"It Is Surely Better, Other Things Being Equal, to Keep the Structure Sound and the Wires Hidden"

THE UNSEEN HAND: STORIES OF DIPLOMATIC ADVENTURE.
By Clarence New (1862-1933).
W. R. Caldwell & Co.
1918. 376 pages.
Online HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Contents:
(1) "The Mystery of the Free Lances"
(2) "The Aldershot Affair"
(3) "Touching Upon the Honor of Islam"
(4) "The Neutrality of Holland"
(5) "The Greater Plot"
(6) "The Skager-Rack and Kitchener"
(7) "The Mysterious Camp in the Pyrenees"
(8) "A Machiavellian Coup in Roumania"
(9) "The Shifting Ministries and the Green Circle"
(10) "The Breeding of Suspicion"
(11) "Capt. Creighton's Account of the Russian Revolution"

The First World War (1914-18) was both a massive disaster and a transformative event, producing repercussions that are still being felt today. The Great War was also a chance for thriller writers to run riot; one of them was Clarence New:

[Full review] "The Unseen Hand," while it has more the form of a novel . . . is in effect a series of linked episodes in the present fashion. Here our narrator is an American sleuth-journalist. Our theme is the mystery of the "diplomatic Free Lance," whose distinction it is to have "intervened—not once but fifty times since 1914—to save England from disaster, and, in so doing, unquestionably preserved the structure of modern civilization."

This useful person turns out (rather too early in the game) to be a well-known English lord, who is really [SPOILER], but under any name a most ingenious and accomplished fellow. Unhappily, the whole affair is too elaborate and artificial—or rather its elaboration and artificiality are insufficiently concealed even for our complaisance as patrons of this sort of performance.

It is said that people who make a habit of the fiction of crime and mystery are indifferent to questions of "literary" quality. In that fiction, no doubt, one finds a mechanical romance nearly independent of the graces and accessories one demands in other types of fiction. Is it a really new thing? Does it deserve a patent? Is it at any rate a fresh contrivance or combination of old devices? These are the questions the expert reader of detective stories asks himself. But he is not precisely (or always) a fool; and it is surely better, other things being equal, to keep the structure sound and the wires hidden. — "Substance and Mechanism," THE NATION (July 20, 1918)

[Full review] . . . "The Unseen Hand" by Clarence Herbert New works out in wild and somewhat unconvincing improbability an excellent idea of a sort of super-secret service group of amateurs.  . . . — Brian Hooker, "Concerning Yarns," THE BOOKMAN (May 1919; go to page 313, top right)

Category: Spy fiction

"The Story Is Not Badly Done"

DR. SYN: A TALE OF ROMNEY MARSH.
By Russell Thorndike (1885-1972).
Doubleday, Page.
1915. 301 pages.
Online HERE and HERE.
Filmed several times, including 1963 (IMDb).

When actor Russell Thorndike turned his hand to adventure fiction, he was remarkably successful. The inspiration for his seven-book saga of Dr. Syn adventures came about like this:

. . . The story idea came from smuggling in the 18th century Romney Marsh, where brandy and tobacco were brought in at night by boat from France to avoid high tax. Minor battles were fought, sometimes at night, between gangs of smugglers, such as the Hawkhurst Gang and the Revenue, supported by the army and local militias in the South, Kent and the West, Sussex. — Wikipedia

An original review:

Dr. Syn, by Russell Thorndyke [sic], is a tale of wild adventure and villainy, told with such cheerful and engaging impudence as, in a measure, to disarm criticism.

The period of the tale is "in the days of George Third, with Trafalgar still unfought"; the scene is a fishing village on the Kentish coast, rejoicing in the name of Dimchurch-Under-the-Wall, and the chief actors are the village squire, the minister, the sexton and undertaker, the hostess of the village inn, and a fine assortment of king's officers, smugglers, members of the press gang, and other typical figures of those disorderly and hazardous times.

Considered as a type, the story is not badly done, and the class of readers who like the type will undoubtedly derive satisfaction from this example of it. But we cannot disregard the fact that there is a suggestion of gargoyle ugliness about the majority of the personages in the story; one feels that no artist, other than a Hogarth or some one of the mighty caricaturists of his period, could, if called upon to illustrate the story, quite live up to the requirements.

