Murder on the Final Frontier

STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION.
TV series: 1987-94, 178 episodes.
"A Matter of Perspective" (1990), "Aquiel" (1993), and "Suspicions" (1993).

"I was beginning to find out that investigating a murder was a little more perilous than I'd thought."

For some strange reason, regardless of the medium (print, film, etc.), science fiction (SF) and the detective story have never seemed to mesh well (or have never been made to mesh well). Why this is so would probably make a fine subject for a doctoral dissertation, but we just don't have the time. Suffice it to say that these ST:TNG episodes really did try to put the two genres together with, at best, mixed results; they did, however, successfully adhere to one of Theodore Sturgeon's obiter dicta, that (paraphrasing here) you don't write a Western with ray guns and try to pass it off as SF. The solutions to the mysteries in all three shows depend entirely on their own internally consistent fantasy elements, regardless of how nonsensical and far-fetched those elements might be.

~ "A Matter of Perspective" (script HERE):

"Investigator, in our system of jurisprudence a man is innocent until proved guilty."

"In ours, he is guilty until he is proved innocent — and you are under our jurisdiction."

Commander Will Ryker is charged with murder after returning from a space station that exploded just as he was being beamed aboard the Enterprise. Before Captain Picard turns him over to the appropriate authorities, however, he wants to examine all of the evidence. Using the holodeck, they recreate events from the perspective of those involved. As far as Ryker is concerned, he acted properly throughout and did nothing wrong. When the dead man's wife testifies, however, she insists that Ryker made improper advances towards her leading Ryker to kill her husband. It's up to Data and the others to find the solution to what really happened. - Written by garykmcd on IMDb

In the 24th century they have a forensic scientist's wet dream, the holodeck, a device that can reproduce past events in amazing detail; even so, a computer is only as smart as its programming. This episode puts one in mind of Rashomon (IMDb).

~ "Aquiel" (script HERE):

"You know me better than anyone here. Do I seem like the kind of person who would murder someone?"

Murderous intrigue abounds for the Enterprise when one of the crew aboard a subspace station is believed dead, and suspected to have taken part in it until the Klingons show up with the young lieutenant, to Geordi's taste. — IMDb

Call this one an unofficial remake of Laura (IMDb), right down to the picture on the wall (er, monitor).

~ "Suspicions" (script HERE):

"I couldn't help but admire his tenacity. He just wasn't going to accept defeat, and I hoped he would prove himself. But that was the last time I saw him alive."

Dr. Crusher puts her career on the line to prove a scientist's theoretical new shielding technology which may have cost him his life. — IMDb

This one has enough technobabble to satisfy any sci-fi fan, and Beverly Crusher makes a pretty good detective. Plot development-wise, it's reminiscent of The Third Man (IMDb).

Resources:
- MEMORY ALPHA, the ultimate Star Trek resource, has DETAILED descriptions of these episodes, but beware of SPOILERS: "A Matter of Perspective" is HERE; "Aquiel" is HERE; and "Suspicions" is HERE.
- Our last visit with the Enterprise crew was HERE.

Category: Science fiction mysteries

True Crime Roundup V

According to these articles, in the '20s Prohibition was being vigorously, if nonsensically, enforced, drug addiction was on the rise, criminals weren't being prosecuted vigorously enough, and there was concern that young boys were rotting their brains with pulp fiction.

~ "Rum at Sea" (1923) [3 pages]:

. . . There seems to be a very general feeling among the papers, irrespective of their attitude toward Prohibition, that it would not be becoming for the Government to profit from the sale of liquor on the ships it actually owns, while forbidding such sale on foreign-owned ships in American waters.  . . . — THE LITERARY DIGEST (May 12, 1923)

~ "Our Million Drug Addicts" (1923) [2 pages]:

. . . To stop illicit distribution suddenly, with more than 50 per cent. of the physicians of the country still adhering to the 'vice' theory of opiate addiction, would only add to the suffering of thousands of innocent addicts who are forced by our laws to depend upon smugglers and peddlers for their narcotic supply. — THE LITERARY DIGEST (August 25, 1923)

