LB's Rambles

Don't Lose Your Head(line)

The man who came up with one of the most memorable newspaper headlines EVER, Vincent A. Musetto, has retired from - where else? - the New York Post. You could say that this headline pretty well defined the newspaper. We wish him well in retirement. As they used to say, "EXTRA, EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT..."

Hat tip: Pajamas Media (which also has a photo of the original headline. You DO know which one I'm talking about, right?)

"The Plague Court Murders"

Murder inside a locked and bolted room, practically under the eyes of the police. Inside the room, only the victim - and the peculiar knife which was used. No sign of the murderer. Could it have been a malevolent ghost?

That's the central question in John Dickson Carr's "The Plague Court Murders," written in 1934 using the pseudonym "Carter Dickson." It's the topic of today's review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, which you can listen to by clicking here. The book introduced another of Carr's series detectives, the irascible Sir Henry Merrivale, known as "H.M." to his associates and his readers. There's a lot of slapstick comedy in some of the later books starring H.M., but not in "The Plague Court Murders." Instead, we are given some marvelous and frightening atmospherics, for it appears that only a ghost could have committed the murder in the locked room.

But this is a John Dickson Carr book, and the reader can be assured that H.M. doesn't believe in ghosts - at least not the kind that go around murdering people. And so the reader will be given some well-disguised clues about what's really happening here - and the reader's path will take some dizzying twists before the solution is ultimately revealed.

It's all great fun, nicely written and plotted, and definitely worth adding to your library.

"If Death Ever Slept"

This week's Classic Mysteries podcast review subject is Rex Stout's 1957 Nero Wolfe mystery, "If Death Ever Slept." You can listen to the full podcast review here.

Archie Goodwin is more on display here than Nero Wolfe, whose armchair detection role consists of even more armchair than usual. Archie finds himself dispatched to a multi-millionaire's mansion, to find out whether the rich man's daughter-in-law is the "snake" her father-in-law says she is. There's also a little matter of industrial espionage going on, and all that is before the murders begin. For once, Wolfe finds himself relying far more than usual on Inspector Cramer for clues, something that makes neither of them very comfortable.

Archie is his usual wisecracking self and there are some interesting and enjoyable characters introduced here before Wolfe gets everyone together for one of his patented office confrontation scenes. As usual, it's good fun and worth the read.

Almost Funny

Transparency Revolution hosts a visit from the Man of the Future...or rather the man from today, as he might have appeared to folks half a century ago...to explain the future of communications.

This struck me as hilarious...until I realized that it's just a little too close to the truth...

Hat tip: Instapundit

Career Based Insanity

I have long suspected that the years I spent in broadcast journalism were, if not exactly wasted, at least detrimental to my mental health.

Apparently, I have been proven correct, according to this reasoned and reflective report from KOMO.

(With thanks to the pointer from my one-time colleague in crime, Haney Howell.)

"The First Detective"

This week, on the Classic Mysteries podcast, we're offering something a little different: a review of a non-fiction book. Actually, make that a mostly non-fiction book, because the subject of this biography has inspired a number of dubious stories about him, both in his own memoirs and those of former associates and/or enemies.

The book is "The First Detective: The Life and Revolutionary Times of Vidocq, Criminal, Spy and Private Eye," by James Morton. Vidocq is an amazing character, born in France near the end of the eighteenth century. He started life as a thief, a possible murderer and forger, an escape artist. But he became a police spy and rose through the police ranks to the top before quitting and forming what the author, James Morton, says was the first private detective agency.

His character inspired authors such as Victor Hugo, Honore de Balzac, Herman Melville and Edgar Allen Poe to use him as a basis for characters in their novels. You can find a full review on the Classic Mysteries podcast, which you can listen to by clicking here. He was truly an amazing individual, and the book, packed full of wonderful anecdotes, is thoroughly entertaining. It has just been published in the U.S. by the Overlook Press, which provided a copy for this review.

"When Last I Died"

If you are a fan of traditional, Golden Age mysteries and you have never met Mrs. Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley, it really is time to make her acquaintance. Mrs. Bradley, a psychiatrist, was the literary offspring of Gladys Mitchell, a writer whose work was frequently ranked as being the equal of mysteries by Agatha Christie or Dorothy L. Sayers.

You can get a good idea of Mrs. Bradley's - and Mitchell's - abilities by reading "When Last I Died," which is the subject of this week's review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. You can listen to the full review by clicking here. This 1941 mystery begins with Mrs. Bradley becoming suspicious of a diary supposedly written by a woman accused, and acquitted, of murder. There are entirely too many errors in the document for Mrs. Bradley to accept it as legitimate. Her investigation will uncover a number of extremely horrific murders, involve some ghost-busting activities in a supposedly haunted house, and provide quite a few surprises along the way. There are surrealistic touches, familiar to Mitchell's fans, and a fair amount of sardonic humor turns up in the course of this story. "When Last I Died" is considered one of Mitchell's best books - and I would have to agree.