman in a small Southern town has been murdered, and the first suspect brought in for interrogation is Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier). Why Tibbs? He's a black man and was found sitting alone at the train depot with a wad of cash in his pocket; in the eyes of Sheriff Gillespie (Rod Steiger) and his ragtag crew of officers, he might as well be sentenced on the spot. When it turns out that Tibbs - Mr. Tibbs - is the best homicide detective in Philadelphia, makes more money a week than Gillespie does in a month, and was only passing through the area after visiting his mother, he's recruited to help solve the case. Reluctantly, after some pressure from his own police chief, he agrees.
It's not a happy situation for Tibbs, working in a hostile town where he could easily get arrested, beaten or shot. Tibbs can't just be good at what he does. To receive basic human consideration, he has to be the best; he has to meet the highest standards of professionalism if he even wants to be tolerated. I don't think we ever see Tibbs eat anything, wear anything other than a suit, or sleep. He has to be more than human.
Poiter delivers his lines a little too stiffly here, compared to his performances in a couple of older films. Maybe the extra stiffness reflects the strain of having to play - not for the first time - two roles in a movie: the role of his character (who's trying to stay alive, solve a crime, and show racist people that he's a person worthy of respect) and the role of Poitier the Emissary, put on the big screen to comfortably show white audiences in the late 1950s through the 1960s that black people can be good and kind and smart too.
Before Poitier, black actors didn't get prominent parts on-screen, with the exception of some musicals. From what I've seen they were mostly portrayed as slow, child-like, and/or servile. Poitier broke down some of those stereotypes by playing intelligent characters, people with nobility and courage and strong will. But to endear himself to white audiences, he wasn't allowed to be sexual, and he needed to be shown as helpful to white people. In the movies I've watched so far, his characters weren't boring or perfect, and he portrayed people who had backbone and wouldn't accept racist insults. He broke ground in cinematic scenes where he wrestled down racists (in the The Defiant Ones), called them 'boy' (in Lilies of the Field), and in this movie, slapped them. Those scenes still have power today, but they were much more shocking when the movies first came out. Still, Poitier was limited in his choice of roles, because he had to present a certain image to movie-goers.
In any case, I think in this movie the strengths of his performance lie not so much in the delivery of his lines but in his intense facial expressions, and his body language suggesting defensiveness and leashed strength; he has a compelling screen presence. His demeanor is a sharp contrast to Steiger's Sheriff Gillespie, a laconic bulldog of a man who slouches around, chews gum, puts his feet up on his desk, and hides a sharp mind behind an easygoing manner. Gillespie is racist, not so much with true conviction as with a need to feel superior to others in some way, given his nonexistent personal life and low-paying, high-pressure job in a backwater town. Tibbs's city manners, cleverness and sophisticated crime-solving techniques reluctantly impress him even as he's eaten up with jealousy and outrage.
Detective Tibbs and Sheriff Gillespie don't become friends, but Gillespie does come to see Tibbs as a man worth respecting and defending. In one great scene that captures their relationship and its uneasiness, Gillespie hosts Tibbs in his home where they talk over drinks. Letting Tibbs into his house is an unspoken sign of respect from Gillespie, who doesn't like having guests over. In the course of their conversation, they discover some things they have in common (two law enforcement officers, leading a lonely life with lots of hard, tiring work), and Tibbs starts to look a little relaxed for a change. But then the feeling of fellowship startles Gillespie - it's suddenly too much, sharing confidences with a man who should be inferior to him but isn't - and he retreats back into his racist mindset and shuts Tibbs out again, leaving Tibbs disillusioned and regretful. As long as he can see Tibbs as an officer, Gillespie is able to work with him, but he keeps retreating from the idea of Tibbs as a man.
That scene felt a lot more real to me than the ending, which hit a wrong note. Suffice it to say, Tibbs solves the murder, and he's about to leave this little town where maybe he's changed some people's perceptions. Gillespie arrives to see him off at the train station. At this point the filmmakers (and Poitier) make it seem like Tibbs really needs the recognition from the sheriff. He doesn't just want the victory of getting acknowledgement from a man who thought he was dirt at the start of the film, or the satisfaction of changing some people's minds; he seems to actually need Gillespie's approval. (Not like in Lilies of the Field, where the recognition he wants from Mother Maria feels more like the respect a person demands from a worthy contender.) Here it seems that Tibbs wants a pat on the head.