And the happenings of the story are so fantastic. The discovery that the pious minister is the once terrible buccaneer and cut-throat, and that the meek little undertaker, perpetually measuring friends and foes indiscriminately for their coffins, is the ringleader and master mind of a vast smuggling enterprise, is somehow all too grotesque and unbelievable to be greatly entertaining.

But the present reviewer frankly admits that his quarrel is with the type and not with the individual book. As far as the latter goes, the author has, in professional phraseology, done a good job. — Frederic Taber Cooper, "A Group of First Novels," THE BOOKMAN (May 1915; go to page 318, top right)

Thorndike attempted a non-Syn comedy crime novel called . . .

THE SLYPE.
By Russell Thorndike (1885-1972).
Dial Press.
1928. 320 pages.

. . . Here the author is less interested in making his plot complicated than in making his people amusing. He has selected for the scene of mysterious disappearances, kidnapping, smuggling, attempted murder and so forth an English cathedral close and the surrounding parish. One has to know only a little about such a milieu to realize its possibilities for comedy and character sketch. Good use has been made of them.

An exciting story told in a pleasant narrative style with considerable skill, and a whole portfolio of Dickensian characters, drawn against a rich background make The Slype an almost perfect piece of light fiction. It is long, too, so that one dares let himself go in reading it, confident that he is not going to turn an innocent looking page and fall headlong into Finis. — Frances Lamont Robbins, "A Running Commentary," THE OUTLOOK (December 5, 1928)

Forget about the plot in this thriller, which must have creaked even in the ’20s and which Thorndike does not energize or even, I must confide, make much sense of at the end.  . . .  As I said, the plot is not the reason to read this novel; it should be read for Thorndike’s descriptive ability and his characters.  . . . First class entertainment if you aren’t a plot person. — William F. Deeck, MYSTERY*FILE (8 February 2012)

. . . There are plenty of puzzles and satisfying twists in “The Slype,” making it an ideal novel for a couple of lazy spring evenings.  . . . — Michael Dirda, THE WASHINGTON POST (May 7, 2014)

One of the Dr. Syn sequels was . . .

THE SCARECROW RIDES [American title].
By Russell Thorndike (1885-1972).
Dial Press.
1935. 344 pages. $2.00

Dr. Syn, pirate turned clergyman, helps honest Romney Marsh smugglers and thwarts numerous villains in tale of 1770s. - Follows not unfamiliar pattern (vide J. Farnol) but has movement, romance, gawdy verbiage, and unremitting action. - Verdict: Good of its kind. — "The Criminal Record," THE SATURDAY REVIEW (November 16, 1935)

Resources:
- Thorndike was also a movie actor; his filmography is HERE.
- Wikipedia has a comprehensive page about the character of Dr. Syn HERE, and there's a website devoted to the good doctor HERE.

Category: Crime and adventure fiction

The Man Who Seemed to Know Too Much

Here comes faint praise indeed for H. G. Wells (1866-1946), in this critic's view a far better artist than either a prophet or pundit. Wells always was a mixed bag:

H. G. Wells circa 1890.

. . . Take H. G. Wells, for example. He writes rapid articles on "The Labour Unrest" for London papers. He contributes the initial essay in Socialism and the Great State, which has recently been published. He is ready at any moment to settle any question of the present or future from the Titanic disaster to the destiny of a continent. He despatched the Future of America after a visit of six weeks. He writes almost as well on subjects about which he knows nothing as on subjects about which he knows a good deal. So shrewd a master is he of his craft that he can produce the illusion of profound conviction on subjects that have just entered his head, and out of a five minutes' glance he can create for literary purposes a "direct gaze of the intellect." And he is so delightful a person that it would make little difference to us if, instead of rephrasing the speculations of our tea tables, he went back two centuries for his thoughts. Mr. G. K. Chesterton, his contemporary, goes back nearly two thousand years for his, and Mr. Chesterton is even more exciting.  . . . — "Chronicle and Comment: Mr. H. G. Wells," THE BOOKMAN (October 1912)

G. K. Chesterton in 1909.

Resources:
- ONTOS has covered Wells's well-known science fiction before HERE.
- A few of Chesterton's views on detective fiction are HERE and HERE.

