R. Austin Freeman
A buckling of the geological strata at the Detectives Beyond Borders Archives has brought a book of R. Austin Freeman's Dr. Thorndyke stories to the surface.Freeman (1862-1943) was the first master of the scientific detective story, and he is said to have tested in his laboratory the science he used in his fiction. He is the reputed inventor of the inverted detective story, in which the reader seen the crime, and the action lies in seeing the investigator figure it out.
The Wikipedia article on Freeman also offers this:
"Raymond Chandler had this to say in a letter to Hamish Hamilton, the British publisher: 'This man Austin Freeman is a wonderful performer. He has no equal in his genre, and he is also a much better writer than you might think, if you were superficially inclined, because in spite of the immense leisure of his writing, he accomplishes an even suspense which is quite unexpected ... There isBut back t0 the inverted detective story or, as we might feel more comfortable calling it, the Columbo story. Who else wrote stories of this type?
even a gaslight charm about his Victorian love affairs, and those wonderful walks across London ...'."
© Peter Rozovsky 2010
Labels: R. Austin Freeman
posted by Peter Rozovsky at 12:20 AM
56 Comments:
Francis Iles. "Before the Fact," 1932, begins: "Some women give birth to murderers, some go to bed with them, and some marry them."
Ian Rankin (writing as Jack Harvey). The non-Rebus "Bleeding Hearts," 1994, begins: "She had just over three hours to live, and I was sipping grapefruit juice and tonic in the hotel bar."
Many of Ruth Rendell's novels are "inverted." Another DBB reader recently mentioned perhaps her most famous one, "A Judgement in Stone," 1977, which begins: "Eunice Parchman killed the Coverdale family because she could not read and write."
Chandler had more to say on Freeman, some of it not as kind, but quite funny, and his comments have been compiled at the easy to copy-and-paste page:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GAdetection/message/5932
Or, in handy, clickable form, here.
That's a fine, attention-grabbing opening. I've look for Francis Iles from time to time, sporadically and without success. What should I read by him?
I read some of what Chandler wrote about Freeman. I noticed that he had high respect for the man's prose style. He thought Freeman a good writer, in other words. "The apparatus of his writing makes for dullness, but he is not dull" follows a syntactic and prosodic pattern close to "down these mean streets a man must walk who is not himself mean."
Hmm, I begin to understand how that literary detective may have worked, the guy who proved that Joe Klein wrote "Primary Colors."
Maybe it is not precisely an inverted detective story but I like this one:
"On November the 21st, the day of her forty-seventh birthday, and three weeks and two days before she was murdered, Rhoda Gradwyn went to Harley Street to keep a first appointment with her plastic surgeon,..." (P.D. James, "The Private Patient")
I thought I left a comment, but it disappeared. Fyodor Dostoevsky invented this form with Crime and Punishment.
Also an inverted story: every episode of COLUMBO.
The only exception to the inverted detective story format in Columbo, I believe, was one Season 5 episode, "Last Salute to the Commodore," which originally aired on March 2, 1976. We didn't know who the murderer was until the end!
Cheers,
Jeff
That "buckling of the geological strata" has produced tremors as far away as Tucson, Arizona.
I'm about halfway through Freeman's _Mr. Pottermack's Oversight_. I happened to see it in a used book store. It's a Dover Pub, so the price was right.
His writing style is a bit slower than contemporary writers, but it does flow along smoothly.
I have sympathy for the murderer in this case. He's an amateur at this, and Dr. Thorndyke is just too strong for him. It's only a matter of time. . .
I shall look around for more of Freeman's works.
Maybe it is not precisely an inverted detective story but I like this one:
"On November the 21st, the day of her forty-seventh birthday, and three weeks and two days before she was murdered, Rhoda Gradwyn went to Harley Street to keep a first appointment with her plastic surgeon,..." (P.D. James, "The Private Patient")
Ah, but do we find out who murdered her before Dalgliesh does?
I wonder if the murder-at-the-beginning story compelled authros to write surprising-grabbing openings to their stories. The second story in my Freeman book, "A Case of Premeditation," has one such opening, and the example you cite is another. Read the first chapter of The Private Patient here.
That's right, Julia, that Dostoevsky guy. None of the great stories of the past that crime-fiction fans and critics dig up in their search for illustrious precedents ("Cain and Abel," Macbeth, Icelandic sagas, et al.) is a whodunnit, is it? We always know who the killer is from the beginning.
Jeff, that episode must have been great fun for the writers and a surprise for viewers, some of whom may have been disoriented.
