"A Rising Crescendo of Audacity"

THE HAND OF PERIL: A NOVEL OF ADVENTURE.
By Arthur Stringer (1874-1950).
The Macmillan Company.
1915. 331 pages. $1.25
Online HERE, HERE, and HERE.
Filmed in 1916 (IMDb).

Let's face it: James Bond is nothing new:

[Full review] This is an exciting series of stories of adventure and crime dealing with the operation of the United States Secret Service. The subject is one that has not been very extensively exploited by writers of plot stories, and Mr. Stringer deals with it in an original way and with dramatic effect. — "The New Books," THE OUTLOOK (May 26, 1915; go to page 235, right bottom)

[Excerpt] . . . He [Mr. Stringer] knows what is not necessary, to fuss about probabilities. When his hero, by the exercise of the most amazing reasoning powers, and by the most adroit physical arrangements, has brought his victim to the edge of confusion, that sinister person must always be permitted to escape in order that the tale may go on; therefore, the secret agent (with a reputation on two continents) always forgets one obvious precaution. The villain escapes, and the game proceeds. Nor is novelty in detective methods strained for.  . . . — "Current Fiction," THE NATION (May 27, 1915)

[Excerpts] The reason that you can't help liking Mr. Arthur Stringer's detective stories is that there are no half-way measures about him. He is not afraid of exaggeration; he has learned the trick of disarming the invidious charge of impossibility by keeping his dare-devils achieving the impossible all the time, in a rising crescendo of audacity.  . . .

. . . In his latest volume, The Hand of Peril, we are let into the inside history of the world's greatest counterfeiting scheme, to be carried out on a gigantic scale. It is an international scheme, and therefore properly enacted in an international setting, the scene shifting with photoplay abruptness from the Paris boulevards to obscure Sicilian cellars, from ocean liners to New York slums.  . . . — Frederic Taber Cooper, "Some Novels of the Month," THE BOOKMAN (August 1915; go to page 656, right bottom)

Resource:
- Our last visit with Arthur Stringer was HERE.

Category: Spy fiction

"Nearly All the Literature of the World Is About Its Wicked People"

Fictioneer Arthur Stringer held Chandleresque beliefs about just how "realistic" crime stories should be. A few excerpts:

WE ARE FILLING our heads with a lot of sentimental nonsense when we take it without question that the criminal of stage and fiction and the criminal of real life are one and the same.

Mr. Arthur Stringer, who knows something about both types, having dealt with them in real life for the sake of his fiction, declares they are about as wide apart as the poles. He finds it high time for some one to point out this fact and to stop the stultification of one's intelligence with such beliefs.

The ''crime writers,'' he reminds us, have been "solemnly announcing themselves as realists." Even editors are beginning to affix foot-notes to say that their crime stories are transcripts of real life.

A crime novel asserts that it is an actual portrayal of police conditions. A playwright gets an ex-convict to form a member of the cast. Some of the ways in which these so-called realists fool the gullible among us are set forth by Mr. Stringer . . . — Unsigned, "The Lure of the Criminal," THE LITERARY DIGEST (April 26, 1913)

Stringer presents a veritable catalogue of avoidable errors that crime fiction authors can stray into:

"I know of one novelist who describes a safe-breaking scene wherein the master-crook attaches a wire to a chandelier and an electrode to the end of this wire, and by the deliciously naive means of a mere lighting circuit burns his way through a ponderous steel door. It would be no more ridiculous to say that he pried that door off with his fountain pen.

"Another novelist with an international reputation has his villain sit on a steamer's deck and quietly read at the mast-head an incoming wireless message. It is of little consequence, of course, that the professional operator in the wireless room is compelled to have a microphone of the most delicate nature held close to his ear before he can even pick up that same incoming message. This same villain, I take it, could stand on the Singer Tower and hear a hairpin fall off a bureau up in Albany.

