Friday's Forgotten Book: SHE SHALL HAVE MURDER (1949) by Delano Ames

Kind of a beat-up old cover, but best I could find online of the cover I actually have.

Today it's a combo: SHE SHALL HAVE MURDER is my Friday Forgotten post as well as my entry in Bev's VINTAGE MYSTERY READING CHALLENGE.

Don't forget to check in at Patti Abbot's website, PATTINASE, to see what other forgotten books other bloggers are talking about today.

I was not familiar with this author, though his name rings some sort of bell - maybe it's just that the Delano part reminds me of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Anyway, I read a review of this book on one of the blogs (can't remember which one) and decided to take a look. I mean, how could I resist reading a book in which the hero's first name is Dagobert? And what's more, no one in the cast of characters seems to think this is a odd name. So maybe it wasn't - way back when.

I wonder how it's pronounced? I'm assuming - Dago-Bear. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Dagobert Brown is a guy who avoids work as best he can (one wonders how he pays his rent) and is currently determined to have his girlfriend Jane write a mystery set in her office, featuring characters similar to her work-mates. He would write the book himself but he's too busy (doing what - who knows?) and besides, someone has to think up the plot.

Jane Hamish is a very tolerant working girl - a law clerk in an office run by an elderly type named Playfair, an attorney who thinks nothing of postponing work in favor of crossword puzzles. In fact, he prefers to treat his employees as members of one happy family. He's kind of engaging, really. I have to say that of all the characters, Mr. Playfair won me over immediately.

Jane narrates the story and turns an almost blind eye to Dagobert's wilder inclinations and mental leaps of fancy.

Anyway, the law-office has its fair share of typicals with typical problems, including a Lothario named (for reasons I can't figure) Major Jimmy Stewart (no one appears to notice that the name is the same as a famous movie star, but perhaps it's  old news ) who's dated every woman on staff. Besides Jane there's Sarah, the young typist and Rosemary, the older chief clerk who has delusions of romance. There's also a six foot tall weisenheimer office boy who's not above chicanery and a spot of blackmail.

When Mr. Playfair's elderly client, Mrs. Robjohn - a muddle-headed eccentric - dies suddenly of natural causes after first having declared over and over that she was being stalked by killers, Dagobert Brown suspects murder. Though only the day before he'd stated that Mrs. Robjohn was hardly the type to get murdered, it would just be too obvious.

No one else suspects the old lady was done in, but Dagobert will have his way.

Working independently of the cops and with the not-so-willing Jane as his sleuthing partner, Dagobert begins the search for clues - anything that will involve anyone and everyone at the office. He also advises Jane to write every thing down as it happens - for their manuscript's sake.

That's the gist of the plot and the fun, I think, of this mystery is in the personalities of the various characters, as well as the often snappy dialogue. There's also the fun, I think, that Ames obviously had in writing this story.

I'm going to try and locate a couple more Delano Ames books just to see what's what with Dagobert and Jane.

To get a list of all Delano Ames titles, please use this link.

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Quote/Unquote - a few curmudgeonly book quotes.

"I'm not saying all publishers have to be literary, but some interest in books would help."
A.N. Wilson, in Bookseller, July, 1996

"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them."
Ray Bradbury,  1994

"Most of today's books have an air of having been written in one day from books read the night before."
Sebastian-Roch-Nicolas Chamfort, Maxims and Thoughts - 1796

"Take away the art of writing from this world, and you will probably take away its glory."
Francois Rene de Chateaubriand, 1816

"She is too fond of books and it has turned her brain."
Louisa May Alcott

Note: Try as I might I couldn't find any artist attribution for the top illustration. But I love it so much I had to use it. If you know who the artist is, please let me know. If you are the artist and would prefer I not use the image, I'll remove it immediately.

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Award Season Hasn't Ended...

I'm happy to announce that I've been awarded the 7X7 Link Award not by one blogger, but by two! How cool is that?

Both Dorian at her blog, TALES OF THE EASILY DISTRACTED and Tracy at her blog, RANDOM RAMBLINGS OF A BROADWAY, FILM, & TV FAN very sweetly sent this award on to me after each received their very own. Thank you, ladies!

(I'm responding to both awards in this one post.)

Okay, so let's get cracking - here's my change to brag about my blog without anyone raising an eyebrow - TaDa!!

My responses to the seven questions asked as part of my award requirements:

1) Tell everyone something that no one else knows about:

Well, jeez, pretty soon I won't have any secrets left worth talking about.