Fred, my edition is a Dover as well, also bought at a used bookstore.
The first story keeps things moving, and it has a set of events being narrated successively by two characters, an earlyish example of that familiar device. And, by Jove, it works. It's interesting to note that brief snippets of dialogue are identical in the two accounts. We now know from Rashomon and countless detective stories, TV shows and popular psychology that such identity is highly unlikely. Still, the device adds suspense.
The opening of the second story, "A Case of Premeditation," is nicely mocking in tone, I think, and the mocker gets something of a comeuppance on the next page.
Fred, my edition is a Dover as well,
The first story keeps things moving, and it has a set of events being narrated successively by two characters, an earlyish example of that familiar device. And, by Jove, it works. It's interesting to note that brief snippets of dialogue are identical in the two accounts. We now know from Rashomon and countless detective stories, TV shows and popular psychology that such exactness is highly unlikely. Still, the device adds suspense.
The opening of the second story, "A Case of Premeditation," is nicely mocking in tone, I think, and the mocker gets something of a comeuppance on the next page.
“What should I read by [Francis Iles]?” I believe he only published 3 titles under this pseudonym. His real name was Anthony Berkeley (Cox). “Malice Aforethought” (1931), “Before the Fact” (1932), and “As for the Woman” (1939). I’m not sure if the latter is crime fiction (although it’s a perfect title.) Alfred Hitchcock whitewashed (against his will) “Before the Fact” for the film version, “Suspicion.” I’ve only read MA and BTF. They’d probably be marketed as “psychological thrillers” if published today. Wonderfully evoke pre-WWII upper class English society but are not outdated. Of the 2, I remember BTF most clearly. The corrosive “suspicion” of the doomed wife in BTF is believable, even when you say to yourself “I’d never do that.”
His mysteries published under his real name are more traditional whodunits, I believe. Perhaps another reader could clarify.
And as much as I love Chandler, I haven't liked many of the writers he lavished praise on, such as Elizabeth Sanxay Holding. Perhaps if I'd read them in the 1930s (the decade in which the 2 I read were written) I'd have liked them better.
Icelandic sagas--like Njorl's Saga? See, I'm always leading you back to Monty Python. In fact, I'm the only lowbrow on this page who keeps dragging things back to television. You may kick me off, if you wish. :)
(Although thanks for your Columbo support, Jeff. I wish I could get old episodes of the show, but they're not available, are they?)
Thanks. I've read praise for Iles under all his names. I do know where to look for his book -- not far from where I work, actually.
I have noticed that not all the authors Chandler praises are much read or discussed today, just a collection of triple-barrelled names. But Chandler didn't grow up reading Chandler. He had to have read something.
I may post a comment about aspects of Freeman's work that have dated well and others that have not.
Julia, your frivolousness is a welcome change from this blog's customary solemn abject matter. I enjoyed the Njorl's Sage clips to which you have pointed me in the past.
And I'm the lowbrow here who called inverted detective stories "Columbo stories."
Elisabeth, unlike you I haven't read many Chandler letters but I remember one that praised The Phantom Lady by William Irish. He didn't seem to know that name was a Cornell Woolrich pseudonym. It's the only Woolrich book I've read but I thought it had aged pretty well.
I had never heard of Elizabeth Sanxay Holding before but if I'd been paying attention I would have. I enjoyed the movie The Deep End when it came out about ten years ago but I had no idea who wrote the book it was based on.
Solo, I think that with Woolrich, Chandler is moving in territory that will be less surprising to current readers.
As for the Woman is an obscure book, but very interesting, even though it was a commercial failure. Iles was a fascinating writer.
Roy Vickers' many short stories about the Department of Dead Ends are classic inverted stories. Freeman Wills Crofts wrote a few as well.
R. T.,
In the novel, _Mr. Pottermack's Oversight_, Freeman splits the narrative between Pottermack, the murderer, and Dr. Thorndyke, the man on "P's" trail--same technique used in _Columbo_, if I remember correctly.
That really helps build interest as we see Thorndyke slowly focusing his thinking on "P" and going about getting evidence to support his theory, while "P" works to provide distractions and red herrings (usually it's the author who puts in the red herrings).
The reader doesn't know everything though. For example, the reader doesn't know exactly what it was that put Thorndyke on Pottermack's trail. I think I know, but it hasn't been spelled out specifically yet.
solo, "[Chandler] didn't seem to know that name was a Cornell Woolrich pseudonym" reminded me of several instances in which savvy Chandler spotted a book by an author he knew well under another name and gripes about the pseudonym's copying of so-and-so. One funny instance was a letter to friend Earl Stanley Gardner in which he does this, not realizing that the author was, indeed, ESG under another name.
