Diane Plumley

The Deadly Percheron-Best 100 Mysteries of All Time

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The Deadly Percheron—John Franklin Bardin–1946–IP

I no longer am a bookseller, but that didn’t stop me from selling The Deadly Percheron when it was rereleased some years back. I was in my friend’s store, The Black Orchid, and when customers came in without a definite direction in genre or author, I naturally tried to sway them to a favorite title. When another bookseller first tipped me to this title, I wasn’t convinced to read it. It sounded, well, bizarre, to put it mildly. After finally giving in, and after finishing it in record time, I started looking for a first edition to acquire–the benchmark of quality for me.

Jacob Blunt visits a psychiatrist, George Matthews, with a tale of woes about ‘leprechauns’ who are paying him to do odd things, such as, whistle at Carnegie Hall and give money away. The stories alone can’t convince Dr. Matthews his patient is certifiably insane but the hibiscus flower Blunt wears in his hair just might. That and the fact that since he met Blunt, Matthews has been experiencing his own brand of questionable events. When Blunt is suspected of murder, the psychiatrist steps in to help the man he has come to, if not believe, then at least suspect is being used by others for unknown purposes.

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Edgar Award Nominees Are Announced

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Mystery Writers of America have announced this years nominees for the fantastic Edgar A. Poe Award. I’m familiar with Lehane, Mosley, Atkins, and maybe a few more, but their recent books haven’t been read by me. There was a time, long long ago, when I had read everything nominated, and if I hadn’t, I would … Read more

The Maltese Falcon–Best 100 Mysteries of All Time

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The Maltese Falcon—Dashiell Hammett–1930–in print

This book is such a given, I thought I’d already wrote my little piece on it–but no! Anyone who hasn’t heard of the book must be living in a sad place. If you’ve not read it, only heard of it, you are living in a grey place. If you’ve only seen the film, and not read the book, your world is overcast. Only if you’ve read the book can you claim to be of the living, IMHO. Ok, naturally that’s going a bit far. The Maltese Falcon is so pleasurable a read, and yet so influential in style, character, genre, that it’s taken for granted. I’ve reread it a couple of times, something unheard of for me, and each time is as satisfying as the last.

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What’s Up With All The Filmed Fairy Tales?

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A promo advertising a film about to be released called Hansel and Gretel, has me shaking my head and asking why now? Why all the fairy tale inspired, interpreted, twisted, films and TV now? They’ve been around for centuries and other than Disney, pretty much ignored. Besides Snow White, Disney has a tendency to lighten up its fairy tale fare. Not today’s offerings. Some seem to try to find the grisliest way to interpret what are quite violent stories to begin with. A few years ago a film was made about the Grimm brothers, and never made a sound as it sunk into the rental pool. Since that time, two TV shows, two new Snow White films, and now a Hansel and Gretel movie. None of them stick to the original sources.

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Finding A Book In The Vast Tubes of the Net

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Finally found.

I have an illustration that I slid off of an eBay auction about a billion years ago, when you could still do that. I loved it so much,  I tried to make jewelry, print it, do various and sundry things, but as it goes, dpi is notoriously low on eBay and most of the world of eBay, because it doesn’t take much to render a picture pretty nice looking on your screen. A few other images were purloined that long ago day, but none of them did I remember to jot down title, author, illustrator, or publisher. I only remember I couldn’t afford the book with the super fairy tale picture, and that was that. Since then I’ve been sporadically perusing bookfinder, google, eBay, etsy, trying to locate the original source of the picture. The only clue I had were the artist’s initials and last name. F. S. Cooke. Not an individual I’d heard of, but then I have found through the years that there are far more golden age illustrators than just a few well publicized ones like Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac, the Robinson brothers, Jessie Wilcox Smith etc. Children’s book illustrators in the teens, twenties and thirties seem to be numerous–from pictures for school book primers, to endless renditions of Mother Goose, to magazine covers. A magazine cover of an odd thing called Etude, confirmed that a F. S. Cooke did exist, and had created an ingenious piece of artwork for a magazine devoted to high falutin’ music. A little row of houses in the shape of musical instruments in candy colors certainly catches the eye, and his Deco sensibility is exactly what I love. I realized then that I had a couple Etude magazines with front covers with his artwork. Inside the magazine there is nothing–well, nothing that I care about, I suppose music lovers would disagree, ha. So what else did this man, I assumed it was a man because it usually is, what else did he do?

