Search results for ""felony mayhem""

Dov Taylor is an ex-everything - an ex-husband, an ex-cop, an ex-drinker, an ex-observant Jew. The way he sees it, he doesn't have much to offer, so he's a tad surprised when he gets a summons from a local rabbi: There's been a hideous murder in the Hassidic community, and Dov, says the rabbi, is the man to solve the crime. Why Dov? Some hundred-odd years ago, his ancestor was a famous Polish mystic, revered for his ability to discern the truth. The rabbi agrees that Dov is not what might be called an impressive candidate. But perhaps some shred of the mystic's wisdom can be persuaded to whisper down the decades, help Dov see what others cannot. Channel a long-dead Polish wackjob? That's not really in Dov's line of work. On the other hand, he doesn't have a lot of better offers. This extraordinary, deeply unusual mystery was shortlisted for the Edgar in 1994.

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In Skeleton Key, readers were introduced to Georgine Wyeth, a widowed young mother in California who stumbled across a body and walked-she emphatically did not fall-into the arms of Todd McKinnon, a pulp novelist living in the community where the murder took place. It's now a few years later, and the couple are taking a car trip with Georgine's daughter, Barbie. On their way home they stop for what they fondly imagine will be a brief visit with a most peculiar family, only to be sucked into the family's extremely peculiar mystery, involving a disappeared husband, a dead old lady, and mysterious footsteps in the night. First published in 1944, Glass Mask is a fascinating mix of old-fashioned puzzle-mystery and a startlingly modern sensibility-that allows Todd and Georgine to travel together, for example, without the benefit of wedding rings. It's a delight.

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One has to admit that the timing was peculiar. No one could doubt that Mr. Percival Pyke Period was genuinely distraught to hear that his neighbor, Harry Cartell, had turned up dead in a ditch. But how is it that Mr. Percival Pyke came to write the letter of condolence before the body was found? And how is it that Mr. Cartell came to inspire such violence? Yes he was boring, yes he was stuffy, but who would kill a man for the crime of being a bad conversationalist? If tediousness has become grounds for murder, Inspector Alleyn shudders to think of the body-count to come.

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Like The Gracie Allen Murder Case before it, Winter was first written as a screenplay, in this case a vehicle for the figure skater Sonja Henie. However, while Allen’s scatterbrained persona made a charming foil for Philo’s stuffed-shirt pretensions, Ms. Henie provided no such inspiration. Van Dine did not live long enough to see her outed as a Nazi supporter, but her ice-princess act offered less for Philo to play against. It should be noted that Winter was published posthumously to close out the series, and though it went to press without Van Dine’s usual repeated revisions, it is true vintage Philo—utterly distinctive in style and its own very genuine kind of pleasure.

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Gracie Allen breaks the Philo Phormula in a number of ways. First is its title: this is the only book in the series to modify “Murder Case” with more than one word, much less with the name of a character. And then there’s that character: Gracie Allen was a very real, much-loved comedienne in the 1930s, famous for her double act with George Burns, and in fact the plot revolves around her. Gracie’s centrality is no accident: Van Dine wrote the story as a vehicle for Allen, and actually created the novel only after the film had come out. So do all these departures pay off? We’d be lying if we said that Gracie hits every single mark, but Van Dine does a surprisingly entertaining job of translating Ms. Allen’s delicious Ditzy Blonde persona to the page, and she makes a charming foil for Philo’s evergreen erudition.

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With World War II only barely in the rear view mirror, New York apartments are scarcer than hen’s teeth.Janice Cameron has moved to the City to be a writer, trading Honolulu’s sun and flowers for Manhattan in the grip of icy winter. She’s imagined her own cunning little flat, a little table by the window, a little lace cloth...fat chance! Her own flat is completely out of the question, and in fact she’s going to have to share a boarding-house bedroom with a perfect stranger.At least the stranger is perfect: Lily Wu is beautiful, exquisitely dressed, and swathed in mystery. But Janice hasn’t even unpacked before a rather less exquisite mystery intrudes. True, the handyman wasn’t brilliant at maintaining the boiler, but murder seems a rather extreme response.In the best Golden Age tradition, the rooming house is crammed with intriguing suspects, from the tortured musician to the French emigree to the actress with a face f

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