David FromeBesprekingen
Auteur van The Philadelphia Murder Story
Besprekingen
Mr. Pinkerton goes to Scotland yard door David Frome
Miss Antoinette (Nettie) Wyndham; an aristocratic spinster of great wealth who lives in a grand house. She is a bitter, malevolent woman who lives alone. She seems to have control over many peoples lives and has cause great pain to many families. She has 3 nephews and a niece who are her only heirs, but there is only one she favours.
Miss Windham is found dead in her bed. Her ancient and decrepit dog also. It turns out to be a matter of poison. The question is who. The why is automatically pinned on her money. There is also the matter of missing jewellery and items of worth. Itmes she has filed insurance claims on and collected on.
Characters such as Daphne Lane, a newly arrived platinum blonde hairdresser who has been seen running around with one of the Wyndham nephews: Alice Penniman, wife of Sameul and mother to Nat, who covets the Wyndham mansion and want it and its contents: Judge Garth, an old and long time friend of Miss Wyndham: Lieutenant Joseph Kelley of the Baltimore police who is sent down to solve the crime. They all add to the mix along with Ford's descriptions of the house, surroundings and atmosphere.
This was a book that I enjoyed and was able to escape into. I made a point to sit dow and read during the day just because I enjoyed it. I normally read at night!
It is not a simple crime and there is a lot of twists and turns. I even found myself wondering if ford would come up with a good solution to sind it all up. She did!
I read several Grace & Colonel Primrose books a long time ago, and I had an impression in my mind that Grace was a pretty smart cookie. I don't know if this book meant to convey how far out of her depth Grace is in tacky Reno, but she spends a lot of time "perfectly open-mouthed" or "staring stupidly". She also does quite a few idiotic things, which eventually make the normally patient Primrose lose his temper with her.
The Colonel's sidekick, Sergeant Buck, has a great time in Reno; wearing gaudy western clothes, winning a small fortune at the slot machines, and beating up an obnoxious creep.
The murderee is a louse, so the reader doesn't have to feel bad when he gets bumped off. He's also the man Judy intended to marry as soon as she was free, and she is being carefully framed for the murder.
I learned how you obtained a legal divorce in Reno in just six weeks. The strict laws are important to the plot. I enjoyed reading Reno Rendezvous; it was a guilty pleasure, although Grace is a very aggravating character.
Bad rich girl Connie Maynard was engaged to Gus Blake, but she left him for what she thought was a better prospect who turned out to be a big mistake. Divorced and back in her hometown, Connie is disgusted to find Gus married to Janey, a woman Connie contemptuously dismisses as no competition at all. Connie gets her father to persuade Gus to hire her as a reporter on the paper where Gus is the editor. Gus and Connie are together all day and late into the night, covering the news. Janey, pushed aside, takes up gambling on slot machines with disastrous results.
Connie is not as smart as she thinks she is, and Janey is not as stupid as she acts in the first part of the book. Both of them smarten up a lot as the story progresses.
A meek little non-entity of a man named Doc Wernitz, who supplies juke boxes and slot machines to the tarnished little town of Smithville, is bludgeoned to death one night in the basement of his house. Connie and Gus go to cover the murder for the paper, and Janey, left alone again, contemplates suicide over her disintegrating marriage and her gambling debts. Then someone breaks into the house. Janey snaps out of it and starts fighting back, against Connie, against Gus, and against the unknown killer who is threatening her and her daughter.
A great snapshot of 1950s life, well worth the 25 cent cover price of this edition, or the $10 or so I gave Abebooks for it this year. Loved it!
Grace Latham comes into it because she's an old friend of Dorothy Hallet, whose husband, Theodore, wants to help Stubblefield become the next President of the United States. Milton Minor, the former reporter who is prostituting his pen to puff off Stubblefield, is also an old friend of Grace. Grace, Dorothy, Theodore, and Milton know Freddie Mollinson, an unpleasant rich man who has invested in natural rubber. Freddie is terrified that Stubblefield has found a cheap way to make synthetic rubber, which would greatly reduce his personal fortune, and therefore lower his standard of living. (Don't expect me to need a handkerchief to wipe tears for Freddie's plight. I absolutely loved what Dorothy told him in chapter 27!)
Susan Kent is the young wife of a chemical engineer who has been working for the Rubber Reserve. Now that World War II is over, Bill Kent wants to get back to teaching at a small college in Nebraska. Susan wants to stay in D.C. As she confesses to Grace, she's done something very stupid to try to bring that about and she's desperate that her beloved Bill not find out. Grace tries to tell her that Bill is going to find out sooner or later, so she'd better tell him herself. Susan won't do it.
The woman in black was supposedly invited to the dinner the Hallets gave for the Stubblefields, but it wasn't true. My copy is the Popular Library edition with a woman sitting propped up in bed with blood running down her neck. The blood should be running down both sides of her neck, but otherwise it's a pretty accurate rendition of what Ms. Ford described, although what the victim was wearing wasn't mentioned. I feel sorry for this first victim, but not the others, especially not the last one.
There is plenty of humor in the book. The newspaper story about the missing socialite the police are hunting in connection with the first murder gave me some good chuckles, including Grace's sour comment to the homicide chief. Then there's the boarding house woman's little girl's dialogue, although her family probably could use the services of a 'sociallurker,' as the child puts it. I also loved Grace's opinion of Bill Kent in chapter 23. Perhaps my favorite bit, though, was Grace's explanation about why she doesn't just marry Colonel Primrose in chapter 8. (If you don't know who Mr. and Mrs. North are, they're fictional amateur sleuths by Richard and Frances Lockridge. Their Wikipedia entry makes me think I should dig out my late mother's copies of that series.)
Colonel Primrose does not appear on stage in this book because he's busy being sick over at Walter Reed [hospital]. Sergeant Buck is present. He's not at all pleased that Grace is mixed up in this mess -- but only because he's sure his colonel wouldn't like it.
I like the fact that both of the middle-aged wives in this mystery are smarter than their husbands. If Enoch B. Stubblefield weren't so egotistical, he'd know that his pet name for his Ethel, 'Mutton,' isn't at all appropriate. Grace soon finds out how very unlike a sheep Ethel is. Aside from believing in probably-fake psychics, she's very shrewd.
Grace finds herself in a frightening situation at the end of chapter 22. Is she going to get hit over the head again?
The identity of the killer and the motive(s) took me by surprise. If you can put up with the racial and sexist comments to be expected for the time this book was originally published, this classic cozy should be fun. Cynical readers aren't likely to be surprised by how current Ms. Ford's portrayal of a rich business man turned presidential hopeful seems.
According to this site, http://connection.ebscohost.com/tag/FORD%252C%2BLeslie , The Woman in Black was serialized in The Saturday Evening Post.
