THE HORROR CHAMBERS OF JULES DE GRANDIN by Seabury Quinn

Finally, the last volume of Popular Library's reprint series! And just in time as the complete ebook reprints are now available....making these books pretty much obsolete. I spent years and tons of money hunting these down, and now...well, at least I enjoyed the chase, I guess.

Seabury Quinn apparently was a bit of a progressive in some ways, as you may have seen from my previous reviews of his works. He's sympathetic to minorities (sometimes) and some of his stories have centered on sexuality. And that continues here...

"The Gods of East and West" concerns a woman under the influence of an idol of Kali, and de Grandin, not able to help her out himself....so he brings in a Native American shaman to exorcise the spirit. The story leaves one with an odd feeling; Quinn may have been trying to be pro-Indian but at the same time it comes across as a sort of fetishization of the Noble Savage sort of thing. A strange story.

"The Poltergeist" has another young woman be the center of poltergeist activity. It turns out to be the work of a ghost, namely that of another woman who was plainly a lesbian and in love with the living woman, and who is now jealous of her upcoming marriage. OK, kinda homophobic, to be sure, but that's pretty much to be expected from a story written in 1927.

The story after that, "The House of Golden Masks," is a non-supernatural tale of white slavery. But after that is an eyebrow-raiser, "The Jest of Warburg Tantavul." A young couple are being tormented by the vengeful ghost of the husband's guardian, an eerie phantom whose malice is palpable and who is handled memorably...and even dispatched in a rather modern way. But the thrust of the story, that the man in life had sought revenge on someone else through the couple, is made clear when the reader realizes (and is finally revealed) that the couple are unknowingly brother and sister. And at the end, de Grandin remains silent, seeing that they are happy together. A weird way of ending a tale, and definitely not something that would work today, but oddly compassionate.

"Stealthy Death" is another non-supernatural tale, but with a weird element. A series of people are murdered, and a strangely beautiful but robotic woman keeps cropping up. Who is responsible and why? It turns out the murderer is a Hindu man avenging his sister, who was seduced, robbed, and sold into prostitution by an American missionary. The man's deeds are heinous but it's clear that he has a legitimate gripe.

The final story, "A Gamble in Souls," is a weird sort of tale in which the soul of a man being unjustly executed is put into the body of his evil twin brother. Again, we have some exoticism here as a Middle Eastern "philosopher" is brought in to effect the changeover. It's progressive in a tiny way, but also dripping with pulp-fiction nonsense.

So...are these good? Well, they're fun, to be honest. I'm probably being a little unfair as my modern eyes and modern sensibilities aren't the target audience. It's important to remember the times in which something was written, and the audience it was intended for, when reading older works. We don't live in an eternal present. And while the exaggerated exoticism that goes on in these tales may seem cheap and offensive to many readers today, at the time this was exciting and novel to many American readers. And also, Quinn introduces elements that rouse the reader's sympathy, in taking a brief look into the evils of imperialism in "Stealthy Death" or introducing powerful minority sorcerers in "The Gods of East and West" and "A Gamble in Souls." Even the homicidal lesbian spirit in "The Poltergeist" would at least introduce the concept to people who might not have even been aware such people existed. (And let's be honest...we're in an age now where we can acknowledge that LGBTQ people are just as capable of being dark and twisted as anyone else...) So, really, the fun is in the chills, and there are chills to be had, especially in "The Jest of Warburg Tantavul" which is one of the more dark and twisted pulp tales outside of the exploitative "weird menace" genre. This is pulpy fun and recommended if you can get into the mindset.

THE HELLFIRE FILES OF JULES DE GRANDIN by Seabury Quinn

The fifth in Popular Library's 1970's reprinting of selected de Grandin stories, this is the usual assortment of tales featuring the dashing French phantom-fighter.

There's not much of a running theme here as there was in the last volume, but it's still fun pulp nonsense. Interestingly, two tales in this volume, "The Great God Pan" and "Mephistopheles and Company, Ltd.," are mundane mysteries with the trappings of the supernatural. "Pan" has de Grandin coming across a Greek revival cult with a criminal at its head, and "Mephistopheles" has him assisting a woman being victimized by fake psychics.

