Vintage Reading Challenge: WHERE THERE'S A WILL (1940) by Rex Stout

The Vintage Reading Challenge is being hosted by Bev over at MY READER'S BLOCK. This review is my current entry - I'm only a couple of books from my ultimate goal. Of course that won't stop me continuing to read vintage authors since that's something I always do, challenge or not. It's a way of life. Ha!

Most of you know how much I love Stout's Nero Wolfe books, so it's no surprise I'm talking about one of them today. This is a re-read I did Monday night, just for a lark. But then I picked up another Wolfe book and I'm currently re-reading that during meals, so it's possible I've embarked on another Wolfe Binge. (I do this every few years.)Time will tell.

WHERE THERE'S A WILL (1940) is one of my favorite Wolfe books primarily because it's one that reveals a bit more about Archie's character. In a rather melodramatic way (well, melodramatic when it comes to Wolfe), it's a book that is unabashedly about the madness and ramifications of lust. It's also, in a strange way, about the madness of beauty. There's no one to like in this book, except of course, Archie and Wolfe, Fritz and Fred, but that's beside the point, I think.

When millionaire Noel Hawthorne is killed in an apparent hunting accident, and his will leaves his famous sisters April, May and June with nothing but a peach, a pear and an apple, naturally they are concerned. Most of the millions involved have been left to a woman NOT Hawthorne's wife. Actually, the Hawthorne Girls - as they are known in society - seem more concerned that Hawthorne's disfigured wife Daisy, is going to foment a huge scandal by contesting the will and dragging everyone into court including the other woman. Scandal would harm the career of June Hawthorne's husband who is currently Secretary of State of the United States and as such, is burdened with powerful enemies. The Hawthorne Girls want to hire Wolfe to quash the whole thing by getting the parties involved to come to some sort of amicable, monetary solution. But the 'other woman', the enigmatic Naomi Karn appears implacable and sure enough of her own power.

This is one of the rare books in which Wolfe breaks his own rule and leaves the brownstone to visit a client. Unheard of. Fritz the chef, is thrown into a panic. But when the Secretary of State requests your presence even Wolfe cannot refuse. (Never mind that the 'lunch' he is served makes him cringe.)

I hopped out[of the car], went to the corner and entered a drugstore, found a phone booth, and dialed a number. A familiar voice said hello.

"This is Archie, Fritz. Give the plant rooms a buzz."

"Mr. Wolfe isn't up there."

I glanced at my wrist watch and saw 10:05. "What are you talking about? Certainly he's up there."

"No, really, Archie. Mr. Wolfe has gone out."

"You're crazy. If he told you to say that - who does he think he's kidding anyhow? Ring the plant rooms."

"But, Archie, I tell you he went. He received a telephone call and went. He gave me messages for you - wait - I wrote them down - First, Saul reported and he arranged to have Orrie relieve him [following the 'other woman']. Second, that owning to your absence he would have to ride in a taxicab. Third, that you are to go in the sedan to the residence of Mr. Hawthorne, deceased, on 67th Street."

"Is this straight, Fritz?"

"Honest to God, Archie. It took my breath."

"I'll bet it did."

I hung up and went back out to the car and told Fred: "A new era has begun. The earth has turned around and started the other way. Mr. Wolfe has left home in a taxicab to work on a case."

"Huh? Nuts."

"Nope. As Fritz says, honest to God. He really has. So if you'll -"

"But Jesus, Archie. He'll get killed or something."

"Don't I know it? You beat it. Go on home and finish your nap...If we need you I'll give you a ring."

"But if Mr. Wolfe - "

"I'll tend to him."

When another murder enters the mix and with the cops are all over the Hawthorne mansion, the sheer audacity of a murderer is revealed. But Wolfe and Archie are stumped until a photograph trips up a not-so-clever killer. The ending, of course, is revealed in Wolfe's office, chock full of suspects and the cops. The usual. Just the way I like it.

