Fact , Fict ion and the Inferno
Black Marla, By Harry Hodge. (Gollancz. 83. 6d.)
TILE old gag about fact being stranger than fiction persists in holding the stage, how. ever venornotislY a full house of mystery-writers may try to hiss it off. It is lucky for their livelihood that books like When. Justice Faltered and Black Maria are not often published. The latter contains the intro- ductory essays originally written for fifteen of the Famous Trials series. This series is, so to speak, the definitive edition of British crime, which every serious student of villainy must have within reach. But for those who have not the time or inclination to work through detailed reports this selection of prefaces is excellent. It includes essays by William Roughead, B. Irving, F. Tennyson Jesse, Filson Young and Helena Normanton. We hope that Mr. Hodge will send out his Black Maria again for a fresh consignment of criminals.
When Justice Faltered is an account of nine murder cases, at least four of which would make the most blood-thirsty fan- tasies of the mystery-writer look like so much anaemic subur- banity. The critic is apt to gird at the detection-novelist who allows himself more than one murder per tale—a confession of failure to hold our attention except at the pistol-point, says the critic. But what would he say to the case of Mary Ann Cotton, who of the 24 people she lived with betwetn 1860 and 1872 killed with arsenic no fewer than 21 ? Or, again, what detection-writer would have the nerve to present his public with the following situation ? A clergyman, a retired head- master well known for classical scholarship and literary' attainments, a decent, kindly, rather humourless man, at the age of 67 beats his wife's head in with the butt of an antique pistol. He had been constant to her for a twenty years engagement and had lived with her in amity for many yearA more. The only motive was that she had unforgivably' insulted him ; and the jury were convinced against a plea of insanity. Yet such was the affair of the Rev. Selby Watson, a case recorded by Mr. Lambert under the agreeably Sher lockian title of " The Provoked Clergyman." Eight of his nine cases occurred between 1850 and 1872, final evidence that life is far more prolific of monstrosities than the imagination of the most morbid writers. Mr. Lambert relates them in a clear, judicial, rather old-fashioned style which suits their substance admirably. Every connoisseur of crime will have this book on his shelves.
In spite of this, writers continue their forlorn attempts to beat life at its own game. Mr. Macpherson takes us to Mon- treal, where things are happening which would make even Samuel Butler turn in his grave. " Oh God ! Oh Montreal would seem inadequate comment on a city where, in: rapid succession, a bodiless hand floats in at the window of a motor- car, a ditto head materialises over a dinner party, a giant caterpillar and a unicorn walk severally down a street, and the local scientist who is investigating these phenomena is finally assaulted by an octopoid growth which appears on the ceiling. Here we are back in the world of Nayland Smith and his immortal uis-a-vis, Fu Manchu. But we miss the truly awe-inspiring unreality of Sax Rohrner, Mr. Macpherson has an up-to-date explanation for everything, and his compromise between fact and fiction is only a falling between two stools- Still, the book is undoubtedly exciting, and will appeal to those who like to say—with the late Ella Wheeler Wilcox--- " Our talk was tinctured with science."
The House on the Boof mingles detection with the cauld grue, Death whispers up and down the old apartment-house In Chicago, but they are stage-whispers and not too convincing- Marie Monroe, a retired opera singer, was shot while (but riot: it transpires, because) she was singing Massenet's Elegie• Deborah Cavort, who was accompanying her—so to speak-- into the next world, finds herself consequently in a tight spot. The action is seen through her eyes, and as a result we get our detection at second-hand and a great deal of stress falls upon character. Mrs. Eberhart's characters, though Oil .
are clear-cut and interesting, do not quite stand up to this test. However, there is a good love affair, the women are well-dressed, and the plot is neat and reasonable, so we have not much to complain about.
.Miss Phoebe Atwood Taylor- stands out from the rest of the writers under. review. She possesses the intangible quality of distinction, arid' heil characters and dialogue are so good that one never feels a temptation to skip on to the end ; which, considering how inveigling are her plots, is high commenda- tion indeed. Moreover, she has created in Asey Mayo, the Cape Cod fisherman, a detective who may soon enter that • gallery of eccentric originals where are enthroned already Dr. Fell, Poirot, Peter Whn.sey, Father Brown and the great Sherlock himself. Several girls have recently been found dead at the bottom.of a cliff. Then the father of one of there: is killed he is seen to point a revolver at himself and its report is heard ; but, when the body is examined a few, minutes later, it is discovered that he has been killed by a stab in the back. From this promising moment Cape Cod resounds with the galloping of herrings of the brightest carmine but the most unimpeachable integrity. Revolvers, knives and the amanita phalloides (or " death-cup ") threaten the lives of Asey and his friends. He is in his best form, and so is that superb spinster, Agatha Penrose. The . murderer evades suspicion in a way that is as baffling as it is infuriatingly simple. Equally commendable is the solution of the putty pellets problem. I did think someone ought to have looked: for that inkpot sooner than he did : and surely the dying man could just as easily have given the key-word as said " ink." But these are the only blemishes on a book that is my bet for the best detective story of the season.
Mr. Darwent, whose first novel this is, has made a very. promising start. His emotional situations have real bite and he possesses an evident feeling for character, though at present he lets one see rather too much of the works. Where character is concerned, an ounce of revealing dialogue out- weighs a pound of accurate description. Mystery in the Snow begins with the discovery of the body of Sir John Sanderson, head of the British Finance Corporation, on a moor near Manchester. The mystery is solved by solid, straightforward police., work. Inspector West is a man, not the usual stock-, size omniscient dummy of detective fiction : we hope to see more of him.
Miss Taylor and Mr. Darwent both succeed in making us feel that these things might he happening to us. Mr. Footner does not attempt to. Murdei of a Bad Man is a rattling yarn of super-gangsterism—though perhaps " rattling " should have gone out of currency now that the Tin Lizzie has been: replaced by the Packard as a symbol of speed. At any rate, there is plenty of chasing around and shooting up ; and for those who like their tough eggs exceptionally hard-boiled, this is the stuff. Jack Comerford, a Harvard graduate, offers to help his father in the suppression of the illegal:liquor traffic. He goes into the service of Mack Shenton, "the best- known man on Broadway," who is also the big noise in this Particularly noisy racket. lie also falls in love with Muriel Aymery, whom Mack has his eye on and whose mother, :a night-club hostess, Mack is trying to ruin. So • Harvard has its hands full. The merit of this story, apart from its very slick succession of thrills, lies in the character of Mack Shenton's right-hand man, one Snake Wyatt. In him Mi. Footner presents an admirable study of the flashy, conceited, infantile and ruthless gangster-killer.
oinebody in Boots has no reference to the celebrated cash chemists, but shows us one of the reasons why ordinary boys turn into Snake Wyatts. Cass McKay, son of a poverty- , stricken railway worker, sees his father kicking his elder brother to death with nailed boots: ,This. works on him so that lie runs away from home and becomes a vagrant. The pitiful attempts of this sensitive boy to become a tough guy, and the unspeakable experiences which are his daily bread—or rather his substitute for it—provide an excellent and necessary cor7 rective to the other books I have been reviewing. This is 'a Serious novel, and Mr. Algren a proletarian writer of great potentialities ; so it would be impertinent to attempt a criti- cism of his book in the present context. But everyone shotild
• read it and learn to what an inferno our social system condemns thousands of children for no worse crime than physical and inral-• starvation. • , •
NICIDDLAS BLAK« •
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