"An important feature in a reigning 'realistic' crook play is a Maxim silencer, which is used on a revolver, despite the fact that a silencer can not be and never has been attached to a revolver.

"In still another Broadway sleuth-play a woman under suspicion casually takes up a sheet of writing-paper from the desk of a man mysteriously murdered. The detective on the trail of the offender holds up this sheet to the audience, showing the finger-prints thereon imprest as plainly marked as ink spots. Now, the murdered gentleman may or may not have had the hobby of inditing his correspondence on chemically sensitized note-paper. Or, on the other hand, the lady under suspicion may have been opening a tin of printer's ink in one of the rooms off-stage. But without one of these two extremely remote contingencies the overconvenient appearance of those nice black blots must be accepted as either absurd or miraculous." — "The Lure of the Criminal," op. cit.

As for how writers present their criminal characters:

"There is no such thing as a romantic criminal. By this I mean that there is no romance about professional crime. There is no Raffles in real life . . .

"The playwright who exploits crime loves to have his hero bad only nor'-nor'-east. When the wind is in the other quarter he is the gentlest of lovers and the most impeccable of characters.

"It is the same with the book criminal. Even his felonies areprompted by a supposedly ameliorating love of adventure. He follows the gentle art of burglary for the thrill that's in it. He likes the game for the game's sake. He makes house-breaking and highway robbery lose half their evil by losing all their grossness. He seduces you into the belief that it's quite fit and proper for him to take toll of the overjeweled ladies who are enjoying the same week-end with him in the same country house, or to exact midnight largesse from the altogether unsympathetic jeweler who has not appreciated his devil-may-care audacities, his good breeding, and his languidly enunciated epigrams.

"We remember that it's only human to sympathize with the bad and tolerate the good. We follow our fiction-made villain through his round of denatured adventures; we feel that he is being true to some wider scheme of things than the trivial laws that he is breaking; we like to witness his leap through the paper hoops of the temporal while swayed by those emotions which we regard as eternal." — "The Lure of the Criminal," op. cit.

Resources:
- Wikipedia ("Arthur Stringer [writer]").
- Previous ONTOS article.

Category: Detective fiction

"This High-Tensioned Tale of Crime and Retribution"

THE SHADOW.
By Arthur Stringer.
The Century Co.
1913. 302 pages. $1.25

The entire review as it appeared in THE NATION (February 6, 1913), archived at Hathi Trust (HERE):

A better name for this high-tensioned tale of crime and retribution would have been the "Chase."

Mr. Stringer's police hero is precisely not of the type of detective who attains his end by the critique of pure-reason.

This is simply a story of a mad pursuit, in which the game is always within sight of the hound, and the interest consists solely in the mere physical breathlessness of the chase, plus the speculation as to how soon the victim will feel the fangs of the pursuer.

In this mad flight the author has inserted the necessary breathing spaces in the form of dramatic episode. There is a fight in a Macao opium den which is as ruddy a bit of slaughtering as we remember coming across for many a day in fiction.

Gradually as the story advances, the psychological element twines itself into the narrative of train schedules and sudden death, until towards the end Mr. Stringer's Blake, from a common and efficient "bull," changes to something of an elemental force.

The New York policeman ends up as a very distinct likeness to Victor Hugo's Monsieur Javert in "Les Miserables."

Mr. Stringer's style usually presents a rich ornateness which is in piquant contrast to the grisly subject-matter. But in the present instance, and in the early chapters especially, this pretty affectation is carried to a wearying extreme. As the author warms to his own tale the mannerism sloughs off.

The review from THE OUTLOOK (February 8, 1913), archived here (scroll down to page 323, bottom right):

The story of the pursuit of a criminal of extraordinary astuteness. The dogged, brutal, pertinacious New York police official follows false clues and true clues for months and even years.

In China, South America, and our Far West he has adventures of a thrilling kind, and over and over again barely escapes with his life.

Mr. Stringer incidentally gives a graphic account of New York police methods, good and bad.

