Aaron Marc Stein / George Bagby / Hampton Stone
Inspector Schmidt by "George Bagby": Inspector Schmidt
| The Original Carcase | Blood Will Tell
| Death Ain't Commercial | Scared to Death
| The Corpse With Sticky Fingers
Jeremiah X. Gibson by "Hampton Stone": Jeremiah X. Gibson
| The Needle That Wouldn't Hold Still | The Kid Who Came Home with a Corpse
Tim Mulligan and Elsie Mae Hunt by "Aaron Marc Stein": Tim Mulligan and Elsie Mae Hunt
| Three - With Blood | Mask for Murder
| Moonmilk and Murder
Matt Erridge by "Aaron Marc Stein": Matt Erridge
| Sitting Up Dead
A Guide to Classic Mystery and Detection Home Page
Aaron Marc Stein
Recommended Works:
Blood Will Tell (1950)
Death Ain't Commercial (1951) (Chapters 1-5, 10)
Mask for Murder (1952) (Chapters 1-4, 7)
Moonmilk and Murder (1955) (Chapter 1)
Aaron Marc Stein / George Bagby / Hampton Stone
Aaron Marc Stein was a prolific mystery novelist, publishing books under his own name, and as
"George Bagby" and "Hampton Stone".
MYSTERY*FILE has a career overview and reminiscence by Francis M. Nevins,
and a review and a
bibliographical survey by Steve Lewis.
A bibliography can be found at the
Golden Age of Detection Wiki.
As "George Bagby", he wrote a series about Inspector Schmidt, a New York City
Homicide detective.
Links to the Van Dine School of Mystery Fiction
The books are vaguely Van Dine-ish in approach:
- Like Van Dine, they take place in New York City.
- They sometimes take place among prosperous New Yorkers, with a background in the arts or show biz.
- Van Dine's disciple Ellery Queen once referred to the Van Dine followers as the
"Straightforward American school" of detective fiction. Bagby has a similar straightforward approach
as the other Van Dineans: the murder is committed right away, and the detective
investigates it throughout the rest of the book, with no elaborate digressions
or detours into personal lives, or action or suspense set pieces.
- The investigation sets forth the crime scene, and the movements of the suspects
around it at various times.
- The Van Dine novels are narrated by a self-effacing man named Van Dine;
a similar arrangement occurs in Van Dine follower Anthony Abbot's books.
The Babgy novels are similarly narrated by a fictitious writer named "George Bagby".
In scenes where the crime is being investigated, narrator Bagby is almost as invisible as
Van Dine's and Abbot's narrators. However, Inspector Schmidt and Bagby
regularly have two-person scenes where they discuss the case. Bagby
becomes much more of a presence in these episodes.
- The fictitious Bagby is a professional writer, and he narrates in a
literate prose style with occasional cultural allusions. This is not as
ornate as Van Dine's prose, but it does maintain a literate approach.
"I don't go in for descriptions of what police labs do and that sort of thing.
My books pretty much depend on the mental processes of the detective."
- Aaron Marc Stein, quoted in his New York Times obituary. Such a focus on detectives using thinking
to solve cases, is characteristic of the Intuitionist tradition of detective fiction.
The Van Dine School is a prominent part of that Intuitionist tradition.
Police Procedural
However, there are differences in the Bagby books from the Van Dine approach.
Inspector Schmidt is not a flamboyant genius - he is a "regular guy",
typical cop. And the stories maintain a certain tone of realism,
in showing life in New York City. This gives the Bagby novels a
"police procedural" quality. People who want to read a "realistic novel
of police investigation in a big city" can enjoy the Bagby novels as falling
into this paradigm.
There always was a police procedural aspect to the Van Dine school:
most of the writers have an official New York City Homicide investigation
as part of their story, and the chief sleuth is an actual NYC policeman in the Anthony Abbot books.
So Bagby's procedural approach can be seen as evolving from Van Dine tradition.
The Original Carcase (1946) centers on a family of rich New Yorkers
who collect antiques, and the antique dealer who supplies them.
This background among highbrow collectors is in the Van Dine school tradition.
The two places where the body is found have a surreal quality.
Mystery Plot
The opening (Chapters 1-5) tells a colorful tale. But the mystery never develops into a
clever puzzle plot.
SPOILER. The people and events behind the crime, turn out to have little
to do with the two families we meet in the opening chapters. The book presents the families
as the chief suspects, then later on has them unconnected to the killing.
This seems disappointing.
Crowds
The opening describes reactions of crowds of people, to the discovery of the body.
We see crowds of party goers streaming in from a terrace, and later crowds
in a fashionable lobby. Bagby's books often have crowd scenes,
in which the reactions of the public to some event is made clear.
The crowds are often a "character", with their own public reaction to events.
Male Bonding
The characters include two idealized young men who male bond,
ethnic John Bragioni and upper crust Ted Edwards. They were formerly Army buddies -
Bagby's male comrades often meet at their work (Chapters 1, 2).