~ " 'America First' - In Crime" (1923) [1 page]:

A 'SPORTING PUBLIC' which showers on the criminal, if he escapes, the sympathy usually extended to athletic and movie heroes, is largely to blame for the crime record of this country. This, at any rate, is the impression left in the minds of many American editors who are commenting on the vigorous indictment of our national lawlessness to be found in a recent report . . . — THE LITERARY DIGEST (September 15, 1923)

~ "What the Boys Are Reading" (1923) [1 page]:

. . . Dime novels began as rather good historical novels; at their worst they were no more than exciting stories written sometimes, but not always, in careless English. They were never immoral; on the contrary they reeked of morality.  . . . — THE LITERARY DIGEST (September 15, 1923)

Resources:
- Our last True Crime Roundup was HERE; you can find True Crime Roundups I HERE, II HERE, and III HERE.

Category: True crime

Aye, There's the Ruby

"Here is your imitation stone," I cried, tossing the case on to the table. "Hand over the real one, or I shall shoot you like a dog."

"The Ruby of Khitmandu: A Serial Story Told in Alternate Chapters by Arth-r C-n-n D-yle and E. W. H-rn-ng."
By Hugh Kingsmill (1889-1949).
First appearance: The Bookman (April 1932).

Holmes and Watson versus Raffles and Bunny. The question is: Who wins?

Resources:
- Hugh Kingsmill Lunn was a journalist and inveterate parodist; the Wikipedia article about him is HERE.
- The Guardian has an article about Raffles HERE.

Category: Sherlock Holmes-Raffles parody

OLD-TIME DETECTION, Autumn 2014

(GIVE ME THAT) OLD-TIME DETECTION.
Autumn 2014. Issue #37.
Old-Time Detection Special Interest Group of American Mensa, Ltd.
36 pages (including covers). $6.00

If you think you've missed something in the detective fiction field because you've only just discovered it or maybe you're just too young, Arthur Vidro's fine publication stands a good chance of catching you up. This latest issue of OLD-TIME DETECTION contains a wealth of items worth retrieving from obscurity, including a Hildegarde Withers short story that hasn't seen print for sixty-three years.

CONTENTS:

QUOTES:

"While [Stanley] Ellin may not, unfortunately, be a household name, he is one of the two greatest short story writers of the second half of the 20th century, and I don't know who the other one is."

FROM THE EDITOR:

. . . newly written mystery plays—excluding musicals—increasingly are scarce.  . . .  But we have a ray of hope.  . . .

PAPERBACK REVOLUTION:
- 47 years ago, Charles Shibuk took a close look at available paperbacks.

. . . Unfortunately there have been many gaps in the [paperback] reprint field. . . .

CHRISTIE CORNER:
- Updates in the world of Dame Agatha Christie.

. . . Donning the mantle of a much-loved and respected writer like Agatha Christie is, in the final analysis, a poisoned chalice.  . . .

MINI-REVIEWS:
- Critiques of books by H. Rider Haggard, Anne Austin, Jon L. Breen, Van Wyck Mason, and a collection edited by Otto Penzler. Reviews of: Mr. Meeson's Will - Murder at Bridge - Touch of the Past - Dardanelles Derelict - The Dutch Shoe Mystery - Mark Twain's Medieval Romance.

STANLEY ELLIN'S START:
- Mystery writer Stanley Ellin got his first break in 1946, thanks to Ellery Queen. Ellin explains how Queen and his namesake magazine allowed Ellin to become a professional writer.

. . . So, as to that question of whether I would have made a career for myself in writing if there had not been a Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee, I can only say that the foregoing evidence indicates that it was, at the very least, touch and go.  . . .

"LOST" FICTION:
- Hildegarde Withers solves "Where Angels Fear to Tread," by Stuart Palmer.

. . . Then a bullet ricocheted screaming down the hallway . . .

AT THE CINEMA:
- William Everson tells about two very short films, Don't Talk and Behind the Headlines.

