MINI-REVIEW: ASK A POLICEMAN

Ask a Policeman, by Certain Members of the Detection Club  [Anthony Berkeley, Milward Kennedy, Gladys Mitchell, John Rhode, Dorothy L. Sayers, & Helen Simpson]   (1933)

An interesting experiment by Britain's famed Detection Club.*

First, Milward Kennedy asked John Rhode to posit a mystery based on a proposed title, Ask a Policeman.

Rhode responded by setting the scene.  A wealthy and powerful newspaper tycoon is murdered in his study.  If popular opinion was anything to go on, the culprit should have been given a medal and a parade, but murder is, alas, murder, and it must be solved.  The many suspects -- all of whom had ample reason to off the publisher -- include an Archbishop, an MP, a Scotland Yard Commissioner, plus a private secretary, a butler, a cook, a chauffeur, a gardener, and a mystery woman.  Complicating things is a very tight timeframe for the murder; it had to have happened within a few specific minutes.  A rather unusual gun was found at the scene but it was not the gun that fired the fatal shot, although a similar weapon had to have been used.  A second gun was found but it, too was mot the murder weapon.  Was there a third, or even a fourth gun of the same make?  Officials are flummoxed, with the situation made worse by having a Scotland Yard official as one of the suspects.  It was decided to pull the police from the investigation and to leave the detecting to four proven amateurs.

The meat of the book involves the investigation of the four amateurs.  Milward Kennedy asked four members of the detection club to chime in.  Unfortunately, he got his requests a bit mixed up:  Helen Simpson was asked to write about Mrs. Bradley (who was Gladys Mitchell's detective); Gladys Mitchell was asked to carry on with Sir John Saumarez, Helen Simpson's detective; Anthony Berkeley was tasked to have Lord Peter Wimsey investigate; while Dorothy L. Sayers was left to write about Berkeley's Roger Sheringham,  A cute, interesting, and surprisingly effective ploy.  But when you have four very different detectives, you end up with four very different solutions and murderers...It should be noted that each author wrote their part without consulting one another and using only Rhode's original story.

The final section has Milward Kennedy coming in to try to pull the entire thing together and come up with the true solution.  Kennedy does have the private secretary to the Home Secretary bemoan the detectives chosen to investigate:  "Mrs. Bradley, he argued, was possibly a murderess already;  Mr. Sheringham was almost certainly an accomplice after the fact; Sir John Saumarez )'Not that that is his real name') was married to already who was found guilty of murder; and the Sunday papers had once linked the name of Lord Peter Wimsey...and, after all, his brother the Duke."

An amusing conceit allowing some of the best Golden Age of Mystery writers play in one another's sandbox.  The only drawback, in my opinion, was the necessity of continuing to question the timeline in boring detail.  (Yawn.)

*  "The Detection Club is a private association of writers of detective fiction in Great Britain, existing chiefly for the purpose of eating dinner together at suitable intervals and of talking illuminating shop.  It's membership is confined to those who have written genuine detective stories (not adventure tales or thrillers) and election is secured by a vote of the club on recommendation by two or more members and involves an undertaking of an oath" -- Dorothy L. Sayers

The club was formed in 1930 and members, in addition to those mentioned above, included Agatha Christie, Ronald Knox, Freeman Wills Crofts, Arthur Morrison, Hugh Walpole, Jessie Louisa Rickett, Baroness Orczy, R. Auston Freeman, G.D.H. Cole, M.I. Cole, E.C. Bentley, Henry Wade, Constance Lindsay Taylor, H.C. Bailey, Victor Whitechurch, J.J. Connington, Robert Eustace, Lord Gorell, Edgar Jepson, A.E.W. Mason, Ianthe Jerrold, A.A. Milne, and G.K. Chesterton.  (For some reason, Josephine Tey was never invited, and Georgette Heyer turned down an invitation.)

The detection club is still going strong with Martin Edwards as the current president.

