SCRIBNER'S Reviews V

Several classics crossed the reviewer's desk in September 1938:

~ Midnight Sailing by Lawrence G. Blochman (1900-75):

The steamer is Japanese, the detective is a newspaperman sent on board to get an exclusive yarn from a lovely "missing" heiress. There are several murders, a spot of international intrigue, and a fiery conclusion in which all is cleared up. Bang-up in every way.

Wikipedia HERE - GAD Wiki HERE - FictionMags HERE

~ Coffins for Three by Frederick C. Davis (1902-77):

. . . a very slick article. The action is in high gear from the third or fourth page, and runs all the way from a shooting outside of a New York honky-tonk to the penthouse eyrie of a Manhattan carrier-pigeon fancier—and the windup has a gruesome touch that supplies a shiver where, too often, there's a sigh.

Pretty Sinister review HERE - GAD Wiki HERE - FictionMags HERE

~ The Case Without a Clue by Nigel Morland (1905-86):

Nigel Moreland's tough lady cop, Mrs. Pym of Scotland Yard, gets better with each story of her bellicose exploits. The third and newest Pym perpetration is The Case Without a Clue and, while it has the sturdy Elvira shouting and stomping and slamming around as usual, contains more scientific deductive material than its predecessors. Three murders, with a tempestuous mid-channel finale.

GAD Wiki HERE - FictionMags HERE

~ This Is Mr. Fortune by H. C. Bailey (1878-1961):

Mr. Reginald Fortune returns to our midst in This Is Mr. Fortune and demon-strates neatly the superiority of a series of short stories to the all-too-frequent, overstuffed, full-length affairs. There is at least one murder in most of the stories, and the famous Fortune brand of deducing, plus the familiar manner-isms, is turned on full strength.

Wikipedia HERE - GAD Wiki HERE - FictionMags HERE

~ Clouds of Witness and the Documents in the Case by Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957):

Those who hone for the happy days before Peter Wimsey saved Harriet Vane from the gallows for the fate of courtship and marriage will rejoice in the knowledge that Clouds of Witnesses [sic] and The Documents in the Case, by Dorothy Sayers (in the last named Robert Eustace collaborated), are now available in a combined edition. Clouds of Witnesses [sic] is Wimsey at his best; the other yarn, although it is told through a series of letters—a device which, for all its classical justification, your correspondent abhors—is top-flight fare for the mystery-story reader with a nose for the scientific; and though the tales are ten and eight years old respectively, they stand the test of time excellently.

Wikipedia HERE - GAD Wiki HERE and HERE - FictionMags HERE

~ Rope Enough by John Stephen Strange (Dorothy Stockbridge Tillett, 1896-1983):

Barney Gantt, ace newspaper pix-man and camera-eyed amateur detective, gets tangled up in a couple of political murders in Rope Enough, not to speak of a kidnaping and other criminal carryings-on. For some reason or other, killings in a fictitious New York political campaign leave one rather cold, but the most captious reader couldn't complain about any lack of action.

GAD Wiki HERE - FictionMags HERE - Ramble House HERE

Category: Detective fiction criticism