Meanwhile, Grace is living in an apartment in the Randolph-Lee, making it easy for Ruth Sherwood, who lives on the same floor, to invite her to her party. Grace is puzzled by the invitation because they've met only once and rode in the same elevator once. Still, she attends. Isn't it odd that the guests are four newspaper columists, a congressman who was defeated in the last election and his wife, the German author of an anti-totalitarian book, an English noblewoman, a South American gentleman, and Mr. Thatcher?
Ruth takes Grace aside to help her with a crisis: her daughter, Betty, has sent word that she's coming home. Ruth is desperate to prevent that, so she gives Grace the school's number and begs her to call. Grace is completely mystified, but she calls. The school is being very cagey about Betty. Grace passes on the message. It's too late. Betty shows up during the party. She's beautiful girl, nothing like the unattractive photo Ruth displays. Ruth introduces her as 'Barbara Shipley,' a friend of Betty. Betty is as mystified as Grace.
One of the guests is murdered. Ruth enlists Grace's help again in getting her daughter to safety. Finding out who killed the guest and why Ruth is frightened for her daughter aren't the only mysteries this time. There's that gloom and doom newsletter, 'Truth Not Fiction', that wants the USA to treat Asia with a mailed fist and take over Mexico, etc. Who writes that trash? Some of the information about the federal government in it really is true -- and supposed to be secret. That means the writer is a traitor.
According to this site, http://connection.ebscohost.com/tag/FORD%252C%2B this book was serialized in the Saturday Evening Post during April and May, 1941, before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Leslie Ford gives us a look at the USA back then. Karl Hoffman, the anti-totalitarian author, rants about how decadent America has become and that we need to be prepared. Lady Alicia Wrenn plans to make visits to alert our coutnry to what's really going on in Europe. Sylvia Peele, one of the columnists, baits both of them. The lame duck Congressman is an isolationist who'll be glad to return to his small town. Of the male columnists, Marshall is calling for a draft (knowing he's too old to be drafted) now. Pete Hamilton, who looks a bit like a Nordic chimp, reminds Marshall about his previous isolationist leanings. The decorative Larry Villiers is too busy hating Pete for being a real man.
As usual in a Ford mystery, we get atmosphere. The scene with the card-reading Lady Alicia is spooky, all the more so because what she read in the cards happens. We also get humor. Colonel Primrose assigns Sergeant Buck to follow Grace. I loved what Grace did the poor sarge, whom she compares to The Shadow and an evzone. We get a list in chapter 15. Her flirtation with Señor Estevan Devalle was the icing on the cake. Sgt. Buck may not want Grace to marry his Colonel, but he doesn't want her flirting with any other man. Colonel Primrose wouldn't like it.
In chapter 18 of this book Ms. Ford finally gave Grace's younger son a name: Scott C. Latham. She also lets us know that Scott's birthday is in July. No, Scott doesn't appear in the book. He's just written a letter from school because there's something he wants his mother to buy for him for an early birthday present.
If we didn't know that Lafayette, Primrose's elderly cook, is African-American, we'd know it only by his dialog when Grace calls Michigan 3084 in the hopes of reaching the Colonel. Lafayette, like Clara, the elderly African-American character in Ill Met by Moonlight , can't read or write, a shameful reminder of how few educational opportunities African-Americans had when they were children. More shamefully, the N-word appears on the first page. Grace usually doesn't use that word, so I'm guessing that she's quoting an old expression. If it is, I'm glad I haven't run across it elsewhere.
There's more of the sexism to be expected from back then. I'd be more upset about the fate of the one career woman in this novel if we didn't know her opinion of her job. She's not the beauty with the red-gold hair and tawny sherry-colored eyes, though. That's Betty. The least sympathetic female character is the lame duck congressman's wife. Effie doesn't want to leave public life for obscurity in their hometown and she doesn't much care what method she uses to prevent that fate. At least two of the men, J. Corliss Marshall and Larry Villiers, are even less sympathetic. I smiled a bit that the homicide captain's wife and daughters read Larry's society column, but the captain isn't interested.
The intrigue and politics may seem familiar to today's readers. Readers of classic cozies should enjoy this example.
Bill has spent the summer at Cinnabar Ranch with the grandson. Bill adores the forbidding-looking Mrs. Chapman.and thinks her lovely 23 year-old granddaughter, Cecily, is 'tops'. George Pelman, the man who wants to marry Cecily, is another story.
George was spoiled rotten by his late mother. Bill doesn't like him. Mrs. Chapman doesn't want him to marry Cecily. The old lady had a very high opinion of Steven Grant, the man Cecily was going to marry, but Steve died three years ago. How can Mrs. Chapman prevent Cecily from becoming Mrs. Pelham?
Mrs. Chapman comes up with a pack trip to Yellowstone. Before they've even reached the boundary Grace, Bill, Jo Anders (the wrangler-guide), the camp cook -- and almost all of the horses -- have thought somebody'll push George into a geyser when they get to the park. Fortunately, Bill Latham seems like a nice boy -- a pleasant contrast to George Pelham.
George is one of those jerks who think the rules don't apply to him. He's also afraid -- deathly afraid. Grace happens to see him secretly break the seal a ranger put on his gun. Soon she finds out a reason for George's fear. In his shoes, I'd be afraid, too.
When the party reaches the Lake Hotel we meet some of George's relatives. His older sister, May, is dominated by her abusive husband, Alexander Ridley. Their 19 year-old daughter, Lisa, is the dark-haired girl of the novel. (Cecily has hair the color of burnt sugar, which apparently means 'caramel'.) Lisa wants to get herself and her mother away from not-so-dear old dad. I was certainly rooting for her to get her wish.
The background for the Ridley marriage is given in chapter 10. The first edition of this book came out in 1940, so don't be surprised by Colonel Primrose's opinion of Mrs. Ridley, which he gives Grace along with the information. By the way, chapter 10 is also where Primrose tells Grace how he and Buck met, as well as how Buck saved his life,
Bill's no fan of the Colonel, which gives Ms. Ford an excuse to keep Grace a widow. I chuckled at Bill Latham's reaction to Grace warning him that Colonel Primrose would hang his own grandmother (see chapter 13).
The murder happens in time to save one of the endangered ladies, but there are too many nice persons who could have done the deed to save her. I'm with Grace in not wanting it to be any of them.
Colonel Primrose has to solve the case without much help from Sergeant Buck. The reason is a voluptuous blonde in pink. There's plenty of humor involved in the Courtship of Sergeant Buck, but Primrose won't be laughing if Pearl catches her man. Primrose needs Buck about as much as Nero Wolfe needs Archie Goodwin. How far is the Colonel willing to go to keep his winning team intact?
Practically all of the characters are white this time, so there are fewer instances of racist terms used. The sexism is what one may expect of a book from this era. One of the glimpses we see of the past is that a character caught polio a few years before. Luckily, it was a mild case.