. . . it's well-knit, well-constructed and doesn't waste time putting in either laughs or action just for their own sake.  . . .

35-PLUS YEARS AGO:
- Reviews by Jon L. Breen of books published in 1973 and 1981.

. . . he can write the Ian Fleming-type thriller and make you believe it.  . . .

LOOKING BACKWARD:
- Reviews by Charles Shibuk that originally appeared a generation ago. Books covered: Murder in Triplicate - A Most Immoral Murder - The Longbow Murder - Shadow of a Tiger.

THE READERS WRITE:
- Letters from our readers.

. . . This larger than usual magazine was very welcome.  . . .

PUZZLE:
- Solve the puzzle, win a prize.

Subscription information:
- Published three times a year: spring, summer, and autumn.
- Sample copy: $6.00 in U.S.; $10.00 anywhere else.
- One-year U.S.: $18.00 ($12.50 for Mensans).
- One-year overseas: $40.00 (or 20 pounds sterling or 25 euros).
- Payment: Checks or cash or U.S. postage stamps.
- Mailing address:
Arthur Vidro, editor
Old-Time Detection
2 Ellery Street
Claremont, New Hampshire 03743
- Web address:
oldtimedetection@netzero.net

Resources:
- ONTOS previously covered Issue #36 HERE.

Category: Detective fiction

Often by and Sometimes about Vincent Starrett

[When Conan Doyle visited Chicago] I wanted to talk of Sherlock Holmes, and Sir Arthur stubbornly insisted upon talking spiritualism. Mr. Chesterton was more amenable, and willingly talked Father Brown until he was dragged away. — THE BOOKMAN (October 1929)

It would be foolish indeed to attempt to determine who was the greater Sherlockian (or Holmesian), Christopher Morley (1890-1957) or (Charles) Vincent (Emerson) Starrett (1886-1974), and we won't even try it.

Vincent Starrett, a full-time poet but only a part-time detective fiction writer, is justly famous for this poem:

                      221B

Here dwell together still two men of note

Who never lived and so can never die:

How very near they seem, yet how remote
That age before the world went all awry.
But still the game’s afoot for those with ears
Attuned to catch the distant view-halloo:
England is England yet, for all our fears–
Only those things the heart believes are true.
A yellow fog swirls past the window-pane
As night descends upon this fabled street:
A lonely hansom splashes through the rain,
The ghostly gas lamps fail at twenty feet.
Here, though the world explode, these two survive,
And it is always eighteen ninety-five.
– Vincent Starrett

What follows is a cursory outline of Starrett's contributions to detective fiction that isn't meant to be comprehensive in any sense; click the links for more information.

THE UNIQUE HAMLET.
By Vincent Starrett (1886-1974).
Privately printed.
1920. 39 pages.
Online HERE.

COFFINS FOR TWO.
By Vincent Starrett (1886-1974).
Covici-McGee Co.
1924. 242 pages.
Online HERE.
Collection: 18 stories.

Contents:

1. "The Fugitive"
2. "The Elixir of Death"
3. "Exeunt Omnes"
4. "Four Friends of Mavis
5. "The Head of Cromwell"
6. "The Widow of Maltrata"
7. "The Princess Antimacassar"
8. "Decadence and John Fenderson"
9. "Coffins for Two"
10. "The Truth about Delbridge"
11. "The End of the Story"
12. "The Pleasant Madness of the Faculty"
13. "Thirty Pieces of Silver"
14. "The Episode of the Plugged Dime"
15. "The Man Who Loved Leopards"
16. "Request of the Dying"
17. "Eighteen Steps"
18. "The Artistic Temperament"

MURDER ON 'B' DECK.
By Vincent Starrett (1886-1974).
Doubleday, Doran.
1929. 279 pages.