During the war, circumstances, and Bragioni's accomplishments,
made Bragioni Ted Edwards' commanding officer. This helped develop what the book calls
Edwards' "hero worship" of Bragioni.
What is going on between Bragioni and Edwards is clearly romantic, at least
are far as Edwards' feelings go.
But it also has dimensions of political commentary. One might speculate that the war has broken down
the previously rigid class structure in which Edwards' family had lived,
placing him for the first time under the leadership of a man not from his elite social class.
The war is seen as a democratizing element, making possible a new equality in
American society.
Expertise and Male Bonding
The book mentions that part of Bragioni's appeal to Ted Edwards, is Bragioni's expert knowledge of
(unspecified) subjects that are important to young people of the day.
One wonders if this is an oblique way of referring to left-of-center political ideas.
One wishes there were more about this in the novel.
Expertise of all sorts is an important value in Bagby's fiction.
In The Original Carcase, it helps fuel one man's passionate devotion to another.
Blood Will Tell (1950) is an absorbing piece of storytelling.
It has richly developed characters. The story is comic, but not a farce.
The characters do not run around creating havoc; instead, the book is a series of interviews
with the characters by the police, in which the suspects' personalities come to
comic light.
Society
Brother-sister pairs are important in Blood Will Tell, as they are in
The Original Carcase. Butterfield and his sister both work in design,
giving the book a link to the Van Dine tradition of New Yorkers in creative work.
These are the two most sympathetic suspects, intended as a rebuke to the
pretentious social climbers and parasites on the rich among the other suspects.
The ex-chorus girl also has a theater background.
The ex-chorine is basically a courtesan - and more sympathetic than a woman
in the novel seeking marriage. One wonders if this aspect is also suggesting sympathy
for other kinds of non-standard sexuality.
Architecture
Blood Will Tell shows the architectural interest of Golden Age mystery fiction.
Much of it takes place in a fancy Park Avenue apartment building. The author uses the
continued architectural exploration of the building as a main structural feature of the plot.
One of the book's best plot twists concerns an architectural feature.
Blood Will Tell also follows Van Dine School traditions, in investigating
the movements of the characters around the crime scene at the time of the murder.
The corpse is found in a "fire stairs", just as in the next Bagby book
Death Ain't Commercial. These are rarely used back stairs, provided mainly for use
as escapes from fire. Their doors tend to open on only one side, an interesting feature.
Where and how doors are located, is used to add complexity and interest to the architecture.
The weakest part of Blood Will Tell is the solution of the mystery at the end.
The choice of killer is poorly motivated. And there are few clues pointing to the killer.
Bagby would have been better off bringing the murder home to the suspect who was the main
inheritor under the will. This unimpressive choice makes the end the least good part
of an otherwise absorbing book. However, the finale also continues the interaction
between the building's architecture and the killing, which is a plus.
Pop Idols
Death Ain't Commercial (1951) centers on a pop music group, also an
example of the Van Dine School's interest in show biz. The group of six men
are well-dressed sophisticates, a bit like the Rat Pack to come. They are
that phenomenon of those times, idols of "bobby-soxers" (teenage girls).
Bagby's interest is in the men in the group and their personalities. He does
not widen his scope to a portrait of the pop music industry as a whole,
or its business aspects.
The six men have family ties, and all live and work together in the same office and
same home. They resemble the eccentric families of grown-ups found in some Van Dine School writers,
especially Ellery Queen. At times the men's bizarre behavior approaches the surrealism
of Queen.
The portrait of the men in the opening section (Chapters 1-5) forms
the main interest of the book. The men's relationship offers another example
of Bagby's interest in men who are closely connected.
Men's Clothes
The men all dress the same, being part of a singing group, and Bagby
develops this for maximum surreal effect.
A wolf suit costume at the end, a briefly seen piece
of imagery, also offers a striking touch.
Mystery Plot
The solution involves a puzzle plot. However, the solution's ideas are none too creative.
An alibi centers an an old, old gimmick, although Babgy provides a slightly new twist.
Scared to Death (1952) is a minor book, more subdued and restrained than Bagby's better fiction.
The characters are ordinary, there is neither architectural nor New York detail, and little surrealism.
Bagby gets comedy from weary policeman Schmidt's desire to take off his shoes.
Both The Original Carcase and Scared to Death have Inspector Schmidt running around
crime scenes shoeless in his socks. This can seem surreal. It leads to strange effects,
and often has bystanders gawking.
Expertise, Thoughtful Observation and Male Bonding
An observant young doctor who treats the victim, does some bonding with Inspector Schmidt.
This shows the way this era valued brains in men,
and the way people took pride in the mental skills with which they performed their job.
Mystery Plot
On the plus side, the subplot about the cab driver shows mild ingenuity. It is set forth in the start
of Chapter 2, solved in the last section of Chapter 5.