And the review in THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY (November 1913), archived here (scroll down to page 696, top right):

THE SHADOW deserves a paragraph to itself for it is one of those striking stories in which the psychology is as penetrating and accurate as the incident is exciting and varied.

It deals with a man-hunt, lasting for years and leading around the globe, but the most startling thing it shows us is the effect of 'sleuthing' on the soul of the sleuth. What an obsession this becomes, stretching the man on the rack of his long suspense, shaping him utterly to his work until he responds to no other stimulus, Mr. Stringer shows in a manner ill-calculated to recruit the detective service.

THE SHADOW can be found online here. A Wikipedia article about Stringer is here. The UNZ index lists 110 items for Arthur J. Stringer.

Category: Detective fiction

"Sleep No More!"

THE MAN WHO COULDN'T SLEEP.
By Arthur Stringer.
A. L. Burt Company.
1919. 351 pages.
Online HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Contents:
(1) "Running Out of Pay-Dirt"
(2) "The Ox-Blood Vase"
(3) "The Stolen Wheel-Code"
(4) "The Open Door"
(5) "The Man from Medicine Hat"
(6) "The Irreproachable Butler"
(7) "The Panama Gold Chests"
(8) "The Dummy-Chucker"
(9) "A Rialto Rain-Storm"
(10) "The Thumb-Tap Clue"
(11) "The Nile-Green Roadster"

Insomnia can drive people in strange directions:

Robert Louis Stevenson's "New Arabian Nights" has a lineal descendant of which it need feel no shame in Arthur Stringer's The Man Who Couldn't Sleep.

The streets of neither London nor Cairo are ahead of the New York of this group of stories in the fascination of their night life.

A writer, suffering from insomnia, is driven forth when sleep seems beyond his reach to prowl the city streets in those mystical small hours when strange creatures from the underworld creep from their holes.

It is a New York of crime and romance, with adventure lurking always just around the corner for any one brave enough to start its pursuit, and we surrender ourselves delightedly to its sinister enchantment. — "Reviews of New Books," THE LITERARY DIGEST (October 11, 1919; page 77, left column)

Resources:
- Previous ONTOS articles about Arthur Stringer are HERE and HERE.

Category: Detective fiction

"The Audacity of the Thing Was Astounding, Yet the Completeness with Which It Had Succeeded Was Even More Astounding"

"The Mystery of the Churchill Pearls."
By Arthur Stringer (1874-1950).
Illustration by C. D. Williams.
First appearance: The Hampton Magazine, May 1912.
Short short story (9 pages, 1 illo).
Online at Hathi Trust starting (HERE) and finishing (HERE).

"Yet I was able to laugh a little as I put the magazine revolver down on the table; it had memories which were amusing."

A rainy night, a crowded theater, and around a beautiful young woman's neck . . .

   ". . . an extraordinarily large and vivid stone stood out in limpid ruddiness. It was a challenge to attention. It caught and held the eye. It stood there, just below where the hair billowed into its crown of Venetian gold, as semaphoric as a yardlamp to a night traveler. And I wondered, as I sat looking at it, what element beyond curiosity could coerce the man at my side into studying it so indolently and yet so intently."

All too soon it will become clear what that "element" is, leading to a wild chase through the rain-slick streets of Manhattan and culminating in an ironic finale.

Comment: If nothing else our author's above-average descriptive prose succeeds in setting the scene and establishing mood better than many other crime fiction writers that we've encountered; Queenian it is in its attention to detail but, unlike EQ on occasion, 

without overdoing it.

Resources:
- The thriller and fantasy fiction of Arthur John Arbuthnott Stringer was quite popular in his day but is now almost completely forgotten; find all the relevant data about him at Wikipedia (HERE), the Science Fiction Encyclopedia (HERE), and the Internet Speculative Fiction Data-base (HERE).
- We first encountered Stringer not long after we started this weblog, but it has been nearly four years since our last contact with his work; see (HERE).
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"We Sprang for the Gun Together, and Together We Caught It Up"

"The Guarded House."
By Arthur Stringer (1874-1950).
Illustrations by Gordon Mallett McCouch.
First appearance: Everybody's Magazine, August 1908.
Short story (14 pages, 3 illos).
Online at Hathi Trust (HERE).