Of the supernatural tales, there's "The Devil-People," about a Malaysian woman being pursued by the Rakshasas of Indian folklore. It's an OK story but there's some mild racism and religious chauvinism that taint the enjoyment somewhat...but you have to accept that as part of the pulp canon, the nature of the beast.

"Restless Souls" is a vampire story, but better than Quinn's previous assays at the creature. In this one, a young, newly-made vampire is under the control of an older vampire, and must do their bidding, including luring a lonely man to his destruction. It's a good plot, if a bit overly romantic and dramatic (but hell, it's pulp) and holds together well.

"The Wolf of Saint Bonnot" is a bit of a problem. There's a seance at a weekend house-party, and of course something hideous is raised that victimizes one of the participants. However, it comes out of nowhere...there's no connection and no reason given for why the seance raised that particular spirit. It just does, randomly. I wasn't quite down with that...I do like a tidy logic to things like this, rather than someone being tormented by a spirit from another time and place simply at random. It's not good storytelling, if you ask me.

"The Hand of Glory" is probably the best of the lot, a tale of supernatural rivalry as an archaeologist is planning to raise an ancient goddess, but must also combat a rival who wants the relics for himself. It's enjoyable fluff, with some darkness as it becomes clear one of the main characters is more than happy to sacrifice a loved one to achieve his aims.

All in all, not bad, and I always enjoy de Grandin. And wouldn't you know it...just as I finished this, I found out that now all of Quinn's de Grandin stories, the entire canon, are to be reprinted, with the first volume out now. Dangit! More money to be spent!

THE SKELETON CLOSET OF JULES DE GRANDIN by Seabury Quinn

The next in the Jules de Grandin series, and the cover is amusing as it's classified as "science fiction" and the picture has a monster in a spacesuit...and of course, there's no space aliens in it.

This is more fun from Grandin, and this was actually the first Grandin volume I ever picked up, I bought it on a family vacation as a teen and devoured it, and went bonkers trying to find the rest. As an adult, I finally finished the set with the help of Ebay.

This is more mature Quinn, and the themes could be quite more mature as well. I was surprised reading this as a teen, and even in comparison with the other books, it's a bit eyebrow-raising. There are some blatant sexual horrors here, a bit unusual for this genre. Something so sexual was usually reserved for the Spicy pulps (which dealt with a lot of suggestion, and girls running around naked) and the weird-menace subgenre (which featured sadomasochistic themes and male characters being drugged, hypnotized, or otherwise coerced into bizarre and violent BDSM situations).

So, to go down the stories...

"The Drums of Damballah" is a tale of a voodoo cult practicing in the midst of their small New Jersey town. It's pretty straightforward; they find out a local girl is part of a cult, she gets killed, then a baby is kidnapped, and they follow clues to the cult's ceremony. It's all pretty mundane, with no supernatural content. There is a nice bit at the end when Grandin compassionately allows a woman to grieve her dead son, even though they were both parts of the cult, as he feels a mother's grief is universal and should be honored.

"The Doom of the House of Phipps" involves a family curse, in which the men of an old New England family die with blood on their lips when their first born is delivered, and no Phipps man ever beholds his firstborn child. The source of the curse is a French Catholic girl whom a Phipps ancestor took as a bond-maid, and on whom the ancestor, a stern Puritan, fathered a child. Really, the cause of the curse is good old-fashioned Puritan hypocrisy! Thankfully, the last Phipps man finds a woman who is able to dismiss the curse. (This will occur later in the book...a man is saved from a dire supernatural fate by the courage of a woman who loves him.)

"Dust of Egypt" is intriguing. A brother and sister move into the house of a departed uncle, who was a collector of Egyptian antiquities. A series of strange manifestations occur, and the brother is in bad shape...and while it's not a revived mummy, it's just as bad. In this case, the real root of the problem is the late uncle's thought patterns and belief in the curses of the old tombs...which, really, can be a valid source of concern. Half the time, it's the demons of our minds that are the biggest menace.

"The Brain-Thief" really reflects small-town morality of the day. A man abandons his wife, and a woman abandons her husband, to marry. After a year of facing small-town scorn, suddenly the man returns to his ex-wife's house as if he's coming home from work, and seems to have forgotten the past year. He's horrified to find a new woman in his bed and a baby he doesn't recognize. The wife is hurt and confused, and then seems to "come to" and seek her former husband. The menace? A Hindu victim of racism, who's using his psychic mind-control gifts to disrupt the lives of wealthy Westerners. Again, a sexual note, the revelation that one has been forced and manipulated into infidelity.