I haven't said much about the murder, because while there are some suspenseful moments and colorful (and yucky) minor characters the movie is worth watching mostly because of Poitier and Steiger and their dynamic.
I also love the feel of the movie in some of the scenes. There's the blur of lights in the beginning with Ray Charles singing In the Heat of the Night. Also the unexpected moments of humor or irony; for instance, the first character in the film who respectfully addresses Tibbs as "Mr. Tibbs" is one of the most racist characters, Endicott (Larry Gates), who lives like a plantation owner of yore. He regards his workers with paternalistic condescension and pines for the good old days where he could get away with shooting the uppity ones. These days he can't even deliver a slap without getting one back.
What I wanted more of was Tibbs's thoughts about the situation he's in. Not his need for acknowledgement or his need to stay alive and stay one step ahead of those trying to kill him, but his thoughts on being in alien territory. Usually he's in Philly, well-respected and in his element; in the South he's rejected and threatened by white society and doesn't fit in among the other black people who are still kept in "their place." His mother lives in these parts, and he understands some of the culture - seen especially in his conversation with Mama Caleba (Beah Richards), a character who plays a key role in the murder mystery. But what does Tibbs think? He's an emissary from another world (in this case, a big city in the northern U.S.), just as Poitier himself bridged two worlds in mainstream cinema, his films becoming part of an important transformation in American culture.
*All images link back to their source (Flixster Community).
Director: Norman Jewison
Language: English
Rating: PG/PG-13
An influential businessman in a small Southern town has been murdered, and the first suspect brought in for interrogation is Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier). Why Tibbs? He's a black man and was found sitting alone at the train depot with a wad of cash in his pocket; in the eyes of Sheriff Gillespie (Rod Steiger) and his ragtag crew of officers, he might as well be sentenced on the spot. When it turns out that Tibbs - Mr. Tibbs - is the best homicide detective in Philadelphia, makes more money a week than Gillespie does in a month, and was only passing through the area after visiting his mother, he's recruited to help solve the case. Reluctantly, after some pressure from his own police chief, he agrees.
It's not a happy situation for Tibbs, working in a hostile town where he could easily get arrested, beaten or shot. Tibbs can't just be good at what he does. To receive basic human consideration, he has to be the best; he has to meet the highest standards of professionalism if he even wants to be tolerated. I don't think we ever see Tibbs eat anything, wear anything other than a suit, or sleep. He has to be more than human.
Poiter delivers his lines a little too stiffly here, compared to his performances in a couple of older films. Maybe the extra stiffness reflects the strain of having to play - not for the first time - two roles in a movie: the role of his character (who's trying to stay alive, solve a crime, and show racist people that he's a person worthy of respect) and the role of Poitier the Emissary, put on the big screen to comfortably show white audiences in the late 1950s through the 1960s that black people can be good and kind and smart too.
Before Poitier, black actors didn't get prominent parts on-screen, with the exception of some musicals. From what I've seen they were mostly portrayed as slow, child-like, and/or servile. Poitier broke down some of those stereotypes by playing intelligent characters, people with nobility and courage and strong will. But to endear himself to white audiences, he wasn't allowed to be sexual, and he needed to be shown as helpful to white people. In the movies I've watched so far, his characters weren't boring or perfect, and he portrayed people who had backbone and wouldn't accept racist insults. He broke ground in cinematic scenes where he wrestled down racists (in the The Defiant Ones), called them 'boy' (in Lilies of the Field), and in this movie, slapped them. Those scenes still have power today, but they were much more shocking when the movies first came out. Still, Poitier was limited in his choice of roles, because he had to present a certain image to movie-goers.
In any case, I think in this movie the strengths of his performance lie not so much in the delivery of his lines but in his intense facial expressions, and his body language suggesting defensiveness and leashed strength; he has a compelling screen presence. His demeanor is a sharp contrast to Steiger's Sheriff Gillespie, a laconic bulldog of a man who slouches around, chews gum, puts his feet up on his desk, and hides a sharp mind behind an easygoing manner. Gillespie is racist, not so much with true conviction as with a need to feel superior to others in some way, given his nonexistent personal life and low-paying, high-pressure job in a backwater town. Tibbs's city manners, cleverness and sophisticated crime-solving techniques reluctantly impress him even as he's eaten up with jealousy and outrage.
