Our Mutual Friend ***

*** Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens, 1865

I became a fan of Dickens as a teenager, reading Oliver Twist, Tale of Two Cities, and David Copperfield. But other things came along I didn't return to Dickens again until the 80s, when for some reason I picked up Great Expectations. I was reminded why I enjoyed Dickens so much in the previous decade.

For a while I read one Dickens novel a year, but again fell out of the habit, while still collecting copies from used book stores throughout the years. I finally decided to dust one off and read it, and picked up Our Mutual Friend.

This was the last complete novel Dickens wrote, coming after two greats, A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations, and just before the unifinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood, all of which I've read. Either I'm getting forgetful, or this is quite different from the others I've read. The criticism I've read praises it as "in many ways one of his most sophisticated works, combining deep psychological insight with rich social analysis." However, to me it seems to be inconsistent in style, rife with author intrusion, and bloated with sentimentality and burdened with heavy-handed moralizing. Let's just say that Dickens would have not only supported a Rock the Vote for Obama, he probably would have organized it.

That being said, it is also full of the brilliance that draws so many to Dickens even after a century. Here are a few descriptions from early in the book.

• with an immense obtuse drab oblong face, like a face in a tablespoon
• Mrs Podsnap; quantity of bone, neck and nostrils like a rocking-horse

You know you're reading a Dickens novel when you have 100 pages left and you say, "I'm almost done."

Buzzy Linhart

From the Songs you won't hear on the radio files:

Unfortunately, there is a dearth of Buzzy Linhart on YouTube, and nothing from The Time To Live Is Now, which is what I really wanted to feature. Here's a couple of interesting 1969 videos (embedding disabled), one of Reputation, which gives you a feel for Buzzy's unorthodox look and music, including his insistence on singing scat solos, even when he has a monster guitar player handy, and the other an uplugged verison of That's The Bag I'm In.

How about the lyrics from The Time To Live Is Now.

The time to live is now / you could be riding on a big fat cow / I'm here to show you how / the time to live is now

The time for now is live / I'm going to pour you through a great big sieve / give all the love you can give / the time for now is live / the time for now is live / the time to live is now

Who buys the money when you pay the rent / did you think that money was the president

Who could convince you, who could even try / you might go on believing till the day you die

When you got troubles, worries on your mind / you should be glad that you don't look like Frankenstein

When you got troubles, I'll be on your side / I will try to catch you when your mind begins to slide.

The time to live is now / you could be riding on a big fat cow / I'm here to show you how / the time to live is now

Catchy, huh?

Here's a trailer for Famous: The Buzzy Linhart Story, an unreleased feature documentary made by Michele Toscano.

Warning: F-bomb in the last 3 seconds of the video.

Booked to Die ***

*** Booked to Die, John Dunning, 1992

[Note: This review was written in 2003.]

This is the perfect one-two punch for lovers of detective fiction. It hits home right in the things we love most: a good mystery and books. Winner of a Nero Wolfe Award, Booked To Die is the first book featuring Cliff Janeway, homicide cop and collector of modern first editions.

I came across this little jewel right after I moved to Denver. I had discovered the pleasure of reading regional detective fiction when Jody recommended Tony Hillerman back in the 80s. After a decade of soaking up every Hillerman I could find, I moved to Arizona. A few trips through the Four Corners region were rendered more enjoyable by having spent so much time there with Joe Leaphorn, Jim Chee and Bernadette Manuelito. It was a rare pleasure to actually see the places I had read about.

So when I moved to Denver, I figured what better way to get a feel for the city than to read some books set there. I happened to make the acquaintance of a Rocky Mountain News editor at the Friday schmooze-fest at Edward’s Pipe and Tobacco and asked him if he knew of any fiction set in Denver. He racked his considerable memory and came up with the name John Dunning. I surfed the used bookstores and found two titles, all that were available at the time. I was hooked before I had turned 3 pages.

The story opens with the murder of a book scout, which introduces us not only to the puzzle but also to the subtext of the story, Janeway’s love of books. Janeway is a fairly hard-boiled detective with an obsession to put away one particular bad guy. He does what lots of tough-guy protagonists do, takes the more confrontational path when dealing with people. I guess there are people who do that on a regular basis. I’m fortunate enough not to spend much time around them.

But Janeway isn’t all tough hide and prickles. He has a good relationship with his girlfriend, another cop, even if he is obsessively private. The story takes us through the used-book trade, from the Goodwill twenty-five cent stacks to the private-showing-only collections of signed firsts with special histories. For a book lover, it makes the story twice as enjoyable.

