mystery

Rebecca–Best 100 Mysteries of All Time

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Rebecca—Daphne Du Maurier–1938–IP

I was surprised when I realized I hadn’t yet written a synopsis for this classic well-known title. Well-known if like me, you love Hitchcock and/or read mysteries. “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again” should be in the collective unconscious by now! If you’ve never read those lines, or heard Joan Fontaine speak them at the beginning of the film of the same name, you are among the few, and are in for a fantastic treat. Rebecca is titled for a dead woman, one that controls most of the action within the book–from the grave. A Gothic of the best form, it’s plot served as the outline for countless imitations to come. I think as a pre teen I may have read them all. The general plot line for those that try to capture the haunting lure of the original revolves around a woman meeting a mysterious handsome man and after a whirlwind romance of usually a week or so, hastily marries and is swiftly transported to a) the family manse, b) a castle on a cliff also the family manse, c) a terrifying hunk of a mansion, also the family manse, or d) a monstrosity of a house in a wilderness of the moors, sea cliff, or island, also the family manse. There his hostile family await, perhaps an ex-lover or two, a brooding brother, who may or may not be more handsome, and a housekeeper of seething emotions. And, most important, some former lover, or wife of the new husband has died mysteriously–perhaps at his hands!

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The Daughter Of Time — Best 100 Mysteries of All Time

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 The Daughter of Time— Josephine Tey–1951–IP

Practically every best list has this title on it. There’s a reason why. It’s that good, obviously, but also because it makes the case for the innocence of King Richard III who down through history has been accused of smothering his two royal nephews to death in the Tower of London. Shakespeare wrote a play with him as villain, hunchbacked to boot. But many historians feel poor Richard as been maligned, as did Ms. Tey. Her protagonist, Alan Grant, a Scotland Yard detective is bored to tears after breaking his leg and laid up in hospital. A friend brings a portrait of King Richard and Alan, on the basis of nothing more than the physiology of the portrait’s subject, decides Richard must be innocent of the crimes he has been accused.

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Elaine Viets–Witty Writer, Broadcaster, Newbie Private Eye–10 Questions

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The latest release-on bookshelves now!

I don’t write reviews on amazon. OK, I wrote maybe three–but I had to be highly motivated and passionate about what I was reviewing to dip into that cesspool of bizarreness. And I was. Elaine Viets, mystery writer, had begun a new series at the time, and I was wildly in love with it. Here is part of what I wrote:

“Helen Hawthorne, once quite successful, is forced to lay low, changing cities and jobs as quickly as she used to change her designer shoes. Her new profession, salesclerk in a chi chi Florida boutique whose green door keeps out lowlife Sears Robuck rejects, forces her to do more than cater to collagen frozen faces. Underneaththe fashionable facade, a nefarious manager has embezzled bucks, and when a murder occurs, Helen must find the perpetrator before her past catches up with her. A six toed cat, a real character of a landlady, and very cheap wine bought by the case, comfort Helen as she works to solve the crime.”
The review was written about the Dead End Job series starring Helen Hawthorne, a woman on the run and forced to take jobs that pay under the table. Elaine would work in the various positions she writes about to make Helen’s experiences as realistic and truthful as possible. And they are. She has written a slew (11) of Dead End Job books since the debut–Shop Until you Drop, including one on my  Best 100 Mysteries of All Time list–Murder Between The Covers.  Apparently one exceptional series is not enough work for Elaine, she created another with a secret shopper, Josie Marcus, her latest, Murder Is a Piece of Cake, just released. (That’s number 8.) I’m clearly biased–I’ve known, admired, and called Ms. Viets a friend for over a decade. But even if I’d never met her, I’d still love her rich characters, witty dialog, and satisfying plots. Here’s the 10 questions and answers.

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The Night Has a Thousand Eyes. Best 100 Mysteries of All time

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Pulp paperback version who lists Hopley as author, and then claims another Woolrich pen name as the real author.

The Night Has a Thousand Eyes—George Hopley–(Cornell Woolrich)–1948–IP

Of  the numerous novels of suspense Woolrich has written and I’ve read, The Night Has a Thousand Eyescaused the most tense and angst filled moments. The uneasy

The younger Cornell Woolrich.

reality of a Woolrich novel is the knowledge that the conclusion of the story can go either way. A relentless dark hopeless story can end miraculously, or tragically. The reader is unaware of which will prevail until nearly the last words. The journey to the conclusion can be nerve shattering in intensity. In the instance of this novel, it haunted me, and now that I’m rethinking, it still does. It’s a novel of predestination, of a lack of control over life and death, of hope that ekes along, but barely.

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John The Eunuch and Mary Reed, Eric Mayer–10 Questions

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Ancient history is not a strong suit of mine. I enjoy it, especially when served up with mysterious mayhem and murder. Still, not having indulged in Mary Reed and Eric Mayer’s highly regarded series of John The Eunuch, I almost felt at a loss as to what questions I could ask. A little research into the books  helped, and the husband and wife writing duo’s detailed answers are filled with all the atmosphere, style, and  history one could possibly need to get started and delve into their work.