Detective Club publications include:

• The Scoop, and Behind the Screen, 1931  (round-robin novellas)
• The Floating Admiral, 1931-2   (round-robin novel)\
• Ask a Policeman, 1933
• The Anatomy of a Murder, 1936 (also published as Anatomy of Murder, and released in two volumes as Anatomy of Murder and More Anatomy of Murder; true crime essays)
• Detection Medley, edited by John Rhode, 1939 (also published as Line-Up; short story anthology)
• [Mystery Playhouse presents the Detection Club, January 1948; six half-hour mystery plays by club members; presented on BBC Light Programme, written in aid of club funds]
• No Flowers by Request, 1953 (round-robin novella; a reprint of the book included Crime on the Coast, a 1954 round-robin novella)
• Verdict of Thirteen, edited by Julian Symons, 1978 (short story anthology)
• The Man Who..., edited by H.R.F. Keating, 1992 (original anthology to honor Julian Symons 80th birthday)
• The Detection Collection, edited by Simon Brett. 2005 (original anthology to mark the Club's 75th anniversary)
• The Verdict of Us All, edited by Peter Lovesey, 2006 (original anthology in honor of H.F.R. Keating's 80th birthday)
• The Sinking Admiral, 2016 (round-robin novel)
• Motives for Murder, edited by Martin Edwards, 2016  (original anthology in honor of Peter Lovesey's 80th birthday)
• Howdunit:  A Masterclass in Crime Writing by Members of The Detection Club, edited by Martin Edwards, 2020
• [Eric the Skull, by Simon Brett. 2020; a 45-minute BBC Radio 4 play, fictionalizing the setting up of The Detection Club; produced by Liz Anstee]
• Playing Dead, edited by Martin Edwards, 2025  (original anthology honoring Simon Brett's 80th birthday)

HYMN TIME

 From 1928. Blind Willie Johnson.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjHl-57_I0g

ACTION COMICS #1 (JUNE 1938)

Introducing Superman!

The Jerome Siegel and Joe Shuster character started out a bit differently than what is now accepted lore.  His unnamed home planet was destroyed "by old age."  The infant who would become Superman was not discovered by Jonathan and Martha Kent, but rather was placed in orphanage, where his superior strength astounded the attendants.  He could not fly, but was able to leap and eighth of a mile and hurdle a twenty-story building.  He was "able to lift tremendous weights" and  "run faster than an express train."   His body was not impervious, but "nothing less than a bursting shell could penetrate his skin."  So, yeah, he was faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.  impressive, but still not the all-powerful Sup we have come to know and love.  Also, no mention of X-ray vision, super-hearing, or any of the other qualities we have come to expect.

No mention of who named him Clark Kent, or why.  Or how he got his costume, of why he wore his underwear on the outside.  Very little detail all, actually.  But who needs detail when you've got a superman determined to "turn his titanic strength into channels that would benefit mankind" and become    the "champion of the oppressed, the physical marvel who had sworn to devote his existence to helping those in need."  This early Superman appears to have a quick temper and little ,patience.  Also, as Clark Kent, we works as a reporter for the Daily Star, not the Daily Planet, and the newspaper's editor is unnamed.  There is a hot chick named Lois who also works there and merely scribbles "sob Stories" all day long;  she tends to avoid Clark (thinking him a weakling and a coward) but finally accedes to a date out of pity and nothing better to do.  A gangster interrupts their date, humiliates Clark, and later that evening kidnaps Lois.  Big mistake.

Earlier, Superman first reveals himself (and his powers) as he manages to save an innocent woman, minutes before she is due to be executed.  (the governor is astounded, but grateful that this super being is 'apparently on the side of law and order."  Then Superman interrupts a wife beater and gives him what-for.  Tales of this Superman begin circulating and Clark is assigned to cover him, but  Clark soon  is assigned to cover a war in the small South American republic of San Monte.  But does Clark go directly to san Monte?  No!  For unexplained reasons he decides to stop over at Washington, D.C., where he discovers that a senator is being bribed to push through a bill that would "embroil" the country with Europe.  (Not that that would be a bad thing, I suppose, but in 1938?  The inference being that those who are bribing the senator have nefarious purposes.)  Well, something has to be done, and Superman is just the guy to do it!  But, alas, we'll have to wait until. next month...

