Death Walks in Eastrepps by Francis Beeding

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

In the early 1980s Dover Publications reprinted classic British whodunits from the first half of the 20th century. Their selection criteria guided them to choose well-written stories that had the familiar elements that we mystery readers like to see in Golden Age mysteries: unique London enclaves, the quiet English village, foggy nights, dotty Dickensian characters, horrid deeds, imperturbable inspectors, plot twists galore with stolen love, impersonations, poison pen letters, etc.

Critics say Death Walks in Eastrepps (1931) was the best of the over 30 novels written by the writing team of Hilary St. George Saunders and John Palmer. The most interesting aspect is that the plot is told through many points of view. During the courtroom drama, we view the action from the points of view of the jury foreman, a court stenographer, a constable, and a playwright.

Vincent Starrett (1886-1974), an American writer and journalist, considered this book “one of the ten greatest detective novels.” This was also reprinted more recently (2011) by Arcturus Publishing in their Crime Classics series.

Something in the Air by Emma Lathen

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

This 1988 mystery is the 20th appearance of the Wall Street banker, John Putnam Thatcher. His bank, the Sloan Guaranty Trust, has a 30% interest in Sparrow Flyways, a ‘no frills’ carrier that has had great success as a result of the deregulation of the airlines in the late 1970s. Steady growth and profit-earning have buoyed the stocks of the employees who own about 30% of the company.

The success of the company has made a media darling out of its charismatic CEO Mitchell Scovil, a born salesman. Accordingly, he has fallen into patterns of thought that sometimes strike leaders who have achieved much in only a little time. He has convinced himself that a flourishing Sparrow Flyways is the result of his entrepreneurial genius, with only slight contributions from the co-founders, legions of subordinates, and plain dumb luck. Lacking self-awareness, he has become more impulsive, less risk-aware, and, most dangerously for himself and others, less skillful at seeing things from other people’s point of view.

Mitchell Scovil is developing a grandiose plan to make the regional airline go national. Many employees, nervously watching the established competition and their stocks, are against expansion. After a loud meeting, the spokesman of the workers is murdered at Logan airport. The cops focus on Scovil. And our hero John Putnam Thatcher, in his unassuming way, figures out the real culprit.

Besides the excellence characterization of clueless leadership, Lathen features two strong female characters. Eleanor Gough has been quietly resourceful and proficient at many tasks since the inception of the airline. But she gradually realizes that she must get Scovil to see the risks of expansion. Unlike Scovil, she feels responsibility for the employees and their livelihood. She feels it unjust that though Scovil is too willing to gamble with risks, the employees would be the ones to suffer most if expansion was a bust. With her sense of duty, she becomes more liable to throw her weight around. During an interview with Thatcher: “For the first time in his life, he realized that an expression of ladylike attentiveness is the feminine equivalent of a poker face.”

The other interesting female character is auditor Phoebe Fournier. She’s young and intelligent with figures, but not good at reading people. She sees people too much as mere means to her ends, not living breathing people with lives just as vivid and real to them as her life is to Phoebe. Lathen has fun putting Phoebe through hoops on her long winding road to the realization that she’s not the smartest person in every room. Lathen usually has a set piece that involves public chaos; to get Scovil’s attention Phoebe sets up an industrial action that is a hilarious disaster.

Emma Lathen was the pen name of Mary Latsis (economic analyst) and Martha Hennissart (attorney). Both knew the worlds of business and the federal government, so they felt at home the constantly changing business environment and the variety of personalities to be found in the public and private sectors. As old-school feminists, they have acerbic fun satirizing men who know full well and deplore that other business executives are kept afloat by their secretaries but never in a million years would think that the secretaries be paid commensurate to the service they deliver to the company.

