google-site-verification: googlef64103236b9f4855.html Philly Reader: July 2016

Friday, July 29, 2016

Death's Bright Dart by V. C. Clinton-Baddeley

Dr. Davie, a Cambridge professor, was attending a conference which was being held at his college. There were a wide variety of people in attendance. There were explorers and physicians and scientists who came from England, the United States, and Eastern Europe. The actual subject matter of the conference was a bit vague but Mostyn-Humphries, an undergraduate at the college believed that it had something to do with poisons. The star speaker at the conference was Dr. Brauer who was doing scientific research on something or other. He was not a popular man with all of the conference attendees who had professional envy of his position or who just did not like him.

The attendees enjoyed the beginning meeting of the conference, and the beauty of the college of St. Nicholas. Many of them also found time to visit the Missionary exhibition at a local museum. There were the expected exhibits of native crafts and utensils. Most of the visitors were most interested in the exhibit of native weapons and especially the blow guns.

Dr. Brauer asked Dr. Davie to visit him in this rooms before Brauer gave his speech to the conference. Brauer told Davie that he was extremely worried that someone was trying to kill him. He told Davie that he had named Davie as the executor of his estate. He also told Davie about medical activities that he had been forced to carry out at Auschwitz with the notorious Dr. Pavik during World War II. Brauer was sure that he had seen someone from those days who would remember him.

At the conference, Dr. Brauer went on the stage to deliver his speech. He had just begun to speak when he put his hand on his neck as though he was warding off a mosquito. Then he fell forward on the platform and died.

Dr. Davie was intensely interested in Dr. Brauer, his death, and his activities during the war. There had been a theft of a blowgun from the Missionary exhibition at the museum, and several of the conference participants were knowledgeable about the preparation of the poisons which the natives had used on blowgun darts.  Following Brauer's death, there would be a suicide, and the puzzling death of a mild mannered conference participant who appeared to have no link to Brauer at all.

This Silver Age mystery is in the best tradition of the Golden Age. Much depends on the position of the conference attendees at the time of the murder. Fortunately there is a map of the conference location included in the book. Also,  much depends on a timetable of events following the murder. I like Dr. Davie as a detective. He is thoughtful, intelligent, and quite charming.  This is the first book in the series of five that V. C. Clinton-Baddeley wrote in the years from 1967 - 1972. This book was published in 1967 and is available in paperback and ebook formats.





Wednesday, July 20, 2016

No Case for the Police by V. C. Clinton-Baddeley

Dr. R. V. Davie had returned to the village of Tidwell St. Peters where he had grown up with his good friend Robert Cassillis. They had played together as young boys, and kept in touch in later years even though Davie was a professor in Cambridge, England, and Robert was off exploring sites around the world. Now Robert was dead, and Davie was returning for the funeral. Sir Robert Cassillis has designated Davie as his literary executor and as such he visited Sir Robert's home. He met Robert's much younger wife, Irene, and the family chauffeur, Donald, who was in his twenties and quite good looking. Davie would later observe them having a rather intimate moment.

Among Robert's papers, Davie found a small notebook in which Robert had made a few notes about the death of Adam Merrick, a local man, who had fallen to his death in a local quarry. The police assumed the death to be an accident or possibly suicide. Dr. Davie showed this notebook to Irene and Donald. and Irene seemed to be rather upset about it and told Davie to destroy the notebook. Later when Davie was editing Robert's biography, he found more notes about Merrick's death tucked inside the manuscript. Could Irene or Donald be involved in the death?

Davie met Giles Gifford, a young man who had been a student at Cambridge, and who also had doubts about Merrick's death. They decided to work together to find out more information about the day when Merrick had died. Davie met Merrick's wife and found out that she was having an affair. He also spoke with Ernest Stubbings who had purchased the property bordering on Merrick's. Stubbings had diverted a stream which ran through Merrick's land in order to construct a very unattractive water garden to go with his unattractive flower garden. Merrick was quite upset about this and they had had a shouting match. Also there was Arthur Parsley who collected snowstorms (those glass globes containing a scene where a snow storm is produced by shaking) and who lived quite near the quarry where the death occurred.

Davie and Giles found the solution to Merrick's death, and the police are never involved in the investigation. This is a charming classic mystery in the best style of the Golden Age of Mystery. Davie is a delightful man. The village is quaint as are the inhabitants, but underneath the surface there are many motives for a murder. It is unfortunate that this book did not include a map of Tidwell St. Peters, which would really have helped the reader to understand the geography of the neighborhood.

This book was published in 1970. V. C. Clinton-Baddeley was an editor, an actor, a writer of radio scripts and the owner of company which produced recordings of poetry. He took up writing mystery novels in the last four years of his life and wrote five mysteries which featured Dr. Davie.





Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Sweet Death, Kind Death by Amanda Cross

Patrice Umphelby was believed to have committed suicide by putting rocks in her pockets and walking out in the lake near Clare College where she was a professor. Kate Fansler, professor and amateur detective, had met Patrice only once at an airport where they had discussed God. After Patrice's funeral, Kate was approached by Archer and Herbert, the two men who were writing a biography of Patrice. They wished to know more about Kate's meeting with Patrice, and Archer questioned whether Patrice had committed suicide.

Patrice was a professor of history at Clare College. She had been married but her husband had been murdered; she had two children who dearly loved her. She had published works of history, novels, and stories, and had been a frequent speaker at other colleges and universities. She was forty nine when her husband died, and fifty eight when she committed suicide.

Kate Fansler agreed to take a closer look at the life and death of Patrice after Professor Norton, president of Clare College, called her and expressed her worries about the death of Patrice. It seemed that people on the campus were beginning to raise questions about the death, and Dr. Norton wanted to put an end to the questions. This mission to the college was a secret. Kate's appearance on campus was to appear that she would be on a committee to discuss the formation of a department of gender studies at Clare.

Kate interviewed many of the faculty members at the college. Since Patrice had a stong personality and did not hesitate to express her views, there were faculty members who were strongly opposed to her just as there were those who really like Patrice. Kate was faced with two problems. Who among these people had a strong enough motive to kill Patrice, and what means was used to force Patrice to commit suicide.

This is a very literate and witty novel. There are many allusions to writers and literature, and many mentions of Virginia Woolf who died in the same manner as Patrice. I highly recommend this book. If you like fast moving mystery novels with lots of action, this is not the book for you.

Amanda Cross was the pen name of Carolyn Heilbrun. She was a professor of English at Columbia University and was the author of fourteen non-fiction books and fourteen Kate Fansler mysteries. When she was seventy seven, she committed suicide because she felt her life had been completed. Sweet Death, Kind Death was published in 1984 when Heilbrun was fifty eight. This book contains many meditations upon suicide by Patrice, and the reader can only wonder if Heilbrun was already seriously thinking about suicide when this book was written.