Matthew Head (1)

Slight on "detecting" in the conventional sense; the narrator relays information to Dr Mary Finney and she draws conclusions which she mostly keeps to herself until the time is ripe for a plot twisting revelation or surprise move. But the setting is exotic and taken from author Canaday's wartime experience, the characters are fully drawn, and the eye of the art critic is always in evidence. A psychological study for which a crime is a pretext, but still a satisfying read for mystery connoisseurs.… (meer)

Second in the series about medical missionary detective Mary Finney and Hoop Taliaferro, in this one a minor US government bureaucrat working for the (Head's note says) imaginary War Claims Settlement Commission --basically paying off U.S,. government purchase left over from World War 2. As in Murder at the Flea Club (rereading which led me to buy this) much of the first part of the story is Hoop just telling Mary the circumstances leading up to a murder. In this case, he has gone to the (real, but according to Head's note slightly adjusted for the story) tiny Portuguese enclave of Cabinda (next to then Belgian Congo) to pay an incredibly high price ($4 million when that really was $4 million) for a load of mahogany which was going to be made into a projected airplane that got scrapped.. On the way, he meets a dubious English expat type named Pete Biggs who shows up murdered in Cabinda.… (meer)

Hooper Taliaferro, previously working for the U.S. government in Africa, is now running a small art gallery in Paris, partly stocked by native crafts Mary Finney sends him from he Congo. Dr. Finney is intended to speak on her medical research in Paris, and somewhat improbably also is being honored by the Surete for her detective work (only 3 amateur cases??). When Nicole, the chanteuse/manager of the mildly risque Flea Club (nightclub) is murdered, Dr. Finney decides to solve the case largely as an armchair exercise, making Hooper go back and describe the club regulars --a stereotype (of the time) homosexual art collector, an upper class male gigolo, his current and ex-lovers, the daughter of his current lover, in whom Hooper is taking an interest with the encourage of her mother, the singer's musician accompanist in whom the art collector is taking an interest, etc. Competently done, but a bit self-consciously sordid. The mother/daughter pair resemble an older worldly woman (Barbara Mason) and a young heiress in The Smell of Money, though in that story the two are not related.… (meer)

Head write a number f mysteries in relatively exotic locales like the Congo and Paris, but this is in a more conventional setting for a 1940s mystery --the estate of a wealthy old woman in the Californjia Bay area. She supports a umber of hangers on, one of whom, a pleasant young painter, tells the story. She gets murdered and an investigation follows. Unlike a lot of the rich people who get murdered in mysteries, she is a really nice woman, so instead of the usual nasty victim and nice suspects, you get a nice victim and 9in some cases) nasty suspects..… (meer)