Dandy v-word: uncop
Julia,
If you're looking for Columbo, check out Netflix. It has about five seasons and numerous TV movies now on DVD. I think they just became available recently.
Thanks, Martin. I came across the Department of Dead Ends at some point during my research for this post, and the name caught my eye. I wonder whether this was one of the earliest examples of whimsey enshrined in a series title.
I'm going to go for Cain and Abel. There's just a slight chance that the reader knows whodunnit before God does. Literarily speaking.
Fred, that sounds related to what Freeman did in "The Case of Oscar Brodski." In that story, the first part is the murder from the killer's point of view, nicely set up though told with a few details that would be thought a tad gothic these days.
The second part is Thorndyke on the case (He just happens to be waiting for the same train as the killer). That part is told nicely, too, though a reader today is apt to regard with an indulgent smile the police astonishment at Thorndyke's scientific wizardry.
I like the set-up of both parts, the care with which Freeman assembled details of travelling on trains and the victim's visit with his killer. And, as I mentioned earlier, it's fascinating that at the points where the two halved of the story cover the same territory, conversations are recalled identically. It's of historical interest that in the early 1920s, a crime writer had not yet thought that different witnesses and participants would likely recall the same conversations or incidents with at least slight differences.
Elisabeth, cranky folks like Chandler deserve a bit of humorous showing-up.
It's a small mercy Chandler didn't live to follow the career of Donald Westlake/Richard Stark/Tucker Coe/Samuel Holt/John B Allen/Curt Clark/Timothy J Culver/J Morgan Cunningham/Sheldon Lord/Alan Marshall/Allan Marshall/Edwin West.
Oh, and "uncop" in its plural form sounds like a good graphic-novel title.
Fred, I could check out some of those old Columbos myself. I enjoyed the show in my youth.
Seana, you're right. But God doesn't carry out much of an investigation.
Not a detective then. But then, He doesn't have to be. It might fit better in a thread about detectives who ensnare criminals by pretending not to know.
v word=spidect, which is shorthand for espionage/detective work if ever I heard it.
Yeah, it's hard to conceive of the Lord On High as the protagonist of a whodunnit.
Oooh, Spidect sounds like a mysterious government department that does nasty things just hinted at, never stated.
But definitely involving poison.
And secret meetings and surreptitious photographs ... all of which figure in a novel I read recently and discussed here, including a particular fiendish use of poison.
Peter,
That does sound similar, with the one difference being that in this novel, the narrative alternates between Thorndyke and "P." It's two parallel lives that aren't on parallel tracks, so they will collide one day, sadly I fear for Mr. "P."
A shame--for he now feels free of the monster who's made his life miserable and he can now begin to court the young widow with whom he has become a close friend.
Peter,
I enjoyed the Columbo series myself. But, I think it was Falk whom I really enjoyed watching.
Near the end of the series, I started to tune in late to the show, so I wouldn't see who did what to whom. However, it became obvious who the murderer was because Columbo kept dropping in on him/her, which was the obvious tip-off.
The inverted mystery is interesting, but I don't think too many will hold my interest for a long period, not like the more straightforward whodunnit.
And speaking of Peter Falk, check out the photo I included with this post.
Looks as if Freeman was an early staker-out of territory much explored by later crime witers.
"Looks as if Freeman was an early staker-out of territory much explored by later crime witers."
What in particular are you referring to?
"Looks as if Freeman was an early staker-out of territory much explored by later crime witers."
What in particular are you referring to?
Fred, I don't remember what aspects I had mind when I made that comment, but the scientific aspect is one. Freeman is, for better or worse, a father of CSI and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and he have been held to account for this already in the next world.
The parallel narratives, with their insight into the killer's thoughts, may be precursors of psychological crime stories. In any case, the approach just felt fresh in the story under discussion here, "The Case of Oscar Brodski." The killer's fright in the first part seems is overheated and musty by contemporary standards, and the police skepticism and subsquent astonishment at Thorndyke's science in the second part comes off a bit like a vaudeville sketch. This might not have been the case in the 1920s, however.
Elisabeth writes: "not realizing that the author was, indeed, ESG under another name."
I wonder if Chandler was thinking of A.A. Fair. (See here). I kinda remember those Cool and Lam stories; they were a surprise if you'd only read the Perry Mason ones.
captcha: givento (A REAL PHRASE!)