The series protagonist is John the Eunuch, Emperor Justinian’s Lord Chamberlain. Set in the Byzantine 6th century Roman Empire, real and fictional characters appear side by side and for those of us who know nothing about that period, an entire new world will open up! The series has received numerous starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly, was a finalist for the IPPY Best Mystery Award, nominated for the Bruce Alexander History Mystery Award, the American Library Association’s Booklist Magazine named the Lord Chamberlain novels as one of its four Best Little Known Series. and was nominated multiple times and won the Glyph Award from Arizona Book Publishing Association for Best Book Series. So, take a trip to another time and world with Mary and Eric.

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Get A Clue! Penny Warner’s Amazing Output of Writing

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Accomplished Author Penny Warner has three juvenile mystery books in a new series under her belt, The Code Busters Club: The Haunted Lighthouse  is the latest. Each book deals with codes, and breaking them. I am terrible at those types of things, but Ms. Warner creates such intrigue, even I believe I could untangle a word or two! I became acquainted with Penny Warner when as a mystery bookseller I came across her  unique protagonist, Connor Westphal, a deaf reporter. The first book in the series won a Macavity Award. This multi talented lady also writes a party planning mystery series with  lovely amateur detective  Presley Parker. I love the first book’s title, How To Host a Killer Party. What warped mind sets a wedding on Alcatraz? Penny does!  I don’t want to leave out  Haunted Caves: A Troop 13 Mystery which won the coveted Agatha Award from Malice Domestic for Best Children/Young Adult Fiction in 2001, and to ice the cake, grabbed the other most desired fan award, The Anthony, bestowed at the Bouchercon convention the same year. It doesn’t end there–she’s written over 50 books, for both adults and children, and been translated into two many different languages to list. Her bestselling non fiction titles include: Healthy Snacks for Kids, Kids’ Party Games and Activities, Best Party Book, Games People Play, Kids’ Holiday Fun, Learn to Sign the Fun Way, Baby Play and Learn, Kids Pick-A-Party, and Kids’ Party Cookbook. And, for all of us fans, The Official Nancy Drew Handbook, which was also nominated for an Agatha. Whew! I’m exhausted just reading the titles, I can’t imagine having written them all, plus make TV appearances on various networks such as HGTV. To make me feel even lazier, she teaches Child Development at local college. And has done so for—20 years! That’s just too much talent for one person to possess.

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Black Alibi–Best 100 Mysteries of All Time

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Black Alibi— Cornell Woolrich–1942–used

The Leopard Man played on Turner Classic Movies yesterday. It’s a must see, again, film. Atmospheric, and in some parts, downright suspenseful and terrifying, it cannot hold a reader’s breath, the way the original source does, Black Alibi. I’ve proclaimed it before, Cornell Woolrich in all his various nom de plumes is my favorite writer, period. Not just favorite crime writer, but writer, of fiction. Yes, that means I like his work more than Dickens, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Poe, Collins, Steinbeck etc.,  ad nauseum. Is he a finer writer? By most standards, probably not. To mine, yes. Because he delivers life at its most frightening, vulnerable, frantic. Hysteria is never far from breaking out in little pustules–here and there–in one of his novels. Fear is attempted to be kept at bay, yet finds its insidious way back into a character’s life, sometimes as an expected guest, others as a stranger wreaking disaster. Black Alibi is a series of  horrific events in separate stories, all part of the larger novel. It begins with U.S. citizens, Jerry Manning, and Kiki Walker finding small success in the South American city of Ciudad Real. Kiki is a headliner entertainer at a local club, and Jerry, her manager. He thinks up a wild idea for publicity, accent on wild. He convinces Kiki to lead a black jaguar into the club for shock and awe, which in turn shocks the jaguar to escape into the night in the city. Each subsequent chapter follows a young woman as she is stalked as prey by what appears to be the missing jaguar. And it’s within these stories Woolrich’s best work is revealed.

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The Short and Shorter of It–Part 2

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Continuing my exploration of this thick volume full of lovely murders, Bill Pronzini, a superb writer, with a book on my Best 100 Mysteries list, wrote a lyrical love note to the railroad. Pronzini has edited short stories himself, and is the author of the two wonderful Gun In Cheek books about the worst in crime fiction–or best, depending on how you define it. He and his wife, Marcia Muller, are responsible for a huge catalog of  quality work. So I wasn’t surprised to find him within the pages, not once, but several times, alone, or with a writing partner. Sweet Fever  is narrated by an old man who describes he and his grandson’s love of watching the train come through the tunnel at Chigger Mountain.

“The moon was so bright you could see the melons lying in Feride Johnson’s patch over on the left, and the rail tracks had a sleek oiled look coming out of the tunnel mouth and leading off towards the Sabreville yards a mile up the line. On the far side of the tracks, the woods and the run-down shacks that used to be a hobo jungle before the country sheriff closed it off thirty years back had them a silvery cast, like they was all coated in winter frost.”

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