The choice of killer surprised me. However, this is partly due to the choice
being really implausible!
SPOILER. Running through the main mystery plot, are developments involving men's clothes.
They are in the same broad tradition as the "men's clothes" plot ideas in
Ellery Queen beginning with the hats in The Roman Hat Mystery (1929).
Bagby is in there trying to create a puzzle plot, but his version just seems labored.
It does bring together several disparate pieces of data scattered throughout the story,
weaving them into a hidden pattern: always a nice development.
The Corpse With Sticky Fingers (1952) is one of Bagby's lesser books.
Stereotypes
Biggest problem: a negatively stereotyped gay man, among the suspects.
This guy starts out as a humorous figure, but his depiction throughout the book just keeps getting
more and more negative. It is unclear why Bagby, whose books are full of sympathetic portraits of
male bonding, would then create such a negative portrait of a gay man.
The gay man is a big city department store window dresser. This in fact was a profession
often associated with gay men in that era.
Department Store Window
Another problem: by 1952, the "corpse in the department store window" gambit was old hat.
It had already appeared in The French Powder Mystery (1930) by Ellery Queen,
and in Bagby's own The Original Carcase (1946). In terms of story and dramatic situation,
Bagby does not do much that had not already been done in these previous works.
Bagby does get some architectural interest, out of the moving display windows.
The windows are highly rectilinear. This recalls another rectilinear area for a crime,
the milpas in Mask for Murder.
Bagby also comes up with a mystery plot reason, to explain why crimes are taking place in the windows.
This is not brilliant, but it is sound enough (explained in the solution in Chapter 10).
On the negative side, such windows seem awfully public for any criminal activity to occur there.
One would think the culprit would have found a more secluded place.
SPOILER. On the positive side, the reason behind the window crimes is linked
to an interesting, creative clue: the corpse with sticky fingers mentioned in the title
(set forth in the first half of Chapter 6, solved in Chapter 10).
Mystery Sub-Plot: The Silver
The other good mystery subplot involves the silver sold in the department store.
This plot is set forth in the middle of the book (first half of Chapter 6)
and solved long before the ending (second half of Chapter 7). It is zany and full
of surreal imagery. It adds a note of pleasant comedy to the story.
It is not enormously plausible - but its comic tone asks us to grant a
slightly implausible plot development indulgence.
Detective Heroes
As "Hampton Stone", the author wrote a series of books about Assistant District Attorney
Jeremiah X. Gibson, who investigates criminals in Manhattan. Strictly speaking, Gibson
is employed by New York County, the county which consists of Manhattan.
The Stone books are often narrated by another Van Dine style "invisible narrator":
although Malcolm T. Macauley is a fellow Asst. District Attorney like Gibson,
there are whole scenes where he rarely says anything,
simply accompanying Gibson on their investigations and recording what he sees.
The two men are usually referred to by their nicknames of Gibby and Mac. Their
District Attorney boss is called the Old Man, like the boss of the detective agency
in Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op tales.
Interpreting New York City as a Social System
Gibby and Mac are experts on life in New York City, including its business, political
and sociological systems. They resemble a bit the archaeologist heroes of another of the author's series,
Tim Mulligan and Elsie Mae Hunt. Just as Mulligan and Hunt are authorities about the culture of many
traditional societies they explore around the world, so are Gibby and Mac similarly deeply
knowledgeable about contemporary New York.
Gibby and Mac frequently "interpret" for the reader, people and events they meet in New York.
Gibby and Mac can meet a businessman, cop or government official, and offer the reader
a detailed account of the subtleties of that person's behavior, attitudes and roles
within New York's social system. Similarly, the Mulligan & Hunt books are full of scenes
where the pair offer interpretations of people and events in some traditional culture.
Mulligan and Hunt can do this because they are professional anthropologists;
Gibby and Mac's expertise is based on their years of exploring New York as
Assistant District Attorneys. In practice, Gibby and Mac might be said to be
unofficial "anthropologists" too, experts in the culture of New York.
Cover Illustrations
When the Hampton Stone novels were reprinted in the 1970's in Paper Library editions,
Gibson was depicted on the covers as a hip, cool dude in seventies fashions,
apparently modeled after actor Steve McQueen. He looks great - but utterly unlike
the character in the novel, a sober young District Attorney who is always looking for a chance
to loosen his tie and collar. The same publishers reprinted Kendell Foster Crossen's
Milo March novels, with March modeled on the covers after another hip actor, James Coburn.
The Needle That Wouldn't Hold Still (1950) is a Gibson novel.
Realism and Social Problems
The Needle That Wouldn't Hold Still takes place among crooked cops,
government officials and mobsters in Brooklyn. Such portraits of civic corruption were long
a speciality of Black Mask magazine. The novel keeps the depiction "realistic":
the heroes don't get much involved in fights, gunplay or big action scenes, but stick to investigation;
the gangsters are definitely not glamorized; we don't go to nightclubs or meet gun-molls.