"The Bride of Dewer" is the pinnacle of the sexual horrors here. A newlywed couple's honeymoon is disrupted by a strange, supernatural visitor, and husband reveals that his family's men are always told they can't marry. The menace here is Quinn's best, a pagan demon demanding droit du seigneur with any woman the men of the house marry. It's a harrowing concept, that simply marrying someone opens you up to rape by a supernatural monster...but finally, with some help, the wife's courage saves the day.

"Daughter of the Moonlight" is a lesser tale, and a bit disjointed, almost as if it were two tales merged into one. A young woman of Harrisonville society brings disaster to all around her, and she seems to be a witch of some sort, a born witch. It winds up with a scene reminiscent of Byron's fragment of a vampire tale; Quinn seems to have been very well-read.

It's a fun collection, and the sexual horrors contained within will give you a very different perspective on pulp fiction horrors. Like all the de Grandin stories, this is highly recommended.

THE DEVIL'S BRIDE by Seabury Quinn

Another adventure for occult detective Jules de Grandin!

"The Devil's Bride" is the only full-length novel to feature de Grandin, and is surprising in that it contains almost no supernatural content. Instead, de Grandin fights an evil cult with aims more political and earthly than otherworldly.

Pretty young Alice Hume is celebrating her upcoming marriage, but her happiness is only slightly marred by strange messages coming from a ouija board she and friends are toying with, giving messages saying "ALICE COME HOME." Madcap Alice also plans to marry while wearing a strange family heirloom, "the luck of the Humes," a strange jeweled girdle that was worn by Hume women for generations to marry. Alice shows off the girdle to her friends (including de Grandin and his Watson, Dr. Trowbridge), and recounts a story of an odd man who tried to buy it a few days before. And before the first chapter is over, Alice is kidnapped.

De Grandin reveals that he's seen girdles similar to that before; they're made of human skin and used by "Yezidee" cultists when choosing a woman for human sacrifice. And the strange cultists seem to use an arcane powder that causes paralysis and memory loss to cover their tracks.

And we're off on an adventure with de Grandin and Trowbridge battling cultists, infiltrating ceremonies, rescuing Alice, losing her again, and finally a climax in the jungles of Africa.

It's good, rip-roaring read, but the racial politics and views are sometimes appalling. Quinn depicts his "Yezidees" as a group of evil Satanists, but the real-life Yazidi people are a religious/ethic group related to the Kurds, with unique religious beliefs derived from Zoroastrianism and ancient Mesopotamian mythology, who are monotheistic but honor a "peacock angel" named Melek Taus who can be a bit ambivalent and ambiguous, and this has led to other groups, like Muslim fundamentalists and obtuse modern Christians, to assume the Yazidis are devil worshipers. Yazidis are quickly fleeing their homes in the Middle East and Central Asia for more tolerant refuges in the West; they are targets of present-day menaces like ISIL.

De Grandin also reveals that many of these Satanic schemers are being financed by Russia; obviously, since the commies are atheists, they want to undermine religion worldwide, and de Grandin cannily wonders if Christianity's more extreme elements are also being manipulated by the Reds....which would actually make sense, similar to those who suspect Donald Trump is really a liberal ringer trying to make Republicans look bad and guarantee a Democratic president.

De Grandin (and implicitly Quinn) do seem to equate battling Satanism with defending the American way, which reminds me of a book I read long ago, "Slayer of Souls" by Robert W. Chambers, which featured Secret Service agents who were more concerned with defending Christianity than they were with protecting the United States....or considered them equivalent. An early example of American exceptionalism?

One element of the story was a bit touching, of a woman who works for the cult, but eventually flees them after refusing to participate in an infant sacrifice. She is bumped off by the cult, but her history is later revealed by her brother, a tale of abuse and rejection by an intolerant religious maniac parent driving her to the arms of the Satanic cult. It's a nice bit of balance, with Quinn (through de Grandin) pointing out the destructiveness of Christian fundamentalism.