Well, not quite like it was. But use your imagination. Vintage illustration by Maynard Dixon, 1913.

I was once stranded in Nevada without any food, water, or cold hard cash. I'd foolishly packed my travelling  money in my luggage (suitcases were packed in a compartment under the bus). All I had to eat were three cans of diet liquid food (brought along for emergency purposes - hey, I'd never travelled across country on a bus before). I didn't even have the dollar required to pay for a glass of water. Luckily, a fellow bus traveller, a cute sailor, came to my rescue. I was able to save the canned goopy-guck for another day.

This was in the long ago, eons ago, when I was young and comely and kindly, good-looking sailors still came to my rescue.

2)   As per instructions, I now reveal what I think was My Most Beautiful Piece:

Beautiful in what way? Hmmm....I'll just take the plunge and say that I consider my Review of one of my favorite motion pictures, BABE, to be quite beautiful primarily because of the beauty of the film itself and the way I think (I hope) I expressed my love for its kindly, gentle message delivered by a little pink pig. BABE is a film you never quite forget. I hope I did right by it.

3) What do I consider my Most Helpful Piece?

The Painter's Honeymoon by Lord Frederick Leighton

Well, I have to say that my Saturday Salon artists posts seem to me to be pretty helpful - at least in getting the artwork of many not-so-famous artists out there. Of course,  I do, occasionally go with some pretty famous names, but on the whole, I think it's the lesser-knowns who attract the most attention.

I love spreading the word on the work of artists who please me, personally. And what better way to do it than on my own personal blog?? Makes sense to me.

Simply scroll down a bit and look on my right hand sideboard for the above painting by Leighton. Under 'Favorite Paintings' it contains the link to all my Saturday Salon posts.

4) My Most Popular Piece:

As it's been for many who've responded to this question, so it has been for me - a total surprise, I mean. It's amazing sometimes how the blog post you think will be popular is eclipsed by something unexpected. Go figure.

Illustration by the inimitable Edward Gorey

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EDWARD GOREY appears to be my most popular piece, at least, according to the Blog Stats. I love Edward Gorey's rather sinister (but charming) pen and ink work and have done so for years. I was glad to find out (though not really surprised) that love for all things Gorey is as widespread as it appears to be.

5) My Most Surprisingly Successful Piece:

Well, next to the Edward Gorey surprise, I'd have to say that a piece I did on the news that Johnny Depp would be undertaking a THIN MAN re-do seemed to get a lot of attention. This is the post on which I took artistic license with Depp's upper lip - and had fun doing it, too.

6) My Most Underrated Post:

Absolutely one of my all time favorite paintings. The self-portrait of Marc-Aurele De Foy Suzer-Cote.  (1869 - 1937) Canadian painter and sculptor.

Off the top of my often head, I have to say that my Saturday Salon post, Men In Art, had a disappointing response. I thought for sure there would be some interesting comments - well, more than the four submitted - about the various ways men have been portrayed on canvas.

But maybe my approach was wrong.

At any rate, I liked the piece and it sure gave me a chance for some very intriguing research.

7) My Most Pride-Worthy Piece - A Cell Phone Rant:

I think the response to my rant about the use of cell phones in public made me feel pretty proud. I had no idea that so many people would agree with my ravings, so I guess what I felt was a kind of pride that I'd had the nerve to post about it in such a vivid way and pride in the fact that lots of other bloggers and civilians praised my gumption. Hey, I didn't think it needed all that much gumption (or praising), but maybe I was wrong.

The comments on that post sure made my day.

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Okay, now I'm supposed to hand off the 7X7 award to 7 other bloggers, but I've decided that I'm no longer going to be passing on awards, no matter how delightful they might be.

I always feel that I can't do justice to all the blogs I enjoy visiting, so I'd rather demur on the side of caution. I hope everyone understands.

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Review: VICTORY OF EAGLES by Naomi Novik

This is the 5th installment in one of the finest series of fantasies (set in an alternate reality) I've ever read. Okay, so I was not always a reader of fantasy or sci-fi, but I like to think I know what's well written enough so that genre doesn't really matter. Let's just say that this is one of the finest series of books I've ever read. My discovery of author Naomi Novik's writing expertise as well as her daunting imagination and inventive style has made me, over the course of her previous and current books, a very happy reader.

If you are denying yourself this wonderful reading experience because of the 'fantasy' angle, deny no more. Just know that you are doing yourself an injustice if you continue in your stubbornness.