Instead, there is a sober look at the costs of civic corruption. We are in the
underworld setting of many hard-boiled novels, but the book avoids the flamboyant
flourishes of much hard-boiled fiction.
I wish I could like The Needle That Wouldn't Hold Still better. It deserves some credit
for exploring a social problem. However, the book lacks inventiveness, and often seems dull.
The comedy and surrealism that is so pleasant in some of the Bagby books is also missing here.
Political notes: Hero Gibson admirably condemns prejudice against ethic groups (Chapter 1).
Unfortunately, the narrator comes close to suggesting that it's fine for men to hit their girlfriends
(Chapter 6).
Anthropology of New York City
The first chapter of The Needle That Wouldn't Hold Still offers a detailed look
at some aspects of New York City. It is almost "anthropological" in scope,
offering an analysis of government, corruption and idealistic social reformers.
This is one of the best parts of the novel. Like other such looks in Stone novels,
we get plenty of "interpretation" from Gibby and Mac, pointing out subtleties of
the social system.
The opening also includes a portrait of old slum buildings on Manhattan's
Lower East Side. The crime scene building is so old, that it still has water pumps
in its back yard, from the days before Manhattan had running water!
This is a nice detail.
Men's Clothes
A testimonial banquet the suspects attend filled with racketeers is a symbol of civic corruption.
A policeman is wearing a tuxedo, like other officials that came from the banquet (Chapter 1).
His formal wear is a symbol of his involvement in dirty politics.
The evening clothes suggest a sense of swagger. And also that the cop has stepped over the line
and is involved in big-money enterprises that are contrary to his duty.
Later, a racketeer's henchman is similarly seen in evening clothes after the banquet (Chapter 3).
Mystery Plot
The Needle That Wouldn't Hold Still is a whodunit. It opens with a murder by an unknown killer,
although clearly committed by one of the book's criminal or corrupt characters, and identifies the
murderer in the last chapter. Other authors have mixed hard-boiled settings and a whodunit plot:
not only Dashiell Hammett, but
Baynard Kendrick's The Last Express (1937) come to mind.
Gibby identifies the killer for a simple but sound reason
in the last chapter, mainly dealing with who has a realistic opportunity for pulling off the crime.
The Kid Who Came Home with a Corpse (1972) is the last of the Gibson novels.
It is not structured as a farewell appearance though - just as another book in the series.
While the title is catchy and strongly alliterative, it doesn't have much to do
with the actual events of the book.
Mac is not an "invisible narrator" here. Instead, he is the active focus of the first two thirds
of the novel, narrating his own dramatic adventures.
Gibson hardly appears till the end, when he shows up and helps solve the mystery.
There are SPOILERS in the rest of this article.
Male bonding
Male bonding is evoked in the first chapter,
when a mere acquaintance from Mac's Club pretends to be a close buddy.
He makes a series of hand and arm gestures indicating buddyhood.
This fairly young man is later depicted as being "fatherly" in his concerns for
other men, an interesting piece of characterization (start of Chapter 2).
Male bonding also appears later, when that character's male secretary appears,
and we learn about the two men's close relationship.
The secretary is depicted as actually being in love with his boss.
The word "love" is explicitly used (Chapter 8, end of Chapter 9).
The secretary is depicted as attracted to women, however,
and it is not clear if his feelings towards his boss are sexual.
The secretary is one of the book's most interesting characters.
Men's Clothes
Two kinds of men's clothes are evoked in detail:
men's clothes and fashion being a perennial interest of the author.
One are business clothes. The handsome business man in the opening is described as wearing
dressy pinstripe suits. This is an early version of what will later in 1975
be called the "dress for success" look, although those terms aren't used.
The other are the mod, hippie or swinging fashions of the era.
These are related to a whole series of "hip" New York City professions (end of Chapter 5).
Although the book never makes this explicit, many of these professions are often associated with gay men.
SPOILER. The book develops a nice mini-mystery about the two kinds of clothes, and the secretary's
involvement with them (end of Chapter 5, Chapter 8, solved in the start of Chapter 10).
It has a surreal feel, in its premises, and is vivid and colorful.
It is easily solved. But the presence of this mystery subplot is a Good Thing.
Architecture
A visit to an apartment building, includes a good mini-mystery
about how a character made a sudden exit from an apartment and apparently the building,
without making a sound (Chapter 7). This has a howdunit or even "impossible crime" feel.
The solution is given within a few pages. SPOILER. The building's layout
includes one of the author's favorite subjects, fire stairs.
Mystery Plot
The opening sections have the characters behaving mysteriously.
Two thirds through the book, a killing suddenly occurs (Chapter 8). We also immediately learn more
about the characters and their situation. This drastically changes the rest of the book into
a crime investigation into these events. This final section is competently crafted,
but not especially good.