Also in this issue we meet "Chuck' Dawson, a young cowboy with "the build of an athlete and an almost uncanny skill with the rifle and six-gun."  Now a man, Chuck is able to return to Texas and take up the fight against the crooked cattleman who had killed Chuck's father.  The artwork, by Homer Fleming, is leagues above that of Siegel and Shuster.  The story is printed in black and white and readers are urge to tear out the first page, color it, and mail it in for a chance of one of 25 one dollar prizes.

Next up is a story about Fred Gardineer's Zatara, Master Magician, making his first appearance.  Although his backstory would change over the years, his main source of magic was through speaking words backwards (gnikaeps sdrow drawkcab).  Zatara and his faithful assistant Tong often go against his arch-enemy, the beautiful criminal n onw as "The Tigress."  Here, they attempt to solve "the mystery of the freight train robberies."  (In 1964, writer Gardner Fox and artist Murphy Anderson gave Zatara a very sexy and powerful daughter, Zatanna, ohw dluoc kaeps drawkcab and is descended from the royal line of Atlantis.)

"South Sea Strategy"  by Captain Frank Thomas is a two-part text story to be concluded in the next issue.  ("Will Bret Coleman manage to save Merna Newton from the blood-thirsty South Sea Island natives?")

Sticky-Mitt Stimson is caught red-handed trying to steal apples from a street vendor and is chased by police to a construction site.  Not much happens.

We get the first part of "The Adventures of Marco Polo" (by Sven Elven).  

Fred Gardineer is back with "Pep" Morgan, a "versatile young athlete" who is fighting Sailor Sorensen for the coveted light heavyweight championship.  Sorenson, outclassed by Pepe, is managed by the unscrupulous Doc Lowry.  Lowry rubs liniment of Sailor's gloves, which blinds Pep, but Pepe manages to get in the punch that wins the bout.  Lowry leaves town for a while, but returns with a new fighter -- a "wild man" from Australia known as Bushman.  (There may be a little bit of racial messaging here.)  Bushman is winning every fight he has and soon he is matched against Pep.  Pep knows Lowry is using underhanded methods to make Bushman win every match, but what?

Scoop Scanlon, Five Star Reporter, is headed to the docks, where U.S. officials are bringing back Arnold, a captured international jewel thief.  Awaiting the group are a gang armed with machines guns, who attempt to free Arnold.  Scoop goes into action, and disarms one of the men; the police shoot others, but Arnold and one of the gunmen escape, to be pursued by Scoop and the police.  Scoop's sidekick and photographer, Rusty James, manages to hang onto the spare tire of the getaway car...

Bernard Baily's Tex Thompson is touring Europe, having struck it rich in the oil fields of Texas.  While in rural England, Tex meets a young boy named Bob who is impressed with the American cowboy.  soon they stumble across a dead body.  Tex sends Bob off to get help and a young woman arrives, accusing Tex of murdering the man -- a charge she repeats to the Sheriff.  Not knowing what happened to Bob, and fearing for the boy, Tex knocks the sheriff our and escapes.  Following the girl to an isolated cabin, he discovers that she is part of the gang that killed the man and that they are holding Bob captive.  Because bob is the only person who can prove Tex's innocence, the gang decides to kill him.  That gets Tex's dander up.

Filling out the issue are two one-page fillers:  "Stardust" (with tidbits about Fred Astaire, constance Bennett, Charles Boyer, and Wheeler and Woolsey) and "Odds 'n' Ends" (miscellaneous cartoons about the sporting world).

A jam-packed issue for a dime!

(And don't worry about all those stories continued on the next issue.  At least the first 139 issues of Action Comics -- through December 1949 -- are available online so you'll be able to catch up.)