Detective Tibbs and Sheriff Gillespie don't become friends, but Gillespie does come to see Tibbs as a man worth respecting and defending. In one great scene that captures their relationship and its uneasiness, Gillespie hosts Tibbs in his home where they talk over drinks. Letting Tibbs into his house is an unspoken sign of respect from Gillespie, who doesn't like having guests over. In the course of their conversation, they discover some things they have in common (two law enforcement officers, leading a lonely life with lots of hard, tiring work), and Tibbs starts to look a little relaxed for a change. But then the feeling of fellowship startles Gillespie - it's suddenly too much, sharing confidences with a man who should be inferior to him but isn't - and he retreats back into his racist mindset and shuts Tibbs out again, leaving Tibbs disillusioned and regretful. As long as he can see Tibbs as an officer, Gillespie is able to work with him, but he keeps retreating from the idea of Tibbs as a man.
That scene felt a lot more real to me than the ending, which hit a wrong note. Suffice it to say, Tibbs solves the murder, and he's about to leave this little town where maybe he's changed some people's perceptions. Gillespie arrives to see him off at the train station. At this point the filmmakers (and Poitier) make it seem like Tibbs really needs the recognition from the sheriff. He doesn't just want the victory of getting acknowledgement from a man who thought he was dirt at the start of the film, or the satisfaction of changing some people's minds; he seems to actually need Gillespie's approval. (Not like in Lilies of the Field, where the recognition he wants from Mother Maria feels more like the respect a person demands from a worthy contender.) Here it seems that Tibbs wants a pat on the head.
I haven't said much about the murder, because while there are some suspenseful moments and colorful (and yucky) minor characters the movie is worth watching mostly because of Poitier and Steiger and their dynamic.
I also love the feel of the movie in some of the scenes. There's the blur of lights in the beginning with Ray Charles singing In the Heat of the Night. Also the unexpected moments of humor or irony; for instance, the first character in the film who respectfully addresses Tibbs as "Mr. Tibbs" is one of the most racist characters, Endicott (Larry Gates), who lives like a plantation owner of yore. He regards his workers with paternalistic condescension and pines for the good old days where he could get away with shooting the uppity ones. These days he can't even deliver a slap without getting one back.
What I wanted more of was Tibbs's thoughts about the situation he's in. Not his need for acknowledgement or his need to stay alive and stay one step ahead of those trying to kill him, but his thoughts on being in alien territory. Usually he's in Philly, well-respected and in his element; in the South he's rejected and threatened by white society and doesn't fit in among the other black people who are still kept in "their place." His mother lives in these parts, and he understands some of the culture - seen especially in his conversation with Mama Caleba (Beah Richards), a character who plays a key role in the murder mystery. But what does Tibbs think? He's an emissary from another world (in this case, a big city in the northern U.S.), just as Poitier himself bridged two worlds in mainstream cinema, his films becoming part of an important transformation in American culture.
*All images link back to their source (Flixster Community).
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Good Short Fiction: Coyote Peyote (by Carole Nelson Douglas)
Title: Coyote Peyote
Author: Carole Nelson Douglas
Where I read it: Tails of Wonder and Imagination: Cat Stories (ed. Ellen Datlow)
Midnight Louie works as a detective in Las Vegas. You can find him at the Crystal Phoenix Hotel and Casino by the koi pond, which supplies him his dinner. He cuts a striking figure - black with "tourmaline-green" eyes and "topping twenty pounds soaking wet" - and has a pretty high opinion of himself. It isn't easy being the foremost feline detective (maybe the only feline detective?) in a city like Las Vegas.
In the story he's approached by a wild coyote who needs his help; the coyote death rate has soared at the borders of a real estate development called Peyote Skies just outside the city. Louie's first assumption is that they're getting killed off for trespassing:
Though I was curious about the mystery of the dying coyotes (and a dark tale it turned out to be) it was really Louie himself - and the idea of a cat detective - that drew me into the story (I'm sure he'd be happy about that). He narrates like a film noir detective - cool and perceptive, given to colorful descriptions, and knowing just how good he is. There's no femme fatale in the story, but he does get a sidekick for a while - Happy Hocks, a half-grown coyote who worships the ground Louie struts on. Along with the humor, attitude, and striking characterizations I loved the strong sense of place in this story: Las Vegas and its environs through the eyes of a feline who's seen it all.