Ms. Ford gets in some lovely descriptions of Yellowstone. She also includes a cautionary tale about what can happen if some twit feeds a bear. If you're a bear fan there's another, fun scene with bears later.
http://connection.ebscohost.com/tag/FORD%252C%2BLeslie lists two issues of the Saturday Evening Post in which this book was serialized. One is from January 1940 and the other from February of that same year. If the serial started in a 1939 issue, that would explain the '1939' among the three years given in the copyright.
Old Lover's Ghost is not a favorite of mine, but it's still a good read. My copy is the Popular Library #60-2411 paperback that has the lady in pink carrying a potted plant while a giant elderly eye is looking up at her.
From a line in the first chapter it seems that Miss Lucy lost her man to malaria in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War in 1898 and that's why she's never married. Her young cousin, Faith Yardley, who was only three when her mother died in the great flu pandemic of 1918, has been like a daughter to Miss Lucy.
It's a good thing that Faith had Miss Lucy. Her father, Dr. Peyton Yardley, withdrew into himself when his wife died. He didn't have the money to travel the way The Secret Garden's Mr. Craven did, but he might as well have for all the notice he takes of his adoring little girl. The acting mistress of Yardley Hall is Peyton's younger sister, Melusina.
Right on page one Miss Lucy lets us know often Melusina objects to things (though I have my doubts that Melusina is going to make it through the Pearly Gates). Melusina is bitter, unscrupulous, and eaten up with pride. Her favorite person in the world isn't her niece, it's Marshall Yardley, whom she brought into the house, and even he takes second place to Yardley Hall. Marshall is a lawyer. Melusina sold a family heirloom out from under her brother's nose to pay for Marshall's education. If you're thinking Marshall must be horribly spoiled, he's not. He's a good man in spite of Melusina.
Like the Yardleys, Miss Lucy has spent years living in genteel poverty in her ancestral home, watching it falling apart. Her home is in fine shape now because Miss Lucy sold it to the Restoration Company with lifetime residency guaranteed. The Yardleys could have done the same, but Melusina is against it. Now that young Faith has grown up to be the beauty her mother was, Melusina plans to use that beauty to restore the family's fortunes.
Enter Mason Seymour, a rich bachelor old enough to be Faith's father. Faith doesn't want to marry him, but Melusina is going to use the same lie she's used to make Faith do what she doesn't want to do since she was little: tell Faith it's what her father wants. In chapter two we find out that Melusina is willing to break a promise to get her way. Miss Lucy is nearly beside herself wondering how to keep Faith from being a sacrifice to Melusina's obsession.
Miss Lucy gets an unexpected helper in the person of Bill Haines, who becomes her boarder. Bill knows Summers Baldwin, the man Melusina turned down when he was just a poor stableboy. Baldwin didn't stay a poor stableboy. He moved away and became a rich automobile man. Since Melusina found that out she's been claiming that turning down Summers Baldwin was the Great Sacrifice she made to care for her family. Even the description of Mr. Baldwin's recently-deceased wife that Bill gives Miss Lucy in chapter four wasn't enough to change my mind about how lucky Mr. Baldwin was that Melusina didn't accept his proposal.
If you're thinking that I was hoping that Melusina would be the murder victim, you're right. No, someone else gets murdered. This being a Leslie Ford mystery, there's plenty of reasons for Miss Lucy to worry about Faith and Bill being trapped by circumstantial evidence. Along the way we learn some interesting facts about the suspects. The end of the book left me with an evil grin. In fact, just typing that made me chortle.
The descriptions of Williamsburg before and during the restoration were interesting. It sounds as if it's very pretty in May. So were the tidbits of family history, such as why the portrait of Anne Yardley had its hands cut out (see chapter three). You will have to endure the racism of the period. Of the African-American characters, the one we learn the most about is Community, Miss Lucy's maid. Their relationship is similar to that of Grace Latham and Lilac in Ms. Ford's Primrose-Latham mystery series. The one time Miss Lucy uses the 'n-word', it's to give her opinion of Community's husband.
I did like the touch of having the official investigators be men whom Dr. Yardley brought into the world and former Sunday School pupils of Miss Lucy. What Miss Lucy remembered about a prank they pulled when they were boys was fun (see chapter seven). So was what Bill called Melusina in chapter 27. I'm sure he would have called her something else if there hadn't been genuine ladies present.
If you're keeping track of Ms. Ford's heroines' hair and eyes, Faith has gray eyes and hair like burnished gold.
My copy is the paperback with a man's arm and hand on the cover. The hand has a checkbook under it, a fountain pen lying against it, and some blood spattered on the check and around the pen. That's the 1963 Popular Library edition.
If you like classic mysteries with plenty of atmosphere, get yourself a copy of The Town Cried Murder
Connie wants to break up Gus Blake's marriage so she can have him, even though she jilted him to marry the man she's divorced. John Maynard is a lawyer who puts on an act to fool people. (I've quoted a description of John from the first chapter.) Mamie Maynard Syms is the probable reason that poor Nelson Syms has ulcers that put him in the hospital a couple of times a year. Check out chapter two for how high Mamie has promoted her husband's ancestor who fought against Cornwallis. Mamie has convinced herself that champagne isn't booze. She can't understand why she has such a nasty headache the morning after a champagne night. Mamie is against slot machines, so it's a good thing that she doesn't go down to her brother's play room in what used to be the cellar.
Connie is beautiful. She doesn't think that Gus' wife, Janey, is even pretty, let alone intelligent. She can't understand why Janey is so popular. Perhaps if Connie had a nice, unselfish bone in her body she might be able to figure it out.
There's trouble brewing in Smithville. 'Doc' Wernitz, who operates the Smithville Recreation Company, Inc., is leaving. His slot machines are a money-maker for the town, but more than one citizen owes him money. Janey Blake is horrified to realize that she's written checks for a thousand dollars in the six months that Connie's been back in town and trying to steal her husband. Janey has completely wiped out their savings and then some. How will she ever tell Gus?
It doesn't help that Gus is the editor of the local paper and Connie got her father to convince Gus to hire her. Gus and Connie are both out at the scene of the murder the night someone breaks in the Blake home. Janey is all alone with her two-and-a-half year-old daughter, Jane. Janey may be scared, but she won't let anyone frighten her baby. I loved what the cop who came to the Blake home thought about Janey in chapter 7.
Ms. Ford gives readers a bit of information from the killer's point of view, but has several suspects do the same thing so we still get to guess. It was interesting finding out what the plan had been and what mistakes were made before the last chapter rolls around.
Several characters put two and two together and come up with seven, not to mention rousing needless suspicion. One of the the very wrong conclusions leaves Connie and the city editor to get the paper out. Connie is so very proud of her editorial decisions -- right up to the point her father called her 'Constance,' something he hasn't done in years. By the time her daddy gets through with her, Connie's pride is dragging in the dust. Hurrah! It's almost as much fun as Connie and Gus's big fight in chapter 20.