To learn more about Temeraire and the work of Naomi Novik, you can check HIS MAJESTY'S DRAGON Wikipedia page here.  Or you can link to Naomi Novik's website here.

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At the beginning of the series, the setting is England - though in later books, we travel to China, Africa, Australia and even South America. It is the early part of the 19th century. The French are out to conquer the world and Napoleon is on the march. His megalomania and ambition are even more enduring, more globally encompassing than in historical reality. (Though in reality they were extreme enough.)

Beginning with book number one, HIS MAJESTY'S DRAGON, we are immediately thrust onto a sailing ship at sea and the alternate universe in which everything exists as it did in our history books, except for the dragons. In this world, various nations employ aerial corps of dragons which help individual armies in battle over land and sea. Don't roll your eyes, Novik makes it all work beautifully. (There is a very handy three book omnibus available of the first three novels.)

The dragon aerial corps have their own branch of service with its own rules and regulations - adaptable as they must be where living, breathing, sentient beasts of the air are involved. The birthing of dragons  from eggs and the choosing of each beast's individual 'captain' are inventively shown us in the very first book when Temeraire is born aboard naval Captain Will Laurence's ship.

Laurence is strictly Navy and has no plans to join the aerial forces of which, in truth, he is unfamiliar.  But that is before the little newborn dragon decides that Laurence is the captain for him. It is up to the dragon in the first moments after birth to choose who he will tolerate or else he might turn feral and refuse to comply with the plans of men. So everything has to be handled very tactfully, procedure must be followed.

The dragons learn language from overhearing it while in the egg and once born, decide whether to speak or not. They are sentient beings with their own personalities, each suited, by size and breed to a different branch of the Aerial service. Each dragon carries a crew on its back, suited to the animal's size and strength. The smallest dragons are used as mail carriers and messengers and carry only one crew member. But the larger beasts are capable of carrying many men attached by leather harnesses.

Since some dragons will only carry a female captain, allowances are made in this branch of the service for women. The politics of it though, are unchanging. British Headquarters prefers to look the other way rather than admit women are serving in any section of their armed forces.

You'll be happy to know that Naomi Novik never makes any of this dragon business too precious or God forbid, cutesy. It all makes logical sense as this alternate world she has created, or rather, enhanced, is revealed.

I've always been interested in the history of the Napoleonic Wars and the reality of it all is intriguing enough, but Novik has made it even more exciting by adding this unexpected twist of war from the air. You don't have to be an expert though - I'm anything but. I'm simply assuming that everyone knows something about Napoleon and his quest for power in the 19th century.

In VICTORY OF EAGLES, Laurence has already been condemned as a traitor for events which occurred in the previous book - EMPIRE OF IVORY. By refusing to follow an inhuman and inhumane order, Laurence has turned his back on all he holds dear - family, fellow captains and servicemen, his own honor as an officer and a gentleman - to do what is right.

An outcast, he would normally have been hanged almost immediately except for one thing - Temeraire. Laurence is thrown in prison and the dragon sent to the breeding grounds in Scotland.The large warrior dragon cannot be controlled except by keeping Laurence alive and threatening his death if Temeraire doesn't comply. War is a dirty, heartless business.

Eventually, Temeraire and Laurence find their way back to each other and are allowed to join in the final assault against Napoleon's forces which have crossed the English Channel and occupied London.

Waterloo never happened and Napoleon's superior forces, land and aerial, have had extraordinary success. It is up to the British to stand and fight and prevent their country from being permanently  overrun by the French. The Brits have no allies in Europe.

Wellesley (not yet made Duke of Wellington) is in charge of all British land and aerial forces, he uses his tactical brilliance to try and defeat Napoleon as the French army marches north from London to meet the British who have massed their forces some miles from the city. With Nelson (still alive after Trafalgar) in charge at sea, the superiority of the English navy must count for something. It is an awe-inspiring battle with an unexpected ending which leads us into the next book, TONGUES OF SERPENTS.

A sample of Novik's writing, to give you the flavor of how she handles a brief action sequence:

The fog was thinning now a little, blowing away from the land, and far to the rear of the French lines, dragons were leaping into the air, one after another. And now the advantage would tell: none of the French dragons, with their short and frequent rests, were withdrawing. There would be no rest for Temeraire, or any of the British dragons who had been aloft and fighting since first light.

Temeraire pulled up very short, abruptly, so Laurence was flung against his leather straps. A determined crowd of six little Garde-de-Lyons pouring fresh into the field had charged him in a body, and now began shrieking in exaggerated voices and belaboring his head and neck wildly, batting with wings and claws.

