The Problem of the Wire Cage

I read this because Invisible Event is going to discuss it in spoilerrific detail and I’m hoping to join in.  This first paragraph will not be full of spoilers.    I have not enjoyed the two previous Carrs I read.  I found them both rather tedious and completely unbelievable, but this one is different.  I still find the ending pretty improbable, but I was entertained along the way and that makes a big difference.  Young Hugh Rowland is in love with Brenda White who’s engaged to sleazy Frank Dorrance.   Frank catches them kissing and pretends not to mind much and the two exchange threats through a tennis game including the neighbor and sitting out the thunderstorm that follows.  Any of these could have a motive for doing in Frank, who is done in shortly after they separate after the storm.  There’s also the boyfriend of a woman Frank had an affair with lurking about.  The pace is good, the characters are lively.  I found the boyfriend quite amusing when we finally meet him.  I’m not sure there’s a whole lot to discuss with this one, but I will go see and maybe add more to my review below.   I was completely confused by the surface of this tennis court, but have to assume they were like this in the 30s, essentially turning to mud in the rain and then back into a hard surface fairly quickly after.

 

 This is the first of my Follow the Clues books.

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Follow the Clues

Last year I attempted to do Bev’s Follow the Clues challenge and while I didn’t do so well, I still thought I’d like to give it another go.  So, I’m signing on starting with John Dickson Carr’s The Problem of the Wire Cage, which has been reviewed at The Invisible Event chock full of spoilers, so I have to read it in order to read the review, and we shall see where it leads.  I’ll do the Infraction level and hopefully do better than last year!

The Maze

This year is off to a slow start, for sure, but I guess that’s better than no start at all.   I bought The Maze by Philip MacDonald based on thisHighly entertaining review over at The Invisible Event.  That, and the promise of a scrupulously fair play detective story.  MacDonald promises the detective gets no clues the reader does not get, knows nothing the reader doesn’t, it’s all on the up-and-up and just as fair as it can possibly be.  And he lies.

 

I love The Detective Club covers and it starts off well enough with the stumped detective writing to more brilliant colleague while he’s away on vacay and enclosing the transcript of the inquest.  Inspector Gethryn takes the bait and solves the case.   The trial itself is pretty dull for the first half of the book.  Nobody saw anything, no one knows anything until finally we get some contradiction in the evidence.  And it’s all fair and above-board until the solution, although I wonder at the coroner being allowed to ask the witnesses, If the deceased were having an affair with someone in the house, who would it be?   Objection!  Calls for the witness to speculate.   Maybe British law allows this?  It seems unlikely.

So we get to part four and there’s hardly a clue to be found.   No wonder the first one was stumped, there’s almost nothing to go on.   Gethryn calls his clues oddnesses, and I’ll allow the third oddness is a genuine clue, logically deducible, but then, he sends for photographs of all the witnesses, photographs we do not get to see and weaves a story based on these and his oddnesses that is possible, but completely unproven and unprovable.   It could have gone as he says, and of course, it emerges that he’s completely right, but it’s not based on clues.  It’s based on his estimation of the looks of the witnesses and a number of assumptions that because they could be true rules out things they do not rule out.  This is very vague because I don’t want to spoil it, but here’s one spoilery example:   Just because a person sees another person earlier than they said, doesn’t prove they didn’t also see them at the later time.

Why’d they call it The Maze?   It was also called Persons Unknown, which makes sense.  There is no maze, literal or metaphorical.   A maze implies a tangle of confusion, a dark place in which you’ll get lost and be eaten by a minotaur if you’re not careful.   Not a mystery that’s nearly clue-free, probably the least convoluted story I’ve ever read.   I’ll be willing to try more MacDonald, but I hope there’s a bit more plot and a few more clues.

First Half Book of the Year

Yes, it’s the 8th and as of yesterday I finished my first book of the year.   Not exactly a record, especially as I started it the day after Christmas.   I wanted a Christmas read so I bought Mavis Doriel Hay’s The Santa Klaus Murder from 1936.   In many ways a traditional Golden Age Mystery – rich family that doesn’t get along very well comes together to the family manse for Christmas festivities during which the dictatorial patriarch is shot dead.   Fine set up if a bit cliché.    Not very interesting characters.   Rather dry set up.  I knew one part of the method before the murder even took place because several members of the family each write up a day of the visit before the big day.   As dictatorial fathers go he seemed not all that bad.   Christie’s rich families that don’t get along seem more seething with turmoil under the surface.   Yet someone did and how they did was one one of the least satisfying mysteries I’ve read.  I will write up a spoil-filled paragraph below for anyone who wants to know why, but if you might read it I don’t want to be like the reviewer on Amazon who basically gave the game away, though I’m pretty sure I would have guessed anyway.  Even having a floorplan couldn’ save it.  Spoilers after the picture.  You’ve been warned!

 

Spoileriffic part:  So the whole thing hinges on there being two Santa Klaus outfits.  One, worn by Oliver Witcombe is all according to plan and a second one which you learn reading the first few chapters, long before Witcombe says he didn’t come back into the hall with crackers for the children.  The crackers, of course, are to cover the gunshot.  Witcombe, the first Santa, gets his instructions in the study from Sir Osmond.  He then crosses the hall and goes into the back area where he’s supposed to give out presents to the servants.  Cue second Santa, who comes out with the crackers and no one notices it’s a different person.  Children set off crackers, Santa disappears, shoots Sir Osmond, then manages to get out of the Santa suit and rejoin the party with no one being the wiser.  Although I think this is ludicrous, I’ll accept that no one notices second Santa.   What I find difficult to believe is that he has time to do all this: get into his outfit, dispense crackers, shoot Sir Osmond, open the window, leave and get back in his regular clothes, rejoining the party and no one noticing.  But what’s worse is the various red herrings.  He opens the window for no good reason.  Pointing to someone outside, but then other false clues point to Witcombe who really couldn’t have done it.   He is aided by everyone else in the house behaving like idiots, lying about everything, destroying clues.  It also seemed like a number of people did things just so the plot could work properly, in particular, Witcombe having a rather long talk with Carol in Jennifer’s room in between giving presents to the kids and giving presents to the servants while in his Santa costume.   If he hadn’t there’s no way the murderer could have done all he did.   It would have been much easier to sneak around without the costume and figure out some other way to cover up the gun shot.   Should’ve just stabbed the guy.