The Connie-Gus-Janey triangle reminds me of the Courtney-Cass-Molly triangle in Ms. Ford's earlier mystery, All For the Love of a Lady, but there are differences, especially since there's no first-person Grace Latham as the filter through which we get our information. I happen to like the way the triangle was resolved in this book much better than in the other.
There may be some readers who will consider this book dated. The racist terms and sexist attitudes are no fun to read, but they do allow us to see how far we've come. I enjoyed Connie's surprise at discovering that someone still chews tobacco in 1951. We still have people who talk in cliches, such as the County Attorney. I chuckled at what the Chief of the County Constabulary said about those cliches in chapter 5. There will always be people who like to throw their weight around and people who think they're much smarter than anyone else. If you know about the 'man cave', you might smile at Mrs. Ferguson's complaint in chapter 9. On the other hand, Janey Blake thinks the town baker is mean because he won't let his employees smoke inside the bakery.
All in all, this is a fun little cozy.
Letters or notes of introduction were used in the days before background checks were readily available. The letter would be written by someone known and trusted to the person you wanted to meet or visit. The writer would be vouching for the trustworthiness of your character, knowing that he or she would be held responsible if you weren't trustworthy after all.
Imagine Grace's feelings when she finds out that Myron pretended she sent such a letter to Abigail. The old lady let him stay in her home. Now Myron is causing trouble and Abigail expects Grace to leave Washington and come to Philadelphia to do something about it.
Grace doesn't see how she's responsible, but after Abigail's phone call reveals her fear and despair, how can our heroine dismiss it all as Not My Problem? Grace can't begin to imagine what Myron could possibly write about Abigail's brother, Judge Nathaniel Whitney, that would cause a scandal. Sure, Abigail hasn't spoken to her brother, who lives next door to her, for eight years, but that's just a private matter -- isn't it?
No, it's not. The people who have had the misfortune to be the subject of Myron Kane's writings are often bitter about the results. Abigail doesn't want that to happen again. Not here. Not now. Just what is that skeleton she doesn't want let out of the closet?
The murder takes place in the lobby of The Saturday Evening Post, a Curtis Publishing Company publication. As it so happens, that magazine is where the Colonel Primrose and Grace Latham mysteries were serialized. I'm sure Ms. Ford had fun placing it there, not to mention having the poor man at the front desk try to explain to the police how he saw a dead man walking. My guess is that the five editors named as being away in chapter seven didn't feel like being murder suspects even in fiction. I hope the editors who do appear in the book enjoyed it. I would have. The end of the book addresses what I assume real-life readers of the Post had been saying about the series.
You might get a chuckle out of a police officer's reaction to what Abigail's butler did to some evidence. I got a bigger one out of what Grace would have liked to have told him about why she didn't give Kane that note of introduction he requested.
There's plenty of humor and red herrings, which is normal for the Leslie Ford books I've read. I hope you'll have as much fun with this book as I did.
Notes:
I looked up http://connection.ebscohost.com/tag/FORD%252C%2BLeslie -- note that the entry for the 11/4/1944 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, v.219, issue 19, p.4 is for a Leslie Ford article about a receptionist at The Curtis Publishing Company who wouldn't help her with devising an idea for what would become this book.
Laurel Frazier is one of Ford's auburn-haired heroines. She has gray-blue eyes.
Grace says she's 41 in this book.
If you like bloopers, Grace's late husband, Dick Latham, is called 'Bill Latham' in chapter two.
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
--Hamlet'
As far as I'm concerned, False to Any Man is the most memorable of the Primrose-Latham mysteries, although Siren in the Night and Washington Whispers Murder come close. I hadn't reread it for over 10 years when I picked it up this time, but I knew who would die, who did it, and why. That didn't spoil my enjoyment in rereading it again (although the racism and sexism were detractors).
Grace Latham's older son, still unnamed, is almost 17 in this book. It's 1939 and Grace is worried about her boys getting too close to war age, even though the USA hadn't entered World War II yet. She's still seeing Colonel Primrose. Sergeant Buck is still certain that Grace intends to marry his Colonel and is still against it. We get to see more of Lilac, the African-American who works for Grace. Her official domain is the kitchen in the basement, but Lilac has her opinions and doesn't hesitate to give them. I loved the verbal trap she set for Grace in chapter four. Lilac came before Grace's older son was born and Grace admits she couldn't do without her.
Once again it's Grace's social connections that bring her into the murder. This time it's the fact that her younger son goes to school with Judge Peyton Candler's younger son. Grace was present when Billy Candler's appendix had to be removed while he was lying on the kitchen table during Thanksgiving, so it's no wonder that his older sister, Jerry (short for 'Jeremy'), comes to Grace with wonderful news about her father.
The author doesn't come right out and say what appointment the White House is considering for Judge Peyton Candler, but it's a high one. Any scandal might ruin the Judge's chances, which is going to put Jerry on the spot. I certainly hope that Peyton Candler is a better judge of humanity when he's in the courtroom than he is at home because he can't see that his ward is as spoiled and greedy as she is beautiful.
Karen Lunt's father was the Judge's best friend, but he made the mistake of marrying a gold digger who was going to dump him after she ran through his money. Gossip says that's why Mr. & Mrs. Lunts' car went off a cliff during Prohibition. Judge Candler considers friendship a sacred obligation. The Candlers don't have much money. The Judge's own children have had to do without so that Karen could be kept in a fancy school and have the old carriage house done up in expensive style for her to live in. Sandy and Jerry have jobs, but not Karen. Now Karen wants to marry a man who, like the Candlers, comes of good family but is poor. Karen doesn't want to do without, so she's trying to get back some of her father's stock that was worthless when Candler bought it, but is worth a hundred thousand dollars now. The Judge would gladly give it to her, but he'd put it in trust for Jerry and Billy, and Jerry just turned 21.
Jerry's thinking of Billy more than herself when she refuses to sign the stock over. The Judge's oldest friend and former law partner, Philander Doyle, won't let Jerry sign when she finally gives in.
The Candlers come from Cavalier stock, their family going back to William the Conqueror. That's why their social standing isn't affected by being relatively poor. Philander is the son of a bartender. After years of hard if somewhat sleazy law work, Philander is a rich man. He's so rich that he bought the mansion across the street from the Candlers -- the mansion that the Judge's family lost by being on the losing side in the Civil War. That's why the Candlers live in the much less imposing old Georgian house where Peyton and his children were born. Still, not all the money Philander made can put the Doyles in the same social bracket as the Candlers. In Regency Romances, rich social climbers could solve this sort of problem through a marriage of convenience with a member of an impoverished aristocratic family. Philander doesn't have to stoop to that practice because his son, Roger, is in love with Jerry Candler and vice-versa. So why is Philander opposed to the match? His eccentric sister, Isobel Doyle, knows.
It's quite possible that the murderer could have gotten away with the crime if Grace hadn't instinctively called Primrose after she found the body. It might well have been written off as a sucide -- don't want to cause any trouble for a socially prominant family, you know. Now the murderer has a much bigger problem to deal with, a problem that could lead to another murder. As usual, Colonel Primrose wants to make sure that Grace isn't the next victim.