Temeraire backwinged with two mighty strokes and roared to scatter them, the tremor of the divine wind knocking them back, but in those few moments, the enormous Grand Chevalier they had seen earlier came crashing past, and threw herself down at the square of Coldstream Guards.

The pikes and bayonets were stiffened, but she did not come down upon them directly. Instead she struck the ground directly before the front ranks, so heavily many of the men were flung off their feet, and turning around roared full in all their faces. It was a moral assault only, but a dragon the size of a large barn roaring less than ten paces away might make the bravest man blanch. Bayonets wavered and dipped, then twenty riflemen stood up on her back and fired a terrible and concentrated volley into the stunned ranks.

A knot of men fell all together, opening a vulnerable gap in the wall of the square [of soldiers], and she thrust her massive foreleg into that open space and swept it along the line, all the way to the corner of the square, crushing and knocking down men and pikes like so many blades of grass. Temeraire roared furiously and dived towards her, but one of the Garde-de-Lyons flung itself in his path.

....He seized the little dragon's neck in his jaws, and with a jerk of his head broke it, a single dreadful snap. He let the beast go falling out of the sky, a little scrap of scarlet and blue, the small handful of crewmen scattering like falling leaves through the air behind.

Naomi Novik has a brilliant knack for writing all this as if it actually happened, she writes battle sequences exactly as you might imagine them happening. The clever way she has worked out how dragons of differing breeds would be used in battle is exceptionally rational and real.

You say to yourself, well, yes, yes, this is exactly how it would be if such and such had actually existed. Novik makes the incredible totally credible.

She gives Temeraire his own engaging personality - so much so that you dread anything happening to him, though you know he is a creature of war.

"Novik's influences run the gamut from Jane Austen to Patrick O'Brian, with a side trip through Anne McCaffrey. Her books are completely involving and probably addictive, their central conceit explored in clever detail with a deal of wit and historical insight."  San Francisco Chronicle.

"These are beautifully written novels: not only fresh, original, and fast-paced, but full of wonderful characters with real heart."  Peter Jackson ( Oscar winning director of the Lord of the Rings films, who has optioned the Temeraire books.)

I am currently reading MASTER AND COMMANDER by Patrick O'Brian and am hard-pressed not to look to the skies for Temeraire and his fellow dragons swooping down upon the enemies of England.

Couldn't find an artist attribution.

Note: The books in this series should be read in order to get the full effect of the times and the relationship between Laurence and Temeraire and the other characters which inhabit Naomi Novik's world. Check here for a full listing of the Temeraire books.

Gorgeous fan art by Daniel Govar. There is a huge Temeraire online community.

Watch the trailer for the new Temeraire book CRUCIBLE OF GOLD, out this month in the U.S.

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A Favorite Painting...or Two....or Three!

I wasn't planning on posting about another contemporary artist but when I discovered Mark Briscoe's work, I really had no choice in the matter. How could I not share these wonderful paintings?

Briscoe was born in England in 1964 - he's a relatively young artist with plenty of experience in several artistic disciplines. He paints in egg tempera with oil (as did Leonardo da Vinci, Van Gogh, Andrew Wyeth and Sandro Botticelli, to name just a few). It is a medium in use by artists for over a thousand years.

He studied art in the U.K. worked as an art restorer and traveled to India where he learned the art of miniature painting. Concentrating for awhile on the restoration and painting of antique chinoiserie lacquer furniture, he later moved to Spain (where he now lives) and began experimenting with egg tempera on panels.

The results are these incredible paintings which combine a modern aesthetic with a mix of impressionistic fervor. There is a great sense of movement in his work - the density and brushwork made me suddenly feel as if I'd tipped over the edge into some new world. It is almost impossible to resist lingering over Mark Briscoe's creations and I hope you'll want to do the same.

To learn more about Mark Briscoe, please use this link to his website and this link to his gallery. Here's also a link to a terrific post on Briscoe (from 2010) which appeared online at Fine Art, Business and the World.

Mark Briscoe at work in his studio.

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Foreign Film Poster Friday

 Italian poster for a Bette Davis classic, DARK VICTORY.

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Friday's Forgotten Book: DEATH'S BRIGHT DART by V.C. Clinton-Baddeley

Friday is Forgotten Book Day, a weekly meme usually hosted by Patti Abbott, but today she's on assignment so Todd Mason is doing hosting duties at his blog, SWEET FREEDOM. Don't forget to check in and see what other forgotten books other bloggers are talking about today. Link.