The first of three Walter Ghost mysteries:

[Full review] Setting a murder on board the transatlantic liner, Latakia, two days at sea, facilitates a good deal more tension in this mystery than if it had been set on land. The culprit's presence is acutely felt, the characters are captive and forced to mingle, suspensions run rampant. Meanwhile amateur sleuth, Walter Ghost, awaits the delivery of cablegrams and contemplates some obscure (to the reader) clues to the crime. — Almeta, GOODREADS (November 2, 2014)

The other two:

DEAD MAN INSIDE.
By Vincent Starrett (1886-1974).
Doubleday.
1931. 310 pages.

THE END OF MR. GARMENT.
By Vincent Starrett (1886-1974).
Doubleday.
1932. 304 pages.

Here's another collection, this one getting no respect from a reviewer:

THE BLUE DOOR.
By Vincent Starrett (1886-1974).
Doubleday, Doran (Crime Club).
1930. 345 pages. $2.00
Collection: 10 stories.

Contents:

1. "The Blue Door"
2. "Too Many Sleuths"
3. "The Fingernail Clue"
4. "The Woman in Black" [Jimmy Lavender]
5. "The Wrong Stairway"
6. "The Street of Idols"
7. "A Volume of Poe"
8. "The Skylark"
9. "The Ace of Clubs"
10. "Out There in the Dark" [Jimmy Lavender]

[Full review] The Blue Door is a collection of short stories published in various magazines and newspapers during the last four years and now collected in book form. Although they are of average worth, it is difficult to understand why they were rescued from the files—even for a dollar. — William C. Weber, "Murder Will Out," THE SATURDAY REVIEW (December 20, 1930)

Starrett's most famous and reviewed Sherlockian tome (which had very little to do with the movie) is:

THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.
By Vincent Starrett (1886-1974).
Macmillan.
1933. 214 pages. $2.00

Reviews: HERE, HERE [2 pages], and HERE. GOODREADS also has reviews HERE and HERE.
For background involving the book's production, see Starrett's own articles HERE [7 pages] and HERE [6 pages].

THE GREAT HOTEL MURDER.
By Vincent Starrett (1886-1974).
Crime Club.
1935. 299 pages. $2.00
Filmed in 1935 (IMDb).

[Full review] Banker in Chi. incog. found poisoned in hotel room. Riley Blackwood, dramatic-critic-detective runs down killer. - Too many threads in plot confuse the unravelling. Good talk and exciting finish about balance scales. - Verdict: 50-50. — "The Criminal Record," THE SATURDAY REVIEW (May 25, 1935)

MIDNIGHT AND PERCY JONES.
By Vincent Starrett (1886-1974).
Covici-Friede.
1938. $2.00

[Full review] Concert singer shot; radio announcer vanishes; another killing—and drama critic Blackwood spots third death before case closes. - Chicago night life, cynically amusing cops, bullet spattered climax, plentiful red herrings, and gruesome solution, expertly blended. - Verdict: Worthwhile. — "The Criminal Record," THE SATURDAY REVIEW (February 26, 1938)

221B: STUDIES IN SHERLOCK HOLMES BY VARIOUS HANDS.
By Vincent Starrett (1886-1974), ed.
Macmilllan.
1940. 247 pages. $2.50

Reviews: HERE [2 pages], HERE [page 118, top right], and HERE.

THE CASE-BOOK OF JIMMY LAVENDER.
By Vincent Starrett (1886-1974).
Gold Label.
1944. $2.50
Collection: 10 stories.

[Full review] Collected exploits of suave and perspicacious Chicago private operative. - Good omnibus of short stories—all of them well plotted and excellently worked out—with a few humdingers. - Verdict: For the short-story shelf. — "The Criminal Record," THE SATURDAY REVIEW (May 20, 1944)

[Full review] Twelve of the well-known detective's best adventures are collected in book form for the first time. Good hunting. — "Check List," THE AMERICAN MERCURY (July 1944)

[Excerpts] Comprising about a fourth of the published cases of Jimmie Lavender, the only sleuth in mystery fiction named for a major-league baseball player, these twelve tales from the Twenties and Thirties are representative examples of the now mostly forgotten detective short stories of Vincent Starrett, better known today as the biographer of Lavender’s inspiration, Sherlock Holmes.