The descriptions of Alexandria, Virginia, past and present, are very good. So are the back stories that help the reader to understand why murder was done. For readers who like to keep track of that sort of thing in a series, Jeremy Candler is another Ford heroine to have copper/red-gold hair. Her eyes, though, are the yellowish-brown of a tortise shell instead of some shade of blue.
My copy is a hardcover without a dustjacket, but I can assure cat lovers who are thinking of buying the paperback with the Siamese cat on the cover that there is such a cat in the book and she's a sweetie.
I also have the Bantam paperback with the old house and the woman's head on it. The decorated endpapers show three houses in the snow with a man coming out of one of them. The back cover has the head of the cat and part of a woman's face. It also has a small black-and-white reproduction of what I think is the hardcover's dust jacket -- for the Grosset & Dunlap reprint, at least.
(We learn that Bill lied about his age to enlist, so he's defintely under 20.)
The exclusive neighborhood may be lovely, but the same can't be said for all of the cousin's neighbors. The best-known neighbor is the wealthy Loring Kimball. He's quite eccentric. His mansion survived the earthquake and fire of 1906, although his first wife didn't. Kimball had the house moved to the terrace. A light burns all night, every night, in the room that belonged to his first wife -- even though San Francisco is supposed to be blacked out in case of bombers. How do his daughter by that wife, his second wife, and his stepdaughter feel about that? Whatever their feelings, you may be sure that Kimball doesn't care.
Thorne Kimball, the lovely stepdaughter, didn't get to marry Nat Donahue, the man she loves. Guess who was responsible for that?
Nat does have a wife and she's as rotten as she is beautiful. Ilya brings in the kind of reporter who loves to write up scandals -- and make them sound far worse than they actually are. It's too much to hope that he'll be one of the murder victims, but don't worry. Colonel Primrose will take care of him.
Colonel Primrose and Sergeant Buck show up in San Francisco. No surprise there, although the excuse he used to see Grace made me smile.
There are plenty of other colorful characters living on the terrace, especially the Butts family. Mrs. Butts is their most colorful member. In chapter 11, the look in her eye reminds Grace of her childhood horse, Ginger. Ginger had an unpleasant habit. Will Mrs. Butts do the same?
There's also a cute little boy who's the grandson of Grace's cousin. He thinks he saw a ghost. What did he see?
What about that strange remark another neighbor, Dr. Norton, made about the first Mrs. Kimball? How much does he know about the mystery of that light Kimball keeps burning in her bedroom?
Naturally, Grace is going to have her favorites and will do what she can to help them. Just as naturally, that means she'll try to keep information from Colonel Primrose if she thinks it will hurt them.
For my money, Siren in the Night is one of the most memorable books in this series. I hadn't reread the book in almost 11 years, but I had no trouble recalling the Big Dark Secret. What a psycho!
Notes:
Because this book was written and published during World War II, the Japanese are called 'Japs'. The appalling decision to send Japanese Americans to internment camps gets a brief mention near the end of chapter one. Grace herself says nothing for or against it except to note that her cousin's Chinese [-American?] servant laughed about it. Given what the Japanese did when they invaded China during WWII, John's laughter is not surprising.
Sadly, African-American Lilac's letter to Grace is full of spelling mistakes, one of the stereotypes of the time.
San Joaquin Terrace appears to be fictional. That's Spanish for 'Saint Joachim,' who was Jesus' maternal grandfather in the Infancy Gospel of James, but I have no idea if that choice of name was supposed to have any significance for the mystery.
This is a classic cozy mystery. Racist touches aside, it's well worth reading.
A very tired Primrose needs to meet the Chief of the O.P.M. in a casual way, so he tells Grace that if she hasn't met him and his wife yet, do so at once and then invite them dinner. Grace balks at being mistaken for his Sergeant, but this is still the days of good manners, so her voice is merely acidly sweet when she replies. The Colonel is wise enough to apologize.
The problem with Lawrason Hilyard, officially an assistant branch chief of the O.P.M., is that his civilian company produces almost all the promethium, a critical metal needed for the war effort. There's not enough of it and rumors are flying that Hilyard is keeping some back for special customers. There's no evidence that Hilyard is doing anything of the kind, but the politicians are getting ugly.
If the rumors and politicians weren't enough to make Hilyard's life miserable, there's his wife. Bowen Digges, his assistant, tells Grace their office has two big signs. One of them is 'Tell Mrs. Hilyard the Boss is Out'. From what Grace accidentally overhears Mrs. Hilyard saying, if that sign doesn't really exist, it should.
It so happens that an old friend of Grace's who'd moved to where the Hilyards used to live had written to her about them. She'd also told unmarried Diane Hilyard that she could go to Grace when they moved to D.C. The family is having another fight, so Diane goes to Grace's house even though they've only met once -- which says a lot about how bad those family fights are. (We also learn from Lilac, Grace's African-American cook, that the Hilyards are willing to pay $1,000 a month to rent a house that went for $300 a month before the war, but hesitate to pay $125 a month for a cook and butler. Lilac got this nugget straight from the butler.)
Diane is another of Ms. Ford's beautiful blondes with hyacinth eyes. Her family broke up her romance with a young man 'from the wrong side of the tracks' a few years ago. Diane's paternal half-brother was killed at Pearl Harbor. Her married older sister, Joan, has always been the perfect daughter to their mother, with Diane being anything but. She envies Grace for having a lot of older brothers and no sisters. Diane is willing to marry an impoverished Polish aristocrat because he's open about marrying for money, unlike her brother-in-law. Her parents and her sister have been telling her it's not decent to be an old maid. (She's almost 23, for heaven's sake!)
Then the murder happens. Was it murder or was it suicide? Whichever it was, you can bet that Sergeant Buck and Grace will be on Diane's side.
Chapter 2 is where we find out that Lilac is '...a ranking blossom in the Rosebud Chapter of the Daughters of the Nile, a member of her church's Vigilante Committee, doesn't believe in vitamins, and considers eating tom turkeys instead of hens a crime'. In chapter 13 Grace informs us that all of her property is Lilac's by definition after Lilac demands to know when she's 'going to remember to see about my chair'.
Just as Lilac's backstairs gossip was handy for this case, running that errand for her gives our good guys another break.
Aside from sexism and racism, I like the look into the past I get from these books. I remember seeing the Jefferson Memorial when I was a girl, but chapter 14 taught me that it was new back then. I would have assumed that 'O.P.M.' stood for 'Office of Personnel Management' if chapter 5 hadn't spelled it out as 'Office of Production Management.' In chapter 20 some bloodstains are said to be Type 2, instead of using a letter. Grace remarks on several changes since the USA entered the war.
Dog lovers should know that Sheila, Grace's Irish setter, gets a bigger role here. She even finds one of the clues.