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Other stories in this collection include Puss-Cat (by Reggie Oliver) and The White Cat (by Joyce Carol Oates), along with Every Angel is Terrifying (by John Kessel), Tiger in the Snow (by Daniel Wynn Barber), Gordon the Self-Made Cat by Peter S. Beagle, and Guardians by George R. R. Martin.
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This post has been linked to at this week's Short Stories on Wednesdays at Simple Clockwork.
Author: Carole Nelson Douglas
Where I read it: Tails of Wonder and Imagination: Cat Stories (ed. Ellen Datlow)
Midnight Louie works as a detective in Las Vegas. You can find him at the Crystal Phoenix Hotel and Casino by the koi pond, which supplies him his dinner. He cuts a striking figure - black with "tourmaline-green" eyes and "topping twenty pounds soaking wet" - and has a pretty high opinion of himself. It isn't easy being the foremost feline detective (maybe the only feline detective?) in a city like Las Vegas.
In the story he's approached by a wild coyote who needs his help; the coyote death rate has soared at the borders of a real estate development called Peyote Skies just outside the city. Louie's first assumption is that they're getting killed off for trespassing:
No wonder the coyotes are goners. They were trespassing on some high-end new real estate of the first water. I sit under one of the paired yucca trees that mark the development's entrance to read the billboard, which features colors like trendy turquoise, orange and lavender bordered in a chorus line of alternating jalapeno peppers and howling coyotes.
Though I was curious about the mystery of the dying coyotes (and a dark tale it turned out to be) it was really Louie himself - and the idea of a cat detective - that drew me into the story (I'm sure he'd be happy about that). He narrates like a film noir detective - cool and perceptive, given to colorful descriptions, and knowing just how good he is. There's no femme fatale in the story, but he does get a sidekick for a while - Happy Hocks, a half-grown coyote who worships the ground Louie struts on. Along with the humor, attitude, and striking characterizations I loved the strong sense of place in this story: Las Vegas and its environs through the eyes of a feline who's seen it all.
-------------
Other stories in this collection include Puss-Cat (by Reggie Oliver) and The White Cat (by Joyce Carol Oates), along with Every Angel is Terrifying (by John Kessel), Tiger in the Snow (by Daniel Wynn Barber), Gordon the Self-Made Cat by Peter S. Beagle, and Guardians by George R. R. Martin.
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This post has been linked to at this week's Short Stories on Wednesdays at Simple Clockwork.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Good Short Fiction: 4 tales from The Oxford Book of English Detective Stories
Collection: The Oxford Book of English Detective Stories
Editor: Patricia Craig
Title: Bring Back the Cat!
Author: Reginald Hill
Joe Sixsmith, a Brit of West Indian derivation, is a fledgling private eye called on to help find a cat that's gone missing. The owner, Mrs. Ellison, is a neurotic woman who lives in the sort of neighborhood where a man with Sixsmith's skin color is usually mistaken for the gardener. Her family is a strange, antagonistic bunch: a husband who lounges around reading the paper and pretending he's uninterested in Sixsmith's amateurish sleuthing, and two sullen, dysfunctional teenagers - a son, Auberon, and a daughter, Tittie (an apt nickname). Their next door neighbor, Bullivant, is cantankerous and has a ferocious dog (the prime suspect?).
There's more going on in this household than a missing cat, and from the start Sixsmith is in over his head. Part of what makes the story funny is that the people he interviews assume that he knows more than he does, so they offhandedly share things about themselves that startle him; at times he hits on the right line of questioning by accident. Sixsmith is not a stupid man by any means, just inexperienced, with a tendency to mull things over rather than make quick timely deductions. He's a likable guy with a dry sense of humor, and he does his best to deal with these people; by the end he's uncovered everything, inadvertently, and only realizes it after the fact.
-------------
Title: The Killing of Michael Finnegan
Author: Michael Gilbert
After a spy is brutally murdered, his widow and two of his colleagues work together to track down the killers and attempt to foil a terrorist plot. The story contains a novel's worth of material: a back-stabbing insider, forced confessions, some politics, sharp efficient characterizations, strong emotional moments, a race against the clock, and dry humor mixed in with the deadliness of the characters' undertakings.