Linkmeister, I keep thinking Gardner is worth investigating more closely. Of all his massive output, I've read just one short story. It was marvelously well written, but the conclusion -- the narrator/protagonist giving a long recitation of events -- seemed rushed. I know that a conclusion of that kind became a staple of the Black Mask and subsequent pulp eras, to the point where Woody Allen made fun of it in his detective parodies. But because Gardner was so prolific that he dictated his stories to a secretary, I couldn't help thinking that he'd have written an even better story if he'd spoent a bit more time on the ending.
I'm not qualified to judge. I've read a few of the Mason ones (slim volumes with black dustjackets, I seem to remember), but not a whole lot.
Another captcha:
entisma: state of euphoria induced by long exposure to ents. See Brandybuck and Took in Tolkien.
I'd had a prejudice against Gardner because he wrote so much. He had to have been a hack, I thought, which is why I was surprised the story was written so well. The story appeared in The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps.
Linkmeister, you “wonder if Chandler was thinking of A.A. Fair.” Yep. And now that I reread the letter I’m thinking Chandler was wise all along and that his comment is tongue-in-cheek: “Thanks very much indeed for sending me that Brentano list, but who is this guy A.A. Fair who heads the list? I got the book and read it and it held one of the three or four unmistakable techniques of detective story writing. And done to the nice crisp light brown that melts in your mouth. What goes on her? I suppose you know what I mean?”
I'm not much of a Gardner fan; perhaps I just haven't far enough into his massive output.
Elisabeth, you'll see from my comments about that I believe Gardner had writing chops. Whether he put them to good use, I've read far too little to determine. But that first, say, four-fifths of a story was intriguing.
Peter, I'm in the middle of Charles G. Booth's "Stag Party" in "The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps." I'll try the Gardner ss next. I've read one of his "Patent Leather Kid" ss and something else with a weird, occult flavor to it. But just looking at some of the other authors in that same TOC as ESG I have to say I much prefer Frederick L. Nebel, Horace McCoy, George Harmon Coxe, Raoul Whitfield, Roger Torrey (not to mention Hammett, Chandler, and Paul Cain.)
Yep, his tongue was enjoyably in cheek, just as it was in the last sentence of the opening paragraph of "Red Wind."
Hmm, maybe the Gardner story I three-quarters liked was "Honest Money." And I know we also part ways on Norbert Davis, another author in the "Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps." I don't place either writer in the pantheon, but I do say each offers unexpected rewards.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and make a perhaps too-broad generalization, but your ref to Davis reminded me that I think you like (want?) humor in crime fiction more than I do. Also per an old blog post that lauded Peter Temple for inclusion of humor and chided Ian Rankin for exclusion of same (and I beg to differ on the latter). And this from a dame who thinks Chandler's the cat's pajamas. OK, berate me.
I do enjoy humor in crime fiction, but not of the cloying, farcical variety. But give me the humor of an Allan Guthrie, a John McFetridge, a Declan Burke, an Arnaldur Indridason, and I'm happy.
Even if I felt the urge to berate you (or take you to task or call you on the carpet), I'm too much of a gentleman to do so. And I feel no such urge. But I did read some generalization recently that men look for adventure and humor in crime fiction where women tend more to seek matters of psychological interest. To what extent this is true, I don't know. I also don't know on what data the person made his or her assertion.
In any case, I most recently praised Davis not for his humor but for his ability to write hard, gritty action despite his reputation for humor.
I'm prepared to believe Rankin is capable of humor. I've read just three of his novels, at least two of them from early in his career, so I don't know his later work. A story of his called "The Dean Curse" in the Oxford book in international detective stories is as dead-pan humorous as you would expect from a story with a title like that. I enjoyed it greatly.
What men and women gravitate towards in reading, and how they may read the same text and yet come to different assessments that can line up by their sex is related to studies on how boys and girls learn differently. For ex, I used to teach English-language prep for the SAT exams and, generally speaking, boys excelled in the analogies sections where girls tended to struggle--girls looked for the broader context of "rooster is to comb as..." and wandered off into the fever swamps. Boys "got" the concept right off. Girls tended to do better on the "reading for meaning" sections where context is king. My job was to teach to the test and work around these preconditions to get both sexes up to speed in both categories. That it can be done fairly easily suggests that the sexes don't "read" all that differently but that what each retains and takes away from the text is based on some kind of preference that partially may have roots in biology as well as sociology.