According to this site, http://connection.ebscohost.com/tag/FORD%252C%2BLeslie , Murder in the O.P.M. was serialized in at least three 1942 issues of the Saturday Evening Post : v.214, #25 , Feb 28; #36, Mar 87; & #38, Mar 21.
Although this mystery was first published more than half a century ago, the reason for the murders doesn't seem outdated. Fans of the classic cozy or novels set during World War II should check this out.
My copy is the Popular Library mystery with one man rowing a boat with another man slumped over and bleeding into the water. Yes, there is a boat near the murder scene, but I wouldn't expect anyone to be wearing a T-shirt or a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up in Maryland in the winter!
Grace's misadventures start because Judy neglected to mention that her widowed aunt is under 40 and quite pretty. The friends she asked to meet her aunt assume that the 'old woman' missed her plane. Then the desk clerk at Judy's hotel assumes that Grace is just another woman seeking a divorce. His helpful hints leave Grace bewildered. Then there's the gossip she overhears in the elevator and the stranger who tries to pick her up before she's even found her niece...
On the face of it, Judy is divorcing her husband so she can marry handsome Dex Cromwell and Clem can go back to his first wife, the lovely Kaye Gorman -- now a rich widow. Grace is not impressed with Dex. Soon she's very sorry that she asked her friend, Colonel Primrose, to stop in Reno to see her on his way home from a case in San Francisco. She's with the Colonel when he discovers a murder victim -- and there's a clue that points straight to Judy.
It doesn't help when Grace finds the murder weapon in her niece's laundry hamper. How can she protect Judy when Colonel Primrose and Sergeant Buck are on the scene? Grace pulls some stupid stunts, as usual, but I still like her. When one of the characters claims she knows Grace's sort and doesn't believe that Grace could mistake cheap chantilly lace for hand-made alencon, I couldn't help liking Grace's reply.
I enjoyed the descriptions of 1930s Reno and what it took to get a divorce there. I also enjoyed Sergeant Buck's reaction to seeing one of his Colonel's old flames there. (According to Buck, Primrose got drunk for a week when she married someone else.) There are plenty of cautionary stories about what goes on in Reno. I felt particularly sorry for Vicky Ray, a gambling joint hat check girl.
There are quite a few suspects. Colonel Primrose has his work cut out for him. What Sergeant Buck does to deter a sleezebag of what we would call a paparazzi may not have been legal, but it was satisfying. The last few pages made me chuckle. The racism didn't. The author has a Chinese servant, Wu Lung, use "he" for women and 'she' for men. Worse, several characters, including Grace, refer to him as a 'China boy' even though Wu Lung is about 60 years old!
For readers who enjoy progression in relationships, Colonel Primrose will startle Mrs. Latham by using her first name. His behavior after she's saved from a truly nasty situation is even more interesting. Chapter 20 has -- unless I missed it in the earlier books -- the first time Sergeant Buck tells Mrs, Latham, 'No offense meant, ma'am;' and she replies, 'None taken, Sergeant'.
My copy is the Popular Library edition with the blonde being strangled by a rope. Some of the details aren't correct, but there will indeed be a woman in that peril, so the lurid cover isn't entirely misleading.
I recommend this book to fans of old cozy mysteries, with a warning about the attitudes of the time. I've quoted a sexist remark, something that shows how naive Grace is, and a sample of the humor.
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JalenV | 2 andere besprekingen | Mar 23, 2012 |
JalenV | 2 andere besprekingen | Mar 23, 2012 | 
Grace is no relation by blood to the Winthrops, but the late Mr. Winthrop was the son of one of Dick Latham's two Back Bay aunts in Boston, so Grace's sons are second cousins to the young people at Romney, a fact that will become important later. Right now one of those second cousins, Dan Winthrop, has come to take Grace to Romney, the Maryland plantation his father bought. Dan and his siblings were born there. On the way, Grace finds herself thinking about how often she used to visit Romney, and wondering why she's been there for only one weekend in the three years Dan has been working in Paris. I had to chuckle, because this comes afterr Dan has told Grace that stirring up a hell's broth for someone to stew in is what makes his mother really happy, and Dan is the only one of the Winthrops to get along with Irene. Dan's older brother, Rick, is a drunkard. Mara, his younger sister, has never been treated fairly by her mother because Mara isn't the frilly, pink, candy box- pretty type of daughter Irene wanted. Irene is terrible mother. Her children probably would have turned out even worse than they have if good old Mrs. Jellyby hadn't been around to mother them.
Rick Winthrop is as big a bully as his mother, but doesn't bother to put his iron claw in a velvet glove. He's abominable to his wife, the dece
It's possible that at this point Ms. Ford had yet to decide that Grace lives in the same Georgetown house where she was born because of this bit near the end of chapter one:
'And because Lilac has dictated my goings out and comings in since I came to the house in Georgetown to live, long before I was left a widow with the two small boys she's practically raised, I got up obediently.'
Grace has been a widow for eight years. At the end of chapter 8 we learn that she first came to Romney the year she was married, 18 years ago. In chapter 10 we get a description of Grace: light hair, dark brown eyes, 5' 7" (170 cm) tall, 135 pounds (61 kilograms), 38 years old.
Cheryl is one of Ms. Ford's blue-eyed blondes (hair a sunlit ripe wheat color, eyes like faded hyacinths). Natalie is another auburn-haired lady. Her eyes are hazel green. Mara has dark hair and dark eyes. Will it be the blonde or the redhead who is our heroine? Will Mara turn out to be the Midge to the heroine's Barbie or the Bad Girl?
Of poison, where we too are strong as men.
The Media of Euripides,
GILBERT MURRAY'S TRANSLATION'
That's from what is usually the dedication page. Yes, poison is used here -- with more than one victim, the first offending the chief suspect, beautiful second wife Iris Nash, the most. I'm afraid that Iris hasn't had much luck with men. Her father died of alcoholism. She spent years loving a man her head told her was a gold-digger just using her for a doormat until his meal ticket came along, but her heart refused to believe until he did dump her to marry for money. Her husband, Randall, was quite decent at first. Iris was finally happy -- but things have changed. Randall has turned suspicious and drinks too much. In chapter 3 he tells a story about his great-great grandfather who built his house that's absolutely chilling, especially the part Randall calls a refinement of cruelty one has to have been, or be, deeply in love to understand. Also chilling is the reason why Iris won't leave her husband, not that the stepdaughter who hates her knows it.
Randall Nash has never been a knight in shining armor. He dumped the girl he was going to marry after her father lost all his money to a con man cloaked in religion. Randall married his best friend's rich girlfriend. They're still friends. From what we learn about the first Mrs. Nash, perhaps A.J. McClean has remained a bachelor -- and Randall's friend -- because of his narrow escape. The way Randall treats his only son because the boy chose to stay with his mother after the divorce is shameful. The nicest thing about Randall is what he did for his daughter when her mother took away Lowell's dog because of an incident that took place when Lowell, now 18, was only four years old.
