Patrick QuentinBesprekingen

Hilary Fenton finds the student in the rooms next door dead, apparently from an accident while cleaning his gun.

The first chapter was funny but the condescending eye-dialect for Mrs Bigger and the author showing off his familiarity with university slang rapidly got tiresome - one more "sported oak" and I would have screamed. The actual mystery was good but the romance with the Profile was very unconvincing.½

Peter Duluth, New York’s youngest theatrical producer, is drinking his success and reputation down the drain. Realizing he needs to dry out and come down to Earth, he checks into a posh private sanitarium for “the cure.”

After a few weeks of drying out Dr. Lenz, the director, approaches Duluth asking for help on a problem. Lenz feels there may be an unwanted patient, who is causing disruption that is leading to tension among the patients and the possibility of them relapsing. There have been reports of voices being heard and other disturbing incidents.

Duluth takes on the task with the idea of it being a good distraction while he finishes out his cure. It isn’t just the patients who interest Duluth, there are also members of the staff.

When murder rears its ugly head, Duluth really has some sharp turns to navigate as he sorts out who is really who.

Las vacaciones de iris Duluth en San Francisco con su esposo, Peter, tuvieron un comienzo desastroso: conseguir una habitación de hotel era casi imposible. Sin embargo, el gesto de la desconocida que les cedió su habitación no salvó la situación. El hallazgo del cuerpo asesinado de Eulalia Crawford convirtió la velada embriagadora en una noche macabra y Peter creía cada vez más que conocería la verdad y se libraría de las acusaciones...

El productos de Broadway Peter Duluth buscó consuelo en una botella después de la muerte de su esposa. Ahora, dos años después y desesperado por secarse, ingresa a un sanatorio con la esperanza de romper su dependencia de la bebida, pero la institución no le ofrece el descanso y la relajación que esperaba. Sucesos extraños y malévolos plagan el hospital y entre otros eventos inexplicables, Peter escucha su propia voz con una ominosa advertencia: habrá asesinato.

Peter Duluth decide montar una obra de teatro en Broadway. A los avatares propios del mundillo teatral se suman ciertas anormalidades: espectros en los espejos y la muerte de dos actores durante los ensayos. Ninguno de los integrantes del elenco tiene una buena coartada. Queda a cargo del propio Duluth y del médico de la compañía la tarea de echar luz sobre estos misterios.

Cuando Gordy Friend se despierta en el hospital, tiene un brazo roto, una pierna rota y aparentemente la cabeza rota, ya que no puede recordar nada de lo que sucedió antes.
Afortunadamente, Gordy se entera de que tiene una madre cariñosa, una hermana amorosa y una esposa increíble para cuidarlo y recordarle su estilo de vida lujoso y hedonista. También está en línea para heredar una gran cantidad de dinero de su padre recientemente fallecido, si el testatmento no es impugnado por algunos aguafiestas que piensan que Gordy no está a la altura.
Cuanto más descubre Gordy sobre sí mismo, más sospecha que toda su vida podría ser una mentira. Y que la mentira podría matarlo...

As a young kid, my absolute favorite reads were Encyclopedia Brown books. I devoured them. For those unacquainted with Encyclopedia Brown, he was a middle-school aged boy genius who went around solving mysteries in his neighbourhood, a la Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys, but he did it using pure Sherlock Holmes-style deductions. Each book was a collection of individual mysteries, but the twist was that each was written in a solve-it-yourself style. Each story contained everything the reader needed to solve the mystery, and the stories would end before E. Brown revealed the solution. The reader had a chance to solve the crimes, then look at the back of the book to see if they were correct.

The File on Fenton & Farr is a like a great big, grown up, Encyclopedia Brown story! Everything the reader needs, as they follow the police investigation of a double homicide set up to look like a suicide pact. Police reports, memos, telegrams, ticket stubs, notes, even a tiny sample tube of lipstick!