It is one of those mysteries where the sleuth investigates
in turn the possibility that each suspect is guilty. We get a nearly mechanical
permutation, looking at possible patterns of guilt and innocence among the suspects.
While one can applaud the author's attempt to write a real mystery, in which plot is explored
in depth and taken seriously, one also has to recognize that this section is not deeply imaginative.
Under his own name Aaron Marc Stein, the author published eighteen mystery novels (1940 - 1955)
about archeologists Tim Mulligan and Elsie Mae Hunt. The pair travel to
archeological sites all over the world, solving mysteries as amateur sleuths.
They also solve crimes in the United States. Tim Mulligan's full name is
Timothy Francis Mulligan: see Three - With Blood (Chapter 1).
Both archeologists have Ph. D.'s, and are sometimes called Dr. Mulligan and Dr. Hunt.
The duo seem to have equal archaeological skills and expertise on the countries they visit.
Both Tim and Elsie are intelligent, and they seem to share in the detective work equally.
They often discuss their cases together, in scenes that recall the detective heroes of
other Stein series discussing the case with their Watsons.
These scenes show us the sleuths' evolving ideas throughout the book.
They sometimes contain the detectives' partial solutions to the crimes and various mystery subplots,
long before the book's final chapter.
Elsie and Tim also like to analyze the intriguing non-crime events and
settings around them, sometime coming up with surprising insights into and interpretations of these as well.
These events might not involve crime, but they are structured as tiny little mysteries,
things the reader sees that soon get interpreted by Tim and Elsie.
Elsie Mae Hunt's hair is always getting loose, and falling down around her head.
As a recurring bit of business, this recalls Inspector Schmidt taking off his shoes
because his feet hurt: both make a sleuth look more casual.
But it also reflects that Elsie is far more interested in
the fascinating world around her, than she is in her appearance.
There is a feminist subtext.
Couples as Detectives
When Mulligan and Hunt were first created in 1940, couples as amateur detectives were becoming a big deal.
Craig Rice, The Lockridges, Kelley Roos
all published books starring such couples. Perhaps coincidentally,
all of these writers had ties to the Van Dine School, as did Stein himself.
Just before this, in the 1930's, pulp writers liked tales about couples,
often having them as not-too-hard-boiled private eyes: Dashiell Hammett's
The Thin Man (1933), T.T. Flynn,
Theodore Tinsley, Hugh Pentecost's
Carole Trevor and Maxwell Blythe.
The "couples" tales were often full of comedy, with the couples being zany-but-sophisticated figures
who lead glamorous lives and who find light-hearted adventure.
Tim Mulligan and Elsie Mae Hunt are somewhat in this mode, with a light touch
and an occasional zest for mischief. But they also have a serious side,
being first-rate archaeologists with formidable archeological, historical
and linguistic skills.
Latin America
But all of these other "couples" authors usually set their tales in the big cities that were the typical
stomping grounds of Van Dine School detectives. Stein's tales were different,
sometimes being set in remote, exotic locations.
In this period, several mystery writers turned to Caribbean or Latin American settings:
Lawrence G. Blochman's Blow-Down (1939),
Richard Sale's Destination Unknown (1940)
and his novellas, "Home Is the Hangman" (1940) and "Beam to Brazil" (1943) in Home Is the Hangman,
Norbert Davis' The Mouse in the Mountain (1943),
and Helen McCloy's The Goblin Market (1943).
These provided glamorous settings for mystery and adventure, yet avoided the
World War II war zones in Europe and Asia. Stein's work might be part of this trend.
Three - With Blood (1950) is a Tim Mulligan and Elsie Mae Hunt mystery.
Background
It takes place in Jalisco, Mexico, at the real-life Semana Santa (Holy Week) festival in the real
city of Chapala, near the famed Lake Chapala, Mexico's largest freshwater lake.
Three - With Blood has the same structure as the later Mask for Murder,
at least as far as setting and story elements go:
- Both start out in a cosmopolitan Mexican town that caters to international tourists:
Guadalajara in Three - With Blood, Merida in Mask for Murder.
- Both then move to a nearby smaller, more traditional town during a local festival, for the bulk of the novel:
Chapala in Three - With Blood, Tizimin in Mask for Murder.
- In both Tim and Elsie go there to track down a rumored archeological treasure that
reportedly has been unearthed, but whose whereabouts are unknown.
Three - With Blood opens in the big Jalisco city of Guadalajara.
The novel is full of imagery associated with Jalisco and Guadalajara: mariachi music,
tequila, sombreros. The novel accurately portrays the area as a magnet for international tourists.
Already, in the late 1940's Tennessee Williams wrote A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)
during a stay in Chapala.
The depiction of foreign countries and cultures in Three - With Blood and Mask for Murder
recalls "The Purple Emperor" (circa 1897) by Robert W. Chambers.