Grace Latham, who lives next-door to the Nashes, knows all about that incident because her elder son, who was three at the time, was the other culprit. What Randall did for his daughter is the reason Grace has always been a little fond of him. It was Grace that Lowell ran to when her beloved father remarried, but Grace doesn't hate Iris Nash. She's friends with Iris, which makes her (and through her, us) privy to a number of interesting confidences. It's also why Grace is present for the finding of the second body. So is Colonel Primrose, luckily for the innocent.
I love the stories about Georgetown history and the descriptions of places -- except for that gruesome tale about Randall Nash's monstrous ancestor. If this were a ghost story instead of a murder mystery, it would be sufficient reason for a haunting. The discovery made during Mr. Nash's father's time would make a good climax. Barbara Michaels could have written it, except it would have been more frightening if she had.
The racism and sexism of the time are hard to take, but it helps a little that the only bad apple among the servants is white. It also helps that Grace really means it about Colonel Primrose being safe from matrimonial designs where she's concerned, and Colonel Primrose wishes she weren't. I loved the 51 year-old Colonel's reaction to being innocently mistaken for 38 year-old Grace's father! The scene where Grace gets back at Primrose at the photographer's studio and Primrose gets back at Sergeant Buck, is fun.
We readers can use the humor when there are so many grim or emotionally wrought scenes, such as poor Lavinia Fawcett's past and present. Sadly, there was no Social Services program to step in after the way her mother and older sister died. I wouldn't blame her brother for running away except that he wasn't around to help when Lavinia really needed him. Her back story is in chapter nine and makes a good reminder of why the notion that a man has the right to treat his family as he sees fit is wrong.
In this book we learn that Colonel Primrose's yellow brick house is at 2491 P street. Grace's house is also on P street, across the street and a block away. She can see a corner of Primrose's house from a downstairs window in hers. The Primrose who built the Colonel's house was on General Washington's staff.
The two sons we learned that Grace has are in this book briefly. We know the older one is either 17 or close to it because that incident with Lowell Nash took place 14 years ago. Both boys have dates, so the younger one probably isn't much younger. The author doesn't bother to tell us their names. It's Christmas Eve when the book opens, so it wouldn't have reflected well on Grace if her boys weren't around, I suppose. It's a pity that Grace wasn't around during the first murder, but she was on an errand of mercy. One of her friends can't get home from California in time to chaperone young Mary's house party in Virginia because her plane's delayed, so she asks Grace to take her kids there and be the chaperone. Interesting how long it took the 'friend' to get back...
I like Grace. I like the fact that she nods in agreement when her African-American cook, Lilac, repeats a conversation she had with her husband, Julius, where Lilac said something didn't make sense and Julius replied that a lot of what Mis' Grace does doesn't make sense -- more doesn't than does. In chapter 18 I chuckled over what Grace got caught doing to the Bishop's cake when she was a child and how she was punished. Grace gets attacked twice in this book. I liked the way she reacted to the frontal attack. The attack from behind wouldn't have happened if she weren't a caring person.
An earlier owner of my copy pasted part of a newspaper article about the author inside the front cover. The headline is 'Professor's Wife, Leslie Ford, Top Mystery Writer'. The author was Eleanor Griesemer. It opens with 'Annapolis, Md., July 17. -- (AP) -- . I'm sure you've seen those assurances that the characters are imaginary and no resemblance to any person, living or dead, is intended in many books. According to this newspaper article, Mrs. Ford K. Brown once used a name from a 150 year-old English record in a book she wrote under her 'David Frome' pen name. A living solicitor with the same name collected damages for that.
According to this site, http://connection.ebscohost.com/tag/FORD%252C%2BLeslie , this story was serialized in The Saturday Evening Post : 11/13/1937, v.210, #20 ; 11/27/1937, v.210, #22 ; 12/4/1937, v.210, #23 ; 12/11/1937, v.210, #24 ; 12/18/1937, v.210, #25 ; 12/25/1937, v.210, #26 ; 1/1/1938, v.210, #27.
This is a good cozy for fans of old mysteries, and a good reminder of what our culture was like before some things became unacceptable -- though not universally unacceptable, unfortunately.
Given the number of books that offer a preview of the next book in a series, I find it interesting that my old hardcover has a preview of the book before. I'd describe its dustjacket, but it's missing.
Unlike the books in which Grace is the first-person narrator, this mystery is written in third person. It's set in Washington, D.C. when the New Deal was a new deal, which made it more difficult for rich businessmen to get their own way. Mr. Quinn, the president of the Star Utilities Corporation, would find it much more profitable if a certain river in his state remained in private hands. To that end he's hired a beautiful young widow, Mrs. Lynn Ash, to be his secret lobbyist. He absolutely needs to have the five votes that Senator Greer can guarantee be votes against the administration's new power bill.
Rich Senator Greer has two weaknesses: one, there's a good chance that he used 'methods' to ensure he won his senate seat against the former incumbent, truly honorable James Cameron; and two, the now Representative Cameron's beautiful daughter, Nina.
Mrs. Ash has been having a lot of conversations with Mr. Tracy Scatcherd, Senator Greer's detestable secretary, conversations that sometimes end in her lending him money. Mr. Marius Fage, lobbyist for the People's Lobby, has been doing his best to make sure Greer doesn't vote Mr. Quinn's way. Fage has also been keeping an eye on Mrs. Ash.
Meanwhile, a young firebrand of a reporter named Andy Blair has been raking Senator Greer over the coals in his newspaper column. Is the cause of Blair's zeal the way Greer won the election or is it because Blair is in love with Nina and Nina is flattered by Greer's attentions?
A senate committee is supposed to investigate the ballots from Greer's election, but they're burned in a mysterious fire before they can be shipped to D.C. Then Senator Greer is found murdered in his own house. The Senators are very, very upset. This murder had better be solved and it had best be done quickly. Homicide calls in their ace-in-the-hole, Colonel Primrose and his loyal man, Sergeant Buck, to investigate. Primrose and Buck are retired World War I vets, although I suppose they would have been considered veterans of the Great War back when this was written. Can they figure out who killed Senator Greer before the surviving senators have a meltdown?
Although this book came out during the Great Depression, don't expect to see too many truly poor characters here. This mystery is about the Upper Crust. Sure, Nina Cameron considers herself poor because her father isn't rich anymore (his money was invested in banks that closed). Oh, how sad it is that after leaving Mrs. Ash's beautiful living room she has to go home to her father's house where the living room still has the furniture that was in style when her parents married in 1902.
Well, her father still had a job even if wasn't as prestigious as his old one, she still had a house to live in, and they still have a maid. My parents were in elementary school when this book came out. They were luckier than many children back then because my blue collar grandfathers managed to put food on the table for their large families, but I know they wouldn't have considered themselves poor if they'd had as much as Nina does. If Nina hadn't felt guilty over thinking her life isn't as fun as it used to be, I'd have trouble feeling any sympathy for her and she is pretty nice overall.
