American Mystery Classics, selected by Otto Penzler and published by Penzler Publishers
I think of Otto Penzler as the American counterpart of Martin Edwards. Edwards has long been devoted to advancing the recognition and popularity of British crime fiction. He’s also added substantially to scholarship in the field with such award winning tomes as The Golden Age of Murder and The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books. In 2014, he was designated a series consultant for the highly successful British Library Crime Classics series of reissues. In this capacity, Edwards has provided introductions to numerous novels in this series; in addition, he has edited several short story anthologies for the series. (He is also the author of the Lake District Series and the Liverpool Novels.)
Here are six examples of books from the British Library series. (I really loved Murder of a Lady – very atmospheric and beautifully written.)
Now we have Otto Penzler bringing us American Mystery Classics. Here are the first twelve entries:
The first six of these titles became available this month (October); the remaining six are due to come out in March of next year.
Otto Penzler is the founder and owner of the venerable Mysterious Bookshop, currently located in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood. Wikipedia states: ” It is now the oldest and largest mystery specialist bookstore in the world.” The store hosts numerous book signings by distinguished authors; in addition, Penzler, like Martin Edwards, has edited quite a number of anthologies. This one just came out this month: 
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I found this one, from last year, highly entertaining: 
The site for American Mystery Classics has this to say, in the way of a recommendation:
Each book has been personally selected by Otto Penzler, whose more than forty years of experience as an editor, critic, publisher, and bookseller brings an unparalleled expertise to the line.
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The Ellery Queen mysteries were actually written together by cousins Manfred B. Lee and Frederic Dannay. The name Ellery Queen is also given to the protagonist – a quirky character and some time author. He investigates various crimes but has no official standing to do so. The cousins’ collaboration began in 1929 with The Roman Hat Mystery and continued until 1971, the year of Lee’s death.
Last year I read Calamity Town, my first foray into the Ellery Queen opus. I thoroughly enjoyed it, for reasons enumerated toward the bottom of a post entitled Best Reading in 2017: Classic Crime. Before me sits The Chinese Orange Mystery, which I just finished. Alas, it did not thrill me. I found the crime at once preposterous and uninteresting. More fatally, Ellery Queen himself does not appear in an attractive light. He comes across as a louche dilettante, proclaiming his insights in a drawling manner. The supporting characters often verge upon caricature. The dialog often attempts a sort of noir hipness but doesn’t quite achieve it. (Having recently read Raymond Chandler’s stellar Farewell My Lovely, I’m somewhat sensitive to this particular trope.) I yearned for an appealing love story, but there was none.
While giving due credit to the ingenuity of the puzzle at the heart of the novel, the Kirkus reviewer says the following:
It’s easy to see why Queen’s exercise in deduction has dated badly: Everything about it is creaky and artificial, from the incredible logistics of the murder to the alleged passions of the characters.
Sadly, I agree.
Other readers and reviewers feel differently. For instance, The Chinese Orange Mystery received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. And I hasten to add that my enthusiasm for this new publishing initiative remains undiminished. I note that one of the March 2019 releases is a Perry Mason mystery by Erle Stanley Gardner. I sincerely hope that Otto Penzler will consider placing at least a few of Gardner’s Doug Selby novels in his list. There are only nine of them. I’ve read six and loved them.
South Atlantic Requiem by Edward Wilson
I just read a novel about the Falklands War.
Yes, really.
This is a conflict about which I knew virtually nothing, save that it took place in the early 1980s – 1982, to be precise. Having just finished this novel, I don’t know a great deal more on the subject. Like all good espionage yarns, the plot of South Atlantic Requiem careens wildly from one place to another, without pausing for breath. At the dead center of this frenetic activity is one William Catesby. At the behest of England’s MI6, he goes undercover – or as himself – in pursuit of secrets being kept by the Argentinians, as well as other individuals and nations embroiled in the conflict.
As the book gets under way, we meet not only Catesby but also a young and very capable agent he has recruited. She’s Fiona Stewart, a British student living in Argentina and supposedly working on a doctoral thesis on Jorge Luis Borges. At first, Fiona manages to gather and send crucial intelligence to Catesby while keeping up with academic pursuits for the sake of appearances. But then she begins a love affair with Ariel Solar, crack polo player and military pilot. At that point, everything else falls by the wayside, as it will tend to do in such situations.
