Favorite Sleuths (1965) by John Ernest

At last, a mystery anthology that isn’t terrible.

I’m not sure of the background behind Favorite Sleuths, other than that it was composed by someone named John Ernest. The book is a collection of numerous classic sleuths. Ellery Queen. Miss Marple. The Saint. Tommy Hambledon.

Yeah I don’t know who he is either. But let’s not waste any more time.

First up is Ellery Queen with “Object Lesson.” The setup is almost too mundane for a Great Detective, as he’s been invited to a classroom to give a lecture on the futility of crime in hopes of scaring straight a trio of juvenile delinquents responsible for petty robberies. Of course, he arrives to find that there’s been another robbery from the teacher herself, namely that of an envelope with money for another teacher. So the lecture becomes a demonstration of crime solving techniques, but one where Ellery nearly ends up the fool, as the envelope containing the money vanishes, in spite of a search.

While an impossibility is always fun, this one is a little weak. The location of the money is clever, yes, but we’re never really granted a chance to see when the hiding occurs, and it’s all based on Ellery not doing a very specific thing. Considering how the thief was operating on a strict time limit, this makes sense, but even so. The “whodunit” aspect is also a little arbitrary. But the story is quick fun.

Next up is Philip MacDonald not with Colonel Anthony Gethryn but with Doctor Alcazar“who had no right to the name and even less to the title.” The good doctor is a fortune teller who one day gets a nervous client who refuses to give her answer in detail, even after some cold reading, but does admit her sister is at risk of being betrayed. But with no further info, the good doctor takes her pay and watches her leave...and reads in the newspaper later that she was murdered.

Not much of a mystery here, admittedly: the killer soon becomes obvious, with the only real twist being the cruelty of their plan. The main joy of this story is watching Alcazar unleash a never ending stream of bull to get what he wants. He strikes a good balance between scammer and charming rogue: He’s solving this case for the reward money, but doesn’t exploit the loved ones of the victim to do it. My main issue is that he never runs into an actual obstacle, he just blows over everything in his way with little effort. I’d like to read more of him, but apparently he only starred in one other story.

Next up is Dorothy L. Sayers with “The Adventurous Exploit of the Cave of Ali Baba.” Oddly, this isn’t much of a mystery, more revolving around the exploits of a secret society of thieves and how Whimsey (presumed dead at the beginning but I highly doubt that’s a spoiler) takes them down. It’s good, but like the other Sayers story I’ve reviewed, very arch and polite and British, beyond vague implications of the group’s tortures. And the fate of the leader, geez. Maybe Jigsaw read this story for inspiration?

“A Window for Death” is Rex Stout’s entry, and it plays the whodunit game….and the howdunit one. David Fife comes to Wolfe with a case of maybe-maybe-not murder. His estranged brother had returned, now a rich man thanks to a uranium discovery, but soon expired from a bad case of pneumonia. Nothing major, but another brother has become convinced it was murder, based on some empty hot water bags, but how can one arrange death by pneumonia in a New York apartment?

I’ve read one Wolfe story before this, but this worked quite a bit better. Considering how much of the story is taken up with people saying “This isn’t murder.” over and over, it flows well. The whodunit aspect is a bit weaker however, with what I almost swear is a contradiction is Wolfe’s reasoning.

“The Case of the Perfect Maid” is Christie’s contribution, and is one of the later Miss Marple stories. This time, the problem is a purely domestic one for the old maid of fiction, as her maid notes that a relative has been fired from her job due to a minor issue requiring Marple to go in and preserve her job. The employers have little interest, as they’ve found a wonderful new maid, perfect in every way….

Obviously, this is a simple enough story, with a solution that will seem familiar to the Christie fan, but it's still nice, relaxed piece of detection. Which of course just makes it all the more irritating when the back cover gives the crime away. Not the solution, but the crime itself, which considering how much of the story is build-up to said crime, is quite an offense.

Leslie Charteris with Simon “The Saint” Templar is up next with mostly unexplored territory in mystery fiction: The Loch Ness Monster. The Saint finds himself drawn into this old Scottish mystery when animals start turning up mutilated, resulting in him rooming with a pair of Nessie enthusiasts. Of course, there’s a human hand behind it all, and while the story is well-told, the solution won’t bring any surprises (and in fact, in the height of my arrogance, I'll state that my solution was much more unexpected!)

The next two stories have one thing in common: They both have premises that John Dickson Carr would drool at and they’re both disappointing. Mannings Coles’ “Handcuffs Don’t Hold Ghosts” has a group of ghost hunters vanish during a live radio broadcast of their investigation of a seemingly haunted estate. Sadly, the explanation is simple, lacking any real deduction.

Albert Campion stars in Margery Allingham’s “The Man in the Window.” The titular man is an actor, well-known for sitting in the same chair at the same window at the same club for years. He practically lives in the chair...and then dies in it, of totally natural causes. A time of sadness for all, but the body is barely removed and the papers have barely been circulated when he shows up again, alive and well.