Dunning is a past master at characterization, plot and pacing. The only thing that I thought could have been edited out was Janeway’s occasional divergence into personal reflections on politics and social issues, although they were all in character. And while Janeway is sometimes reminiscent of Tres Navarre, which is a good thing, Dunning doesn’t have that startling turn of phrase that makes me sit up and smile and grab the cell phone like Rick Riordan. But then, how many do?

But these are minor quibbles. Not only is this book is worth reading, it’s worth re-reading, which is the measure of a keeper.

Other works by John Dunning:

• The Bookman's Wake
• The Bookman's Promise

Mildred Pierced ***

*** Mildred Pierced, Stuart Kaminsky, 2003

More Toby Peters. Entertaining reading. This one featured Joan Crawford and some funky survivalist types. I didn't see the ending coming. (That's a good thing.)

Trent's Last Case ***

*** Trent's Last Case, E. C. Bently, 1991

[Note: This review was written in 2003.]

With an introduction by Dorothy Sayers, a dedication to G. K. Chesterton and a quote from Agatha Christie calling it "One of the best detective stories ever written," what more recommendation could the fan of classic whodunits desire? With such attributes, one would expect this book to be part of the standard reading for readers of detective fiction. To the contrary it is relatively unknown, even among fans of the genre.

The first Trent book is somewhat ironically titled Trent's Last Case. The author indicates in the note to Chesterton that it was written in return for The Man Who Was Thursday. Sayers indicates in the introduction that legend has that it was written on a bet. I suspect that it was intended as the only Trent book, since a second and final novel by Bentley featuring Trent (Trent's Own Case) appeared 23 years later, co-authored with H. Warner Allen. They stand as a matched set of gems, like a treasured pair of diamond earrings. Classic whodunit fans could wish for a whole necklace of such gems, but one mustn't be greedy. We must be grateful for the two we have. (I did discover references to a collection of short stories called Trent Intervenes and a novel called Trent and the Ministering Angel, both from 1938, but I have never seen them.)

Written and set in the 1910's, like Sayers' work it features a debonair dilettante as the detective. Trent is an artist, the painting kind, with a flair for deduction. The back-story indicates that he became involved in detection after solving a crime by reading nothing but the details in the newspaper. When he wrote a long letter to the editor of the Record with the solution, the paper offered Trent a position as their occasional representative to cover other crimes, where he beat the authorities to the solution. Soon his skills in deduction and writing earned him a national reputation.

In this story, the solution of the mystery is fairly straightforward, moves along swiftly and is revealed a little over halfway through the book. Bentley has a fine hand for characters and Mr. Cupples particularly shines in the early chapters. With the solution unfolded so soon, one can be sure that more revelations are in store, regardless of how conclusive the evidence and Trent's deductions appear to be. Twists pop up, down to the very last chapter, which caught me completely off guard even though I read this book several years ago. (No comments about age, please.)

Interestingly, Bentley works a romantic interest into the story, which accounts for the delayed resolution. It works well, even if it seems to me to be a slight distraction. On the other hand, the pre-crash atmosphere of big business and speculation before WWI is a nice backdrop for a whodunit and a nice nostalgic touch, even if it wasn't nostalgia at the time it was written.

As Sayers says in the intro, "If you were so lucky as to read it today for the first time, you would recognize it at once as a tale of unusual brilliance and charm." You should take the effort to hunt this one down. It's not easy to find. I'll loan you mine if I still have it.

Other works by E.C. Bentley:

• Trent's Own Case

Empire Falls ***

*** Empire Falls, Richard Russo, 2001

A few years back I watched the Golden Globe winning HBO mini-series of Empire Falls with Ed Harris and Helen Hunt. They were in the film, I mean. They didn't watch it with me. It was worth watching.

I've had the novel on my shelf for even longer and finally got around to reading it. It's good stuff, classic Russo. I liked Straight Man better, but this is still worth reading. For example, consider this line. When he was nine, Mile's mother told him something she thought would shock him. Russo describes it thus:

She hadn't so much spoken the words as let them out of their cages.

Now that's some deft writing. I couldn't quit visualizing Ed Harris as the adult Miles Roby, even though in the book he's described as someone more on the order of Rob Reiner. But the film was so faithful to the book that I frequently would read a scene and wonder if I'd actually read the book before, it sounded so familiar. And of course there's more in the book than in the film, even though it's a mini-series. Check it out.

A Few Minutes After Midnight ***

*** A Few Minutes After Midnight, Stuart Kaminsky, 2001

The Toby Peters series has been around since 1977, with 20+ novels to date. This is the first one I read. It enjoyed it. Not as much as the Lew Fonseca story I read, and it's not up to Rostnikov standards, but it's an entertaining read.

Toby Peters is a broke and broken down gumshoe who happens to have famous clients. In this one, the client is Charlie Chaplin.