-------------
Title: The Oxford Way of Death
Author: Robert Barnard
At St. Pothinus's Hall, the Fellows are for the most part aging and wedded to their ways; they don't care much about their college's poor academic record, so long as they can stay comfortably encrusted to their posts. When the Fellow responsible for teaching Ancient Persian passes away in front of his one student, the other Fellows wonder who can replace him. The mischievous Wittling, who teaches classics, finally points out a suitable candidate: Sandowa Bulewa, who is - horrors! - a woman. Not only a woman, but a young black woman who had studied at Cambridge and the Sorbonne. With the exception of the story's narrator, Peter Borthwick, who at age 47 is the second youngest man there and considered too forward-thinking, the Fellows can't stomach the thought of Sandowa Bulewa as a colleague, though Wittling is willing to give it a try if only to stir things up and make trouble. Little does he know that his suggestion will lead to his death.
The Oxford Way of Death is an excellent dark comedy, a funny and disturbing look at the amorality, conformity, and stagnation often found in academia. Even the forward-thinking narrator, good at stating his principles and making his indignation known, will subside like the rest. As he says: "It's amazing what we liberal intellectuals can take in our strides, when we set our minds to it."
-------------
Title: Three is a Lucky Number
Author: Margery Allingham
"At five o'clock on a September afternoon Ronald Frederick Torbay was making preparations for his third murder." Torbay is a black widower, and one way the author builds suspense is to have him think back on his first two murders even as he's getting ready for the third. In some respects his wives have been similar - middle-aged women, unnoticed and unused to affection, who also have some money; in other ways their personalities have differed, with his current wife (and soon-to-be victim) the most sensible one so far. The story's spark comes mostly from the details, the mounting suspense, and the hope that Torbay will get his comeuppance.
-------------
Other recommended stories from The Oxford Book of English Detective Stories: Death on the Air (by Ngaio Marsh) and Great Aunt Allie's Flypapers (by P.D. James).
Editor: Patricia Craig
Title: Bring Back the Cat!
Author: Reginald Hill
Joe Sixsmith, a Brit of West Indian derivation, is a fledgling private eye called on to help find a cat that's gone missing. The owner, Mrs. Ellison, is a neurotic woman who lives in the sort of neighborhood where a man with Sixsmith's skin color is usually mistaken for the gardener. Her family is a strange, antagonistic bunch: a husband who lounges around reading the paper and pretending he's uninterested in Sixsmith's amateurish sleuthing, and two sullen, dysfunctional teenagers - a son, Auberon, and a daughter, Tittie (an apt nickname). Their next door neighbor, Bullivant, is cantankerous and has a ferocious dog (the prime suspect?).
There's more going on in this household than a missing cat, and from the start Sixsmith is in over his head. Part of what makes the story funny is that the people he interviews assume that he knows more than he does, so they offhandedly share things about themselves that startle him; at times he hits on the right line of questioning by accident. Sixsmith is not a stupid man by any means, just inexperienced, with a tendency to mull things over rather than make quick timely deductions. He's a likable guy with a dry sense of humor, and he does his best to deal with these people; by the end he's uncovered everything, inadvertently, and only realizes it after the fact.
-------------
Title: The Killing of Michael Finnegan
Author: Michael Gilbert
After a spy is brutally murdered, his widow and two of his colleagues work together to track down the killers and attempt to foil a terrorist plot. The story contains a novel's worth of material: a back-stabbing insider, forced confessions, some politics, sharp efficient characterizations, strong emotional moments, a race against the clock, and dry humor mixed in with the deadliness of the characters' undertakings.
-------------
Title: The Oxford Way of Death
Author: Robert Barnard
It has happened twice in the last year that a student would begin to read his weekly essay to a normally comatose old gentleman, only to find on concluding his piece that he had been reading for some time to a corpse.
At St. Pothinus's Hall, the Fellows are for the most part aging and wedded to their ways; they don't care much about their college's poor academic record, so long as they can stay comfortably encrusted to their posts. When the Fellow responsible for teaching Ancient Persian passes away in front of his one student, the other Fellows wonder who can replace him. The mischievous Wittling, who teaches classics, finally points out a suitable candidate: Sandowa Bulewa, who is - horrors! - a woman. Not only a woman, but a young black woman who had studied at Cambridge and the Sorbonne. With the exception of the story's narrator, Peter Borthwick, who at age 47 is the second youngest man there and considered too forward-thinking, the Fellows can't stomach the thought of Sandowa Bulewa as a colleague, though Wittling is willing to give it a try if only to stir things up and make trouble. Little does he know that his suggestion will lead to his death.
