Plaid Pants and Death

The Green Plaid Pants by Margaret Scherf

Why does everyone suddenly want to get their hands

on bonnie Prince Charlie’s trousers?

Emily Bryce was complaining that life had been a bit dull since she and Henry got married. That was before she went to England on a decorating job and brought back to New York not only an entire eccentric (is there any other kind?) English family but a pair of bonnie Prince Charlie’s green plaid trousers. The pants weren’t much to look at, but it seemed like just about everyone wanted to snatch them away from Emily.

As an historical rarity the pants weren’t particularly valuable and probably not even genuine. Emily was quite puzzled by all the fuss and decided the pants no doubt concealed a fortune. All her probing, however, yielded little more than some dubious royal lint. The cops didn’t seem to concerned about the pants. They were far more interested in how one of the Brits met an untimely death at the edge of a sword. Since the victim didn’t know anyone in the United States, it seemed likely that the swordsman was a member of the entourage from England. And somehow those multi-colored pants of Charlie’s seemed linked to his death.

Emily does a bit of unorthodox sleuthing and gets knocked on the head for her trouble while Henry is nearly poisoned. Then the last person in the world you’d suspect pulls a gun on our heroes. It all adds up to another sparkling comedy of mismanners by one of the funniest mystery writers of the twentieth century.

The Green Plaid Pants was first published in 1951 and was the second book to feature Emily and Henry Bryce.

This was a good read. Solid plot and lots of laughs! Emily isn’t one of my favorite characters, but I really liked her husband Henry, friend Link and the deli and deli owner across the street from their apartment. Two great settings, England and New York City. Not as good as a Little Sister’s romp but well worth the read!

---

Death Turns the Tables by John Dickson Carr  1941

Suspicion was widely scattered…

when Anthony Morell – handsome dabbler in amour and extortion,

was found dead in Judge Ireton’s seaside cottage…

Evidence pointed to the good judge himself – but Dr. Gideon Fell privately questioned the innocence of Constance – the Judge’s too beautiful daughter, engaged to the deceased, Fred Barlow – the Judge’s too capable aide, in love with his daughter, Jane Tennant – too rich society girl – unhappily, in love with Mr. Barlow.

A fascinating puzzle… mixing blackmail, revenge, and murder – with humor and sparkling dialogue – a plot only the brilliant mind of Dr. Gideon Fell could unravel.

Great read! I haven’t read a Dickson Carr in a few years. It was pure joy! Complicated as ever and a satisfying finish. The Judge is a bit overbearing and full of himself. He has a hard edge, never taking into consideration circumstances or extenuating issues. There’s a bit of a sadistic streak to how he meters out justice with mercy. Well maybe the tables are about to turn on him!

This is an old paperback copy with 35 cents in the front corner. In the story a new house for sale was mentioned for $650! Oh for those days!

The Demon of Dartmoor

Paul Halter 1993 – Locked Room International edition 2012

A famous actor is sent to his death from a high window; eye witnesses say he was pushed by an invisible hand, thus mimicking another murder committed in the same house more than fifty years earlier. Three local girls have also died in similar fashion, propelled from the top of one of Dartmoor’s many ‘tors’. Is there an invisible creature roaming the moors? Or is there a human agency behind the murders and, if so, how is it done? The renowned criminologist Dr. Twist and the irascible Inspector Hurst of Scotland Yard are sent to investigate.

The Demon of Dartmoor is the fourth Paul Halter novel to be published in English, and the second featuring Twist and Hurst. In the BBC Radio 4 program “Miles Jupp in a Locked Room“, broadcast on May 21, 2012, it was hailed as one of the most ingenious solutions ever written, and totally original. It has a plot line that writhes like a snake.

The author, best selling French writer Paul Halter, has written over thirty novels, almost all ‘locked room’ or ‘Impossible crime’, and is widely regarded as the successor to John Dickson Carr. His prize winning novel ‘The Fourth Door‘, also featuring Dr. Twist, was published on Amazon in 2011. The two novels featuring the dilettante Owen Burns’ ‘The Lord of Misrule‘ and ‘The Seven Wonders of Crime‘ were published in 2010 and 2011 respectively. A fifth Halter novel ‘The Invisible Circle‘, is planned for late 2012.’

