Eric Portman on BFI Screenonline.

Eric Portman in The
Spider and the Fly
(dir. Robert Hamer)

BFI Screenonline highlights the career of British actor Eric Portman (1903–69), including the Powell and Pressburger film The 49th Parallel (1941), the noir film Daybreak (1948), and his role as a police inspector in The Spider and the Fly (1949).

U-DE bookplates: Houdini et al.

Calimedico Library
bookplate, UC-Berkeley
William Augustus Brewer
Bookplate Collection

Among the approximately 3,000 items in the online William Augustus Brewer Bookplate Collection from University of Delaware Library (which will eventually number 13,000 items), bookplates from the following individuals are represented:

• Calvin Coolidge
• Harry Houdini
• Illustrator Howard Pyle (teacher of N. C. Wyeth)
• Eleanor Roosevelt and FDR
• Theodore Roosevelt

(Hat tip to PhiloBiblos)

Academy Chicago reissues Leo Bruce's Case with 4 Clowns (1939)

Just out from Academy Chicago Publishers is Leo Bruce's Case with 4 Clowns, which features his determined investigator Sergeant Beef. This is the first time this novel has been published in the United States in 70 years; it joins other Sergeant Beef reissues such as Case for Three Detectives.

Leo Bruce was the pseudonym of British poet, playwright, writer, and critic Rupert Croft-Cooke (1903–79), who was prosecuted for homosexuality in the 1950s; he recounts his experiences in The Verdict of You All (1955). His short story and play "Banquo's Chair" were adapted for the film The Fatal Witness (1945) and an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1959).

Watch episodes of Kraft Mystery Theatre.

I've been trawling the online archives of the Museum of Broadcast Communications (available with a free registration) for episodes of the Kraft Mystery Theatre (a series that began as the Kraft Television Theatre and had a name change under producer David Susskind). The Mystery Theatre had two incarnations: one in the 1950s and one in 1961–63.

Robert Lansing in
"Death for Sale,"
Kraft Mystery Theatre

The episodes available for viewing online have an impressive roster of actors and include:

•"Catch Fear by the Throat" (with Bradford Dillman and Steve Forrest; a state government official cannot remember the events of the previous night)

 • "Death for Sale" (with Robert Lansing, based on the book by Henry Kane; a cuckolded husband hires a hitman with unexpected results)

• "Death of a Dream" (with Robert Vaughn, dir. Robert Altman; a wife has an unexpected visitor: her on-the-lam husband)

• "The Fugitive Eye" (with Charlton Heston; a man witnesses a murder)

• "The Man Who Didn't Fly" (with William Shatner; three men take a plane, but only two emerge)

• "Presumption of Innocence" (with Colleen Dewhurst; a lawyer defends a man accused of killing his mentor)

Sadly, "The 87th Precinct" and "Killer's Choice," which are based on the work of Ed McBain/Evan Hunter, are not available for viewing.

And of course, there are all the Kraft recipes during the commercial breaks (e.g., frosted honeydew melon with jellied fruit filling. The "frosting" is cream cheese).

Update (9-6-11): Have been advised by the museum that the online archive is down for probably the next few months. Will update this post when I know more.

Update (11-23-11): Looks like the online archive is back up.

Clues 28.2: Cornell Woolrich, Vera Caspary, Arthur Conan Doyle, James Lee Burke, et al.

Volume 28, no. 2 of Clues: A Journal of Detection has been published, which offers among its highlights:

• Hilary A. Goldsmith on Darwinian echoes in Conan Doyle

• Clare Clarke on Arthur Morrison's Horace Dorrington, criminal-detective

• Christine Photinos on whether Cornell Woolrich can be considered a member of the US hard-boiled school

• Laura Vorachek on Vera Caspary's rewriting of Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret (1862) in Bedelia (1945)

• Patricia Gaitely on the supernatural in James Lee Burke

A particularly interesting article is Lisanne Sauerwald's analysis of Russian absurdist writer Daniil Kharms (1905–42), who was so enamored of Sherlock Holmes that he dressed like an English gentleman and encoded Holmes's Russian name, Kholms, into his pseudonym, Kharms. Sauerwald also notes that Conan Doyle's name appeared on 1920s lists of censored authors in Russia. Some of the passages included in this article have been translated into English for the first time.

For the table of contents with article abstracts, go here. For online access and subscription information, go here. For indices from Clues vols 1 to 28, go here.

Chicago claims first policewoman, 1890s.

"Chicago's beautiful
policewoman, who
handcuffs her prisoners
with a winning smile
and takes them to
lockup on a streetcar."
Washington Times
magazine 22 Apr 1906

The Washington Post reprints a Chicago Tribune piece on Marie Owens, who, if the evidence is substantiated, would be the first policewoman in the United States. Owens began her work in 1891; previous documentation dates women in the police force to 1913.

Chester Himes materials in Yale's Beinecke Library

Raymond St. Jacques,
left, and Godfrey
Cambridge in Cotton
Comes to Harlem

Yale University's Beinecke Library has various materials available online that pertain to Chester Himes:

• Ads for the films Cotton Comes to Harlem (dir. Ossie Davis, 1970) and its sequel, Come Back, Charleston Blue (dir. Mark Warren, 1972)

• Photos of Himes

The first female detectives return.