The story is very neatly done and not at all easy; every suspect had a motive and an alibi and none of the clues were anything out of the ordinary. Patrick did a brilliant job writing out all of this material without being dry or overstepping the bounds of realism. Each member of the police force exhibits enough personality to keep the reader turning the pages.

It was amazing. And I'm not just saying that because I WAS RIGHT! Woot! Somebody get me a badge! ::grin::

I was extraordinarily lucky to get this book; it was a monstrous splurge on my part when I bought it, far and away more money than I ever spend on a book, but I'd read about these publications and was dying to see if all these years reading mysteries had done me any good. I am so, so glad I splurged. This book is special and I can only imagine the amount of grief it caused its publishers back in 1937 to put it together.

Now, it's MT's turn to see if he can solve the mystery; I've put my solution in a sealed envelope and we'll compare notes afterwards. I'm not betting against him...

“There will be murder.” At any time, this is an alarming sentence to hear in the dead of night. But Peter Duluth is in a sanitarium, where he’s attempting to stop using alcohol entirely, and hearing voices is particularly alarming in this context. It means that when Duluth launches an amateur investigation (at the behest of the sanitarium’s director), it’s especially hard for him to sort out what’s true and what’s false.

For an amateur-sleuth mystery, this was pretty good. Duluth had immediate stakes in solving the puzzle, had good self-awareness of his amateur status, and wasn’t tempted to take too many unnecessary risks. I liked his narrative voice and was invested in the outcome. And there was just enough sprinkling of Duluth’s life as a Broadway producer that it ticked my “good theatre mystery” box. It got a little bit weird at the end, but it wasn’t entirely impossible, so I will give it that. I’m not sure whether I’d read any more novels in the Peter Duluth series, but this one is worth a gamble if you like American detective fiction.½

Fascinating picture of Mexico in 1950.½

Highly unusual plot. The kind of story one reads with pleasure and interest not because it’s baffling but because one wants to know how the author will work it all out.

George is out of love with his wife, Connie, and in love with his secretary, Eve. He just has to hold on until his adopted daughter, Ala, marries Chuck. But Ala is swept off her feet by Don, who just wants a payoff to stay away from George’s family. Then Don is murdered and it’s George and his family who have the best motives. It’s a quick read and enjoyable, but I did see the end coming. Lt. Trant is pretty much the same as he was in the late 40s; Quentin has overall changed his style to late 50s.½

Narrator Lee Lovering, a college senior, tells of the death of her roommate and the investigation by series detective Lieutenant Trant. Some HIBK, some romantic suspense, very convoluted. A good read.

Dear Clara seems too good to be true. When she ends up with a knife in her back, it is up to Detective Trant to solve the crime. He has eight suspects, possibly nine, but no motive and no clues.

It was okay, nothing I would seek out to read, but I would read it if I saw it on a shelf at a hotel and I had nothing else to read. Is that damning with faint praise? The author is overly fond of the word "sardonic." None of the characters were very interesting. Not even the detective. In fact, I would say that the author went out of the way to make him not unique.

Fenton, an American Rhodes Scholar at Cambridge, is asked to mail a letter for another student who is murdered.

a great read and it will make me seek out more by Patrick Quentin

lots of twists and turns right to the very end.
Newly married, Mark Lindon, arrives home early from being away only to find his wife has disappeared and there is a body in their home.

A lot of chases. and as I say twists and turns.

I did not see the end coming.

Patrick Quentin is a pseudonym used by a changing group of people who wrote mostlu as different combinations of 2 writers or singly for different books. There is a fair bit about them on the web, with other readers being able discern different themes and qualities of writing.

If i find more, will like to see if I can discern that as well

Big Ship
July 2015

A great read

Will definitely look for more of these. Have now read 2 but this was quite differnt to the other though I have rated both ****.

This was a continual twist and turn, even more so in the second half.

