47. The Lady in the Morgue by Jonathan Latimer

Latimer is in the "buy everything by him" category in my hunting list. It started with just looking for Solomon's Graveyard and not finding it to now just having his name (and still looking for the elusive Solomon's Graveyard).  His books are really fun!  It took me a bit to understand some of his stylistics as well as the cultural context and now that I do, I enjoy them so much more.

At their base, they are solid mysteries with a level of pre-WWII manly action.  They are also very much escapist entertainment where you get to follow detective William Crane (often with several quirky, competent allies along) as he gets to both party (with the fun lower classes and the fancy upper classes), do cool detecting and kick a little ass along the way.  Latimer lifts these pleasures to a higher level with his writing style, his complex plotting and most of all many interesting characters and locations/situations.  On top of this, like a maraschino cherry, is the drinking.  It's weird and fetishistic!  This was written in 1939 just a few years after prohibition ended and I guess alcohol was a big cultural deal for certain readers.  It's not just that they are almost constantly drinking incredible amounts of alcohol, but he also is very specific about which drinks and how much.  And the characters are always talking and joking about it.  It still feels a bit added; you could remove all the booze mentions and it would not impact the plot at all. 

The story here starts out in the morgue where two journalists and William Crane are waiting around to see if anybody will identify the dead body of a beautiful young woman.  This is all messed up when somebody sneaks into the cadaver room, kills the attendant and steals the body.  Crane was hired initially by a wealthy New York family who believe the body might have been that of their missing daughter.  Two rival gangsters believe it is the body of the moll they fought over.  Things get even more complicated and we get a raid at a taxi-dance hall, reefer addicted jazz musicians trying to get to the next level, multiple graveyard and morgue raids and fights and several parties.  There is a lot going on in this book!  Near the last third, it actually dragged out just a teeny bit too long for me, but it's still a lot of fun and the final climax in morgue is fantastic, involving hiding under the sheets on those rolling metal beds and then a fight in the dark.  

These books should be reprinted today, though they are full of that deep, assumed racism of the early 20th century which might be a deal breaker.  Characters use the n-word in every day conversation the way we might say Black or African-American today.  Even if you edited that out, these are probably a bit too niche to earn a proper reprint.  At least I hope somebody does a retrospective on Latimer's work.

As an aside, the marijuana scene is really wild.  It's a religious ritual where the musicians sit in a circle and chant certain sayings to certain gods, trying to get to the next level.  It requires multiple joints apparently as I guess the weed was much lighter back then.  It can't be a coincidence that in the scene where they are getting ready to go to the back room of the bar where the reefer party is going on, the bartender rings them up and the change is exactly 4.20 can it?!

 

This book is quite lovely. Printed in 1944, the paper quality is quite good and it has beautiful bright red cardstock pages inside the front and back covers.  Below is the promotion for their books for soldiers program which was responsible for both lots of reading from vets coming back from WWII as well as popularity for the various crime and action genres.  In the following pages are lists of various books you can order with quotes from real soldiers appreciating the program. It's very cool.

46. One Pair of Hands by Monica Dickens

I stumbled upon a Monica Dickens book a couple of years ago and brought it out to the family seat to read during the xmas holidays.  My mother and sister immediately glommed on to it, one of them took it to read, then passed it on to the other and it never made its way back to me.  Typical.  They loved it so much that they started looking for her other books and this was one they got that I stole back.

It's a biographical telling of the year and a half that Dickens, born into a genteel family and bored with life, decided to get a job as a domestic in the role of the cook.  She recounts in a light and entertaining way each of the houses where she worked (from bourgeois apartments in London to country family estates).  She is admittedly not great at her job but does really try hard and improves.  It's not laugh out loud funny, but it is, as they say, thoroughly delightful and I would add, quite readable.  She has an excellent way of describing the worst kind of people in a way that is damning and yet excusing at the same time.  A large part of her enjoyment in the experience, which she shares with us, is the eavesdropping of the people for which she works.  Some of them are just awful, whereas others, particularly the last family, are quite loveable.