An excerpt from the first few moments when Archie appears to have met his match in 'the other woman,' Naomi Karn:

I looked at her. There was no indication whatever of any strain of baby doll in her that I could see. She was close to something new in my experience. She wasn't homely and she wasn't pretty. She was dark rather than light, but she wouldn't have been listed as brunette. None of her features would have classified for star billing, but somehow you didn't see her features, you just saw her. As a matter of fact, after exchanging only a couple of sentences with her, I was sore. During nine years of detective work, I had polished up my brass so that I regarded a rude stare at any human face nature's fancy could devise merely as a matter of routine, but there was something in Naomi Karn's eyes, or back of them, or somewhere, that made me want to meet them and shy away from them at the same time. It wasn't the old come-hither, the "welcome" on the door mat that biology uses for tanglefoot; I can slide through that like molasses through a tin horn. It was something as feminine as that, it was a woman letting a man have her eyes, but it was also a good deal more - like a cocky challenge from a cocky brain. I knew I had looked away from it, and I knew she knew I had, and I was sore.

Don't know how you'd rate it, but in my opinion, that's some damn fine writing. Mystery genre or no mystery genre. And you wonder why I love these books?

Vintage Mystery Challenge: CASTLE SKULL (1931) by John Dickson Carr

John Dickson Carr (1906 - 1977) was and continues to be the master of the locked room mystery. When you think 'locked room school of mystery', his is the name that automatically pops up. Either as Carter Dickson or John Dickson Carr, he created some of the best murder puzzles ever written. His mysteries are ingenious whodunits with seemingly impossible scenarios, clever casts of often peculiar characters and a wealth of misleading clues meant to confuse the reader and lead him or her totally astray. I'd say he doesn't play fair with the reader, but it really doesn't matter. That's not why you go to Dickson Carr. Or at least not why I've always liked his books.

I began reading John Dickson Carr /Carter Dickson as a very young woman and liked them best because they were so different (I was purposely looking for something a little different) from all my favorite Agatha Christies. In comparison, they are darkly involving books, meant to draw the reader away from the light. These are not 'happy' mysteries. They are mostly gloomy and tortuous and even in the end sometimes, after the explanation, the reader still goes 'huh'? But to me, that's part of the fun. How often can I be fooled? Plenty of times, it seems. Needless to say, none of these convoluted solutions to the crime have anything to do with 'real life', but, in a way, that's part of their charm.

While his two major detectives, Dr. Gideon Fell and Sir Henry Merrivale, are similar in corpulence and brain power (Merrivale more physically active than Fell), the Merrivale books bear the author name of Carter Dickson and the Fell books were published under John Dickson Carr. Whenever I think of Gideon Fell I can't help thinking of the old nursery school rhyme:

I do not like thee, Dr. Fell

the reason why I cannot tell.

But this I know and know full well,

I do not like thee, Dr. Fell.

But in truth, neither of Carr's creations are especially likable, they are not meant to be. They are eccentric thinking machines, pure and simple. (If they remind me of anyone, it's often Dr. Samuel Johnson.) It is within the cast of zany characters that you must look to find someone to like or sympathize with. Perhaps this is the reason why John Dickson Carr's mysteries are not more well known or more widely read today. But the books are so inventive and so craftily written, that I don't really count this as a fault.

CASTLE SKULL is one of the few puzzlers written by John Dickson Carr which features another of his detective creations, the Frenchman Henri Bencolin. (There are five in this series.)

When I first read this particular book many years ago, I thought then as I do now, that it would make a wonderful film. It's amazing to me that no one has ever tried it.

Bencolin is a brilliant detective mastermind. In appearance he is tall, thin and devilish. He has black brilliantined hair, pointy mustaches and the smile of a satyr. And of course, in dress he is impeccable. He relishes the difficult and the theatrical. No run-of-the-mill cases for him. And in CASTLE SKULL, we are as far from run-of-the-mill as you can get.

This book is all about the atmosphere of setting: an eerie castle on the Rhine river. An edifice meant to resemble the shape of a skull, it fires the imagination and casts a dark spell over boaters up and down the river. There are wild improbable tales of hauntings and mysterious doings, of course. The castle was originally owned by the famed and darkly malevolent magician Maleger, a man who, seventeen years before, went to his own unsolved death, disappearing from a railroad car, his body found downriver, bashed against the rocks. Okay, I know what you're thinking, but you have to wait to find out. Is it a red herring? Only time and Bencolin's machinations will tell.

