"Golden Age" Detective Fiction

[Cole Parker]

Here is the address of Wolfe’s house on W. 35th street from

Stout himself (well, the addresses)

 

506 in Over My Dead Body, chapter 12

618 in Too Many Clients, chapter 4

902 in Murder by the Book, chapter 7

909 in "Before I Die", chapter 10

914 in Too Many Women, chapter 24

918 in The Red Box, chapter 3

919 in The Silent Speaker, chapter 12

922 in The Silent Speaker, chapter 2

924 in "Man Alive", chapter 9

938 in Death of a Doxy, chapter 4

 

 

 

[Rutabaga]

Undoubtedly, addresses in the 900 block of W. 35th Street would be out in the Hudson River.  

I do recall that his house was supposedly between 8th Avenue and 9th Avenue, which would mean the 300 block.  Again, though, all of the books I just read no longer exist in my Kindle reader -- they have all been returned to the library.  So I can't go back to check.

Apparently a group of Nero Wolfe fans decided the true address must have been 454 W. 35th Street -- see this article.  

R

 

 

[vwl]

My folks used to read Ellery Queen and MIckey Spillane's mysteries, originating, I believe, in the 1920s.

For WW II and mystery fans, I recommend the Billy Boyle series, which is recent but set in the 1940s and very well done.

[Cole Parker]

The Louise Penny books are marvelous.  But aren't from the Golden Age, so perhaps I shouldn't mention it.

[Rutabaga]

I checked out the first Billy Boyle book from the library, and will take a look at it.

Is Louise Penny a mystery series?

R

 

[Cole Parker]

Yes, and a series.  A good one, and they should be L.A. library.  Read them in order.  You'll be hooked.

[Rutabaga]

I've started on the first Louise Penny book.  For me the jury is still out - the writing is a little uneven and as you know I'm not a big fan of hopping point-of-view.  But it's early days yet.

R

  

[Merkin]

It's well worth the effort, Root.  Cole put me onto the Chief Inspector Gamache series and I'm up to around #7 or so.  I think Cole gets residuals from ebook sales.

[Cole Parker]

Hah!  I wish.  I bought them all.  I don't regret it.

C

[Rutabaga]

Well, I read the first title in the Louise Penny series and almost did not finish it -- I was too appalled by the horrible and clumsy writing.  It did do enough to get me to finish and find out "whodunit," but I lamented that anyone with such poor craft could experience success as a writer.

I had the next volume, "A Fatal Grace," available, and decided to start in on it and see whether things had improved.  Almost immediately I discovered that they had.  The writing is light years better (though not perfect), the number of sentence fragments has dropped precipitously, and the level of overall coherence is much higher.  Either Ms. Penny has gotten much better at he craft, or she has brought in editorial help to clean up the manuscript.  This one is actually pleasant to read by comparison.  I still object to the hopping point-of-view habit she has, which in my opinion often spoils the overall effect in some of the scenes, but I can live with it at the reduced level it has here.  

R

 

[Rutabaga]

I've now finished the second title, "A Fatal Grace," and it proved to be a much better piece of writing than the first one.  And I never suspected the actual "whodunit" actor revealed at the end.  If the subsequent volumes are up to this standard I will keep reading . . . but I am on waiting lists for them at the library.

R

[Cole Parker]

The fact you've been relegated to a waiting list suggests others are enjoying these as well.  No line, now wait: no quality.

[Rutabaga]

And of course now I have to keep reading to figure out what the Arnot case is all about and what's going on with agent Nichol.  Sneaky, this author.

R

[Cole Parker]

And captivating, too.

 

 

[Rutabaga]

Meanwhile I’m up to chapter 12 in the first Billy Boyle volume mentioned above. I wasn’t sure about it early on, but now the pace has picked up. Chapter 12 is about 1/3 of the way in, according to the Kindle progress dot. Some of Boyle’s comments (he is first person narrator) remind me of Archie Goodwin.

R

[Rutabaga]

Finished "Billy Boyle."  Things definitely picked up as this book progressed, and a number of surprising twists were revealed.  It was a good yarn.

My only complaint, and it's a minor one, stems from the author's recycling of a well-used trope involving suicide notes.  As soon as I saw this and read the text, I recognized it for what it was.  As it turns out, it didn't distract the hero from figuring out what really happened.

Overall a good recommendation -- thank you.

R

 

[vwl]

Actually, most of the following books -- 14 to date, I think -- are better. The author hits a nice stride.

rec

[Rutabaga]

I recently began the second Philo Vance book, called "The Canary Murder Case," by S.S. Van Dine (a pen name).  The first book was not available at the LA Public Library but this one was.  (I have a hold on the first book.)

I can't tell yet whether I will like it, but so far Vance seems to be living up to his reputation as a PITA.

R

 

[Rutabaga]

Finished "Canary."  It was a hoot.  Great fun to see all the gratuitous literary allusions and quotations that Vance sprinkles generously in his conversation.  I was proud that I instantly knew where the "raven on the bust of Pallas" came from.  My Latin is pretty frail, though, so those little epigrams were frequently lost on me.

The story itself was suitably complex and full of twists and turns.  Vance was definitely no slouch figuring things out, unconventional though his techniques were.  

I now have the third book, "The Greene Murder Case," but have barely begun it.

R

[Camy]

8 hours ago, Rutabaga said:

Finished "Canary."  It was a hoot

Surely it was 'a squark'?

[Rutabaga]

2 hours ago, Camy said:

Surely it was 'a squark'?

Squark (physics): A hypothetical supersymmetric counterpart to a quark, having a spin of zero instead of one-half.

No doubt you're correct.

R

[Rutabaga]

Finished "The Greene Murder Case" and can confirm that it was a page turner.  Lots of suspects, a stinking number of red herrings, and the author managed to make the person who should have been the most plausible suspect seem much less so.  A good read.

R

[Rutabaga]

The public library finally had the first Philo Vance book available ("The Benson Murder Case") and I just read it.  It's a good yarn.  Unlike the later Vance books, which are sprinkled with quotes in French (which I speak) and Latin (which I know a little bit), this one includes some German sayings that I could only guess at.  It's interesting that authors in the early 20th century (not to mention late 19th century) simply assumed their readers had learned at least smatterings of other languages in school.  Nowadays I guess it would be more plausible to break into a patch of computer language.

Just starting "The Scarab Murder Case."

R

 

[Rutabaga]

Probable last post concerning Philo Vance.

I finished "The Scarab Murder Case," which is the 5th Philo Vance book, and then the 4th book "The Bishop Murder Case," became available from the L.A. Public Library.  I finished that one last night.  

It seems like the library has not chosen to buy any of the later volumes in this series (there are roughly a dozen).  The Wikipedia entry for this author suggests that the later books deteriorated in quality, and that may be the reason for LAPL not acquiring more.

I think these first five are dandy.  This last one, "Bishop," definitely had twists and turns.  

R

[Merkin]

Based on your reviews, Root, I plan to look for the Philo Vance series.  Thanks for taking the effort to alert us to these musty mysteries.