Enjoy.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/12tChH6AaWVu3FglIknOWFE-AU-QRQTvi/view

FORGOTTEN BOOK: FRIGHT

 Fright by "George Hopley" (Cornell George Hopley Woolrich) (1950; reprinted as by Cornell Woolrich, 2007)

Cornell Woolrich was a master of claustrophobic suspense, either under his own name (The Bride Wore Black, The Black Path of Fear, "After-Dinner Story"*, "And So to Death" ["Nightmare"*], "The Boy Who Cried Murder'* ["Fire Escape"], "Face Work" ["Angel Face"], "Dime a Dance" ["The Dancing Detective"], "If I Should Die Before I Wake," "It Had to Be Murder" ["Rear Window"*], "Marijuana"*, "Three O'Clock"*, and many more), or as "William Irish" (Phantom Lady, Deadline at Dawn, Waltz Into Darkness).  More than forty films have been based on his works.  Other pseudonyms used by Woolrich were "Ted Brooks" (for one short story published in 1934), and "George Hopley" (for two novels, the 1945 Night Has a Thousand Eyes -- filmed in 1948 -- and Fright, which seems to have fallen down a crack until Hard Case Crime reprinted it in 2007.

Fright has all the trademark Woolrich claustrophobia in spades, plus an (un)healthy dose of paranoia.

From the original 1950 jacket copy:

"He kept staring at her with something akin to horror.

" 'A second-degree count?' he whispered.  'You don't know what you're saying at all.  I can't hope for that.  Don't you understand?  I didn't tell you all of it that night.  The girl wasn't the only one...there were others....'

"Instantly he saw his mistake.  Instantly he saw that he had lost her irrevocably now, pushed himself beyond the pale.  If there had been a chance before this, now there was none. and frightened -- he had always been so quick to take fright -- he tried to hold her to him.  And she in turn, taking fright from his fright, abandoned him even quicker, receded all the more and with added haste, just as a frantic beating of the water sometimes sends an unmanned boat further off."

We begin in 1915.  Prescott Marshal, 25, is beginning to rise in his career as a broker.  He is engaged to Marjorie Worth, a woman with social standing and family money -- and what's more important to Prescott is that he truly loves her.  His future seems certain.  Then one night he has a one-night stand with a girl who had picked him up at a bar, and things fell to pieces.  The girl returns to blackmail Prescott, threatening to tell Marjorie, as well as his boss (this is 1915, remember, and brokerage companies are very adverse to scandal).  She returns for more and more money.  Desperate, Marshall suddenly moves out of his apartment and rents another under an assumed name.  She manages to fins him on his wedding day, demanding more money.  Frightened, angry, confused, he kills her.  Just moments before his best man shows up to deliver him to his nuptials.  Prescott keeps him waiting at the door while he stuffs the body in a closet.  And then he is taken to his wedding.  He has no chance to go back and properly dispose of the body.  But, he realizes, the apartment is rented under a false name; no one knows who he is.  Still, fear and guilt rack him throughout the wedding and the ensuing honeymoon.

On  the honeymoon, his fear of returning to New York overpowers him.  Rather than go back to New York, he takes Marjorie to Philadelphia where he begins to works at a different brokerage (for less money than he was making in New York).  Marjorie, because a wife's duty is to follow and obey her husband, asks no questions -- at least, none aloud.  Prescott's fear of being found isolates the couple.  Then, a new face appears at the office, evidently transferred from Detroit, although, with the war, there is not enough work to justify another employee.  Prescott gets suspicious, discovers the man is actually a private detective from New York, and fears being trapped.  Nothing can be allowed to prevent Prescott from fleeing at a moment's notice.  Desperate, Prescott uses a rifle to kill a man whom he thought was Wise, the private detective, but Prescott makes an error and kills the wrong man.  The Marjorie announces that she is pregnant.  This would tie the couple down to Philadelphia for months, meaning that Prescott would not be able to escape at a moment's notice.  He orders Marjorie to get an abortion.  Marjorie obeys (she is a dutiful wife, after, all) but it destroys their marriage.