Again, an interesting premise, and there’s more deductions than in the previous story, but the story is a little too simple for my tastes.

Next up is Erle Stanley Gardner’s Perry Mason in “The Case of the Crying Swallow.” The longest story in the collection kicks off with a colonel coming to Mason to set up a defense for his wife. It seems that valuable jewelry was stolen, shortly after said wife insisted on cutting off the insurance. Now she’s vanished, leaving only a cryptic message behind, cuing Mason’s investigation.

This is actually my first experience with a Perry Mason story, and man, it was fun. No courtroom drama here, just Mason investigating and trying to decipher a cryptic note with the help of the small army he apparently has on call to investigate every lead that comes up. Not to mention beholding his probably unlawyery behaviors. You see, when most men stumble on a dead body that their client might be implicated in, they call the police and go from there. Perry Mason is not most men. Perry Mason wipes his fingerprints (and when called out on destroying evidence just hand waves and says, “Eh, I’m sure the killer did it already.”), then finds his client, and only then does he report anything.

Considering how fun the the story is, it disappoints me somewhat to note that the detection isn’t as good as it could be. It's more about watching the gradual unraveling of events then true detection, with the final summation coming out in a rush, and with the killer barely getting any page time. But it was so much fun that I’m hoping the rest of the novels are like that.

The final story of the collection is also my first encounter with H. C. Bailey, “The Little Dog.” Bailey's Reggie Fortune is called in to give his opinion of the death of the black sheep of a family who was found drowned in a boathouse, although the victim was kind enough to tie his legs beforehand (in fairness, the idea is that he did so in order to avoid instinctively swimming to the surface, but still). While Fortune can’t officially say it was murder, he was reason to think so, especially the matter of the dog he found near-death outside the boathouse…

After hearing so much about Bailey (thank you Nick Fuller), I was worried that he had been overhyped for me. This story actually worked well, with plenty of logical deduction...in the first bit. At the three-quarters mark we suddenly take a hard right into Victorian melodrama land, with shootings and suicide as our finale. It’s never even explained how Fortune came to his conclusions. But I still enjoyed it, and am cautiously optimistic for more.

On the whole, an enjoyable little anthology. Sadly, while the stories are of even quality, nothing really excels or stands out, and it’s not a must get. But if you can find it cheaply or in a library, it’s Recommended, with caveats.

Chapter and Hearse (1985) by Bill Pronzini and Marcia Muller

One of these days, I’ll learn to skip mystery anthologies. And there's a few books with this exact title, which shouldn't surprise me.

Chapter and Hearse is a collection of mystery stories by Bill Pronzini and Marcia Muller revolving around books. Normally I wouldn’t bother with these sorts of things, as experience has taught me that these sort of multi-author anthologies aren’t usually worth my time, but I’m a bibliomaniac and there were a few authors I recognized in it. Sadly, it wasn’t to my taste as will be shown by the quick and to the point review.

The collection opens with “The Missing Shakespeare Manuscript” by Lillian de la Torre, part of a series starring Dr. Sam: Johnson (I swear the colon is there), the guy who made the dictionary and Sherlock Holmes before there was Sherlock Holmes (he even has someone who follows him around and writes about everything he does). The plot revolves around a lost Shakespeare manuscript, which is stolen and ransomed back to the owner. The plot is exactly what you would expect from that summary.

“The Man Who Collected Poe” by Robert Bloch (of Psycho fame) is more of a horror story than anything, as a nameless narrator is invited to the home of the latest in a family of Poe fanatics. The collection is vast indeed, from little known stories to letters from Poe, to a dark, dreadful secret in the family vault. It’s well-done, and a very Poe-esque tale.

“The Penny-a-Worder” is a Cornell Woolrich story that forgoes his usual DOOM GLOOM DOOM in favor of a light-hearted story about a pulp writer who has a night to write up a story and make it (comparatively) big. It’s more of a comedy than anything, and even the twist is played for laughs instead of NEVERENDING DESPAIR which is what you normally get in Woolrich. Good fun, I just wish he’d gone into a little more detail about the process, because I get the impression he knew it very well.

But did couples talk like that? In any era?

“Clerical Error” by James Gould Cozzens is a short-short about a bookseller who’s confronted by an angry colonel, who wants to question why the family of his reverend brother are getting a bill for pornographic books. It’s a simple story, but it needed a few more pages to set up the twist and resolution.

“Murder Walks In Marble Halls” by Lawrence G. Blochman (he of  Dr. Coffee fame) is the longest story in the collection.  This stars a worker at the New York Public Library who ends up digging into the murder of one of the trustees. Also, the flap lies about this story, saying that the victim was shot to death, in truth he’s shot at but is actually stabbed to death. Poor form. It’s an interesting story, but a tad too long for my tastes, and the cluing is weak. The description of the library is neat, however, though I had trouble visualizing everything (which may have been why I thought it was weak, I had a hard time figuring out where everything was).