---

This was a great book! Solid plot, impossible crime. Was it magic or otherworldly as local legend seemed to dictate? Or was there a simple or not so simple solution? It was very intriguing and kept me turning the pages for sure. I liked the two ‘detectives’ and the old and new crimes to be solved. Halter’s writing is quite lovely too. I’ll give you the first couple of paragraphs and see if it would pull you in too!

The bell of the church had just sounded half past eleven in the little village of Stapleford, nestled on the edge of the wild upland of Dartmoor. The summer was coming to an end and the evenings were becoming increasingly chilly. Dotted around the impressive granite edifice, the houses seemed to be sleeping. the one remaining light came from the window of Victor Sitwell’s study

In his fifties, with greying hair and a furrowed brow from constant concentration, his unblinking blue-eyed gaze commanded instant attention. At the institution in Tavistock where he taught philosophy, he was highly regarded for his professionalism, his knowledge and his personal integrity – not only by the headmaster, but also by his colleagues, his students and their parents. A rare unanimity, shared by the residents of Stapleford where – with one or two exceptions – he was considered not just as the leading intellectual light of the village, but also as its principal benefactor. His devotion seemed limitless, he was always the first to come to the aid of the needy and never failed to put a pound note in the collection box on Sunday.

That night he was in his study but without the usual pen and paper in front of him. Anyone who knew him well would have said he appeared preoccupied. He was getting ready to join his wife when he heard a knock on the front door. Glancing up at the clock he muttered in annoyance. A visitor at this time of night? But his irritation quickly turned to anxiety.

How bout it, would you read on?

The Black Honeymoon

by Constance and Gwenyth Little – 1944

Can you murder someone with feathers?

If you don’t believe that feathers can kill, then you probably haven’t read one of the 21 mysteries by the two Little sisters, the reigning queens of the cozy screwball mystery from the 1930’s to the 1950’s. No, Uncle Richard wasn’t tickled to death – though we can’t make the same guarantee for readers – but the hyper-allergic rich man did manage to sneeze himself into the hereafter in his hospital room.                                             

Suspicion falls on his nurse, young Miriel Mason, who recently married the dead man’s nephew, Ian Ross, an army officer on furlough. Ian managed to sweep Miriel off her feet and to the altar, well, at least to city hall – before she had a chance to check his bank balance, which was nothing to boast about. In fact, Ian cheerfully explains that they’ll have to honeymoon in the old family mansion and hope that his relations can leave the two lovebirds alone.

But when Miriel discovers that Ian’s motive for marriage may have had nothing to do with her own charms, she decides to postpone at least one aspect of the honeymoon, installing herself and her groom in separate bedrooms. To clear herself of Richard’s murder, Miriel summons private detective Kelly, an old crony of her father’s, who gets himself hired as a servant in the house even though he can’t cook, clean or serve. While Kelly snoops, the body count continues to mount at an alarming rate. Nor is Miriel’s hapless father much help. Having squandered the family fortune, he now rents out rooms in his mansion and picks up a little extra cash doing Miriel’s laundry.

Originally published in 1944, The Black Honeymoon is filled with tantalizing questions: Who is moaning in the attic…what is the terrible secret in the family Bible…will Kelly get fired for incompetence before he nabs the killer…will Miriel and Ian ever consummate their marriage? Combining the charm and laughs of a Frank Capra movie with the eccentric characters of a George S. Kaufmann play, The Black Honeymoon is a delight from start to finish.

---

 

Another grand screwball mystery! Another hospital involved in the plot and nurses and doctors. Negligee’s are also present here, but not in the hospital. Who was that seen at the pond out back in a silky negligee in the middle of the night? Miriel or someone wearing hers? This is my third Little’s mystery this month and I have to say she does characters divinely! I get sucked into her characters lives immediately and find myself thinking about them even when I’m not reading. Somehow they bring you right into the setting and you are a part of all the silliness. I have three more on their way to me now from AbeBooks! I’ve decided to find a copy of all 21 of their books!

Black Corridors

Constance and Gwenyth Little 1940

Being a redhead isn’t so bad when murderers prefer blondes

Some people go to the beach for their vacations, others go to the mountains. Jessie Warren’s Aunt Isabel preferred checking herself into the hospital where she thoroughly enjoyed a spot of bad health although the doctors were at a loss to spot any cause.

As usual, Jessie and her sister tossed to see who would accompany Aunt Isabel to the hospital – and, as usual, Jessie lost. Jessie’s mother pointed out that pampering her rich aunt might do her some good in the future, even if it means that Jessie has to miss a date or two with some promising beaux.