At present, Bencolin and his 'Watson' and general dogsbody, Jeff Marle who tells the tale in first person, are visiting across the river within view of the ominous castle. Bencolin has been asked to solve the murder of famed actor Myron Alison whose grisly death seems incomprehensible to one and all. Alison was the current owner of Castle Skull, though he and his sister and assorted family lived across the river in a rather more comfortable setting -the castle inhabited lately only by a caretaker, most of the building being left to nature's harsh devices.

On the night of the murder, a rainy, storm tossed night (of course), those in the house were horrified by the vision of a man on fire running along the dark battlements of the castle before collapsing and dying in the shadows. That man was Myron Alison.

The local constabulary has called in the famed German detective and wily rival to Bencolin, Herr von Arnheim. Bencolin has been called in by Monsier Jerome D'Aunay, a troubled, wealthy business man who happened to be visiting with the Alisons at the time of the murder. The two detectives are not only jealous of each other's abilities, but enthusiastically enter into competition to see who can solve the murder first.

There are assorted doings and happenings, secret passageways, boat trips across the Rhine, mostly taking place in a rain-soaked atmosphere full of shadows and dark imaginings. Fun stuff. The castle itself serves as a major character in the story. I'm fond of that sort of thing.

The final denouement, of course, will take place at a mad, high-spirited cocktail party given in the ruins of Castle Skull itself. An occasion in which all will be revealed.

Please check out this website for a list of John Dickson Carr's books, all of which make for great and atmospheric reading but perhaps, not on a rainy night.

It was a breathtaking sight to see Castle Skull illuminated in that fashion and I have no doubt that night-travellers on the Rhine gaped up at it. The vast death's head lifted itself to stare with light. The eyes were enormous oval windows of violet-colored glass! the nose was triangular and yellow, as were also the arches forming the teeth; and all of them shone out in a devilish and sardonic blaze. As the lights moved or fluttered in the least, different expressions played over the face of the skull.

Great spot for a murder - huh? Or, at the very least, a cocktail party.

More flights of steps, past another floor where the dining room was located, and we emerged in the room which made up the entire crown of the skull. Noise rushed out at us; noise buffetted the ear-drums, swirled you again into that half-sick tensity of waiting. I saw that the roof was of glass in the shape of a dome. There were carven pillars of ebony soaring to support it. The floor seemed to be of black-and-gold mosaic in circular patterns of zodiac symbols, but I could not see what symbols because it was strewn with animal-skin rugs...and the animal-heads opened white-fanged jaws like an uncanny dead menagerie. People were tripping over them in all directions. Four immense crowns of candles hanging from the roof gave a fiery glow to the mosaic floor, but even so, the room was not well lighted. I could make out no details; shadow lay everywhere outside the candlelight.

It is in this melodramatic atmosphere that another death will occur and a murderer revealed. It's a kind of mish-mash of an ending, but in this book, it's the route to that ending that counts.

This review is an entry in the Vintage Mystery Challenge hosted by Bev at My Readers Block blog.

Vintage Mystery Challenge from MY READER'S BLOCK

I've been looking for an excuse to reread the old Mr. and Mrs. North books as well as a couple of Ellery Queen tales! Now I've found it.


A new Challenge for the New Year from Bev over at MY READER'S BLOCK. It's a no-brainer for me: A VINTAGE MYSTERY READING CHALLENGE FOR 2011! You have the whole year to read up as many vintage mysteries (written before 1960) as you like. Bev has split the categories up and I've yet to choose one, but I'm thinking maybe I'll go all the way and pick Take 'Em to Trial - 16+ books. Well, maybe I'm getting carried away - but why not? I LOVE VINTAGE MYSTERIES!! I don't have to make up my mind right this minute though...

Thank you Bev, for thinking this up. It is going to be a pleasure. Okay, made up my mind. I'm going full throttle: Take 'Em to Trial - 16+ Books!