There is still the problem of Wise, whom Prescott is convinced is after him.  Following a company smoker (where the male employees had a chance to let down their hair), Wise is found dead at the bottom of a ravine and Prescott is feeling more free than he had in months.  Without telling Marjorie, he cancels the lease on their apartment, cleans out his bank account, and books two one-way tickets to San Francisco.  He breaks the news to her that they will be leaving that night, without an explanation..  Marjorie, desperately unhappy through the marriage, walks out on him.  In Prescott's mind everything he has done, the people he has killed, was done to save his marriage to Marjorie, never realizing that fear and paranoia was what was driving him and not his love for Marjorie.

As I mentioned, this is a very claustrophobic book,, often told in short, rapid-fire, rat-a-tat-tat sentences.  At the beginning, this unique approach seems off-putting, but the reader soon realizes that this is how Prescott's mind works, moving quickly from one thing to another, never pausing to reflect, only to react.  It adds up to a psychologically intense and powerful novel, but I can see why it remained unreprinted for more than half a century.

It's a masterful work by a master of suspense.

*also reprinted under the "William Irish" by-line.

HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL: STRANGE VENDETTA (NOVEMBER 23, 1958)

 Following the success of the television version of Have Gun, Will Travel, which began in 1957, a radio version began airing in November  1958 on CBS Radio, lasting for 106 episodes and ending on November 22, 1960.  While Richard Boone played the craggy gentleman investigator and gunfighter known as Paladin on the small screen, it was up to John Dehner to portray the character over the airwaves.  Paladin's commissions took him over most of the Old West and he was often able to resolve conflicts without violence.  Along with Gunsmoke and television's Wagon Train,  Have Gun, Will Travel was one of the more mature westerns of the 50s and 60s.

"Strange Vendetta" first appeared as the seventh episode of the television show, written by Ken Kolb; the radio version was adapted by John Dawkin and was produced and directed by /Norman MacDonald.  Ben Wright co-starred as Hey Boy.  also featured were Lillian Byatt, Harry Bartell, Joseph Kerns, Howard Culver, Ralph Moody, and Vic Perrine.  Hugh Douglas was the announcer.

An invitation to the theater turns into a case of assassination, and Paladin takes on an expensive O(and irregular) contract.

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXPzK1H_OG0&list=PLneoVXdPCzrfHMVSTXCqjjFs2LVmwKfbb

SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: A BRACELET AT BRUGES

"A Bracelet at Bruges" by Arnold Bennett  (first published in The Windsor Magazine, August 1904; included in Bennett's collection The Loot of Cities, Bring the Adventures of a Millionaire in Search of joy (a fantasia), 1905; included in More Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, edited by Hugh Greene, 1971 [American title:  Cosmopolitan Crimes:  More Rivals of Sherlock Holmes]; included in Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, edited by Alan Russell, 1978; included in The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, edited by Nick Rennison, 2008; included in Continental Crimes, edited by Martin Edwards, 2017)

Arnold Bennett (1867-1931) was a prolific and popular writer who was "the most financially successful author of his day."  He published 34 novels (including The Grand Babylon Hotel, The Old Wives' Tale, and the Clayhanger trilogy), seven collections of short stories [plus two posthumous collections] (including The Loot of Cities, Tales of the Five Towns, and The Grim Smile of the Five Towns), 22 stage and screenplays (including Milestones, The Great Adventure, and Piccadilly), 29 books of nonfiction (including Literary Taste:  How to Form It, How to Live on Twenty-Four hours a Day, and Those United States), as well as articles for more than 100 newspapers and magazines, a personal journal which totaled over 1,000,000 words.  His stories were adapted for ten films, fifteen television episodes, and seven stage plays.  He died, alas, of typhoid after drinking two glasses of tap water in France in 1931 (a very risky act at the time).