The Oxford Way of Death is an excellent dark comedy, a funny and disturbing look at the amorality, conformity, and stagnation often found in academia. Even the forward-thinking narrator, good at stating his principles and making his indignation known, will subside like the rest. As he says: "It's amazing what we liberal intellectuals can take in our strides, when we set our minds to it."
-------------
Title: Three is a Lucky Number
Author: Margery Allingham
"At five o'clock on a September afternoon Ronald Frederick Torbay was making preparations for his third murder." Torbay is a black widower, and one way the author builds suspense is to have him think back on his first two murders even as he's getting ready for the third. In some respects his wives have been similar - middle-aged women, unnoticed and unused to affection, who also have some money; in other ways their personalities have differed, with his current wife (and soon-to-be victim) the most sensible one so far. The story's spark comes mostly from the details, the mounting suspense, and the hope that Torbay will get his comeuppance.
-------------
Other recommended stories from The Oxford Book of English Detective Stories: Death on the Air (by Ngaio Marsh) and Great Aunt Allie's Flypapers (by P.D. James).
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Good Short Fiction: Great Aunt Allie's Flypapers (P.D. James)
Title: Great Aunt Allie's Flypapers
Author: P.D. James (Phyllis Dorothy James)
Where I read it: The Oxford Book of English Detective Stories (edited by Patricia Craig)
Synopsis
Canon Hubert Boxdale has inherited a large sum of money from his step-grandmother, Allegra (known to the family as "Great Aunt Allie"). He's reluctant to accept the money, because he was never sure about Allie's innocence in regards to the death of his grandfather; though she wasn't convicted in court, people always suspected that she had murdered her husband to obtain his fortune. Hubert asks his godson, Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh, to reopen the decades-old murder case and see if he can settle the question of Allie's innocence with certainty.
Some reasons to read it
---------------
Other recommended tales from The Oxford Book of English Detective Stories are Death on the Air (by Ngaio Marsh) and these stories here.
Author: P.D. James (Phyllis Dorothy James)
Where I read it: The Oxford Book of English Detective Stories (edited by Patricia Craig)
Synopsis
Canon Hubert Boxdale has inherited a large sum of money from his step-grandmother, Allegra (known to the family as "Great Aunt Allie"). He's reluctant to accept the money, because he was never sure about Allie's innocence in regards to the death of his grandfather; though she wasn't convicted in court, people always suspected that she had murdered her husband to obtain his fortune. Hubert asks his godson, Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh, to reopen the decades-old murder case and see if he can settle the question of Allie's innocence with certainty.
Some reasons to read it
- The characterization of Hubert, who is a good unselfish man. Thinking him naive, people often take advantage of him, but he knows what they're up to even as he keeps trying to help them. A key insight is that "his goodness had in some sense protected him." Dalgliesh will have to protect Hubert too, but not necessarily from finding out anything painful about Allie, who may very well have been innocent. Dalgliesh has great respect for his godfather, and wonders sometimes how a man like that can live "in a carnivorous world in which gentleness, humility, and unworldliness are hardly conducive to survival let alone success."
Dalgliesh told himself that he should have remembered what, as a small boy, he had discovered about Uncle Hubert's conscience; that it operated as a warning bell and that, unlike most people, he never pretended that it hadn't sounded or that he hadn't heard it or that, having heard it, something must be wrong with the mechanism.
- Another person Dalgliesh comes to like during the course of the investigation is Allie herself. I won't reveal much more about her. In the timeframe of the story she has passed away, and never appears outside of other people's recollections and records, but her presence lingers throughout. The question of her innocence is answered conclusively by the end; and at the end, after we find out exactly what happened to Hubert's grandfather, we're left to reflect on the nature of innocence.
- James is an engaging story-teller. Her characterizations are sharp, her writing skillful and precise; the story is rich with wry humor and keen observations of human nature. All throughout there are questions - if it wasn't Allie, then who was it? Dalgliesh tracks down witnesses and other potential suspects who are still alive; he pores over trial records. There's always the danger that the truth will be lost to time; or it might be a painful truth that's best left only partially revealed.