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Just a Little Bone To Pick, Like What Else Is New?

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I was seated in a nice quiet dark movie theatre waiting for the main feature as the screen filled with cacophonous gunshots, car crashes, screeching people, horrible grotesque creatures, all trailers as they are called now–when I was a mere lassie, we called them coming attractions because, well, that’s what they are. The film may trail at the end of a reel, but the pictures themselves are of movies about to be released. Doesn’t matter, what did was what one of the trailers showcased-a new version of The Great Gatsby. I believe there have been two already–maybe more, one starring my mother’s matinee idol, Alan Ladd, the other starring my generation’s dreamboat, Robert Redford. Each film presents NY in their own way, the latter tries to show a bit grittier world. What I witnessed in the 3 minute promo was complete fantasy. Opulent, over the top, ritzy, decadent behavior with sets that cost more than any one at the time could have possibly afforded to build. With a computer generated city skyline,  showgirls, debauchery, and a florid Leonardo Di Caprio as the iconic Gatsby, I recoiled in my seat as if slapped.

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Why Masculine Pen Names?

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A friend of mine gave me a recent article revealing that women are still using male pen names, or initials to disguise the very fact they are women. The statistics show that men will invariably ignore anything that hints at a feminine hand, whereas women will read either sex. The publishing industry does nothing to encourage women to fight the trend, either. They ask or even demand that a science fiction or hard boiled suspense author write under initials or a male pseudonym. They claim they want to gain every reader, and if a man picks up a book in a typically masculine genre with a woman’s name on the cover, they are likely to put it right back down again, and who wants to lose a sale this way? Female authors wanting desperately to be published will give in to the pressure and the cycle continues. We all know the historical pen names–The Bronte sisters; George Sand–I couldn’t remember her real name if I tried;  Isak Dinesen–author of Out of Africa; E. Hinton is really Susan Eloise Hinton-surprise, she authored The Outsiders, a classic about teen boys that her publisher felt would never be accepted if her sex was known; and a more recent fraud, J. K. Rowling–if she used her real first name, her publishers contended, would a 12 year old boy have picked up the book? We’ll never know.

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The Mummer’s Parade

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South Philadelphia String Band Brigade

Unless you are from around Philly, it’s unlikely you’ve heard of the Mummer’s Parade. If you associate anything with the word mummer, you may think some kind of British ritual, or Mardi Gras performer. For those unlucky enough not to have witnessed the New Year’s Day annual event, I feel sorry for you. The mummers are a unique experience, a combination marching band, mini variety show, and Ziegfeld Follies costumed extravaganza. The lengthy parade begins with what are loosely called Comics–men dressed up in various outfits carrying umbrellas weaving down the street, staggering because they are usually drunk. This is not a part of the parade I enjoy or am proud of, and if ‘tradition’ didn’t exist, the entire thing would disappear like bad booze down the drain. The second part of the parade is the Fancies competition. Whoops, I forgot to mention theparade not only entertains thousands along the Philly streets, but is a competition among distinct ‘brigades’ as they are named. The Fancies are elaborate costumed individuals with live music, but not string bands. Next, and the most popular, are the String Bands. They strut down the street playing banjos and other instruments to a theme–and act out a little storyline for the judges and audience at the designated spot. Their costumes are breathtaking, the choreography amazing, sets astounding, and presentations magnificent. The top string bands can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for their minutes in the spotlight, and they have to pay for all of it themselves. They hold fundraisers, play at weddings, Fourth of July gatherings, and Atlantic City extravaganzas to raise enough dough to pay costume, set designers, seamstresses, etc.  The prize money, if they are lucky enough to win, doesn’t cover all these expenses.

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