"The Purple Emperor" looks at small towns and traditional lifestyles in Brittany, just as Stein does in Mexico.
Both are filled with eccentric characters. And "The Purple Emperor" has a recently discovered "treasure"
found in an unknown location, just as Stein will later. In "The Purple Emperor" this is a rare butterfly,
in Stein we have archeological treasures.
Male Bonding
Three - With Blood has Tim Mulligan male-bonding with a young Mexican man.
The man is intelligent, good looking and articulate. He has lived in both Mexico and the
United States, and like Tim, is bilingual and multi-cultural. The bonding involves the institution of
cuate: men who regard each other as "twins". We also see two sympathetic Indian servants
who call each other cuate. Throughout the novel, cuate is treated in idealized fashion
as a positive experience.
An interesting discussion looks at how Elsie Mae, Tim's long-time partner, fits into
this sort of male-bonding between Tim and another man (middle of Chapter 4).
A different sort of male bonding is also depicted: that between master (patron)
and personal servant (mozo). This is shown as extremely close, but not necessarily
good for either man involved. It get a tribute paid to it as an idealized relationship
(Chapter 5), but much of the rest of the novel looks at its dark side.
The book says "The Chapala fiesta is among the gayest" (opening of Chapter 4).
Literally, it is only saying the festival is bright and lively. But one wonders if there
is a hidden reference. The real life presence of Tennessee Williams a few years earlier
makes one wonder if the city were attracting homosexual tourists.
Mystery Plot
The main murder mystery is not very good. None of the book's murders
lead to an interesting puzzle. We get an elaborate investigation of where various suspects were
before, during and after the first murder (Chapters 3, 4). This is highly detailed,
but not very clever. The book explores different scenarios of how various suspects
might have been involved in the killing, looking at both their motives and possible movements.
The finale includes another such scenario, this time with the true killer.
All of these scenarios involve detailed story telling, which might please readers, a little.
But most of this material is not really creative.
The third murder is the best clued of the book's killings, with aspects pointing to the killer.
It also has some mildly interesting features of movement of the killer.
Better is the subplot about the treasure: a statue of a cockerel made out of gold.
The cockerel statues are well imagined and described. They also show an ingenuity
of plot treatment, with a genuine and unusual clue embedded in the tale.
Cardito's romantic problems form another subplot. They have a mystery too:
why is he behaving this way, and what lies behind it. This non-murder mystery
also shows pleasant ingenuity, and is more interesting that the book's
murder mysteries.
Mask for Murder (1952) is a Tim Mulligan and Elsie Mae Hunt mystery.
Background
It takes place in Yucatan, Mexico, at the real-life Three Kings festival in the real
city of Tizimin.
The festival reflects ancient Mayan religious traditions. Stein incorporates these customs
into his plot (Chapter 4 is especially detailed). The look at a city with many unusual beliefs and activities,
recalls fantasy and science fiction novels such as Ursula K. LeGuin's Voices (2006).
It is unusual to read a mystery novel so thoroughly grounded outside of
contemporary Western culture.
Train
A vividly detailed comic set-piece depicts a journey on a train (Chapters 2, 3).
Trains are a much-loved part of the mystery fiction of the era.
Also colorful: the description of hotel rooms in Tizimin (middle of Chapter 7).
They are startlingly minimalistic.
Architecture
The Tizimin setting (Chapter 4) includes the architectural features
and unusual buildings popular in mystery fiction's Golden Age: the catacombs and patio.
The same chapter also has the landscape architecture
popular in Golden Age mysteries: the milpas, a rectangular cornfield with special features
linked to Mayan traditions. The milpas is in turn part of a larger rural landscape
centering on a traditional small house.
Mystery Plot
The mystery aspects of Mask for Murder are the book's weakest aspect.
The mystery events are elaborate and detailed. Stein doesn't skimp on mystery plotting:
there is a lot of it. But it doesn't seem very creative. It is therefore unclear whether
the whole later section of the book (Chapters 5 to the end) has much merit.
There are two not-closely-related puzzles:
- One puzzle involves the valuable Mayan mask: who took it,
and how and why is a sympathetic young Indian caught up in the mask theft?
This puzzle is OK. Stein at least provides a logical choice of thief. And a moderately
interesting, fairly complex backstory of the theft of the mask.
- The other puzzle is who is committing the murders. This is linked to a "surprise" motive,
that seemed awfully obvious to me. The murder events are logical, but otherwise uncreative.
There is a small, rather vague clue to the killer's identity, which is the very last thing
'pointed out at the end of the novel.
Both culprits, thief and killer, are people whose lack of morals and poor character has been
stressed throughout the novel. This is logical and sensible.
Moonmilk and Murder (1955) is the last Tim Mulligan and Elsie Mae Hunt mystery.
It is not structured in any way as a finale for the characters. It is "just another"
adventure for the duo.