Aunt Isabel insists on staying in her favorite room, which means the current patient has to be dispossessed. And when that man’s black wallet turns up missing, just about everyone joins in the hunt. That’s about the time someone decided to start killing blondes.

For the first time in her life Jessie’s glad to have her bright red hair, even if a certain doctor – who doesn’t have the money or the looks of her other beaux – enjoys making fun of those flaming locks. But after Jessie stumbles across a couple of bodies and starts snooping around, the murderer figures the time has come to switch from blondes to redheads.

---

Another very fun romp through a hospital with the Little sisters! A little far fetched storyline, but it is a screwball comedy after all. Not sure what hospitals were like in 1940 when this was written, but I never saw one with guest suites! Nor guests roaming around in negligee’s! Even through all the screwball antics there is a good solid murder mystery and I had no clue until the very end!

Two Reads

The Black Stocking by Constance and Gwenyth Little  1946

Irene was having a really bad day. And it wasn’t just the fact that everyone thought she was an escaped lunatic, either.

Irene Hastings, who can’t decide which of her two fiancés she should marry, is looking forward to a nice vacation and everything would have been just fine had not her mousy friend Ann asked to be dropped off at an insane asylum so she could visit her sister.

When the sister escapes, just about everyone, including a handsome young doctor, mistakes Irene for the runaway loony, and she is put up at an isolated private hospital under house arrest, pending final identification.

Only there’s not a bed to be had in the hospital. One of the staff is already sleeping in a tent on the grounds, so it’s decided that Irene is to share a bedroom with young Dr. Ross Munster, much to the consternation of both parties. On the other hand, Irene’s much-married mother Elise, an Auntie Mama type who rushes to her rescue, figures that the young doctor has son-in-law written all over him. She also figures there’s plenty of room in that bedroom for herself as well.

In the meantime, Irene runs into a headless nurse, a corpse that won’t stay put, an empty coffin and a mysterious black stocking, prompting the local police to think very seriously about locking her up in a real jail. As Elise would say, “Mong Dew!”

It all adds up to another zany mystery from the sisters Little, who wrote 21 mysteries that one critic described as “celluloid screwball comedy printed on paper.”

Not mentioned in this description is another doctor at the hospital looking for a missing will and clearing up the problem of who really owns this screwball private hospital. I LOVED this book! When not reading it I was think about it all the time until I could pick it up again. I’ve read several of their books and this was the best! Probably the most fun I’ve read all year. I have three more of their books on my shelf and I can’t wait to dig in! I’d like to get my hands on all 21. Always fun. Please someone turn these into movies!

---

 

An English Murder by Cyril Hare  1951

A Golden Age classic set on Christmas Eve

The snow is thick, the phone line is down and no one is getting in or out of Warbeck Hall. With friends and family gathered round the fire, all should be set for a perfect Christmas, but as the bells chime midnight, a murder takes place.

Who can be responsible? The scorned young lover? The Lord’s passed-over cousin? The social-climbing politician’s wife? the Czech history professor? The obsequious butler? And perhaps the real question is can any of them survive long enough to tell the tale? 

A delicious wintry house whodunnit! I thoroughly enjoyed this Christmas read! I thought I knew who did it, but there was a complex political historical thread that fits into the why that I had no clue about! Lots of good characters to like and a few to loathe! I especially liked the absent minded history professor. Good read!

I started to read Christie’s A Holiday for Murder and discovered I had already read it under a different title! I really wish they wouldn’t give books different titles! So I put it down. Tried to read a Del Shannon mystery set at Christmas but just couldn’t get interested so back on the shelf for maybe next year. I’ve read 35 books this year, I’m happy with that and I can get one more in before the end of the year. How was reading this year? What was your favorite book of the year? I think mine was probably The Black Stocking.

Quiet Places

“We who live in quiet places have the opportunity to become acquainted with ourselves, to think our own thoughts, and live our own lives in a way that is not possible for those keeping up with the crowd.”

~ Laura Ingalls Wilder

The Magpie (1868) by Claude Monet

This is one of my favorite paintings! I’d love to have a copy for my home someday. This quote really goes well with it don’t you think? I live a quiet life so this really touches me. Life wasn’t always so quiet for me, but thankfully those days are gone and I am enjoying the quiet, the solitude with minimal interruptions.

It’s why I love the snow I think. The quietness of it. A world hushed and insulated. Clean and smooth. Fresh. If only we could have snow without the cold!