     "The unseen enemy is the one we're always afraid of."

It seems like an easy target, a safe that even a novice yeggman would find a pushover, protected by a frail, fear-stricken old man; but first impressions can be misleading, 
because beyond the safe and the old man lie other, unforseen obstacles: a woman 
who won't stay dead, and a haunted painting, neither of which are willing to let go 
of a fortune without making a would-be thief pay for it—with his life . . .

Comments: Excessive descriptive passages can bog a story down. It's risky but, to establish the proper atmosphere, our author puts a lot of effort into scenic, almost photographic, description, which he successfully uses to create and sustain a certain mood and to ratchet up the suspense. This one fits comfortably in the spooky/rational approach to detective fiction employed so often by John Dickson Carr.

Resources:

- John Arbuthnott Stringer can best be described not as a detective fiction author but a thriller writer, at which he normally excelled; see the usual sources for more about him: Wikipedia (HERE), the SFE (HERE), and the ISFDb (HERE).

- Our protagonist uses some terms that readers of a century ago would have had little 
trouble recognizing, but which could have some of us scratching our heads: "McAdoo" (HERE), "Harpagon" (HERE), and "dummy-chucker" (HERE).

- Previous encounters with Stringer on this weblog: (HERE), (HERE), (HERE), (HERE), and (HERE).

The bottom line:

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"She Looked Asleep, but We Couldn't Wake Her"

TODAY we depart from our usual practice of highlighting stories that are readily available online somewhere to highlighting one that presently only resides inside a dead-tree publication, to wit:

"The Suspension of Mickey Hackerstein."

By Arthur Vidro.

First appearance: Mystery Most Traditional - Malice Domestic Number 17, 2023.

For sale (HERE).

Short story (14 pages).

   "I read a lot. Especially Christie, Queen, Sayers, Gardner, Grafton, Lovesey—"

   "Who are they?"

   "Never mind."

SHERLOCK HOLMES informed Watson that he had written a monograph about "the ashes of various tobaccos." The (very amateur) sleuth in today's story has almost certainly never read Holmes's treatise (who has?). Fortunately, as it turns out, she won't need any expert advice from the Sage of Baker Street to solve a killing that happens within just a few feet of where she works . . .

Main characters:

~ Mickey Hackerstein (the narrator), James Carr, Jedediah Gilroy, Teri Nelluc, Officer Calvey, Chuck Nelluc, Sergeant Salem, and the "beefy police sergeant."

References:

- Holmes's monograph:

  "The fictional detective Sherlock Holmes was an expert in the study of cigar ash and wrote a monograph, Upon the Distinction Between the Ashes of the Various Tobaccos, about it. This expertise was used in his cases such as A Study in Scarlet, The Boscombe Valley Mystery and The Hound of the Baskervilles." (Wikipedia HERE.) (Also see Chris Lansdown's essay HERE and The Victorian Web HERE.)

- "Mickey Mantle":

  "Mickey Charles Mantle (October 20, 1931–August 13, 1995), nicknamed 'the Mick' and 'the Commerce Comet,' was an American professional baseball player who played his entire Major League Baseball (MLB) career (1951–1968) with the New York Yankees, primarily as a center fielder. Mantle is regarded by many as being one of the best players and sluggers of all time. He was an American League (AL) Most Valuable Player three times and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974." (Wikipedia HERE.)

- "some stringers":

  "In journalism, a stringer is a freelancer who contributes writing, photos, or videos to a photo agency, news agency, or other news organization on an ongoing basis but is paid individually for each piece of published or broadcast work rather than earning a fixed salary. Stringers include journalists, photographers, or videographers.