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Other recommended tales from The Oxford Book of English Detective Stories are Death on the Air (by Ngaio Marsh) and these stories here.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Good Short Fiction: Death on the Air (Ngaio Marsh)
Title: Death on the Air
Author: Ngaio Marsh (Edith Ngaio Marsh)
Where I read it: The Oxford Book of English Detective Stories (edited by Patricia Craig)
Synopsis
Chief Detective-Inspector Roderick Alleyn investigates the death of a man who was apparently electrocuted by his own radio. As it becomes clear that this wasn't an accident, Alleyn needs to sort through a houseful of suspects including the wife and children, servants and employees, and friends of the family. Septimus Tonks was a cruel tyrannical man with no shortage of people who feared and despised him. Alleyn's investigation uncovers secret relationships, dysfunctions, and the wreckage of an unhappy home.
Some reasons to read it
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Other recommended tales from The Oxford Book of English Detective Stories are Great Aunt Allie's Flypapers (by P.D. James) and these stories here.
Author: Ngaio Marsh (Edith Ngaio Marsh)
Where I read it: The Oxford Book of English Detective Stories (edited by Patricia Craig)
Synopsis
On the 25th of December at 7:30 a.m. Mr. Septimus Tonks was found dead beside his wireless set.
Chief Detective-Inspector Roderick Alleyn investigates the death of a man who was apparently electrocuted by his own radio. As it becomes clear that this wasn't an accident, Alleyn needs to sort through a houseful of suspects including the wife and children, servants and employees, and friends of the family. Septimus Tonks was a cruel tyrannical man with no shortage of people who feared and despised him. Alleyn's investigation uncovers secret relationships, dysfunctions, and the wreckage of an unhappy home.
Some reasons to read it
- Marsh attends to the technical details of the crime and to the delicate dance of timing and opportunity that makes it so difficult to pinpoint the murderer. What's most compelling about her story though are the characters and the household dynamics.
- The precision of the crime contrasts with the messiness of the people. Marsh reveals to us these wounded people, and the man who liked to grind them under his thumb. Sometimes the story only suggests things that are all the more disturbing for not being entirely exposed. You wouldn't find this family sitting around the tree opening presents together.
The radio hummed, gathered volume, and found itself.
'No-oel, No-o-el,' it roared.
At the same time, they can be decent to each other in small subdued ways, Mr. Tonks excluded. Unhappy or damaged as they are, the different family members and employees understand each other. Love can grow in unforgiving soil, like a weed that's difficult to uproot. - The story is absorbing, both for the mystery and for the character portraits. I wonder at what stage Alleyn solved the crime and knew who did it; he's a man who seems to keep his cards close to his chest. Certain conversations gain significance at the end, after everything is revealed.
"I'm the least suspicious man alive. I'm merely being tidy."
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Other recommended tales from The Oxford Book of English Detective Stories are Great Aunt Allie's Flypapers (by P.D. James) and these stories here.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Sherlock Holmes, Dorian Gray, and a dinner at the Langham
Wilde left with a commission to write his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, which appeared in Lippincott’s June 1890 issue. And Conan Doyle agreed to produce a second novel starring his ace detective; The Sign of Four would cement his reputation. Indeed, critics have speculated that the encounter with Wilde, an exponent of a literary movement known as the Decadents, led Conan Doyle to deepen and darken Sherlock Holmes’ character: in The Sign of Four’s opening scene, Holmes is revealed to be addicted to a “seven-percent solution” of cocaine.
Excellent article on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, his writing, his characters, his London. And the article touches on Doyle's meeting with Oscar Wilde in 1889, at a literary dinner with an editor. I like reading about moments like these - creative, imaginative people who make an impression on each other and, if only in a subconscious or inadvertent way, influence each other's work (though here the critics don't speculate as to how Doyle might have influenced Wilde - maybe he didn't). Are the critics right? Would Holmes have been a different character, had Doyle never encountered Wilde?
Regardless, "For both writers, the evening would prove a turning point" - securing commissions for major works in their careers. I wonder who else was at that dinner, which other writers (whom we likely haven't heard about today) and what happened with their careers and writing.
Another interesting point to the article is how Doyle wanted as time went by to rid himself of Holmes - but never could. That's an interesting disconnect, between the demands of the fans and the needs of the author.
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