The Paper Moon by Andrea Camilleri

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

This 2005 mystery is the ninth story starring Inspector Salvo Montlbano. For those of us who have Mediterranean genes, Salvo of Sicily is utterly relatable. He’s smart and intuitive and a devil for both work and the nice things in life like good food. But he is also grouchy, short-tempered with a sarcastic bent and sharp tongue. He is shocked and scared that he is not exempt from getting deeper into middle age. Surrounded by colleagues like the numbskull Catarella, he doesn’t like drama but creates a lot of it simply by being himself. And the drama of his personal and police life is often pretty funny.

Compared to other books in the saga, this one focuses more on the investigative aspect, leaving little space for Montalbano’s personal life. For instance, a weekend visit from his long-time GF Livia takes up about three lines. The case unfolds in a linear way and without any particular twists until the final surprise.

There are many laughs in the story but there are harsh aspects as well. It is a murky story of drugs and sexual transgressions featuring incest, adultery, impotence, a coerced abortion and a sexual assault committed by the police. Some scenes are not for the faint-hearted.

This is worth reading mainly because Salvo Montalbano finds himself dealing with two astute women. He will need all his self-control and wisdom as he negotiates his way between dangerous Michela the Fury and Elena the Cheetah, who tries to charm him with innocence and spontaneity.

The Three Couriers by Compton Mackenzie

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

I was lucky enough to have fall into my lap the 1929 spy mystery The Three Couriers by Compton Mackenzie. A prolific writer before and after his work in the secret world during the Great War, Mackenzie portrayed spying not so much as a noble clandestine fight against the Germans and Turks but as a running contest against His Majesty’s army and navy authorities and embassy and consulate employees that put the “dip” in “diplomat.”

Stationed against his will in Greece, our hero, the unfortunate Waterlow, has to put up with endless French machinations and the never-ending nincompooperies of his own agents, both British and Greek. When he finally succeeds in counter-espionage, his masters and betters utterly ignore the vital intercepted message. “This is a Charlie Chaplin war” he mutters as he bravely moves on to the next fiasco.

In The Man Who Was Thursday (1908), Chesterton makes a case for the futility of espionage, an ironic theme Somerset Maugham was to exploit in the Ashenden stories. But it could be that Mackenzie was the first to write a spy story as a black comedy of errors. The Three Couriers does not have much plot. However, the incidents and set pieces are hilarious as the hapless spies move in on the couriers. The characters are Gogolian grotesques. One wonders if he involuntarily stored these outrageous impressions in his head and wrote to get shut of them.

The Tree of Hands by Ruth Rendell

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

Rendell is known for her readable and engrossing why-dunnits. On first glance, this stand-alone novel looks like a tale of mother’s love gone misguided, but turns into a nightmare of kidnap, fraud, domestic violence and death. Once started, it is hard to put down this story involving three unrelated characters that slowly, inexorably come together. The atrocious mother, Mopsa, is an unforgettable character. This 1984 outing would be the perfect gateway drug to an incurable Rendell addiction.

Cargo of Eagles by Margery Allingham

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

Last novels by a writer often show a falling off of powers. But I can’t say this is true of this last Albert Campion mystery by Allingham. It was in fact finished by her husband after she passed in 1966.

Allingham observed changing times, but she loved the old England of out-of-the-way places with insular cultures as portrayed in her 1948 mystery More Work for the Undertaker. In this one she includes two youth gangs, the Mods and the Rockers. They were past their 15 minutes of fame by 1965, but their being out of place is balanced by the excellent portraits of the secretive inhabitants of Saltey and its long history of smuggling.

PI Campion has been asked by the Yard to look into a killing that may or may not be linked to the release of a prisoner. The ex-inmate may know the whereabouts of stuff of great interest to the government. The murder victim left her house to a woman doctor who was an outsider to Saltey. The old whodunit stand-by of poison pen letters adds to familiarity.

The wrap-up is based on notes that Alingham had made until she could not write anymore. I thought the ending worked quite well and could not identify where another author had to take the reins.

Recommended especially to readers who put Allingham in their Top 5 of Fave Mystery Writers.