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My reading of Golden Age detective stories continues, and I've found something even better this time.
The Madame Storey stories were written starting in the 1920s by a Canadian journalist named Hulbert Footner and most are novellas, although they start off with a bang because the first one, The Under Dogs (1925), is a novel in which Madame Storey goes undercover to catch the boss behind an organized crime operation (and is a pretty fascinating read for more than one reason).
Madame Storey herself is a beautifully drawn intelligent, fabulously wealthy, socially successful psychologist and criminologist who could have been, and frequently poses as, a member of the idle rich. The stories are mostly narrated by her loyal and plucky sidekick/secretary/assistant Bella, although The Under Dogs, for example, is mostly Madame Storey's point of view. Bella is a Watsonesque faithful chronicler of the urbane and seemingly all-knowing sleuth of whose powers she stands in awe, and like Watson she is usually right there at the detective's side, scaling walls and sneaking into criminals' dens and wielding pistols, albeit not without grumbling because, unlike Madame Storey (and unlike Watson), she has a sensible person's ability to feel fear.
There are certain inescapable similarities to the setup of the Phryne Fisher mysteries, and since these are contemporaneous and not historical it's quite possible they provided some inspiration for her; but it's not, I think, necessary, because the society of the 1920s is such that in order for a woman to do the kinds of things Sherlock Holmes does in it one has to make her extraordinarily privileged in terms of money, appearance, skills and intelligence, and most likely her friends in high places as well: all of these things act as necessary deus ex machina at times, for both Miss Fisher and Madame Storey, where an ordinary woman in the 1920s wouldn't have been able to sleuth.
In fact, I'd also compare these to the Nero Wolfe mysteries. Madame Storey, like Wolfe, is a celebrity who uses her notoriety, her influence with the police and society etc, to her advantage - and who gets her clients largely in that way. Madame Storey isn't so hilariously peculiar as Nero Wolfe, of course. She doesn't have any all-absorbing hobbies or particular passions, although she is something of a character. We're told she puts a great deal of effort into her outfits, which are planned to match those of her pet monkey, for example, and she's pretty much always amused at other people's expense in a gentle way (this reminds me more of Poirot than any of the other great sleuths), and she seems to be generally intended for an aesthete in that she's an expert on art and decorative arts and has very particularly decorated her home and office in very particular styles that don't represent the peak of fashion when they were written (here she has nothing on Philo Vance, but I suspect this is just because Footner didn't have enough knowledge of the priceless sorts of artifacts to fake it convincingly, so he left it vague. The Philo Vance novels were written under the pseudonym SS Van Dine by Willard Huntington Wright, a literary editor of the LA Times and important American art critic respected among the avant-garde and intelligentsia - so it wouldn't be surprising if he was better able to fake it). It's her position in New York society and the sorts of cases and client scenes associated with her that reminded me, perhaps. Maybe even the fact that it's in New York, since admittedly most of the golden age stuff I've read has been from England. The narrator is charming enough in her own way, but she's not as good as Archie from Nero Wolfe: she gets a bit annoying sometimes (worrying about danger instead of trusting the sleuth when they imply they've got it all fixed up, etc).
If you glance at Footner's biography, it's no surprise that his writing puts the emphasis a little more on adventure than on the assembling of clues compared with some other detective fiction. Having the narrator relatively reluctant in the face of danger (like Rincewind! But, you know, not nearly that extreme) while his protagonist is magnificently just excited is a neat trick to simultaneously provide an audience stand-in while keeping the suspense a little lower than it perhaps otherwise would be (if Madame Storey herself were ever daunted or discouraged or nonplussed).
It's very nice having female protagonists to read about, which does make a change from most golden age detective fiction - even the stuff by the queens of crime, ironically enough. I don't have any major quarrels with Footner's ability to write women, either, although I could point to some features in the stories that are clearly caused by A Gender in one way or another. His ideas seem to tend more towards a touchingly childlike belief in the near-supernatural powers of animal magnetism and fascination and so on possessed by select men and women who he then portrays as able to semi-magically influence members of the opposite sex (occasionally he remembers to add that they can do it to same sex people too, but the hetness is usually taken for granted to an amusing degree given how determinedly unattached his female narrator is to, like, anyone except Madame Storey). There are other moments where I'm not sure if Gender has gotten in the way, or it's just the effect of all the years that have passed: for instance, when he portrays situations approaching, or capable of approaching, sexual harrassment faced by Bella and by Madame Storey; it's clear that the writer as well as the narrator take for granted that sexual harrassment, or attempted coercion or whatever, is bad and wrong, but the reactions he ascribes to Madame Storey in particular ring a bit false at times; he perhaps had an exaggerated idea of how insulated a woman of his time was capable of being by privilege from the knowledge of the threat of male sexual violence. But these are pretty minor blips overall. I'd still rate Footner about five times less burdened with Shitty Sexist Nonsense than his more famous contemporary Agatha Christie.
Anyway, the link at the top has a list of the Madame Storey stories in order, and like the Dr Thorndyke mysteries, they are in the public domain. You can find convenient ebook versions of them from Roy Glashan's ebook library here.
