So today we come to the end of my long list of my favourite 1940s crime fiction. If you have missed them, here are the links to the other posts in this series:
The Best Mysteries of the 1940s: Part 1
The Best Mysteries of the 1940s: Part 2
The Best Mysteries of the 1940s: Part 3
Tomorrow I will be sharing which mysteries made it into my shortlist Top 10 but for now let’s see what just missed out by a whisker…
Mystery No. 31: The Fabulous Clipjoint (1947) by Fredric Brown
This is the first in the Ed and Am Hunter series, and it was reprinted in 2022 by American Mystery Classics. Am and Ed are uncle and nephew, and they are brought together by the death of Ed’s father, a linotype operator who the police think died during a mugging gone wrong, after a long bout of drinking. Ed and Am are not convinced and the pair need all of Am’s circus-taught skills to figure out what really happened. This is a hardboiled mystery, but it is also a coming-of-age story (as we invariably see things from the viewpoint of 18-year-old Ed) and I would argue that Am has a little hint of Miss Marple here and there. I hope more books in this series get reprinted.
Mystery No. 32: Mind Your Own Murder (1948) by Yolanda Foldes
This is probably the most obscure mystery on my list, and maybe some day someone will reprint it, as good luck finding a copy! It is a wartime set mystery (a setting which does make its presence felt in the plot) and it concerns a millionaire dying of incurable cancer. He has tasked his relatives with bumping him off, and he has in fact allotted them one day each of the long weekend, and his will reflects this, so if his death occurs on a given day, this will lead to one specific person inheriting more. If by the close of Monday he is still alive then his money will go to charity. I really enjoyed the premise of this one and I think the author executed it well. Whilst Foldes wrote several non-mysteries, this seems to be her only foray into crime fiction, which is a shame given the quality of this book.
Mystery No. 33: Death of Jezebel (1948) by Christianna Brand
Fortunately, this next title is much easier to acquire as it has been reprinted in the British Library Crime Classics series. If you think all classic crime fiction is light and breezy then reading this book might change your mind. The stark and dark opening to this story shows what the puzzle mystery can do, and it makes sure you know that death is taken seriously in this tale. Brand’s choice of victims and her deployment of antiheroines also make this a strong read and when I re-read this book in 2022, I was impressed with how well Brand can write a death scene. In particular I appreciated how big an impact she could create in a sentence or two:
‘The floodlights shifted, gradually ascending to the darkened window of the tower: and slowly, sickeningly, Isabel’s body toppled over the low railing of the balcony and landed with a horrible, soft, slightly scrunching thud on the floor below. [Chapter break] Through the cold hush that followed the thud of Isabel’s fall, the single scream of a woman in the crowd pierced the eardrums like the whistle of an engine.’
This death scene is powerful because it is kept short, and Brand leaves the reader to imagine the scene without spoon feeding them every detail.
Mystery No. 34: The Black Coat (1948) by Constance and Gwenyth Little
This standalone mystery begins with a misunderstanding as a woman ends up wearing another train passenger’s coat, who also happens to have the same first name, and she ends up arriving at a hotel owned by a woman expecting her granddaughter. Hilarity and bizarre events ensue. This mystery doesn’t have a normal structure and in fact there isn’t a dead body until at least halfway through the book, though it is none the worse for that. In style it is a comic crime novel, possibly even one of the screwball variety. Bodies appear and they’re not the ones expected, people have a strong tendency to disappear, and a lot of mischief is caused with a prosthetic hand. I really enjoyed the unusual nature of the plot as it did keep you on your toes and certainly led you down the garden path a number of times. It is so light and entertaining that you don’t see what the Littles are up to behind the scenes.
Mystery No. 35: Death Knocks Three Times (1949) by Anthony Gilbert
It took me a while to track down a copy of this book for a reasonable price, and in the end in 2018 I had to settle for a large print copy, but the subsequent read was definitely worth the effort. That said my memories are a little hazy for it, yet I guess this means I have a re-read to look forward to. Gilbert’s style varied over the course of her Arthur Crook series, with some titles leaning more into psychological suspense, but this one is an intricate detective story, with a set of intriguing deaths to solve. The characters sufficiently reel you in that it is all too easy to miss the clues that Gilbert drip feeds the reader through the dialogue of her story. Thankfully Arthur Crook patiently takes the reader through them at the end. I have read 15 mysteries by this author and this, I would say, is my favourite to date.