But, all in all, "The Devil's Bride" is a decent pulp read, despite some troubling political stances and sad ethnic ignorance...which was unfortunately common back in the days it was written. It's got overtones of Sax Rohmer here and there (Fu Manchu's cult honored a white peacock), but also with some unique Quinn flair. If you can find it, it's entertaining, but steel yourself for some outdated viewpoints.

THE CASEBOOK OF JULES DE GRANDIN, by Seabury Quinn

The second de Grandin collection does show some development of Quinn as a writer....some, but not much. He was a pulp writer who had occasional flashes of grace, but at least was never dull, a huge crime in the pulp market. And this book is certainly enjoyable, if not of any real literary stature.

Interestingly, Harrisonville, NJ (the center of de Grandin's universe) doesn't quite serve as a Hellmouth, spewing forth supernatural evil, but it does seem to attract it, as most of the menace here is transplanted. In "Children of Ubasti," a pair of strange immigrants come to Harrisonville, who turn out to be man-eating inhuman creatures, some sort of felinoid creature passing for human, who may have been the inspiration for the ghuls of Middle Eastern lore. It does end with an eyebrow-raising rant from de Grandin about how America is too tolerant of immigrants, which is a bit odd coming from a character who is an immigrant.

"The House of Horror" is a fairly grisly tale of how de Grandin and Dr. Trowbridge stumble on a mansion inhabited by a mad surgeon who enjoys operating on...and mutilating...beautiful women. It has the two facing an interesting ethical conflict, but all is resolved by a too-convenient deus ex machina ending.

"The Silver Countess" has de Grandin squaring off against a vampire who inhabits a medieval statue brought to the country by a collector. "The Corpse-Master" is unsurprisingly a tale of a man using voodoo to raise zombies, in this case to get vengeance on those who slighted him. (Some of these villains seek vengeance for very petty reasons...)

"Ancient Fires" is a rather nice little story that starts off as a haunted house tale, but ends up being a a love story with its origins in a Victorian romance that crossed racial boundaries; despite a pat ending that makes things acceptable to the American reader of the time, it does have a surprisingly progressive view of ethic relations.

"The Serpent Woman" is the least story of the collection, in which a seeming case of a baby kidnapped by a monster has a rather dull, mundane solution. But the last, "The Chapel of Mystic Horror," is the best. A well-off family buys a mansion that was imported stone-for-stone from Cyprus, after the people who brought it over died mysteriously. A house party is stricken with strange events, including an artist who finds herself painting scenes she's not intending to paint. A joking seance leads to even more menace, and an ancient evil that comes from the very stones themselves turns out to be at fault. It's a story with some nifty macabre touches and a reasonable solution.

All told, it's like other Quinn works. It's pulp nonsense, but it's fun pulp nonsense that's still readable today. If you can, seek it out.

THE ADVENTURES OF JULES DE GRANDIN by Seabury Quinn

Seabury Grandin Quinn (1889-1969) was a Washington DC-based lawyer, journalist, and pulp magazine author, who for many years was THE most popular author of the venerable magazine "Weird Tales." He was best known for his series centered on occult detective Jules de Grandin (yes, taken from his own middle name), a French doctor and former soldier who's very obviously based on Hercule Poirot.

The ironic thing is that the de Grandin stories, while STILL being what he's best known for, are actually considered by modern critics of the weird to be his weakest work. Every so often an anthology comes out of his nonseries work, an a "complete" de Grandin collection is available from a small press for quite a high sum. (Someday...) But while some of his other work is held in quite high esteem for pulp work, the de Grandin stories are occasionally plagued with poor characterization (sometimes resorting to stereotypes) and weak plot resolution. I have to admit...these accusations are justified. But even with their flaws, I find them enjoyable.

A few years ago I managed to nab a five-volume set of the de Grandin works that was published by Popular Library in 1976-77, and I'll be reviewing what's in those particular volumes. The stories in this volume were published from 1925 to 1927, and have occasional references to Prohibition and other issues of the day, but also frequently reflect the class snobbery and casual racism common then.