The six stories contained in The Loot of Cities were published in The Windsor Magazine from June through November, 1904, and relate the adventures of millionaire Cecil Thorold, a very clever man who is half-detective, half rogue.  "a Bracelet in Bruges" was the third of these tales.

Kitty Sartoriuis, a very talented, very beautiful, very vain, famous actress with the brain of a bird, is during a holiday tour of Europe with her friend and companion Eve Fincastle.  Kitty, who likes all things bright and shiny, wanted to take her complete collection of jewelry on the trip, but the more cautious Eve convinced her to limit her choices.  As result Kitty brought only an expensive gold and diamond bracelet recently by her manager, and "the usual half dozen rings."  Because the bracelet was so valuable /(the diamonds alone were worth five hundred pounds), Kitty wore the bracelet constantly, rather than leaving it in her room on occasion -- perhaps not the wisest idea because the first sentence of the story reads "The bracelet had fallen into the canal."  The canal in Bruges was at that point only nine feet deep, so it should have been retrievable.  But it wasn't.

The other players in this saga included:

• Madame Lawrence, a new friend of Kitty and Eve; Belgisn by b irth, she ws the widow of an English barrister, and sold sold genuine Bruges lace that had been made under  her own supervision; she was equally interested in the peerage and the poor; she settled in Bruges because it was inexpensive, picturesque, and inordinately respectable --"Besides an English church and chapel, it has two cathedrals, with  an episcopal palace, with a real bishop in it."
• Cecil Thorold, "appallingly rich, but we mustn't let that frighten us"; and
• The Count d'Avrec, just too handsome and too sophisticated; d'Avrec is one of those chaps who is an expert at everything, knowledgeable about all sciences, arts, sports, and religion, able to speak many languages fluently; no one on earth can handle himself better or more properly at an afternoon tea than d'Avrec; he has taken an obvious liking to Kitty and she seems to be inclined to return the favor -- something the Thorold is strongly against.  It will come as no surprise to the modern reader that d'Avrec is an adventurer (!), a cad.

Back to the bracelet.  Where has it gone?  It has not been found at the bottom of the canal, nor, according to very reliable witnesses, could it have been taken from the canal before the search commenced, or during the search itself.

It's up to Thorold to discover how the bauble vanished. recover it, foil d'Avrec's love pursuit of Kitty, and somehow manage to make a tidy profit of the affair.

An interesting story, and very original for tis time.  "A Bracelet at Bruges" remains a good read, even after more that 120 years.

The story, as well as the rest of The Loot of Cities, is available to be read at the Internet Archive and other locations on the web; an audio version is available at Libravox.

OVERLOOKED TELEVISION: ROCKY KING, DETECTIVE: MURDER PhD (October 26, 1952)

One of the earliest television crime shows, Rocky King, Detective ran from January 14, 1950 to December 26, 1954 on the Dumont Television Network for a total of 252 half-hour episodes.  Roscoe Karnes starred as King, the chief of homicide for a metropolitan police force.  his sidekick for the first three seasons was Detectve Sergeant Lane, played by Earl Hamond; Karns' real life son, Todd, played King's partner, Detective Hart for the final two seasons; Hart had been a sergeant in previous episodes.. Also featured in the cast -- but in an off-screen role -- was Grace Carney as King's wife Mabel.  The show also ran under the title Inside Detective.

In "Murder PhD," a man is due to be executed at midnight for the murder of his wife's psychiatrist.  Hours before the scheduled execution, King gets a telephone call from a man who claims to be the real murderer.

Also in the cast are Ward Costello as the doomed prisoner, Somer Alberg, John Anderson, and Ann Roberts.  Ken Roberts was the announcer.

The episode was directed by Wes Kenney and Lee Polk. and the screenplay was written by Frank Phares, with additional dialogue (mainly the banter between Rocky and Mabel) by Karns. 

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPluJA3onvM&t=2s