The Madame Storey stories were written starting in the 1920s by a Canadian journalist named Hulbert Footner and most are novellas, although they start off with a bang because the first one, The Under Dogs (1925), is a novel in which Madame Storey goes undercover to catch the boss behind an organized crime operation (and is a pretty fascinating read for more than one reason).
Madame Storey herself is a beautifully drawn intelligent, fabulously wealthy, socially successful psychologist and criminologist who could have been, and frequently poses as, a member of the idle rich. The stories are mostly narrated by her loyal and plucky sidekick/secretary/assistant Bella, although The Under Dogs, for example, is mostly Madame Storey's point of view. Bella is a Watsonesque faithful chronicler of the urbane and seemingly all-knowing sleuth of whose powers she stands in awe, and like Watson she is usually right there at the detective's side, scaling walls and sneaking into criminals' dens and wielding pistols, albeit not without grumbling because, unlike Madame Storey (and unlike Watson), she has a sensible person's ability to feel fear.
There are certain inescapable similarities to the setup of the Phryne Fisher mysteries, and since these are contemporaneous and not historical it's quite possible they provided some inspiration for her; but it's not, I think, necessary, because the society of the 1920s is such that in order for a woman to do the kinds of things Sherlock Holmes does in it one has to make her extraordinarily privileged in terms of money, appearance, skills and intelligence, and most likely her friends in high places as well: all of these things act as necessary deus ex machina at times, for both Miss Fisher and Madame Storey, where an ordinary woman in the 1920s wouldn't have been able to sleuth.
In fact, I'd also compare these to the Nero Wolfe mysteries. Madame Storey, like Wolfe, is a celebrity who uses her notoriety, her influence with the police and society etc, to her advantage - and who gets her clients largely in that way. Madame Storey isn't so hilariously peculiar as Nero Wolfe, of course. She doesn't have any all-absorbing hobbies or particular passions, although she is something of a character. We're told she puts a great deal of effort into her outfits, which are planned to match those of her pet monkey, for example, and she's pretty much always amused at other people's expense in a gentle way (this reminds me more of Poirot than any of the other great sleuths), and she seems to be generally intended for an aesthete in that she's an expert on art and decorative arts and has very particularly decorated her home and office in very particular styles that don't represent the peak of fashion when they were written (here she has nothing on Philo Vance, but I suspect this is just because Footner didn't have enough knowledge of the priceless sorts of artifacts to fake it convincingly, so he left it vague. The Philo Vance novels were written under the pseudonym SS Van Dine by Willard Huntington Wright, a literary editor of the LA Times and important American art critic respected among the avant-garde and intelligentsia - so it wouldn't be surprising if he was better able to fake it). It's her position in New York society and the sorts of cases and client scenes associated with her that reminded me, perhaps. Maybe even the fact that it's in New York, since admittedly most of the golden age stuff I've read has been from England. The narrator is charming enough in her own way, but she's not as good as Archie from Nero Wolfe: she gets a bit annoying sometimes (worrying about danger instead of trusting the sleuth when they imply they've got it all fixed up, etc).
If you glance at Footner's biography, it's no surprise that his writing puts the emphasis a little more on adventure than on the assembling of clues compared with some other detective fiction. Having the narrator relatively reluctant in the face of danger (like Rincewind! But, you know, not nearly that extreme) while his protagonist is magnificently just excited is a neat trick to simultaneously provide an audience stand-in while keeping the suspense a little lower than it perhaps otherwise would be (if Madame Storey herself were ever daunted or discouraged or nonplussed).
It's very nice having female protagonists to read about, which does make a change from most golden age detective fiction - even the stuff by the queens of crime, ironically enough. I don't have any major quarrels with Footner's ability to write women, either, although I could point to some features in the stories that are clearly caused by A Gender in one way or another. His ideas seem to tend more towards a touchingly childlike belief in the near-supernatural powers of animal magnetism and fascination and so on possessed by select men and women who he then portrays as able to semi-magically influence members of the opposite sex (occasionally he remembers to add that they can do it to same sex people too, but the hetness is usually taken for granted to an amusing degree given how determinedly unattached his female narrator is to, like, anyone except Madame Storey). There are other moments where I'm not sure if Gender has gotten in the way, or it's just the effect of all the years that have passed: for instance, when he portrays situations approaching, or capable of approaching, sexual harrassment faced by Bella and by Madame Storey; it's clear that the writer as well as the narrator take for granted that sexual harrassment, or attempted coercion or whatever, is bad and wrong, but the reactions he ascribes to Madame Storey in particular ring a bit false at times; he perhaps had an exaggerated idea of how insulated a woman of his time was capable of being by privilege from the knowledge of the threat of male sexual violence. But these are pretty minor blips overall. I'd still rate Footner about five times less burdened with Shitty Sexist Nonsense than his more famous contemporary Agatha Christie.
Anyway, the link at the top has a list of the Madame Storey stories in order, and like the Dr Thorndyke mysteries, they are in the public domain. You can find convenient ebook versions of them from Roy Glashan's ebook library here.