There isn't really anything deep here beyond perhaps a very nice anthropological exploration of the evolving relations between the classes in the context of domestic service in England at the beginning of the 20th century (it was written in 1939).  Underneath, though, you really do see how hard this work is.  You have to have a significant skill set (cooking is huge but also cleaning those old houses required all kinds of knowledge and techniques) but more importantly be really efficient and organized.  It's one thing to make a meal for your own family (a decent enough amount of work), but with these jobs, everything has to be presented correctly and with the exact right stuff.  It's kind of like running a private restaurant, not to mention that you have to be up before everyone else to get the stove running to make the hot water to prep breakfast.

I really enjoyed this book and will now have another name to look for in the gasp literary section of used book stores!

45. Green River High by Duncan Kyle

I went through my past reviews of Duncan Kyle and at least twice, probably 3 times, I referred to him as a poor man's Desmond Bagley.  I need some new material!  Well I always meant that in terms of perception and now after having finished Green River High, I am discarding it altogether.  Duncan Kyle is good.  He's real good.  I was almost weeping with joy at the setup in the first few pages.  George Hawke Tunnacliffe is at a turning point in his life, where he is about to be promoted to head clerk at the bank where he works and is extremely reluctant to take that step, fearing being stuck in the mediocre stability of such a life.  On his way to work on the day that he will have to decide whether to accept the promotion or not. he is delayed by an old man on the bus getting sick and because of that interrupts a bank robbery at his own bank.

Of course, Tunnacliffe has a background in the army and by foiling the robbery, he becomes a minor celebrity.  This scene in the hospital, where he is talking to his female doctor is the stuff that I absolutely love about good British men's fiction. 

Of course being a hero doesn't help this guy!   And I just love the "you're rather dangerous" with the subtle implication that the doctor is attracted to him, yet still professional herself.  This is what America so often struggles with, the understated nature of the true badass (Asia gets this as well).  Of course, the military background with the rugged but loved superior officer.  It's just all so awesome.

Because of his public exposure, two old contacts of his WWII pilot father reach out to him, each with intriguing, inter-connected opportunities stemming from his father's disappearance in SE Asia at the end of the war.  From then, the story is pretty classic well-researched exploration and struggles in the jungles of Borneo (with a side tour of action in the Essex hills).  There is one great wrinkle in the character of Mrs. Franklin, prim and proper churchgoer who was also a nurse in those same jungles and is a total badass in her own way.  She's a great character that really elevates the story.  Straight-up banger.

On a consumerist note, I really love these Fontana wrap-around covers.  I'd love to have a complete set in good order.  Here is a great site with each of them laid out flat.  Props!

44. The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji

This is another classic in the Japanese honkaku school, I believe actually shin honkaku, or new orthodox/traditional where the authors recreate the "fair play" mysteries of Agatha Christie, John Dickson Carr, etc. that the reader has all the clues to figure out the mysteries themselves.  This one is hardcore into the classics as the main characters are a group of university students who are also members of the mystery book club and give each other pseudonyms of different classic authors (Carr, Ellery, Van Dine, Orczy, Agatha, etc.).  There are several tropes here that are quite common in much of the Japanese media we get translated in North America: the group of young people isolated on an island, the sad loneliness of the loser kid but the overall style and atmosphere is more straightforward and realistic.

The plot is that 7 members of the mystery club are going to spend a week on a small island that is infamous because the owner who was an eccentric architect built a mansion which then was the site of at least four people being murdered and the building burned down.  One of the students uncle, a real estate agent, ended up buying the island and let the kids stay in the remaining ten-sided building.  For them it is kind of an adventure, but little do they know somebody is planning an elaborate revenge against them.

There are two narrative lines in the book, one with the students on the island first just exploring and being themselves but then dealing with each of them being murdered one by one.  The other narrative is another student who had quit the club who received a threatening letter.  He starts investigating and we learn about the history of the architect and start to piece together what happened before on the island.