Category: General fiction

Fore!

THE CHIEF WITNESS.
By Herbert Adams (1874-1952 [1958?]).
1940.
Online HERE.

The game of golf used to be one of the most popular, high-profile sports in the world. The fact that Agatha Christie used it as a background for some of her mysteries (e.g., Murder on the Links, Why Didn't They Ask Evans?) testifies to that. Not to be outdone, Christie's compatriot Herbert Adams made the most of the game's popularity in a good many of his own mysteries. The GAD Wiki characterizes Adams this way:

. . . an English writer of over fifty 'cosy' mystery novels between 1924 and 1958, which were often set in or around golfing competitions. He also wrote short stories, humorous verse and two other mystery novels under the pseudonym Jonathan Gray. His first series character was Jimmy Haswell, a London criminal lawyer, who featured in nine books.  . . .

Concerning The Chief Witness, here are some brief excerpts from recent evaluations; follow the links to fuller reviews:

. . . On the whole The Chief Witness is a rather entertaining read, and it's a book I can recommend to fans of Golden Age crime novels.  . . . — dfordoom, VINTAGE POP FICTIONS (August 15, 2013)

. . . As the foregoing may indicate, I have mixed feelings about the book, but overall I liked it sufficiently that I will give Adams another try.  . . . — Bob Houk, THE ADVENTURES OF BOB (August 18, 2013)

Here is more about a few other examples of Adams's fiction, most of which, according to several generations of reviewers, wasn't all that bad, but wasn't all that great either:

~ THE SECRET OF BOGEY HOUSE (1924):

". . . we felt that we were being led on by a deliberately fostered expectancy of great doings just ahead which invariably failed to materialize." Full review HERE.

~ THE CROOKED LIP (1926):
"This murder mystery is complicated by a clever impersonation." Review HERE.

~ THE QUEEN'S GATE MYSTERY (1927):

"How Bruden came to his end and where the treasure lies concealed Jimmy discovers in a fashion which should not arouse the envy of Scotland Yard." Review HERE (go to page 223, top left).

~ ROGUES FALL OUT (1928):

"This tale gets off to a bad start and is rather confused, but there's some excitement at the end." Review HERE.
"[The book has] a rising young barrister with the instincts of a criminologist." Review HERE (Jump To page 364, left bottom).
"[The main character] demonstrates the futility of entrusting the responsibilities of Sherlock to a fellow of ordinary mental calibre instead of to an intellectual super-man." Review HERE.

~ ODDWAYS (1929):

"Two brothers are killed on the same evening and an innocent girl is held as a murderess." Review HERE.

~ THE GOLF HOUSE MURDER (1933):

". . . criminals are obvious from beginning." Review HERE.

~ THE STRANGE MURDER OF HATTON, K.C. (1933):
"Adams's best to date."

~ MYSTERY AND MINETTE (1934):
"Time-Passer." Review HERE.

~ THE BODY IN THE BUNKER (1935):

". . . average detective work." Review HERE. Online HERE.

~ DEATH OFF THE FAIRWAY (1936):

"There is some nice detection of stride patterns and the time element of the crime and soon the list of suspects grows, until Bennion is able to apply the final rule that identifies the criminal." Review HERE.

~ MURDER WITHOUT RISK (1936):
"Average." Review HERE.

~ VICTORY SONG (1943):

"A 'time passer' is how I would describe the book, with nothing invidious intended." Review HERE.

~ THE WRITING ON THE WALL (1945):

". . . an intelligently written, if at times ordinary, detective story with a clever, but ultimately, simple plot, subtly placed clues and more than one eager attempt at confusing the reader by dangling a red herring in front of them – which made for a rewarding and satisfying read." Review HERE.

~ EXIT THE SKELETON (1952):
Online HERE.

~ THE JUDAS KISS (1955):

Online HERE.

