Moonraker by Ian Fleming

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

This is the third 007 novel, published in 1955, after Casino Royale and Live and Let Die. Though it has a brisk pace, it doesn’t hurtle and careen and rock and roll like those two do.

In fact, the novel eschews the exotic scenarios and takes place entirely in England. Bond – who apparently goes on an overseas mission only in exceptional cases – works the normal work of an espiocrat. But it happens that his boss M. asks him a favor: it is suspected that a member of his club, Hugo Drax – war hero and self-made millionaire about to give England a very sophisticated missile system – though famous, admired and esteemed, will cheat while playing bridge. Would you, Bond, mind so very much checking if this caddish behavior is so and make sure that it does not tumble out in a scandal? During an unforgettable card game, 007 reaches the conclusion that Drax indeed cheats at cards and inflicts on him, by cheating on him in turn, a memorable stinging lesson.

The incident would seem closed, but a doubt remains: why does such a well-respected man give into the wayward impulse to rob his fellow club members by risking his reputation with cheating at bridge? So Bond infiltrates the missile project.

A compelling story follows, which holds several surprises. Granted, the ethical and political horizon of the English writer is sharp and stark. But his characters are in fact complex and full of motivations. Starting with Bond, he is anything but a cynical adventurer and always ready to risk his neck for his country. He is a tough man, sure, aware of the ruthlessness of the game in which he is immersed, but he suffers no illusions. He knows that he is unlikely to reach the age of forty-five. In the meantime, try to live as best you can, at least as a consumer of vodka martinis, tasty viands, bespoke duds and, of course, Ursula Andress look-a-likes.

Worth reading if one likes Bond novels and one doesn’t mind Fleming’s run-on, break neck sentences.

The Devil’s Disciple by Shiro Hamao

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

This fictional work consists of two interesting stories that abound in mystery, murder and uncertainty. Nothing is what it seems. Hamao thinks the fact that motives are often impossible to identify limits our ability to a judge anybody with total confidence. In both of these dark short stories in the crime fiction genre, he presents first-person narratives of why a perp did what he did.

Writing between the wars in what the Japanese call the Taisho Era, Hamao was one of the first Japanese writers of modern detective fiction with elements of the police procedural. He covers the discovery of the crime and the processing of suspects in custody and charging them in court. He is blunt about the Japanese police using psychological coercion and violence to extract confessions, false and not.

Japanese critics say that Hamao was influenced by S. S. Van Dine. Perhaps. In both stories, the setting is the upper crust of Tokyo society. We see that Japanese millionaires don’t behave any better than they ought, just like our home-grown rich. Plus, the story is told from multiple points of view, one of which is a defense lawyer who brings logical reasoning to develop alternative theories as to whodunnit. Finally, one victim in the second story was just as arrogant and in as much need of a good kick in the pants as Philo Vance.

But there the cozyish atmosphere ends with these superficial resemblances. These stories include adultery, sado-masochistic sex, and passion gone dark and consuming. It also deals with intense male-male friendships that we see in Japanese fiction like Mishima’s The Mask. Plus, there is uneasiness about unbridled female sexuality as we read about in Tanizaki’s Naomi, written in the same era. Readers into Japan will like how motive is influenced by living in an honor-bound culture, but no anthropological knowledge of Japan is in fact required. Readers who like Erle Stanley Gardner’s shots at the shortcomings of the criminal justice system will see that Hamao is Gardner’s counterpart. I think if a reader of exotic crime fiction is in the mood for pulpy grotesquery, this is the ticket.

Hamao was a viscount. Despite his aristocratic origins, he was a brilliant student and took up law as a career. He became a prosecutor, but when he saw there was money in fiction-writing (newspapers would pay for serials), he became a full-time author. He brought a deep legal knowledge and extensive experience with people from all walks of life to his fiction. His health was delicate, however, and he died when he was only 40 years of age in 1935.

What Happened at Hazlewood by Michael Innes

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

This 1947 mystery does not feature Innes’ series hero John Appleby. However, the story is set in the same world of country houses, discreet if eccentric servants, and mad and bad squires.

The obligatory murder is only yet another atrocity is a series of past evil doings that are returning to haunt the present.

As in other Innes’ mystery novels, the ending so far-fetched as to preclude guessing and to leave us readers shaking our heads at the audacity of the writer to assume that we’ll think it credible. But we do and even find it fun.

Innes’ vocabulary and allusions to Anglophone literatures will please and puzzle us English majors. Finally, many references to things and people Australian will appeal to those interested in the Sunburnt Country.

Death on the Agenda by Patricia Moyes

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

The mysteries of Patricia Moyes were written from the Sixties to the Eighties but they exemplify the traditional British detective story, since violence occurs offstage and the light tone is amusing.

Moyes wrote 19 mysteries and many short stories starring the main characters of Henry and Emmy Tibbett. Henry is a Scotland Yard Inspector but homemaker Emmy brings her canniness and pluck to the table. She also bucks up Henry when he’s down. Like Nick and Nora as well as Campion and Amanda, the crime-solving couple makes for a stable domestic atmosphere that long-time married readers can connect with. Moyes was well-travelled and she sets Henry and Emmy down in various interesting locales. For Death on the Agenda (1962) they are in Geneva for a convention of law enforcement officers working against the drug trade. Moyes likes to describe natural settings such as mountains and lakes. Like Patricia Wentworth of Miss Silver fame, Moyes is also skillful with people’s appearance and their clothes and fashion accessories.

A member of the conference staff is murdered. Henry finds himself one of two solid suspects. The evidence is so solid against him that for a couple of moments he wonders if he had a brainstorm and stabbed the victim dead with a dagger. Surprisingly, Henry, at the dangerous age of 45, has a flirtation with another woman, an attractive, intelligent and kind Australian, which sends Emmy rather off the rails too.

While some readers may not feel easy with the semi-adultery, others may be uncomfortable with gun-play in which one character shoots a gun out of another’s hand. How Dick Tracy! Also there is the standby of the Golden Age mystery: the excessively ingenious method of murder. I sigh, but other readers would not.

I’m not giving anything away when I say that things turn out fine. The rich are no better than they should be. The Tibbett marriage stays intact. The killer is caught. Stability restored.

I’ve read two by Moyes lately and both were good enough to drive to snap up about half-dozen additional books with Henry and Emmy at used book sales. I think if a reader likes Ngaio Marsh and Margery Allingham, she’ll like Patricia Moyes.