M. E. Braddon's
Eleanor's Victory (1863),
which features a female
amateur sleuth.

Under the title The First Female Detectives,  the pseudonymous Andrew Forrester Jr.'s The Female Detective (1864) and Revelations of a Lady Detective (aka Experiences of a Lady Detective, 1864, attrib. [controversially] to W. S. Hayward) have been reissued by Scholars' Facsimiles and Reprints. Eastern Illinois University's Dagni Bredesen, who wrote a Clues article about these works, introduces The First Female Detectives.

Forrester's female detective is one Miss Gladden. Regarding Revelations of a Lady Detective, Bredesen notes in her Clues article:

. . .Mrs. Paschal’s “revelations” comprise[] ten stories in which she deals with a variety of crimes and misdemeanors ranging from thefts of gold, jewels, mail, and identity to political conspiracy, murder, and fraud. In solving these mysteries, Mrs. Paschal curbs the excesses of a too-merry widow, an errant spouse, and wayward sons and brothers at the behest of either government officials or family members. Despite her conservative politics and policies, Mrs. Paschal is an exception to the rules she takes it on herself to uphold. (20)

These important works in the history of the mystery genre have not been available in their entirety since the 19th century.  (Hat tip to Judith Flanders)

This is only a test.

This podcast from LA Theatre Works partially deals with the personalities who recorded public service announcements for CONELRAD (the precursor to the Emergency Broadcast System), including Johnny Cash and Boris Karloff. More CONELRAD-related materials are here, including CONELRAD 100: Atomic Film.

About the image: Bert the Turtle from the civil defense film Duck and Cover (dir. Anthony Rizzo, 1951).

Happy 150th birthday, Jane Addams.

Nobel Peace Prize recipient Jane Addams was born today in Cedarville, Illinois, in 1860. A founder of Chicago's famed settlement house Hull-House, she was a major leader in the suffrage and peace movements, instrumental in the 1915 International Congress of Women that eventually resulted in the founding of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Delegates from the congress (including Addams) attempted to bring an early end to World War I, and the congress's platform (presented to President Wilson in August 1915) is unmistakably echoed in Wilson's later Fourteen Points. Various Chicago-area celebrations to mark Addams's birthday are planned for September 8.

About the image: Jane Addams, ca. 1907. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Would you believe ...?: The CIA Museum's Spy-Fi Archives.

The CIA Museum's online Spy-Fi Archives feature objects from spy films and TV programs, such as Napoleon Solo's business card from Man from U.N.C.L.E., Jim West's suit (with secret pockets) from Wild Wild West, Mrs. Peel's leather pants from The Avengers, and Maxwell Smart's famous shoe phone from Get Smart.


About the image: Don Adams's Agent 86 has no problem with a dial tone in Get Smart (1965).

Charles Darwin and H. G. Wells.

The National Library of Medicine's online exhibition on Charles Darwin discusses Darwin's influence on others, including
H. G. Wells and The Time Machine (1895).

Update: A TLS review of Michael Sherborne's new Wells bio appears here.

About the image: Rod Taylor in The Time Machine (dir. George Pal, 1960)

Meet Howard Spiegler, art lawyer.

Voice of America profiles attorney Howard Spiegler, who works to reunite stolen artworks with their rightful owners.
(Hat tip to ARCA blog)

Val McDermid on Radio New Zealand; ABC Book Show.

Val McDermid talks to Kim Hill on Radio New Zealand regarding her new book Trick of the Dark and the attractions of crime fiction for readers. She also was featured on Australia's radio program The Book Show during the Melbourne Writers Festival.

Farewell, Richard Conroy.

Yet another loss in the mystery community: Richard Timothy Conroy died on August 6 from heart disease at the age of 82, according to today's Washington Post obituary. Richard was known for his sly memoirs about his postings in the State Department, Our Man in Belize (1997) and Our Man in Vienna (2000); his three mysteries, The India Exhibition (1992), Mr. Smithson's Bones (1993), and Old Ways in the New World (1994); and the distinctive jewelry he designed for his wife, Washington Post reporter and diehard mystery fan Sarah Booth Conroy. The Conroys were unfailingly interesting, and their DC home, which I once had the privilege of visiting, was a showplace of antiques and Richard's artworks. Be sure to dip into Our Man in Vienna for Richard's fascinating encounter with Virginia Hill, infamous girlfriend of gangster Bugsy Siegel.

RIP, Dorothy Sucher.

Sad to read today's Washington Post obituary for psychotherapist Dorothy Sucher, author of Dead Men Don't Give Seminars (1988) and Dead Men Don't Marry (1989), who died on August 22 at age 77 from thyroid cancer. She was a founder of the Chesapeake chapter of Sisters in Crime and a welcome and warm presence in the early years of Malice Domestic.

New stolen books blog.

PhiloBiblos points out the new blog started by the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America on missing and stolen books.

Rosemary Herbert on the allure of mysteries during the summer.