  "As freelancers, stringers do not receive a regular salary and the amount and type of work is typically at their discretion. However, stringers often have an ongoing relationship with one or more news organizations, to which they provide content on particular topics or locations when the opportunities arise." (Wikipedia HERE.)

- "the paste-up artist":

  "Paste up is a method of creating or laying out publication pages that predates the use of the now-standard computerized page design desktop publishing programs. Completed, or camera-ready, pages are known as mechanicals or mechanical art. In the offset lithography process, the mechanicals would be photographed with a stat camera to create a same-size film negative for each printing plate required." (Wikipedia HERE.)

- "like Joseph Wambaugh":

  "Joseph Aloysius Wambaugh, Jr. (January 22, 1937–February 28, 2025) was an American writer known for his fictional and nonfictional accounts of police work in the United States. Many of his novels are set in Los Angeles and its surroundings and feature Los Angeles police officers as protagonists. He won three Edgar Awards, and was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America." (Wikipedia HERE.)

- "my Chevy Citation":

  "The Chevrolet Citation is a range of compact cars that was produced by Chevrolet from the 1980 to 1985 model years. The first front-wheel drive Chevrolet, the Citation replaced the Chevrolet Nova as the automaker downsized its compact cars." (Wikipedia HERE.)

- "Virginia Slim cigarette":

  "Philip Morris introduced Virginia Slims on July 22, 1968 and marketed the brand as a female-oriented spinoff of the company's Benson & Hedges brand. The blends, flavorings, color scheme and overall marketing concepts closely followed the Benson & Hedges model." (Wikipedia HERE.)

- "a Winston":

  "Winston was introduced in 1954 by the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and quickly became one of the top-selling cigarette brands, using the slogan 'Winston tastes good like a cigarette should.' It became the number one cigarette sold in the world by 1966, a position it held until 1972 when Marlboro overtook the brand." (Wikipedia HERE.)

- "to watch Picket Fences":

  "Picket Fences is an American family drama television series about the residents of the town of Rome, Wisconsin, created and produced by David E. Kelley. The show ran from September 18, 1992, to June 26, 1996, on CBS in the United States." (Wikipedia HERE.)

- "playing Good Samaritan":

  "The term 'good Samaritan' is used as a common metaphor: 'The word now applies to any charitable person, especially one who, like the man in the parable, rescues or helps out a needy stranger'." (Wikipedia HERE.)

Artwork by Rembrandt van Rjin

- "instant Sanka":

  "Sanka is a brand of instant decaffeinated coffee, sold around the world, and was one of the earliest decaffeinated varieties. Sanka is distributed in the United States by Kraft Heinz." (Wikipedia HERE.)

- "either second-degree murder or manslaughter":

  "Generally, second-degree murder is an unplanned homicide caused by actions you knew or should have known could lead to the victim’s death.

  "Getting into a sudden fight and battering a person to death could be an example of second-degree murder. You may not have planned to get into a fight. However, if you should have known your attacks could be deadly, it may be second-degree murder.

  "The difference between first and second-degree is the mental state or mens rea. Even if you didn’t have the intent to take a human life, extreme indifference to serious bodily harm is enough to hold you accountable for the death of another person." (LawInfo HERE.)

 "The definition of voluntary manslaughter under federal law is the unlawful killing of a human being upon a sudden quarrel or heat of passion. Typically, this means that the defendant had no prior intent to kill.

  "Voluntary manslaughter is a lesser-included charge of murder. So, when a prosecutor brings a murder charge, the jury can find the defendant guilty of voluntary manslaughter without the prosecutor having to bring those charges." (LawInfo HERE.)

Resources:

- Arthur Vidro is, of course, the genial Editor-in-Chief of that superlative detective fiction magazine, (Give Me) That Old Time Detection, which we have occasionally run across (a comprehensive list starts HERE). He is also the author of "The Ransom of EQMM #1" (HERE).

  We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.

The bottom line:

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