~ DEATH OF A VIEWER (1958):

". . . once we get to the actual detecting the story runs along nicely. More than one house guest has what they might see as good reason to act against the deceased, so most of them are suspected at one time or another and the solution roars up after an unexpected twist which certainly caught me by surprise. I regret to say however that on the whole this novel is not one of the best I have read." Review HERE. Online HERE.

Resource:
- Five of Adams's novels are available as Text files at Project Gutenberg Australia HERE.

Category: Detective fiction

Year One

When we inaugurated ONTOS a year ago (see our Mission Statement HERE), we had hoped to reach at least 500 posts after twelve months, but, alas, this brief note is only Number 435. Nevertheless, we optimistically aspire to surpass 1,000 by this time next year; only time will tell. In any event, we hope you have been enjoying ONTOS and will continue to visit us often.

"Beware of Trying to Rouse Our Pity and Terror with a Penny Whistle"

THE GRIM THIRTEEN.
Edited by Frederick Stuart Greene (1870-1939).
Dodd, Mead & Co.
1917. 385 pages.
Anthology: 13 stories.
Online HERE and HERE.

Contents:

Introduction - Edward J. O'Brien
1. Vance Thompson - "The Day of Daheimus"
2. Dana Burnet - "Rain"
3. Stacy Aumonier - "Old Fags"
4. Conrad Richter - "The Head of His House"
5. Vincent O'Sullivan - "The Abigail Sheriff Memorial"
6. Ethel Watts Mumford - "Easy"
7. Wadsworth Camp - "The Draw-Keeper"
8. Richard Matthews Hallet - "The Razor of Pedro Dutel"
9. Robert Alexander Wason - "Knute Ericson’s Celebration"
10. Mrs. Belloc Lowndes - "The Parcel"
11. Will Levington Comfort and H. A. Sturtzel - "Back O’ The Yards"
12. William Ashley Anderson - "The End of the Game"
13. Frederick Stuart Greene - "The Black Pool".

Who says every story has to have a happy ending? Certainly not the authors listed above, who deliberately set out to write stories with downbeat resolutions.

[Full review] . . . that insatiable devourer and tolerably complacent judge of the American short story, Mr. Edward J. O'Brien, . . . contributes an Introduction to certain feats of literary frightfulness assembled under the title "The Grim Thirteen." We are to take the collection as an exhibit in the supposititious case of the public (or the story-writer) against the American magazine editor, with his prejudice against "the unhappy ending." To qualify, each of these stories must be by an author whose work of another sort has been acceptable, and must have been rejected by some prominent magazine, on the sole ground of its grimness or unpleasantness.

Mr. O'Brien thinks it very sad that there should be any such principle or practice of rejection, and shudders at the thought of what Poe's fate might have been had he been born a generation too late. This is of a piece with his assumption not only that the American short story is our great contribution to literature, but that its masterpieces are now being produced in bulk.

We agree that the magazines are over-squeamish and over-timid about work of this sort. But we think they would be right in exacting of it far higher qualities of sincerity and force than of the amiable, more or less heartening product with which it must compete.

The day of artificial horrors—the day from which the genius of Poe flowered—we are well enough done with. Writers of talent and ingenuity may safely play upon our good-humored interest and easy sentiment: let them beware of trying to rouse our pity and terror with a penny whistle.

There is not a story in this group which can be fairly laid up against the editors who rejected them, not one with the indubitable touch of genius to lift it from the "grim" to the tragic. Half of them are written in the same style, the American Magazine or, let us say, Saturday Evening Post style, and might have been written by the same brisk, ingenious hand. — "Echoes and Interventions," THE NATION (December 20, 1917)

[Excerpts] An interesting experiment in the literary world is the publication of a book entitled The Grim Thirteen. It is made up of thirteen short stories that because of unconventionality of treatment, and not because of lack of merit, were rejected by leading fiction periodicals.  . . .

. . . It all grew out of a discussion as to whether, if Poe were living to-day, the American magazines would publish his stories. The general opinion of the gathering, story writers themselves, was that they would not. There is a taboo, it was maintained, against grim or gruesome stories in editorial circles, American editors believing that the public demand the happy ending.  . . .

