There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away
Emily Dickinson

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Book No. 1-3 2011 Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge

1. The Penguin Pool Murder by Stuart Palmer


Abercrombie AKA ‘Filthy’ Lewker is a well known Skakespearean actor and stage manager who spends most of his free time mountaineering. It is a lesser known fact that he worked for the British secret service during WWII and that he has a definite knack for solving mysteries albeit as an amateur. His forte is the mischief and murders committed amidst crags, slopes and peaks where he can spot anomalies.
He is planning to take a well earned rest in Switzerland and he is asked by the secret service take it at the foot of the Matterhorn where he can connect with an old friend from the French resistance, who is also a mountaineer, but who has become very famous and is now a force in politics. What kind of a force is the question that everyone is asking and that Lewker in supposed to answer,
Published in 1952 the worry is whether he has become a communist. Unfortunately he is killed on the Matterhorn seemingly by a fall before the answer is known. Lewker is soon on the scene and it is he that pronounced the word Murder! Suspects abound of course, as do dogmatic policemen, naturlich.
There is a wonderful sense of place and time in the story. It was very enjoyable.


2. The House Without the Door by Elizabeth Daly


The first clue that this is a vintage murder is that one of the main characters in the book lives in a New York flat with a remarkable rent of $45, and owns furniture called a settee and a chesterfield sofa.
Published in 1942 it is the case of a widow who has gone into hiding with a double identity to try a have a new life after being acquitted of the highly publicized murder of her husband. But she has begun to get threatening note and subsequently she has had several attempts made on her life.
Document expert and amateur sleuth Henry Gamadge is asked to help clear her name. Gamadge , however, must sort through a the motives of several suspects before he can get a clear picture of what is going on, so he initially puts his client Vina Gregson in a safe haven. It is only hours before another murder is committed and the police want Henry to spill the beans. A nice bit of twisting at the end.


3. Murder on the Matterhorn by Glyn Carr



Abercrombie AKA ‘Filthy’ Lewker is a well known Skakespearean actor and stage manager who spends most of his free time mountaineering. It is a lesser known fact that he worked for the British secret service during WWII and that he has a definite knack for solving mysteries albeit as an amateur. His forte is the mischief and murders committed amidst crags, slopes and peaks where he can spot anomalies.
He is planning to take a well earned rest in Switzerland and he is asked by the secret service take it at the foot of the Matterhorn where he can connect with an old friend from the French resistance, who is also a mountaineer, but who has become very famous and is now a force in politics. What kind of a force is the question that everyone is asking and that Lewker in supposed to answer,
Published in 1952 the worry is whether he has become a communist. Unfortunately he is killed on the Matterhorn seemingly by a fall before the answer is known. Lewker is soon on the scene and it is he that pronounced the word Murder! Suspects abound of course, as do dogmatic policemen, naturlich.
There is a wonderful sense of place and time in the story. It was very enjoyable.

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