Mystery No. 36: The Chinese Chop (1949) by Juanita Sheridan
This is the book I feel the worst about for not including in my Top 10. It came down to this one and another title, for the final slot, and in the end the only way to break the deadlock mentally was to point out to myself that if book group looks at our favourite 1950s mysteries, then there are three other Sheridan novels which could be nominated. The other title, which made it into my top 10, comes from an author whose mysteries solely originate in the 1940s, so this was their only chance to get into a list. A pedantic point, but we had reached that stage of the whittling process.
The Chinese Chop is the first Lily Wu mystery, and I enjoyed it so much that it left me determined to hunt out the remaining novels. It is not the cheapest physical book to buy, but Felony & Mayhem have made it available to buy on Kindle, so I heartily suggest giving it a read, if you use eBooks. Unlike the other three books in the series, The Chinese Chop is set in New York, and it sees our series sleuth meet our series Watson narrator for the first time. They share a boarding house room and inevitably murder occurs within the building. One of the things which makes this such an important series is that the sleuth is a young Chinese woman and Lily Wu is suggested to be the first fictional Chinese female sleuth (in Western detective fiction at least).
Mystery No. 37: Family Skeleton (1949) by Doris Miles Disney
Upon the strength of how good this inverted mystery was, I bought myself a job lot of Doris Miles Disney mysteries, and I must admit that so far none of these subsequent reads have equalled the quality of Family Skeleton. This book was Disney’s 10th mystery and is part of her Jefferson DiMarco series. Jefferson is an insurance claims investigator, and his suspicion is aroused when the Bowen family try to cash in on a relative’s policy, which would leave them $20,000 richer if he died by accidental causes. Unfortunately for them he died due to a punch at a family picnic, his head hitting a rock when he fell. Fearful of the scandal, despite the death being accidental, and unaware of the policy to begin with, the family hide him in some woods and stage his disappearance. It is then that they learn of the policy and have to alter their plans. Disney depicts the psychological tension such a situation would cause within a family really well and I enjoyed seeing how the different members react to what has happened. I still laugh out loud when after one man has thrown the accidentally fatal punch, his wife’s first response is: ‘Oh, this is frightful! You’ll be arrested and Debbie’s entering nursery school and she’ll be disgraced before the other children.’
Mystery No. 38: Crooked House (1949) by Agatha Christie
Back in January I celebrated my 1900th post by looking at how blurbs for this novel have changed over time, and when I re-read Crooked House in 2019, I firstly very much enjoyed it, but also found it interesting how this story compares with another non-series Christie, Ordeal by Innocence (1958). In some ways Crooked House is a precursor to this later book. This is a cleverly constructed mystery, and it is one I will invariably re-read again, as it is thematically very rich, and the personalities of the characters are instrumental in shaping the plot.
Mystery No. 39: The Reluctant Murderer (1949) by Bernice Carey
This title has featured on another favourites list of mine so that was my excuse for not including it in my final 1940s top 10. Nevertheless, it remains an excellent book. This first-person narrative puts us into the mind of the would-be killer yet like in Pat McGerr’s Pick Your Victim (1946), the reader knows who the murderer will be, but not who is going to be done in. This is one of the ways the inverted mystery can re-inject a thread of mystery and puzzle into the narrative, as the reader has to use their sleuthing skills to figure out the intended victim’s identity. Carey adds a further twist to the plot by having someone else try to bump off our murderer! Furthermore, she ensures that the reader is not completely alienated or repulsed by the narrator. I love how the ending of this book is hard to anticipate. This story has been reprinted by Stark House Press.
Mystery No. 40: Curiosity Killed the Cat (1949) by Joan Cockin
Joan Cockin only wrote three mysteries, all of which have been reprinted by Galileo Publishing. This was her debut effort and whilst I enjoyed all of them, this remains my favourite. One of the things that particularly drew me to this story was its social setting, a country house which was requisitioned by the Ministry of Scientific Research during WW2 and has yet to be decommissioned. For me this was an interesting slant on post-WW2 society, as we see the ministry workers clashing with the local community, who have felt put upon having to house them. Yet when a ministry worker is murdered, motives for murder go far beyond tensions within the local community. Inspector Cam has his work cut out to make headway in this case. Fortunately, a medical chum is able to widen the list of suspects. This is a story to enjoy for its social details, the way characters interact with one another, but also for the case itself, which is intricate and at times moving, without becoming convoluted.
Don’t forget to come back tomorrow to see which titles made it into my Top Ten!