. . . The thirteen short stories in The Grim Thirteen are examples of sincere imagination, unhampered by editorial considerations. They went their appointed way to the magazines and were found "unavailable," showing that these thirteen writers at least have found that some of their finest imaginative work could not achieve publication without modification.  . . .

 . . . We have heard it said that cross-sections of life, projected at random, are good "realism." But we ourselves are old-fashioned enough to like a little art . . . Possibly we are guilty of the modern sin of class-consciousness, possibly we are too conventional in our liking for technique and too unappreciative of pure psychology . . . . — "Chronicle and Comment: 'The Grim Thirteen' - The Short Story in America - Unhampered Imagination - One of the 'Thirteen' - Rejected Imagination," THE BOOKMAN (October 1917)

[Full review] A collection of thirteen gloomy little stories, the editor of the volume pluming himself on the fact that they all end badly. Mrs. Belloc Lowndes's contribution concerning a village in Champagne is almost too terrible for the average reader to be able to bear. — THE SPECTATOR (18 January 1919)

To recap. In his introduction, editor Frederick Stuart Greene explains, "In the selection of these thirteen stories, the first condition which each story had to meet was that of repeated rejection by American magazines. The thirteen stories which you are about to read have been tabooed by American editors, because they believe that you do not like realism, or unhappy romance." How deliciously gloomy! but can they possibly live up to such a lofty billing? . . . — VAULT OF EVIL Message Board

Category: General fiction (grim variety)

"He Is Unequal to the Point of Eccentricity"

SILENT, WHITE AND BEAUTIFUL AND OTHER STORIES.
By Tod Robbins (1888-1949).
Boni and Liveright.
1920. 256 pages.
Collection: 4 stories.
Online HERE.

Contents:
1. "Silent, White and Beautiful"
2. "Who Wants a Green Bottle?"
3. "Wild Wullie, the Waster" (also online HERE)
4. "For Art's Sake"

Clarence Aaron Robbins had a penchant for the eerie and macabre which Hollywood, for one, exploited to the full (see HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE for screen adaptations); in spite of or perhaps because of this, in his lifetime Robbins went through five wives.

Contemporary literary critics, however, weren't too impressed with the early Robbins:

[Full review] Mr. Tod Robbins, who is an American, is also a dealer in horrors. He is less adroit than his British colleagues, but he works in a better tradition. Their master was Conan Doyle or even Gaboriau; his was Poe. And there is no doubt that he has an eerie fancy, great fertility of invention, and not a little psychological insight. But he is unequal to the point of eccentricity.

Two of his four narratives, Wild Wullie, the Waster and Who Wants a Green Bottle?, are simply inept. Silent, White and Beautiful, on the other hand, has an original and strangely vivid central idea. If the aim of this sort of story is to stun the reader for a moment, that aim is here achieved. The impulse of the protagonist, moreover, wild as the form it assumes, is well grounded in human nature.

For Art's Sake is below Silent, White and Beautiful in merit. But it, too, with all its monstrous details, is based on powerful and familiar motives. It is a fantastic reductio ad absurdum of the dehumanized cult of art and throws about well-known New York localities an air of lurking terror.

Thus, in his own kind, Mr. Robbins is no ordinary writer. If he is young he may have, in his peculiar manner, rather brilliant possiblities. But he must learn to exercise self-criticism or have his manuscripts edited by an honest friend. — "Real Terror and False," THE NATION (November 24, 1920)

[Full review] The introduction wags the book. It is written by Robert H. Davis. Having read these first pages, which are an amusing conversation with an elderly man on Boston common, you are so violently prejudiced in favor of the stories, that it seems almost unfair to turn critic. However, in spite of one of the cleverest of sponsors, the horror of murder, suicide, neurosis, and what not does not always seem sufficiently to convince. If these grotesque and morbid tales were just a bit better, they might even be great! But failing of greatness, they are so "horrible" as to be occasionally funny. — "Brief Reviews of New Books," THE BOOKMAN (February 1921)

Resources:
- A Wikipedia article about Robbins that includes information about his imprisonment by the Nazis is HERE.
- The Robbins page at A GUIDE TO SUPERNATURAL FICTION is HERE and the ISFDb is HERE, while the FANTASTIC FICTION page is HERE.

Category: Eerie fiction