The Caves
The best part of Moonmilk and Murder is the opening, set in a cave in France (Chapter 1).
Tim and Elsie have gone there to look for Paleolithic cave paintings. The chapter mixes
vivid descriptions of exploring such caves, with imaginative thriller elements.
This opening explains what moonmilk is.
Later sections extend the ideas of the opening, a bit:
- The end of Chapter 1 has Tim and Elsie making a deduction from the blowing air in the cave.
While this section hints broadly at their reasoning, their ideas are not spelled out in full
till later (middle of Chapter 2).
- The architecture of the caves is extended (second half of Chapter 4).
Stein likes underground settings.
The opening chapter has only Tim and Elsie as characters. We have not yet met any of the book's suspects,
and we know nothing of the background or plot situations of the story.
Since the suspects, characters and plot background of Moonmilk and Murder will turn out to be
not that good, their absence in the opening is a Good Thing.
Male Bonding
Male bonding is often depicted positively in Stein. But Moonmilk and Murder
offers a strongly negative take on relations between men (end of Chapter 2, start of Chapter 4).
In The Original Carcase, a character develops a huge crush on an outstanding man
he met in the service during World War II. This is seen as a good thing. SPOILERS.
Suspect Mike Jackson in Moonmilk and Murder develops a similar crush
on a handsome Frenchman while they are both working in the French Underground during the war.
But in Jackson's case, this is negative. He marries a woman after the war, but spends all his time
mooning over his lost relationship with the Frenchman. This comes close to wrecking his marriage,
and torments his wife. There is no explicit gay plot or characterization, but the story reads as a thinly disguised
account of a love triangle. It comes across as a Brokeback Mountain type of relationship,
of a gay man who has married a woman but who spends all his time and feelings lamenting
a lost gay relationship he had in his past.
The relationship between men in Moonmilk and Murder is seen unsympathetically.
The French male lover is characterized negatively. The husband's rejection of the wife is seen
as a victimization of her, one linked to sexism and misogyny.
Many of Stein's books offer positive accounts of men's clothes. However, in Moonmilk and Murder
the matching shirts worn by the two men are a symbol of their relationship,
and seen negatively (end of Chapter 2).
I confess I did not enjoy the triangle plot in Moonmilk and Murder. It is pretty grim.
France
Moonmilk and Murder offers a highly negative picture of traditional French life
in remote rural regions. By any standards, this depiction is unpleasant to read: enough to sink the novel.
Whether it is accurate or prejudiced is beyond my competence to assess.
Men of the region are depicted as violent, lowbrow, incompetent and misogynistic.
This remote rural region of France, informally known as Gascony, is seen as another of
Stein's "primitive" areas. However, it is not given any sort of traditional culture,
beyond a bit of French country cooking.
Matt Erridge was created in 1958, and became the star of a long running series of crime novels by
Aaron Marc Stein. Matt Erridge is a young American engineer, whose skill at factories and their machinery
takes him around the world. He leads a glamorous life: a sports car, world travel, lots of exciting experiences.
Matt Erridge is more an "action hero", than a detective. Erridge loves to get into fist fights and knife fights.
He seems to wander around, looking for trouble. As an amateur - he is NOT a private eye or a cop or a spy -
he seems to poke around and get involved with violent activities that are really none of his business.
These activities then form the center of one of the crime novels starring Matt Erridge.
I confess that I just don't like Matt Erridge. He seems like an obnoxiously violent guy.
Plus, I would much rather read a detective story, than a crime thriller about a bunch of fights.
The Crime Club, Stein's publishers, put out the first Matt Erridge book under their "Chase and Adventure" category,
while they published his Tim Mulligan and Elsie Mae Hunt novels in their category "Favorite Sleuths".
Ancestors
Matt Erridge has a number of possible ancestors. The first chapter of Sitting Up Dead,
the first Matt Erridge book, shows Erridge in his "ordinary life", making plans to go on a blind date.
Matt Erridge resembles Archie Goodwin in Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe books, in this opening.
He is a fresh young urban sophisticate, self-made, perhaps from an "ordinary American" background,
who is smart, articulate, breezy, well-dressed, an expert on gourmet food and sophisticated society,
and with an eye for pretty women. Matt Erridge narrates his books, and his "voice" and style of
expression in this opening chapter distinctly recall Archie.
However, later chapters show Matt Erridge with a lust for violence and fighting, that is very different from Archie.
Archie Goodwin on rare occasions gets involved with rough stuff. But mainly Archie is a practical man
who is trying to get a job done - and with no interest in violence. Matt Erridge with a yen
for violence, recalls more the tough private eyes and spies of the era.
Matt Erridge replaced Stein's own detective heroes Tim Mulligan and Elsie Mae Hunt:
Stein stopped writing about Tim and Elsie, when he began the Matt Erridge series. Matt Erridge
shares some features in common with Tim and Elsie, though. Like them, he is a globe-trotter,
allowing Stein to set novels around the world. The first Matt Erridge book Sitting Up Dead
shows Matt with a fondness for historic sites in Italy. This recalls the way that
Tim and Elsie being archaeologists allowed Stein to write about sites of traditional culture.