In one of the novel’s earlier scenes, at a meeting with his colleagues in intelligence and in the military, Catesby is queried about the inside information, or lack of same, coming from his agent in Argentina. Why hadn’t she tipped them off with more precise intelligence as to the bellicose intentions of the Argentinians?
Catesby decided to own up. ‘Okay. There has, in fact, been a lull in communication from this agent. We have no idea what has happened or whether communications will resume.’ It certainly wasn’t, thought Catesby, the best time for an agent to dry up.
Catesby did have a very good idea what had happened, but it wasn’t one that he could air at a JIC meeting. She had chosen love over patriotism.
There was, in other words, a very good reason for Fiona’s radio silence. At a moment of urgent passion, coupled with a need to prove fidelity, the actual radio – her key transmission device – had been tossed into a river. Fiona and Ariel, pledged to each other for good.
Fiona then all but disappears from the narrative. She reappears later – much later – but in the interim, I missed her.
But still we’re constantly in Catesby’s company. And he is a very interesting man. Born and bred in Suffolk, in the east of England, he is strongly attached to his home ground. He loathes war and does work in the “secret world” always in the hope of preventing its outbreak. He and his wife are amicably separated; her adult children by a previous marriage are deeply fond of their stepfather. At one point they both show up at his London flat to cook him a gourmet feast. (This is a scene that does nothing to advance the plot but goes far in illuminating Catesby’s character.)
For me, the single most extraordinary episode in the novel is the scenario in which Catesby goes fly fishing in Patagonia with French missile expert and mathematical genius known only as Pascal. As they are both – supposedly – vacationing in this idyllic spot, they become friends. It’s a dicey situation: Catesby’s orders call for him to kill Pascal.
It was a beautiful day for a murder. The skies of Patagonia were crystal clear – a perfect backdrop for the Andean condor that Catesby spotted on the way to the river. Murder or no murder, it was a sight that Catesby and his victim wanted to treasure. He stopped the car and they both got out to stare at the magnificent bird. The condor has a wingspan of more than ten feet, the largest of any land bird. This one was almost motionless against the sky – more an icon than a living bird.
This develops into one of the most intense scenes I’ve encountered in recent crime fiction. It alone would have been worth the price of admission.
South Atlantic Requiem startled me on several counts. Margaret Thatcher’s disparaging of Reagan. The widespread disparaging of Thatcher herself by other characters. Kill orders being given secretly to government operatives. This is a fascinating read, and a disturbing one as well.
This is the sixth entry in Edward Wilson’s William, Catesby series. It is generally acknowledged that the British possess a special mastery when it comes to the writing of espionage fiction. Catesby seems such a quintessential British character, with his admixture of world weariness, cynicism, and thwarted longing. So it came as a surprise to me that Edward Wilson was born and raised in Baltimore. (On his website, he notes that he attended the same high school as Dashiell Hammett. That would be Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. founded in 1883, still going strong, and often called “Poly” by the locals. H.L. Mencken also went there. Hammett dropped out before graduating – well before, if I’m not mistaken.)
A decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, Wilson traveled widely after his military service. Ultimately he settled in Suffolk, England, where he took up the teaching profession and continued in it for some thirty years before becoming a full time writer.
Edward Wilson
Dorothy L. Sayers and the Lord Peter Wimsey novels
This delightful visual appeared in a recent issue of the London Review of Books. It reminded me of how much pleasure I’ve received from the Lord Peter Wimsey novels, both in print, on audio, and in the two television versions. (Click twice on this image and you should be able to read the text in the center.)
The first set of Wimsey episodes for television were aired on Masterpiece Theatre in the early 1970s. Starring as Lord Peter is the inimitable Ian Carmichael. Carmichael seemed eminently to the manor born, the ideal aristocrat of early twentieth century Britain, whose sometimes foppish ways and ready wit conceal a razor sharp mind and a firm sense of justice.
Here’s a trailer that capture’s the flavor of Carmichael’s performance (with apologize for the breakup at 32 secs).
