Happy Halloween 2017!

Hope everyone is having a great Halloween! Be safe, but be crazy! At least a little crazy. Or be as low-key as you want. Just honor the day!

DOWN BY THE OLD BLOODSTREAM, "edited" by Alfred Hitchcock

In the 1960s and '70s, Alfred Hitchcock's name was attached to countless anthologies. I doubt he truly edited them; he worked hand-in-glove with former radio writer Robert Arthur who I suspect is probably responsible. Arthur also wrote a good number of the "Three Investigators" boys' series that featured Hitch as a sort of "M" to a trio of teen sleuths.

Down by the Old Bloodstream, published in 1971, is sadly unremarkable as an anthology. There's no real luminaries among the authors, with two exceptions....one a "Hal Ellison", likely our old friend Harlan, but his story "The Good Thief" is a bore. The other is TV cop Jack Webb, and his story, "A Miracle is Arranged," is slightly better, a tale of attempted insurance fraud undone by a Twilight Zone-ish twist of fate.

Some of them write checks they can't cash. "Kurdistan Payload," for instance, sounds like a tale of international intrigue, but instead it's a noir-ish tale involving a moving company and a valuable Oriental rug. "The Monster Brain" sounds like a pulp horror tale, but the title refers to a computer that's only peripherally involved. In fact, that story is part of the one thing that makes this collection interesting...there are three stories in sequence, "The Still Small Voice," "Haunted Hill," and "The Monster Brain," that function as what I can best term "Hillbilly Noir." All three involve crime and conniving in a backwoods setting, with rustic characters. "The Monster Brain" is an exception as it's narrated by an insurance investigator, but the setting and the remainder of the characters put it in that mini-genre I just invented. It's an interesting view of a time when the world was less connected and it wasn't unusual to drive from a major city for less than a day and be in an area with no telephones or very little electricity.

Aside from that, not much to recommend it, really. Another story, "A Fair Warning to Mystery Writers," is amusing in its depiction of an author who rents a quiet place to do some writing but is constantly hassled by neighbors. Otherwise, this is forgettable stuff.

An October Night at the Cinema!

In October it's nice to take a break from all the Halloween festivities and just relax. We're doing that right now, having a nice time chatting over dinner. It's a blessing to have a chance to breathe and not worry about planning parties and costumes and the like. Next year, we promise, there'll be a more relaxed holiday...

After dinner is over, we head up the street to our favorite old theater. They don't bother to decorate; as the ticket-taker jokes, it's always Halloween there, one way or another, It's true; we've seen so many horror films there that another just seems par for the course.

Tonight's film is a goofy thriller, The 13th Man.



The show over, we depart, making one last joke with the ticket-taker, and then wander up the street for a drink at the usual cafe....

GOLD BY GEMINI by Jonathan Gash

Lovejoy, the antiques-dealing detective, is back in his second mystery!

I had a slight sense that Gash wasn't sure about if a series would take off, so the first, The Judas Pair, may have been intended as a one-off with room for expansion. And, well, it seems to have expanded.

Lovejoy's world is a bit more fleshed out, with more friends, girlfriends, and an apprentice we never heard about the first time. This time around, he comes across a very obviously faked painting, but there's something about it that intrigues him....the faker took great care and could have gotten away with it, except he used a very obvious modern pigment that could be spotted a mile away.

Something's up, and as Lovejoy finds out the identity of the faker, and comes across more items from the same person, he suspects there are clues being laid. But to what? The faker is dead, and his daughters compete for his effects. What's going on?

With the help of his friends, Lovejoy pieces together that the faker had discovered a cache of Roman gold on the Isle of Man. However, there's a very determined villain out for it, willing to kill any man or beast that gets in their way...

As with any Lovejoy mystery, there's lots of good information about the antiques trade, how things are faked, how to spot the genuine, and the tricks of the trade. The story and the mystery are pretty well done.

What didn't I like? There's little sense of continuity with The Judas Pair. Lovejoy's cottage, burned down in the first book, is perfectly fine in this one. (Yes, he could have moved, but there's no mention of a previous house burning down, and both have a hidden chamber in the cellar.) Is this meant to be a prequel? Or was The Judas Pair a rough draft, and this the start of a "real" continuity? Leslie Charteris did the same with The Saint. Also, Lovejoy has a pair of pet budgies in this story, never referred to before.

Still, I enjoyed it, and that's the important thing.

Gold by Gemini is out of print, but is likely available at libraries and may be cheaply purchased at your local friendly used-book emporium.

October at the Phantom Jazz Club

It's about time we got out of the concert halls and did something different! This month we're checking out a club that we've walked by a dozen times before, but never ventured inside. That is being changed, and we're glad for it.

So of course, the band plays something appropriate for the season....



Hope everyone has a magical October! Mine so far....well, it's been a hot damp one here in Baltimore so far, but hopefully that will change before long.

QUIET AS A NUN by Antonia Fraser

I'd read this many, many years ago, and recently I felt an urge to revsiit Fraser's series ,so here we are.

Quiet as a Nun is Antonia Fraser's first mystery; she was already noted for historical biographies so this was something of a departure for her. Her character (and narrator, for this book only) is Jemima Shore, an investigative TV reporter who stumbles into murder and mystery and uses her investigative talents to bring a solution.

In this, Jemima is dealing with a fizzling love affair (with a married MP) and receives word of an old friend's death. Rosabelle Powerstock had been a wealthy heiress, but she had become Sister Miriam at the Convent of the Blessed Eleanor, and had been behaving erratically before she locked herself in a ruined tower and starved to death. Jemima had attended the convent school for a time, and Mother Ancilla, the Reverend Mother, contacts her to come investigate; something is very wrong with Sister Miriam's death, and one of the girls at the school may know something...

For a contemporary setting (published in 1977), it's actually quite Gothic in its atmosphere, with an ancient convent, a ruined tower that may or may not have shielded a scandal in the past, secret passages, disputed wills, and a ghostly nun haunting the convent whose presence presages death. It made for fun reading as a teen, and I enjoyed it again. It's also very visual and dramatic, which made it a natural for a TV adaptation. Britain's ITV adapted it for their "Armchair Thriller" in 1978 and it aired on PBS' "Mystery!" in its 1982-83 season, which was when I saw it.

In fact, the series is still notorious for having what is judged to be one of the most frightening TV moments in British TV history, when Jemima sneaks into the ruined tower and meets the ghostly Black Nun...



It's a tiny bit dated, but still a good fun read, and Fraser handles the Gothic chills well.

There was an entire Jemima Shore series of novels, which I think I'll reread. ITV also aired a 12-episode series, "Jemima Shore Investigates," in 1983 and somewhere I picked up an anthology of stories from the show, so that will be included as well.

Check it out if you happen on it at the library or the used book store; it's good fun.

A September Afternoon at the Cinema!

Taking advantage of a lull in our schedules, we meet for brunch on a sultry September Sunday. Why is it so hot when the first day of autumn has just passed? We lament our busy lives, the state of the world, and the fact that Halloween falls on a Tuesday this year.

Then it's up the street to our favorite movie theater! Thankfully the AC is working, the drinks at the counter are cold, and the ticket-taker is showing us a welcoming smile along with his usual biceps and tattoos.

Today's show is a 1936 thriller, The Mandarin Mystery!



Despite the Yellow Peril inferences of the title, this is actually an adaptation of Ellery Queen's The Chinese Orange Mystery, published just two years earlier. And despite the bait-and-switch, it's actually a good film.

The show over, we bid goodbye to the staff and wander out for a cold drink before going our ways to prepare for the week ahead...