The plot of course is preposterous, at least for those who have not experienced the strangeness of the world,
I am sure that the main character ( Peter Duluth, though most of the book suffering from amnesia and hence not knowinh who he is ) was in the previous book I read but was a completely different character and not with teh wife I expected! I will have to go back and check

PS
now having checked , yes it was a Duluth but in the other book it was Jake the father and Bill the only son

will have to track down whether there is any connection or just that the author liked that surname!

Well worth a read.

Big Ship
24 July 2015

I thought this was a very good read.
A slightly nove perspective for the narrator, and a big change over the life of the read, but cannot say much more without revealing too much.

I like these old time novels. Will be looking for the next I can find from this author

Big Fish
18 July 2015

Sono affezionata al personaggio del dottor Westlake, ma questa storia, pur con tutta l'indulgenza con cui la si può guardare dall'alto dei 70 e passa anni trascorsi dal momento della pubblicazione, è troppo mal costruita.

Buon giallo classico dal classico doppio finale, con tempistiche ben dosate, senza artificiosi stiracchiamenti prima di arrivare al vero scioglimenti. L'assassino si fa scoprire, ma siamo noi lettori che, dopo aver letto di tutto e di più siamo troppo smaliziati.

"The Man with Two Wives" is the story of Bill Harding, one-time novelist and now publishing manager working for his father-in-law, the head of a large publishing empire. The web of relationships and circumstances in the novel are fairly complex for a book this size--too complex to really do it justice with a short synopsis. But what the hell, I'm going to try anyway.

Bill was once married to Angelica, whom he married shortly after publishing his first book. They had a tumultuous love affair, along with a child, and got divorced three years later. Shortly afterward bill met and married Betsy, dowdy daughter of C.J. Callingham, the publishing emperor mentioned earlier. Another struggling (and physically abusive) novelist is dating both Bill's ex-wife and C.J.'s other daughter, Bill's sister-in-law. When said artist winds up murdered, Bill finds himself in an increasingly tangled web of lies as he tries to balance protecting his ex-wife (whom he still loves) and saving his sister-in-law, upon which his meal ticket depends. Eventually he decides to tell the truth, and in doing so puts his family and job on the line. But even when he does, he finds that no one believes him, which leaves it up to Billy-boy to discover who the real murderer is. There's a little more to it than that, but overall that's the gist.

Anyhow, anyone who knows me knows that I love this type of book. It's your typical 1950s-60s crime story involving an innocent, unlikely protagonist thrown into a murder investigation the police are two incompetent to solve. Also a hallmark of the genre are Bill's rampant fears and musings, the inner turmoil over who he really loves, whether he should be a lap dog to his father-in-law or not, and angst over when the police are going to come after him. It actually gets kind of annoying after a while, but after a hundred pages or so most of that goes away. Overall, though, it's pretty typical for the genre and period. There's nothing new or innovative here, but that isn't to say it doesn't have any value. I enjoyed it quite a lot, but then again, I like the genre. I like the clean, distinct language. I like the characterizations and the plots. I *really* like the cover art. It straddles the line between the Golden Age of Detective Fiction and the pulp sleaze crime novels I love so much. For other readers the mileage may vary, but for me it was a fast, enjoyable read. That's why I gave it 3 1/2 stars.½

Possibly there is an ideal moment for a man to tell his wife that he’s in love with another woman and wants a divorce. George Hadley decided that his ideal moment would come after his adopted daughter’s wedding. He knew how much store his wife set upon the proper ceremony for the proper occassion.

Colección de historias de Patrick Quentin (seudónimo utilizado por un grupo de cuatro escritores para publicar sus novelas de misterio), publicada en castellano en la mítica colección del Séptimo círculo. Uno de los mejores tratados posibles sobre el arte de escribir historias detectivescas", dice el New York Times, "podría ser la obra completa de Patrick Quentin, ¿Cuándo tendrá un editor la feliz idea de reunir en un volumen sus magníficos cuentos cortos?"