At first, it felt a bit wooden.  The characters used their nicknames and it took me a while to get a sense of who they actually were.  Characterization is not strong throughout the book as the emphasis is on the puzzle, but it does get more human as the trauma of the murders starts to impact them (and eliminate them so there are fewer to try and remember).  The mystery is layered and elaborate and I really got into it by the second half.  It's a page turner for sure.  I'm hopeless at figuring these things out, I finally started to cotton just when the author wanted me to.  It's a lot of fun and I can't understand why all of his books are not translated into English.

43. Path to Savagery by Robert Edmond Alter

Paperback Warrior turned me on to this book and after much hunting I found it (I believe at Pulp Fiction books in Vancouver but can't remember for sure beyond the happy feeling of seeing the book on the shelf).  I'm surprised it isn't better known among post-apocalypse readers because it really hits all the fun notes of the genre.  I would have loved this as a Road Warrior inspired adolescent.

The timeline is a little inconsistent, as different character's memories of the destroyed civilization seem a bit too fresh compared to the level of destruction and deterioration of society.  Falk is a Loner, picking his way through ruined America on his own, simply trying to survive.  He will glom onto Flockers to get some water and trade, as they are the small semi-civilized groups in contrast to the Neanderthals, who have regressed to nomadic raiding and destruction.  Falk's big advantage, other than his own experience and skill, is that he has a tommy gun.  We get several neat little episodes involving both groups until Falk discovers a ruined coastal city where the downtown is half under water.  Figuring he can maybe discover a treasure trove by making it out to the big department store, he discovers a small community that has already taken it over.  

The Paperback Warrior review goes deeper into the plot if you want to learn more.  Ultimately, it's just a fun action-packed read, with some hints at a greater storyline (rumours of some place called Genesis in the north where they are trying to create a new civilization).  However, the thematic through line is actually Falk trying to find the right woman, one he sees and feels in his dreams and then actually encounters.  The outcome is quite interesting.  I sort of dug it and felt that it pushed the sexual politics of the book slightly beyond the late 60s mores that were in the rest of the book.

42. The History of England by Lord Macaulay (abridged and annotated edition by Hugh Trevor-Roper)

I found this book in a free box in the community center where I sometimes play basketball.  It seemed a bit daunting, but interesting.  Now I wish I actually had the full edition and I may one day track it down and read it.  The full edition is roughly four times the size as this one.  Trevor-Roper does his usual solid job of putting the history into context and then picking out all the sections dealing with the Glorious Revolution that kicked James III off the throne, put William III on and established the foundation of England's strong parliament that would lead to its dominance in the world.  I had probably learned much of this in high school, but completely forgotten all of it but a few fleeting references.  This book was really informative.  Furthermore, it was also quite enjoyable.  Macaulay really could write and he has that great British characteristic of not holding back at all in his critiques and doing so in a readable way.  Trevor-Roper reveals all his biases and even where he is straight up erroneous and these make him ripping apart various Tory historical figures all the more fun.

Some great quotes:

It must be remembered that, though concord is in itself better than discord, discord may indicate a better state of things than is indicated by concord. Calamity and peril often force men to combine. Prosperity and security often encourage them to separate.

In revolutions, men live fast: the experience of years is crowded into hours: old habits of thought and action are violently broken; novelties, which at first sight inspire dread and disgust, become in a few days familiar, endurable, attractive.

Indeed, during the century which followed the Revolution, the inclination of an English Protestant to trample on the Irishry was generally proportioned to the zeal which he professed for political liberty in the abstract.  If he uttered any expression of compassion for the majority oppressed by the minority, he might be safely set down as a bigoted Tory and High Churcham

Also, a note on the length of time it took me to read this (astute readers will notice that it has been a month since my last post).  Part of it is that the book is long and there is a real slog in the middle where he goes into the mire of religious arguments of the non-jurors and their counterparts (another example of the absolute stupidity of religion where Catholic leaders in England had to twist themselves in knots to figure out how accepting or not accepting William as sovereign could fit into their interpretation of the bible).  But really, I could have finished it much faster but this July has been warm weather, Fantasia film festival and just hanging out in Montreal.