Two #1937Club murder mysteries

I am so behind with gathering up and reading 1937 Club posts – what else is new for a club week? – but I’m loving seeing them flood in, and will catch up. For today, I am writing about two golden age detective novels – how golden are they?

The Door Between by Ellery Queen

It’s only in typing out the title and author that I realise they rhyme. Anyway, this novel by ‘Ellery Queen’ (a pseudonym of Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee, as well as the name of the detective) is my second by him – and I was intrigued by the title, because I love anything that centres domestic detail.

At the heart of the book is Eva – a young woman who is courageous and stubborn, but also given to the occasional damsel-in-distress flare up. Her father, a famous cancer researcher Dr John MacClure, is engaged to be married to Karen Leith. Leith is an American living in Manhattan, but obsessed with Japan – she has lived there for a long time, and writes novels that are heavily influenced by all things Japanese. Her study has Japanese furniture and art all around it, and her servant is an older Japanese woman. I don’t know how much research the authors did into Japanese culture, but I suspect they relied more on vibes than accuracy. (Incidentally, Wikipedia tells me that Ellery Queen remained the most popular mystery writer in Japan until the 1970s.)

Eva is herself in a deepening romantic relationship with a doctor – I quite enjoyed the spirited way they go from despising each other to love over the course of the first few chapters. It felt very knockabout-comedy, and I could see that section of the book being turned into a fun Golden Age of Hollywood movie.

Eva goes to see Karen, to build some bridges with her future mother-in-law. The servant comes out of Karen’s study with a piece of paper, and says that Eva can go in later. Eva is sat outside the only exit to the room. And… yes, you guessed it. Karen is found dead – and nobody could have gone in or out. Her throat is cut, but there is no sign of a knife – just a small hole in the window where a stone has come through, and an empty birdcage.

Enter the detective, Ellery Queen, a fairly louche and whimsical character. Something I enjoy about the Ellery Queen books is the dynamic between Queen and his father, who is an Inspector. They have a sweet, squabbling repartee – enough respect on each side to plough on together, and enough cynicism towards the other’s role to make it fun.

As for the plot… it’s my second Ellery Queen novel, and I am beginning to think he’ll make up any old nonsense. There are so many coincidences and unlikely scenarios strung together, with nobody asking the right questions until Ellery swans in and pieces everything together with seemingly very little time between cluelessness and absolute certainty. It’s overly complex and very unconvincing. Obviously the author was and is extremely popular, but these novels make me think that Ellery Queen would have been rather better at enjoyably silly romances than murder mysteries.

I quite enjoyed both Ellery Queens I’ve read, but ultimately I don’t think the pay-off is worth it, and I probably won’t be reading any more.

A Bullet in the Ballet by Caryl Brahms and S.J. Simon

Another detective whose name begins with Q! This time it is Adam Quill, who gets involved when a ballet dancer is shot in the middle of a performance of Petroushka – in a death scene, no less. The aftermath of the death is one of the msot 1937 moments I’ve come across in the 1937 Club:

It was perhaps as well that Palook could not remain alive to read his own obituaries, for he would not have been at all pleased with the manner in which these were framed. By an unfortunate coincidence Hitler had selected the day of his death to threaten the world with peace, collaring the greater part of the front pages and every first leader in the country. This left a mere double column for Palook’s sensational end, and much of this had been used up by the sob-sisters with graphic descriptions of everybody’s reactions to the event, except, of course, Palook’s.

A Bullet in the Ballet was the first of the collaborations between Caryl Brahms and S.J. Simon. Brahms was a critic and journalist as well as novelist, and she specialised in the ballet – so brings a lot of knowledge to the novel, often rather at the expense of the reader if (like me) they know nothing about ballet. I’d never heard of Petroushka and had to play catch up to understand any significance in it.

The novel is very arch, and Vladimir Stroganoff (!), who runs the ballet company, is openly more concerned with the ongoing performances than he is about poor Palook’s murder. Murder isn’t taken particularly seriously by anybody in the novel, and there is a heightened unreality to it that didn’t quite work for me. Many moments were enjoyable, but tonally it felt a bit of an unsuccessful reach.

It’s a very self-aware piece of detective fiction. Quill is very Tired Of These Hysterical Foreigners (and at one point reads a murder mystery and is annoyed at its French detective) – and Brahms and Simon include quite a few fourth-wall-breaking references to how detectives should behave. And there are things like this…

“Now,” said Stanely comfortably as the waitress departed with the order, “I realise, of course, that everyboyd connected with the crime is under suspicion. As I’m anxious to help you, it is necessary that I should be elimiated at once from your list. I will therefore give you my alibi.”

The astute reader at this point will immediately jump to the conclusion that Stanley must be criminal and that this ingeniousness is merely low cunning designed to mislead. Even Quill had read enough detective stories to feel vaguely suspicious.

I did find all the rivalries, jealousies and other motives a bit hard to keep track of, though thankfully Brahms and Simon have a couple of times they recap everything that went before in a handy list, with motives and opportunities for each person.

And the solution? It comes so late in the day, in a chaotic rush, and it sort of makes sense, but there’s no earthly reason that any reader would have picked it any more than any other explanation picked out of the sky. But I don’t think Brahms and Simon are in this for the plot. They’ve definitely prioritised atmosphere and humour. It didn’t quite work for me, but it could for you.

So there you go – two detective novels by two-author-writing-teams, and neither of them especially successful for me! I’ll admit that the 1937 Club hasn’t had my biggest success rate – but I have one book left to finish, so fingers crossed.