By modern standards, none is of the first rank, but most are well-plotted puzzles cast in the classic mold, with a nice blend of cerebral deduction and physical action, and even fifty years and more later they have their attractions.  . . . — Ellen Nehr, MYSTERY*FILE (14 January 2009)

MURDER IN PEKING.
By Vincent Starrett (1886-1974).
Lantern Press.
1946. $2.50
[a.k.a. LAUGHING BUDDHA]

[Full review] Cathayan criminal cycle commenced by strangling of Danish beauty in temple near Peking. Mr. Hope Johnson finally stops the massacre. - Competent plotting and interesting Oriental background nearly atone for bunch of sawdusty and generally uninteresting characters. - Verdict: Readable. — "The Criminal Record," THE SATURDAY REVIEW (April 20, 1946)

THE QUICK AND THE DEAD.
By Vincent Starrett (1886-1974).
Arkham House.
1965. $65.00 - $100.00 or more.
Collection: 10 stories.

Contents:

1. “The Fugitive”
2. “The Man in the Cask”
3. “The Quick and the Dead”
4. “The Sinless Village”
5. “The Head of Cromwell”
6. “Penelope”
7. “The Elixir of Death”
8. “Coffins for Two”
9. “The Tattooed Man”
10. “Footsteps of Fear”

Resources:
- The FICTIONMAGS INDEX (go HERE) lists many, but not all, of Starrett's short fiction.
- Mike Grost has much to say about Starrett's writings HERE.
- Background about Starrett is on the GAD Wiki HERE and Wikipedia HERE.
- STUDIES IN STARRETT, an entire website dedicated to our author, is HERE.
- THE BATTERED SILICON DISPATCH BOX offers reissues of Starrett's works HERE and HERE (PDF).
- A previous ONTOS article featured fellow Sherlockian Christopher Morley HERE.

Starrett in 1926.

Category: Detective fiction

"Suspicion Is Directed Here, There, and Everywhere!"

THE MARKENMORE MYSTERY.
By J. S. Fletcher (1863-1935).
Knopf.
1923 (1922 in U.K.). 320 pages. $2.00

Online at Project Gutenberg (HERE).

In this one, J. S. Fletcher threatens to transcend the genre:

[Full review] "The Markenmore Mystery" seems to me to be the best of recent Fletcher stories. As usual it is dry, precise, carefully plotted, and cunningly woven to its precise end. As usual the love story is thrown in with a sort of genial gesture, in a few paragraphs, as if Mr. Fletcher said, "Well—here you are—you who must have sentiment—here it is!"

But in the case of the Markenmores Fletcher has created a set of characters who are a bit more of flesh and blood than those in some of his novels. They have passions and revolts. They, and the exotic Mrs. Tretheroe, seem real.

Fletcher too often seizes on a picturesque name and expects that to make his character. What annoying names he does corral: Braxfield, Fransemmery, Blick, Eckhardstein, Walkinshaw.

The net of mystery in this latest story is even more complicated than usual. Suspicion is directed here, there, and everywhere! Yet the murder—yes, there is a murder—is quite satisfactorily explained. — J. F., "The Editor Recom-mends," THE BOOKMAN (November 1923)

Lady Bluestocking image

Resource:
- Our last visit with Fletcher was HERE.

Category: Detective fiction

"In No Department of Theatrical Writing Is So Little Imagination and Inventiveness Shown As in the Mystery Play"

Back in the 1920s, long before television and Cinemascope movies, going to a stage play was regarded as the supreme dramatic experience. George Jean Nathan (1882-1958) was a widely read drama critic of the era who probably spent more time in darkened theaters than bright sunlight but who also had definite ideas of what playwrights should be doing with their medium.

