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Recent golden age mystery reading
23 Jan 2025 07:55 pmThe Perry Mason books I have read so far - all by Erle Stanley Gardner - are:
I also started TCOT Drowsy Mosquito (DNF: boredom) and TCOT Confused Kitten (DNF: racist dialogue between non-regular characters in the opening scene. So there's no reason to think the sentiment would be endorsed by our heroes, but I didn't want to wait to find out. I don't like the client-POV interlude chapters anyway.)
In the past, I made three attempts to read Margery Allingham's well-known Campion books. I finished the first book, but after that I failed to make it through three books in a row and gave up. However, I found a blog review that recommended Allingham's Death of a Ghost, and decided to give it another try. (I have watched the show starring David Tennant's father-in-law, but I don't remember plot details.) Death of a Ghost was a good read, albeit not a particularly gripping one. However, it is completely spoiled by the ending. There are a few bits of dialogue where various people opine that when a man starts committing murder in middle age he is doomed to lose all his marbles, never really expanded on in context or discussed, and then at the climax of the book, a policeman who is tailing Campion saves his life when the murderer tries to push him off the platform in front of a train on the London Underground... and as soon as this murderer - a murderer who has killed two people to prevent them revealing that he was making money from a massive fraud, not out of violent impulses or psychosexual whatsit! - is arrested, he immediately collapses on the floor moaning and gibbering, and is unable to produce coherent human language ever again. He definitely isn't faking it, we're told, because medical experts have confirmed that his mind just broke under the strain. Then Campion and someone else are like Yep, definitely, when a man first commits murder in middle age, his mind just dissolves! The end! ... Like... WHAT? Someone PUBLISHED this?????? (Definitely worse than the three I DNFed.)
I am eager to read Harriet Rutland's other two Golden Age mysteries, but I haven't ordered them yet because I want to order physical copies and can't decide what other books to order at the same time. I really want to try some highly-recommended books by Francis Beeding, but they seem much less available. I may have to try to get them used, but that's bound to be more work.
Meanwhile, though, did you know that Tor and Baen both just publish basically their whole sf catalog as ebooks without DRM? A part of me would love to just never buy any books from any other publishers. I would be very sad without Golden Age mysteries, though. Or even just if I were limited to ones I could obtain used.
- TCOT Howling Dog. Recommended, but CW: scenes of racism against Chinese character, not endorsed but not challenged by the protagonist. 4.5/5. I found it unputdownable.
- TCOT Substitute Face. Recommended, perhaps 4/5. Some dated gender issues, but these seem to be well-intentioned and not serious.
- TCOT Lame Canary. This one was quite gripping, and the puzzle was really rather enchanting - I kept putting the book down and going over the clues, trying to come up with a theory. 4/5? Recommended.
- TCOT Stuttering Bishop. I found the second half particularly good. 3.5/5.
- TCOT Haunted Husband. I really enjoyed the puzzle in this one too, although it felt less gripping. 3.5/5?
I also started TCOT Drowsy Mosquito (DNF: boredom) and TCOT Confused Kitten (DNF: racist dialogue between non-regular characters in the opening scene. So there's no reason to think the sentiment would be endorsed by our heroes, but I didn't want to wait to find out. I don't like the client-POV interlude chapters anyway.)
In the past, I made three attempts to read Margery Allingham's well-known Campion books. I finished the first book, but after that I failed to make it through three books in a row and gave up. However, I found a blog review that recommended Allingham's Death of a Ghost, and decided to give it another try. (I have watched the show starring David Tennant's father-in-law, but I don't remember plot details.) Death of a Ghost was a good read, albeit not a particularly gripping one. However, it is completely spoiled by the ending. There are a few bits of dialogue where various people opine that when a man starts committing murder in middle age he is doomed to lose all his marbles, never really expanded on in context or discussed, and then at the climax of the book, a policeman who is tailing Campion saves his life when the murderer tries to push him off the platform in front of a train on the London Underground... and as soon as this murderer - a murderer who has killed two people to prevent them revealing that he was making money from a massive fraud, not out of violent impulses or psychosexual whatsit! - is arrested, he immediately collapses on the floor moaning and gibbering, and is unable to produce coherent human language ever again. He definitely isn't faking it, we're told, because medical experts have confirmed that his mind just broke under the strain. Then Campion and someone else are like Yep, definitely, when a man first commits murder in middle age, his mind just dissolves! The end! ... Like... WHAT? Someone PUBLISHED this?????? (Definitely worse than the three I DNFed.)
I am eager to read Harriet Rutland's other two Golden Age mysteries, but I haven't ordered them yet because I want to order physical copies and can't decide what other books to order at the same time. I really want to try some highly-recommended books by Francis Beeding, but they seem much less available. I may have to try to get them used, but that's bound to be more work.
Meanwhile, though, did you know that Tor and Baen both just publish basically their whole sf catalog as ebooks without DRM? A part of me would love to just never buy any books from any other publishers. I would be very sad without Golden Age mysteries, though. Or even just if I were limited to ones I could obtain used.