Sitting Up Dead (1958) is the first novel about action hero Matt Erridge. It is set in Italy.
Poetry
The poem quoted (Chapter 2) that expresses the hero's philosophy of life,
is "Could man be drunk forever" by A. E. Housman. One might note that the gay Housman was a favorite of
later gay writers, giving titles to such books as Patrick White's The Tree of Man
and Arthur C. Clarke's Against the Fall of Night.
Matt Erridge links the poem to male bonding: he learned it from a Lieutenant who served
with him in World War II.
Part of Sitting Up Dead is set in the real-life town of Eboli. The novel (Chapter 3) refers to
Carlo Levi's book Christ Stopped at Eboli (1945).
Male Bonding
Sitting Up Dead has a little of Stein's male bonding. But it has a sour tinge,
compared to the idealistic male bonding in some of his prior books.
The Original Carcase (1946) featured a young good-natured WASP rich kid, who falls in love
with his glamorous Italian-American commanding officer from World War II.
The officer is a good guy, and awesomely capable, leading to hero worship from the WASP.
This plot allowed a well-to-do WASP to look up to a low social status, but gifted,
Italian-American good guy, reversing the traditional and very bad social hierarchies of the time.
In Sitting Up Dead, Matt Erridge is a hero with a WASP name and a glamorous well-to-do life.
And he has a friendship with an Italian-American he first meets in the service in World War II.
But there is little admirable about the Italian-American. He is a private court-martialed out
of the service for criminal activities. After the service, the Italian-American becomes a sleazy
low level member of the Mob. Meanwhile Matt Erridge is an Army Captain and combat hero.
This whole plot plays like a dark variation on that of The Original Carcase.
More pleasing is Matt Erridge's encounter with a decent young Italian priest.
Erridge wows the priest, by giving him a ride in his sports car:
the priest has a yen for machinery. This whole scene oddly recalls a French film,
Diary of a Country Priest (Robert Bresson, 1951),
where the suffering young priest gets a moment of joy when a young motorcyclist gives him a ride.
The hero gets a letter from his sister at the start. Brother-sister relationships are
frequent in Stein.
Men's Clothes
There is a nice passage when Matt is getting dressed to go out and meet trouble,
and he is trying to conceal a gun in his dapper Italian clothes (middle of Chapter 4).
Even in the 1950's, there is a realization that Italian clothes are some of the finest in the world.
A Lambretta driver's padded leather jacket helps identify his vehicle (Chapter 10).
Mystery Plot
Sitting Up Dead is mainly a suspense novel, or "good guy battles crime" adventure tale. But it does have a bit of mystery.
This centers on the question: "What lucrative crime are the bad guys up to, and how does it involve a priceless statue?"
This is not one of the great crime puzzles of mystery fiction, but it is pleasant to think about,
and involves some of Stein's vivid writing evoking Italian locations.
The puzzle goes through stages:
- The first encounter with the building a crook lives in, and the statue (second half of Chapter 4,
first half of Chapter 5). The building with its scaffolding recalls the Golden Age interest in architecture.
- More about the behavior of Renata during her night with the hero (end of Chapter 7, middle of Chapter 9).
The end of Chapter 7 also contains some dramatic writing.
- The solution to the puzzle (Chapter 10). SPOILER. The solution gives some new insights into the behavior of the criminals,
that makes their actions seem slightly different from how they first appeared.
It ties three different actions into an underlying hidden criminal activity.
This sort of "re-interpretation of actions" is a standard kind of mystery puzzle and solution.
SPOILER: The solution centers on archaeology, which is vividly described (Chapter 10).
This links Sitting Up Dead to the Tim and Elsie archaeology-mystery series Matt Erridge replaced.
Some Tim and Elsie books have mystery subplots about mysterious archaeological artifacts,
such as the golden cockerel statue in Three - With Blood.
The statue in Sitting Up Dead plays a somewhat similar role,
although there is not a specific mystery puzzle tied to the statue itself,
the way there is to the golden cockerel in Three - With Blood.
In addition to archaeology, Chapter 10 also has a fun description of multi-colored farm machinery.
The whole chapter is highly visual, allowing the reader to "see" the events.
The above mystery plot sections contain the best writing in Sitting Up Dead, with their mystery puzzle,
architecture, and archaeological background.
Towards the book's end (middle of Chapter 11), there is a solution to a second mystery puzzle:
which of the book's crooks is the "big boy", i.e. head of the crime operation?
This is pretty mild, but it does draw on putting together pieces of the story,
and interpreting them in a new way, as a history of the big crook's involvement.
This simple mystery shows Stein's attempt to preserve a who-done-it structure in the novel.