Later, to this depiction of Wimsey, Edward Petherbridge added a vulnerable heart. First broadcast in the late 1980s, Petherbridge starred in three episodes: Strong Poison, Have His Carcase, and Gaudy Night. Together these comprise the story of Peter’s ardent pursuit of detective novelist Harriet Vane. The course of this true love ran anything but smooth – in Have His Carcase, Peter and Harriet have an argument that almost breaks them both, it is so full of anguish – and yet, and yet…
To my mind, theirs is an exceptionally compelling love story. And a surprisingly modern one as well. Told mainly from Harriet’s point of view, it treats of a woman who is desperate to retain her personal autonomy in the face of plenty of pressure, much of it coming, discreetly but relentlessly, from Peter. His is a love that will not be denied, but he is ever the gentleman, acting with restraint and deep respect. He does not wish to curtail Harriet in any way; rather, he wants to set her free to flourish in a world they both value. Only when she finally acknowledges this fact – and acknowledges her love for him – can she at last relent and give him the answer he so desperately craves.
There are eleven novels in the Lord Peter Wimsey series. I’ve either read or listened to all of them save Busman’s Honeymoon, the last, which was based on a play of the same name. I’ve enjoyed every one of them, but these three are my especial favorites:
I confess that the lengthy disquisition on campanology with which The Nine Tailors begins nearly stopped me in my tracks. I would have given up save for the fact that I was listening to Ian Carmichael’s marvelous reading. When once the plot got under way, I was captivated.
Due to an automotive mishap, Wimsey and his valet Bunter find themselves temporarily stranded in the little village of Fenchurch St Paul. This is a remote area in the East of England, flat and prone, at least at the time this book was written, to episodes of high water. Indeed, the novel’s climax features a flood of near Biblical proportion. Up until that point,, Peter has been investigating a crime – actually several crimes, with the added factor of assisting the local rector with the bringing off of a marathon bell ringing event – nine hours straight!
Here’s a short video of bell ringing at Westminster Abbey:
In the television version, Wimsey is played by Ian Carmichael and Bunter, by Glyn Houston. The Reverend Theodore Venables is portrayed by Donald Eccles in one of the most endearing performances in the entire series.
Donald Eccles as Reverend Venables and Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter
When I wrote about The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie, I included a quote by John Curran that exactly described my feelings upon reading that work. There is in that novel, he asserts, “…“…a genuine feeling of menace over and above the usual whodunit element.” I feel that the same is true of The Nine Tailors.
There’s a very insightful commentary on this program on the blog In So Many Words.
Here it is, the fateful bringing together of Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey. It happens in a courtroom. She’s standing trial for murdering her erstwhile lover Phillip Boyes. She is naturally in fear for her life. Peter, who’s observing the proceedings, swiftly comes to two conclusions: one, she’s innocent; and two, she’s the only woman in the world for him.
This is the novel’s first sentence:
There were crimson roses on the bench; they looked like splashes of blood.
Finally, there is Gaudy Night. Many are the pleasures of this fine work. Returning to her alma mater by invitation from the faculty, Harriet is filled with justifiable pride at being a graduate of Shrewsbury, an Oxford college. (The actual college is Somerville, named for mathematician and science writer Mary Somerville.)
They can’t take this away, at any rate. Whatever I may have done
since, this remains. Scholar;, Master of Arts;, Domina;, Senior Member
of this University…, a place achieved, inalienable, worthy of reverence.
Despite Harriet’s success as an author, she cannot help longing for the insularity of the academic life:
As Harriet followed Miss Lydgate across the lawn, she was visited by
an enormous nostalgia. If only one could come back to this quiet place,
where only intellectual achievement counted , if one could work here
steadily and obscurely at some close-knit piece of reasoning, undistracted
and uncorrupted by agents, contracts, publishers, blurb-writers, inter-
viewers, fan-mail, autograph-hunters, notoriety-hunters, and com-
petitors ; abolishing personal contacts, personal spites, personal
jealousies, getting one’s teeth into something dull and durable ; maturing
into solidity like the Shrewsbury beeches — then, one might be able to
forget the wreck and chaos of the past, or see it, at any rate, in a truer
proportion Because, in a sense, it was not important The fact that one
had loved and sinned and suffered and escaped death was of far less
ultimate moment than a single footnote in a dim academic journal….
Alas, there is a serpent in this Eden. Although no murder takes place in Gaudy Night, there are a number of sinister and very unnerving pranks being played on Shrewsbury residents. It is these that have brought Harriet back to the college. Can she locate the culprit, without involving the police? It remains to be seen.
Eventually Peter appears on the scene; he lends his support and unerring instincts to help her solve the mystery. And, inevitably, he and Harriet are due for a final reckoning.