It's a kind of flippant noir vibe, with interesting recurring characters. If you like a quick-read standby series to fall back on between more weighty reads, this is a good one.

Tom Lehrer

From the Songs you won't hear on the radio files:

I first ran across Tom Lehrer in 1975 while scouring through some old guy's record collection looking for big band music for a production of The Glass Menagerie.

Lehrer is not about the music, he's about the clever lyrics.

The Mascochism Tango

Poisoning Pigeons In The Park

And, for the highbrows among us: Oedipus Rex

Yes, Lehrer could be a bit of a snob. OK, a lot of a snob. But some of my favorites were done for The Electric Company. Like The LY Song.

Silent E

Whose Body? ***

*** Whose Body?, Dorothy Sayers, 1995

[Note: This review was written in 2003.]

When it comes right down to it, the British murder mystery is the staple for a good whodunit read. And of course everyone points to Agatha Christi as the grand dame of the genre. Outside of the realm of mystery fans, few people have heard of Dorothy Sayers. Which is too bad, because she rocks.

Dorothy Sayers was a contemporary of Christi, although less prolific, producing 17 books of detection as opposed to Christi’s 80. The limited catalog only makes the individual books that much more precious due to their scarcity.

The chronicle of Lord Peter Wimsey, the urbane dilettante in detection, begins with Whose Body? and continues through a dozen novels and three short-story collections. Wimsey is an interesting detective, a second son of British royalty with plenty of money, time, manners, insouciance and connections. And he has one last item lacking in many of his peers, brains. Sayers takes this good beginning and mixes it with a nice little puzzle.

Lord Peter is interrupted on his way to an ancient manuscript auction by a call from his mother, asking him to assist an acquaintance with an embarrassing problem: a corpse in the bathtub -- a well-manicured stranger utterly naked with the exception of a pair of gold pince-nez on his nose.

Wimsey dives into this welcome enigma and works his way through a cast of interesting characters on his way to the solution, including Suggs, the predictable bumbling policeman and Parker, a highly competent Scotland Yard detective, a close friend of Wimsey’s who studies theology in his spare time. Wimsey’s mother, the Dowager Duchess of Denver, a kindly woman with a stream-of-consciousness style of conversation, is also a regular in the Wimsey stories.

Like Christi’s Poirot and Marple, one of the primary attractions of Sayers’ stories is the development of the characters, particularly Wimsey. In each successive story, Wimsey grows from an interesting gentleman detective with expensive hobbies into a much more complex character. Even in this first novel, we get a glimpse of Wimsey’s frailties, as he succumbs to a relapse of WW I shell-shock.

Sayers achieves the delicate blend of manners and murder that characterizes the British murder mystery. It was a time when the quality of a whodunit was measured by the puzzle and the characters, not the degree of perversity and shock-value that seems to form the bulk of more modern mysteries. For those who prefer the PG-rated variety of murder (no sex, no profanity, no graphic violence or gore), the works of this era are perfect and Sayers' are among the best.

Whose Body? is a perfect example of the genre.

While the first Lord Peter mystery is not Sayers at her best, it is still a good read, and the proper starting point for those who like to begin at the beginning. At under 200 pages, it is a quick and entertaining read.

The entire Sayers catalog is required reading for all lovers of good whodunits.

Other works by Dorothy Sayers:

• Clouds Of Witness 1926
• Unnatural Death 1927
• The Unpleasantness At The Bellona Club 1928
• Lord Peter Views The Body 1928
• The Documents In The Case 1930
• Strong Poison 1930
• The Five Red Herrings 1931
• Have His Carcase 1932
• Hangman's Holiday 1933
• Murder Must Advertise 1933
• The Nine Tailors 1934
• Gaudy Night 1936
• Busman's Honeymoon 1937
• In The Teeth Of Evidence 1939
• Striding Folly 1973
• Thrones, Dominations 1998

The Mysterious West ***

*** The Mysterious West, edited by Tony Hillerman, 1995

Note the edited by. Hillerman didn't write this one. But I figure I trust his taste. After the first few, I began to wonder, but then it picked up. There are some first rate stories in here, a few second rate stories and one or two third-rate stories.

The term West is used loosely, as the MidWest gets a few shots in there. I haven't read most of these writers. Just seeing Stuart Kaminsky in the list sealed the deal for me, since he's a great writer. I've never picked up a book of his I regretted reading. I have a few Holmes pastiche books by Carole Nelson Douglas on the TBR shelf. Her selection in here didn't particularly stand out for me, but I'll still give them a whirl sometime this year.

It's a good nightstand book, as you have bite-sized chunks you can read and then crash.