Nedra Tyre’s “Reflections on Murder” is the story that must be included in every anthology: The one that makes you wonder why it’s in the anthology. It’s a short tale, about a narrator who befriends an old woman and the fallout from it, but everything happens too fast and with little warning, such as the protagonist’s actions. And barring the opening monologue and the protagonist’s love of books, it doesn’t even really fit the theme.

“The Adventure of the Spurious Tamerlane” is an August Derleth story starring Solor Pons, who’s totally not inspired by Sherlock Holmes no sir. This time, Pons is called to a bookseller who wants to report someone who left a collection of Poe stories at his bookshop (forged, as Pons discovers). It’s in the tradition of the Holmes stories, in that it’s not so much a fair mystery, so much as it is a chance to watch Pons show his stuff. It’s good. (Also, the back flap gives things away again.)

Lawrence Block steps up with “One Thousand Dollars A Word," a story about an underpaid magazine writer who becomes fascinated with the phrase, “One thousand dollars a word.” A decent short, not much else.

Anthony Boucher steps up next with “QL.696," one of his stories starring the alcoholic ex-cop Nick Nobel, who contributes his wisdom to the unraveling of the shooting of a librarian who left the title behind as a dying message. Sadly, if you don’t have the information on hand, you have no chance of figuring it out.

And then the heavens part and Edward D. Hoch presents “Murder at the Bouchercon,” a refreshing puzzle story that takes place at Bouchercon XIV, where the topic of discussion is the works of the late Conrad Kazer. His works have been tied up for years, but an agent thinks she might be able to get her hands on them. Cue Hoch’s mystery writer protagonist stumbling on her stabbed body in her hotel room, with only the dying message “Kazer con” to go on.

Like I said, this is a pretty solid puzzle plot, fairly presented. One of these days, I should do a post on why I like Hoch so much, but I think it’s because he does solid puzzle plots, and pretty consistently as well. Admittedly, there are perhaps one too many twists, but it’s all done quite well. And all those cameos!

Next up is “Seven Degrees of Ambiguity” by Shirley Jackson. This is a more toned-down story than what’s come before, with a young boy hanging out in a basement bookshop when a couple come to look at books. The preface says that this story is quite ambiguous, and indeed it was, so ambiguous that I had no idea what had just happened, mainly because I expected more of a climax. A re-read (and some double checking on Google) confirmed that what I thought just happened had happened, but I had expected more from the author of “The Lottery”. But that’s on me.

Dorothy L. Sayers comes next with “The Dragon’s Head”, in which Lord Peter’s nephew, who has one of the most disgustingly British names ever, Viscount St. George, buys a book which seems to be the target of unknown parties. It’s a fun little story, even if it was so British that I felt a monocle growing out of my skull while reading.

Also: The part where the nephew elevates Lord Peter from “Quite Decent Uncle” to “Glorified Uncle” when he whips out a gun is both accurate to ten-twelve year old boys and got a chuckle out of me.

Next up is “The Great American Novel” by R.L. Stevens, a penname of...Edward D. Hoch! Yes, he gets two stories in this collection, and I’m quite happy about that. This time, the protagonist is an editor digging through slush piles, which from what I gather are unsolicited manuscripts, in hopes of finding the next great novel. Then he stumbles across one, but the author is more of a recluse than Thomas Pynchon and willing to go to great lengths to keep his identity secret….

This isn’t as much of a traditional mystery as “Murder at the Bouchercon”, but still fun, with a neat plan and not only a least-likely-culprit, but a least-likely detective. Sadly, the cluing is weak, with the main clue being vague and delivered about two pages from the reveal.

Ellery Queen steps up next with “Mystery at the Library of Congress” which I kept reading as “Murder” for some reason. This time, Ellery is called in to help break up a drug ring, whose member are passing along contact information via book titles. It’s a pure logic puzzle, as Ellery has to figure out who the intended contact is, and unlike some stories of this ilk the amount of special knowledge needed is very small.

One of our editors, Bill Pronzini, steps up with “A Craving for Originality”. It stars the aptly-named Hackman, an author without an ounce of originality in him, whose realization of this and the “hack life” he’s living triggers a bout of writer’s block...and an obsession with originality. It’s a decent story, almost sad, though the climax perhaps comes a bit too quickly.

The collection wraps up with “Chapter and Verse” by Ngaio Marsh, a story which holds the honor of being the only Marsh short I’ve read (out of three) that I’ve actually liked. A man comes to see Inspector Alleyn's wife, Troy, to show a Bible off to her husband. There are dates indicating the deaths of previous owner, and the each has a verse that implies that they died through some kind of judgement. Sadly, before he can get his audience he gets shoved off a church tower.

Compared to the other Marsh’s I’ve read, this flows at a pretty brisk pace, no bogging the story down with interviews or taking forever to get to the action. The cluing is a little weak, but there, and the killer is a surprise. Full marks all around.

Sadly I can’t really rec this collection on the whole. It never really breaks beyond “good”, and most of the stores probably wouldn’t appeal to the fan of classic mysteries. That said, if you find it cheap or in a library, give a try. Not Recommended.