"Terror on the Links" was the introduction to de Grandin and his Watson, Dr. Trowbridge, a family doctor in Harrisonburg, NJ, which serves as Quinn's Sunnydale, a focus of so much supernatural malfeasance that you wonder why anyone lives there. At any rate, there's a murder and an attack on a golf course of the local country club, right after a gala dance. It all ends up as a tale of revenge, mad science, and a gorilla, and while not very logical, and weakly resolved, it is amusingly exotic in a forgotten-old-horror movie way, back in the days when gorillas were a staple of mad-scientist movies.

"The Tenants of Broussac" has Dr. Trowbridge on vacation in France, and surprise! He runs into de Grandin at random. And then they're off to an old castle where the tenants are suffering from an odd malaise. A supernatural beast, the result of a medieval curse, is the culprit, and the resolution is somewhat hasty and verging on deus ex machina, which de Grandin just happening to know exactly what to do and where to get the tools he needs.

"The Isle of Missing Ships" is different for being more of a weird-adventure story rather than horror. Trowbridge and de Grandin are crossing the Pacific on a liner which is seized by pirates in the south seas, and taken to an island ruled by a deranged cannibal pirate chief. This story has its annoyances; Trowbridge is sometimes jaw-droppingly stupid, and Quinn has him being oblivious in situations reeking of danger. But what's fascinating is reading this when you've read Ian Fleming's "Dr. No." Both have a villain who's a half-breed; Quinn's is the son of an upper-crust British missionary and a native girl, and Fleming's is the son of a German missionary and a Chinese girl, and both are motivated by hatred of their fathers. And both have underground dining rooms with vast glass walls that give an undersea vista. Both villains have a pet giant squid. It gives me a strong, strong suspicion that Fleming read this story and included it (and Sax Rohmer's "Island of Fu Manchu") in his inspirations for "Dr. No."

"The Dead Hand" is a short tale about a series of robberies committed by a disembodied phantom hand. While a second act of it seems to be missing, it's got a better resolution than some others. It's flawed by de Grandin just happening to KNOW where to look for the clue he needs, and with a rewrite featuring more detective work it would have been a superior story. (It makes one wonder if such a section existed but was chopped to make the story fit the magazine....) This is also notable for establishing that de Grandin has moved in with Trowbridge and is living full-time in Harrisonburg. No reason is given. Are he and Trowbridge lovers? Did he suddenly decide that New Jersey was better than France? Is he part of a new occult police force in the U.S.? It's up to the reader's imagination.

"The Man Who Cast No Shadow" is a vampire tale, obviously, and a somewhat weak and unfocused one. De Grandin and Trowbridge encounter a mysterious Count Czerny at a party, who has an eerie power over young women. Trowbridge later sees Czerny in Manhattan but looking older. A young man is obviously a victim of a vampire attack, and it seems clear there's another vampire at work. That vampire is taken care of, then the Count's true story is revealed. It's a muddled story, with a secondary vampire at work, seemingly haven been freed by the primary vampire with no other purpose in mind than to cause trouble. The count's final revelation is actually a bit interesting. It's almost as if two separate stories were jammed into one, and it would have been better had they been separated and developed into independent stories.

"The Blood-Flower" is an improvement and Quinn seemed to be developing as a writer. This tale of lycanthropy with hints of incest has decent structure and pacing, and ends with de Grandin resorting to ritual magic to dispel the curse, as well as regular bullets. Yes, the hero mocks the use of silver bullets. "Parbleu, had the good St. George possessed a military rifle of today, he might have slain the dragon without approaching nearer a mile! When I did shoot that wolfman, my friend, I had something more powerful than superstition in my hand. Morbleu, but I did shoot a hole in him large enough for him to have walked through!"

"The Curse of Everard Maundy" is the best-structured story of the collection. A rash of inexplicable suicides strikes Harrisonville and the surrounding area. After actually doing some detective work, it turns out that all victims have attended the revival meetings of a hellfire-and-brimstone preacher named Everard Maundy. They attend a meeting, deal with the resulting experiences, and then are on the track of the cause. It's well-done, with the structure and pace all well put together, and with only one dangling plot thread when it's over...what becomes of Rev. Maundy?

Even with its flaws, I enjoyed this a lot, both on its own and as part of the weird-detective genre. It's out of print but can be found here and there; I bought the set on Ebay.

I'll be reviewing the rest in between other works. Gotta pace myself, y'know.