Can't remember who first recommended V.C. Clinton-Baddeley to me, I just know I'd never read him before - hadn't heard of him either. I think his name is one I might have remembered, even if it is a bit of a tongue-twister.

His complete name (according to Steve at Mystery File) was Victor Vaughn Reynolds Geraint Clinton-Baddeley, so perhaps he was wise to shorten it for publication purposes. 

...his mystery writing career consisted of five detective stories that came out between 1967 and 1972, all featuring Dr. R.V. Davie as his continuing series character.

Baddeley's style of writing is a bit different from any of my other favorites of the period - just slightly  enough to impress me, but not so much that it interfered with my enjoyment of the book. He is obviously erudite, his characters think nothing of spouting all sorts of learned quotes and phrasings, some relatively obscure enough to add a bit of additional mystery to the proceedings.

Dr. Davie's choice of reading - in this case, Magyar Terror, a non-fiction account of the anonymous author's turbulent life in Hungary adds to his understanding of the current on campus crisis as well, especially when he deduces who the author is.

Baddeley has a kind of sideways angle approach to the crime which, in this case, is murder at a fictitious college at England's Cambridge University. He really is rather clever though. Can't think who he reminds me of, so maybe he is unique unto himself.

But his books are hard to find, so we'll see how it goes. I'll definitely be keeping an eye out. I'm always thrilled when I make a new mystery discovery. So thanks to whoever it was who first brought this author to my attention.

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Baddeley's main protagonist, Dr. R.V. Davie falls under the heading of the amateur detective who sticks his nose in where the cops have already tread or failed to. He is some sort of college don who doesn't really have many duties except to go poking about in peoples' business. (The story takes place in and around a university conference at a holiday break.)

It's very well Davies does a bit of clever snooping too or the truth of the murder of Dr. Brauer, an ambitious, hard-working professor, lecturer and writer, might never have come to light.

While at the podium, Dr. Brauer is felled by a poisoned dart in front of a packed audience. All the events then leading up to his demise come slowly into focus. Turns out Dr. Brauer had a deadly past - a truly heavyweight secret which alters not only the ending of the book, but the good Dr. Davie's handling of it.

There are plenty of suspects, both at the college and attending the conference, as Dr. Brauer's success was resented by some and his personality was such that he had no time to suffer fools, especially undergraduates. But he was a handsome ladies' man so emotions were churning in that area as well.

There are some red herrings too, very cleverly inserted. So cleverly, that I though I'd picked out the murderer early on, but was proved wrong in the end.

Baddeley has a slightly Dickensian gift for names - just the lovely sort of thing I like to find in my English mysteries. There is Ada Trott, Mrs. Pilsworthy, Dr. Willow, Dr. Zinty and Miss Ramble and best of all, two undergraduates - one named Baggs and the other, Mostyn-Humphries. Mostyn-Humphries has some peripheral involvement with the plot, but I just liked reading his name and saying it out loud.

Though the murder happens in front of us, DEATH'S BRIGHT DART would still be considered a cozy, I suppose. Lately I seem to be reading several of these types of mysteries taking place at or near universities - happenstance.

Just to give you an idea of the flavor of the writing, here's a snippet from a few moments after Dr. Davie has had to confront an unsavory bookseller (straight out of Dickens) named, Mr. Stumpf. Books are not the only thing Stumpf is selling or buying.

In the small office the weedy young man was on guard by the tray of photographs and a respectable looking middle-aged man was endeavoring to pretend that he was only standing there by accident. Unfortunately the young man would not take a hint.

..."Good morning," said Davie on his way through.

"Morning," said the young man. "Did you get what you wanted?"

"Unfortunately no."

"Thought you wouldn't."

Outside Davie paused in the dazzling sunlight, watching a military pigeon strutting in the road tirelessly engaged on the quest for provender. He was not aware that he, in his turn, was being inspected by Mr. Stumpf from the window above the shop.

In view of what happened later it was a good thing that Davie turned left into Great Russell Street. At least he had not given Mr. Stumpf the impression that he was staying at the Gainsborough Hotel. He was in fact bound for L'Etoile in Charlotte Street, where he proposed to treat himself to an admirable luncheon.

The line about the pigeon's 'quest for provender' is perfection.

All in all, a pleasant concoction (with very dark undertones and several deaths) - perfect for when you're in a literary mystery sort of mood.

To read a review of one of V.C. Baddeley's other books and to get a list of all five titles, please link here to Mystery File.

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