Edward Petherbridge as Lord Peter and Harriet Walter as Harriet Vane
Novelist Jill Paton Walsh has written four novels which continue the story of Harriet and Lord Peter. Of these, I’ve only read the most recent, The Late Scholar. I enjoyed it very much.
‘One of the most arresting jobs of ancient – as well as modern – sculptures was to be some kind of antidote to death and loss.’ – How Do We Look by Mary Beard
What a lovely gift to art lovers and history buffs this book is! Renowned classicist Mary Beard has ranged far and wide to set before our eyes stunning images of ancient art. In some cases, the works and locales are familiar – Greece, Rome, Egypt – but even in these places, she introduces us to previously unseen objects – unseen by me, at any rate. Some examples:
This is the mummy of a Greek youth, between the ages of 19 and 21. It is owned by the British Museum. It dates from some time in the second century AD. The inscription on the painted stucco case reads: “Artemidoros – Farewell.”
The Boxer_of_Quirinal, dated somewhere between 330 and 50 BCE
Unlike the heroic, flawless athletes usually depicted in classical sculpture, this boxer is battered by past injuries and seems to be nearing the end of his career as a pugilist.
Boxing was always an important part of the ancient athletic repertoire, and the conceit of this sculpture is that the man must once have had a fit and toned body – but it has really suffered. The anonymous artist has focused on a wreck of a human being, devoting all his skill to a broken nose and cauliflower ears, flabby from all those blows. In fact, he appears to be still bleeding from fresh wounds. The blood is shown in copper and the bruises on his cheeks are brought out by a slightly different colour of a slightly different bronze alloy. It is almost as if the bronze has become the mans skin.
Mary Beard, in How Do We Look
Compare him, for instance, to the Belvedere Apollo, the subject of Johann Winkelmann‘s rapturous description:
In gazing upon this masterpiece of art, I forget all else, and I myself adopt an elevated stance, in order to be worthy of gazing upon it. My chest seems to expand with veneration and to heave like those I have seen swollen as if by the spirit of prophecy, and I feel myself transported to Delos and to the Lycian groves, places Apollo honored with his presence—for my figure seems to take on life and movement, like Pygmalion’s beauty.
Back to the subject of rough sport: Behold the Olmec Wrestler:
Made of basalt and described as nearly life size, this piece was found by a farmer in 1933 in Veracruz, Mexico. (One is tempted to imagine his astonishment when, upon turning up a clod of earth, he finds himself confronted by this strange, otherworldly object.) There being little or no archaeological context with which to work, the Wrestler is extremely difficult to date – anywhere from 1200 BCE to 400 BCE. He is called a wrestler for lack of anything else to call him. He may not be a wrestler. He may even be a fake. If he is, he’s a mighty compelling one.
Probably the single most amazing surviving art from the Olmec culture – and certifiably genuine – is represented by the gigantic heads:
These heads, seventeen of which have this far been recovered, vary in height from between four and five feet to just over eleven feet. At least one weighs as much as fifty tons.
Above you see one of the the La Venta Heads. There are three more, located at La Venta Park, a premier archaeological site in Mexico.
Again, Mary Beard:
It is hard not to feel just a little bit moved by the close encounter with an image of a person from the distant past. Despite that distance in time, and despite the fact that he is, after all, just a face of stone, it is hard not to feel some sense of shared humanity.
But oh, the questions raised and not answered by this strange artifact of a remote time and place:
Ever since it was rediscovered in 1939, it has defied explanation. Why is it so big? Was he a ruler or perhaps a god? Was it a portrait of a particular individual, or something much less specific than that?Why is it just a head – and not even a complete one at that, but severed at the chin? And what on earth was the image for? It was carved using only stone tools, out of a single block of basalt that came from more than fifty miles away from where the head was found. It could not have been made without huge amounts of time, effort and human resources. But why?
Many other such phenomena are surveyed in this slender volume, packed as it is with riches. How Do We Look is a companion to the tv series Civilizations: From the Ancient to the Modern:
Episode Two featuring Mary Beard can be viewed in its entirety here.
Now We Are Eight!
Our granddaughter Etta turned eight yesterday. This picture is a good indicator of her ready-for-anything, sunny nature.
I told her that I could hardly believe that she was already eight years old. She apparently had some trouble believing it too, declaring that “I feel more like five.” (This may have something to do with the fact that little brother Welles turned five only three weeks ago.)
I also love this picture of Etta at the keyboard:
Happy Birthday, Etta!
Books to the Ceiling 