The political attitudes and maneuverings seem familiar today, but the casual racism and sexism grate on my nerves. I suppose that it's something that only two white characters, neither of whom are expected to be well-bred, use the n-word. There's also a Japanese butler, and he has to put up with attitudes that he wouldn't have had to if he'd been white. When Lynn Ash's African-American maid hears her humming 'Stormy Weather,' she's disturbed. Lola's mother told her that it was wicked to sing that song. Lola warned Mrs. Ash that the song was bad luck. Of course Colonel Primrose tells her that's nonsense and Lola doesn't believe him, especially after what happened. Then there's this description of Lola: 'The girl's voice still vibrated with a primitive fear that all her training could never overcome.' GAH!
My copy is a July 1943 (2nd printing) of the cheap Triangle Books hardcover reprint. (Triangle's first printing was May 1943.) It has the dustjacket with the Capitol in the background and several men and women are casually about. The three persons in front are a well-dressed smiling man with a white mustache, a top hat, and a dull gold colored boutonniere, a pretty lady, also smiling, who is wearing a mink coat,, and a Japanese man with what appears to be the head of a cane held to his chin. His eyes are looking to the left and he is definitely not smiling. I suppose they could be meant to represent Mr. Quinn, Lynn Ash, and Mr. Kitamura. I wouldn't expect Mr. Kitamura to be on the cover, looking sinister, which he wasn't in the book, but this is a 1943 reprint.
The cover scene continues to the spine so we may see more of the newspaper barely glimpst in the lower left corner. 'Extra' is in very large type in the headline. What we can see below it is 'TICAL CRISIS,' with the top of the letter before the 'T' visible. Yes, it looks like an 'I". Unfortunately, the dustjacket's spine is creased and has chips missing where the front page photo is. To me, it appears to be a mountain in the foreground. Whatever that is to the right looks like a giant man's head -- with black bangs parted in two over his forehead. He seems to be wearing a black mask, not to mention a silly little metal cup on the top of his head. I suppose it could be another mountain. What's on the left makes me think of an old science fiction movie flying saucer pouring a death ray on the mountain, but it might be a giant dirigible. If anyone else has a better copy of the dustjacket, I'd be interested to know what the photo is.
Under the dustjacket the cover is blue with a silhouette of a flower in a wide pot in black. The title and author's name on the spine are enclosed in a dark golden yellow box with more fancy decoration above and below the box, also black. 'Triangle Books' in two lines is near the bottom of the spine. The title and publisher's name are in smaller print than the author's name, which is in all capital letters. The dustjacket is in pretty good condition with very little wear to the cover itself. I suspect the publisher skimped on the quality of the paper because the pages are foxed and brittle along the top, right, and bottom margins.
The back dustjacket flap has 'No.150' under the title and author's name. Both the back flap and the back of the cover include sample titles available from the publisher. On top of the back of the dustjacket is an illustration in black, white, and gray of a family of four. The bookcase in the background is long and has at least four shelves. Mom and the teen daughter are standing next to each other, open books in their hands. The teen son is removing a book from the top shelf. The dad is seated and reading. Mom is wearing a dress, Dad a suit, daughter a more casual-looking dress, and son in shirt and slacks -- no T-shirts or jeans here! Their word balloons (all capital letters in the original):
Mom: Reading has become our family's most popular pastime.
Daughter: I like these love stories -- and books on which "hit" movies are based.
Dad: Yes, it's mighty satisfying to own good books at such a low price.
Son: Boy! Look at these top notch mystery and adventure stories.
I wish the price had been on the dustjacket. How low were Triangle Books' prices?
The mystery itself is interesting and the descriptions are good, but the attitudes of the Bad Old Days spoil this book for me.
-- A Midsummer Night's Dream, II.1. 60'
In my opinion, Mrs. Zenith Jones Brown (Leslie Ford) did a smart thing when she created Grace Latham to be the first person narrator for the rest of the Primrose-Latham series. Grace is more effective in letting us learn about the other characters than writing in the third person, as the author did for the first book, The Strangled Witness. Grace doesn't hesitate to give the reader her opinion of those around her.
Grace is in April Harbor for the summer. Her father was one of the two lawyers who drew up the charter for the April Harbor Association 30 years before. Grace is 38 now, so she's been spending summers here for a long time. Her late husband, Dick, died in a plane crash eight years ago, leaving Grace with two boys to bring up. The boys are now old enough that they're not with her this time, which is just as well.
The author is good at sketching out the characters, although the 1930s attitudes about race and social class are grating. Of course the foreign woman that Jim Gould married just isn't as classy as the American girl he was going to marry. (Wait for the village gossip's ideas about what their stillborn child was like...) Then his old love returns to April Harbor with a rich and handsome fiance in tow.
Although beautiful Sandra Gould has improved since her marriage, thanks to her mother-in-law, she's not a real lady, which she loses no time in proving as soon as she meets the also beautiful Rosemary Bishop. (Naturally, Rosemary's brand of beauty makes Sandra's look common.)
Grace is completely out of her depth when murder is committed. How she wishes that she had agreed to take in an aunt and uncle when the Chetwynds -- who had all of their aunts and uncles come uninvited the same weekend they had invited two guests -- asked her to. No, Grace took in the guests. Some people might think it's very handy to have a couple of special inquiry agents around when foul deeds are being committed. Grace doesn't, and neither does the murderer.
This is one of those cases where so many people are busy lying to protect someone else that it's not surprising that Colonel Primrose wishes they'd tell him the truth. I did love the telling off he gave them.
He also wishes that Grace would follow his advice. Not even getting shot at seems to really bring it home to her that the killer isn't just probably someone she knows -- that person might kill again.
The descriptions are good and -- racism, sexism, & society snootiness aside -- the view into the past is interesting. I got a chuckle out of what Grace tells the colonel at the end. I also like the fact that she's not husband-hunting, no matter what some people might think.
I've quoted the book four times: the first and last give an idea what Grace is like. The middle two are the sort of thing potential readers should be prepared to find.
My copy has the cover showing a black haired, bare-chested man with his arms under the shoulders of a blonde in what appears to be a short, dark pink nightgown or slip. They're on a beach. The heels of her bare feet have dug a groove in the sand. It's not accurate. They weren't alone, the woman was not unconscious when she was pulled from the water, her hair was black, and she was wearing a 'filmy sea-green chiffon frock'.
According to this site, http://connection.ebscohost.com/tag/FORD%252C%2BLeslie , Ill Met by Moonlight was serialized in The Saturday Evening Post v.209, numbers 28 though at least 33 (Jan 9 - Feb 13, 1937), although numbers 30 & 32 aren't listed.
If you like old-fashioned society mysteries and can grit your teeth through the displays of unenlightened attitudes, you should find this book fun.
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