On occasion Nathan commented on the staged mystery play. Here are his tongue-in-cheek recommendations for improving the theater goer's experience, years before William Castle:

. . . the mystery melodrama theatre should have a bizarre and spooky illumination, the ushers should be dressed as ghosts or burglars and should shoot off pistols as they show the patrons to their seats, the lavatory should be entered through a sliding panel, there should be secretly manipulated trap-doors under the seats through which the patrons' hats might periodically be made to disappear from under their chairs and then again to reappear, the box-office attendants should wear black masks, sudden terrifying screams should issue during the entr'-actes from the ladies' room, and Mr. J. Ranken Towse should be mysteriously kidnapped by the house-manager sometime during the first act. — "The Theatre," THE AMERICAN MERCURY (September 1926, HERE).

As for the quality of stage mysteries, Nathan rightly complained of their lack of innovation:

The mystery play is always with us. Three new specimens have been produced since the season opened: "The Ghost Train," by Arnold Ridlley, mentioned in my review of the London season; "The Donovan Affair," by Owen Davis; and "Number 7," [sic] by J. Jefferson Farjeon. All follow familiar tracks; in none of them is there any departure from the old stencils. In no department of theatrical writing is so little imagination and inventiveness shown as in the mystery play. At rare intervals we have a "Sherlock Holmes," a "Seven Keys to Baldpate," a "Bat" or an "Unknown Purple" that works a fresh vein into the venerable materials, but in the general run all that we get is the same laborious and intricate concealment of the identity of a criminal and a last-minute solution that would make even a traffic cop laugh.

It seems strange that the manufacturers of such exhibits do not exercise more ingenuity. The inventions that we find among the fiction writers is lacking among the dramatic. There hasn't been a single mystery play produced in the last ten years that has had one-tenth the ingenuity of Melville Davisson Post's "Strange Schemes of Randolph Mason" and "Man of Last Resort," or the short story called "The Suicide of Karnos" (I forget the author's name), or Austin's excellent murder stories published in McClure's Magazine, or Chesterton's "Father Brown," or the story, printed in the Strand Magazine, built around the smashing of an inscribed goblet by a loud orchestral vibration, or William J. Burns' story dealing with the way in which a criminal, against his will and wholly unconscious of outside machination, is persuaded to leave a small village—or of a score or more such tales.

Instead of hitting off in new directions, the mystery play writers stick complacently to the ancient formulae. The curtain goes up on the discovery of a man found murdered and suspicion is made to fall elaborately and senselessly upon everyone, with the eleventh hour disclosure that the crime was committed by the last person in the world who would conceivably have committed it in actual life.

The curtain rises on a supposed haunted house, the strange goings-on in which terrorize the inhabitants until 10:45, at which hour it is revealed that the occult phenomena have been produced by electric switches hidden behind a secret panel and manipulated by the villain.

The curtain is pulled aloft and, after two hours of mystery monkeyshines, the profoundest idiot among the characters is revealed to be a detective master-mind in disguise.

Thus, year in and year out, it goes. Yet the slightest exertion on the part of the gentlemen who concoct such boob delicatessen might be productive of something less stereotyped. In any book of parlor magic they might find a dozen or more ideas that might be developed into fresh theatrical stuff. (If the theme called "Zeno," produced a couple of years ago, had been handled by a man experienced in playwriting, it would have proved lively and interesting mystery pastime.)

Surely, there are some fetching suggestions in the prestidigitator tomes, as a glance at them will show. In the book compiled for "Science and Invention" there are no less than twenty tricks and illusions that might profitably and divertingly be incorporated into the mystery-play form. There are, also, the astonishing chemical discoveries of James Millar Neil, the Canadian, that offer a wealth of excellent material for such theatrical purposes.

But the playwrights persist in going on with the same old trap-doors, phosphorescent ghosts, busts of Buddha, suits of armor that suddenly move, and cabbaged pearl necklaces. — "The Theatre," THE AMERICAN MERCURY (November 1926, HERE).

Resources:
- We have already discussed Seven Keys to Baldpate HERE.
- The Unknown Purple was filmed in 1923; go HERE for more.
- The Donovan Affair was made into a film directed by Frank Capra in 1929; see HERE.

Category: Mystery plays criticism