I don't recall thinking "The Dean Curse" was all that funny. Oh, well. BTW, that ss is preceded by one entitled "Playback" in the Rankin ss compilation "A Good Hanging" (in which my favorite ss is a day-in-the-life-of-Rebus called "Sunday").
Rankin's other ss compilation, "Beggars Banquet," is full of good stuff, including a brilliant non-mystery called "Glimmer" that picture-perfectly captures the life of a Rolling Stones hanger-on.
I don't like cloying humor, either; it's the kind that's usually found in the cozy where the cat solves the mystery. And I loathe farce. All that said, "adventure" is definitely one major reason why I read crime fiction, esp the old pulps.
Other than Arnaldur, I have not read the other 3 authors you mention. Would you say their humor is of the dark kind or...?
I don't remember who it was, but one author on a panel at Bouchercon 2009 said that authors, publishers, critics and fans make all kinds of declarations -- women read this, men read that -- but "we really don't know who our readers are." I took that as a commenable injunction for humility and openness in such matters.
I don't remember laughing out loud at "The Dean Curse," but I do seem to remember some flashes of sly wit. And that title counts for something. I think I have a collection of Rankin's short stories lying around. It might be time for me to read them. I'd be interested in the life of a Rolling Stones hanger-on because, early in this blog's history, I had some unkind things to say about Rankin's Stones references.
I've written often about Guthrie, Burke and McFetridge, and I've hosted the latter two at an international Noir at the Bar reading in Philadelphia, for which I offer visual evidence here. I'd say their humor shares a comment element of surprise. It will occur in violent or solemn situations, or it will be marked by incongruity between speakers and what they say.
Here's the opening of Burke's The Big O"
In the bar, Karen drinking vodka-tonic, Ray on brandy to calm his nerves, she told him how people react to death and a stick-up in pretty much the same way: shock, disbelief, anger, acceptance.
"The trick being," Karen said, "to skip them past the anger straight into acceptance."
Here's a bit from a book McFetridge was working on a few months back. Members of a 1970s rock band called The High have reunited, gone back on the road, and turned to crime:
"Cliff started to follow, felt a hand on his arm and looked around to see two very hot chicks, had to be teenagers, but maybe legal, looked exactly the same; long blonde hair, tight jeans, low cut tees, like twins, same serious look on their faces and he said, `Hey ladies, looking for some fun?'
"One of the girls said, `No, we're looking for our Mom, she was talking to you before.'"
And here are two bits from Guthrie's Savage Night"
"Not that they were in a hurry, but still. Effie had a new respect for butchers."
and
"They'd all sat around drinking. Took awkward sips and smiled sadly at each other. Dad kept saying, `I can't believe he's dead,' till Effie told him to shut up."
I admit to a special fondness for McFetridge because he made me a fictional character.
I could add some of Ken Bruen to that list, notably his Brant & Roberts novels and his three collaborations with Jason Starr for Hard Case Crime.
I'd say their humor shares a comment element of surprise.
That should be "common element," of course.
Peter,
OK. In this one, he's using photos that a friend had taken of the footprints of the victim on the night he disappeared. It was wet and the ground soft, so the trail extends along a little-used path for several miles.
Thorndyke is studying the photos to see what he can learn from them. It is the photos that has led him to suspect Pottermack.
That has lots of possibilities. I'm not sure when Kodak put cameras in the hands of millions, but photography still may have been somewhat mysterious and exotic when Freeman wrote the story. That it could be used as an investigative took may have been positively thrilling.
Thanks, Peter, for the insight into these authors' use of humor. A Burke and Guthrie are in my TBR stack.
I think Kodak mass-marketed its Brownie beginning in the 1910s. A friend of mine has an early Kodak (1889, I think) that came complete with film. You sent the entire apparatus back--camera and film--in order to get your snaps processed. The processed film and the camera, reloaded, were then mailed back to you.
The book I am reading now ("The Empty Mirror") takes place in Vienna in 1898 and high-quality forensic photography used in the investigation of serial murders is an element of the story. Real people are fictionalized and the early criminologist Hans Gross (for some reason the author spells his name Hanns) is one of the main characters.
I think the Freeman ss referred to in this thread was published in 1930; by that time Kodak cameras were ubiquitous. But Freeman employed forensic photography much earlier on, though, didn't he?
v-word = woons Those things the criminologist examines in the photos?
The victim croaks out an enigmatic clue before he swoons because of his grievous woons.
I don't know when investigators or their fictional counterparts first employed photography. I am pretty sure the did so before David Hemmings' character did so in Blow-Up.
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