On the OUP blog, Rosemary Herbert (editor of The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing, in which I wrote the entry on the hotel milieu; also coeditor of the recently released New Omnibus of Crime) discusses why mystery fiction is such an attraction during the summer. One reason, she says, is that "[r]eading a mystery can be a visceral experience."

Tom, Jerry, and Sherlock Holmes.

This week, Warner Home Video releases Tom and Jerry Meet Sherlock Holmes, in which the famed cat and mouse team up with the Great Detective to thwart a jewel thief. You can watch a clip from the episode here.

Happy centenary, Virginia Cowles.

FaberFinds celebrates today's centenary of Vermont-born war correspondent, author, and OBE recipient Virginia Cowles (1910– 83) with the reissue of her memoir Looking for Trouble (1941). In addition to a well-regarded biography of Churchill and other works, she wrote Love Goes to Press: A Comedy in Three Acts with her fellow Spanish Civil War correspondent Martha Gellhorn (the latter the subject of an HBO film in production, with Nicole Kidman and Clive Owen cast as Gellhorn and Hemingway respectively). Cowles's daughter is the former conservative parliamentary candidate Harriet Crawley.

BBC Archive: Daphne du Maurier, John le Carre, Len Deighton, et al.

The latest BBC Archive features footage with authors. A few highlights:

• Interview with Daphne du Maurier (1971).

• The lonely world of John le Carre (1966).

• Melvyn Bragg interviews Len Deighton (1977).

• Somerset Maugham discusses his selections of the 10 greatest novels (1954)

About the image: Portrait of Somerset Maugham. NYPL.

Arsenic in the soup.

Murder by Gaslight discusses James D. Livingston's Arsenic and Clam Chowder: Murder in Gilded Age New York, just published by State University of New York Press. The book looks at the case of Mary Alice Livingston Fleming, a relative of Declaration of Independence signer Philip Livingston, who was tried for murdering her wealthy mother, Evelina Bliss, in 1895.
About the image: Illustration of Mary Livingston Fleming, The Sun,  September 5, 1895, p. 3.

Buchan redux.

Happy to see that John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps, first published in 1915, hit the NPR Top 100 "Killer Thrillers" list at no. 51. Some books never go out of style, thankfully.

And Kate Macdonald's John Buchan: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction (edited by me) racked up another laudatory review, this time in ELT [English Literature in Transition, 1880–1920]:  "Macdonald has produced a first-class work of scholarship and a first-class popular guide to the fiction of a remarkable writer..."  But ever since the super-selective Jon L. Breen called it "a very impressive book,"  I've been feeling pretty chuffed.

Happy 90th birthday, 19th Amendment.

Today in 1920, after the mother of Tennessee legislator Harry Burn told him to "be a good boy and vote for suffrage," Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment to the Constitution and thus gave US women the right to vote.

To watch "Sufferin' till Suffrage" from Schoolhouse Rock, go here.

About the image: Suffrage leaders Carrie Chapman Catt, right, and Mary Garrett Hay, center, vote in their first election in New York.  Evening Public Ledger, Philadelphia, November 4, 1920.

Vote for your favorite mystery author.

The Library of Congress is asking readers to vote for their favorite authors who have attended the National Book Festival in its 10-year history.  Mystery author possibilities include Nevada Barr, Louis Bayard, Laura Lippman, Walter Mosley, and Scott Turow. Diana Gabaldon currently leads in the voting.

This year's festival is scheduled for September 25.

Geoffrey Household this week on BBC Radio 7.

This week on BBC Radio 7, an Englishman takes a potshot at an unnamed dictator (read Hitler) and goes on the run in Geoffrey Household's classic Rogue Male (1939, now back in print from NYRB Classics). Go here for the schedule or to listen; episodes can usually be heard for a week after broadcast.

About the image: Peter O'Toole in Rogue Male (dir. Clive Donner, 1976)

The Ladykillers: Coming up on BBC Radio 7.

An adaptation of the famous Alec Guinness comedy The Ladykillers, in which some eccentric characters masquerading as musicians plan a bank heist, is featured tomorrow on BBC Radio 7 and stars Edward Petherbridge. Go here for the schedule or to listen; episodes can usually be heard for a week after broadcast.

About the image: Alec Guinness in The Ladykillers (dir. Alexander Mackendrick, 1955)

New edition, Georges Simenon's Pedigree.

New York Review of Books Classics has just reissued Pedigree by Georges Simenon, a book based on his childhood in Liège, Belgium, that weighs in at more than 500 pages. Appreciations of Pedigree can be found here and here.

Product of the day: Police line shower curtain.

The police line shower curtain from Kikkerland.

Our Congress at work: Comic books and juvenile delinquency.

The Center for Legislative Archives (part of the National Archives) offers online some covers of comic books that apparently were part of the proceedings of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency in spring 1954.

About the image: Terrors of the Jungle, Sept. 1954, Star Publications.  Center for Legislative Archives, National Archives

Peripatetic remains.

On WSKG's Off the Page, Cornell University emeritus professor Michael Kammen discusses his book Digging Up the Dead: A History of Notable American Reburials, including the fairly well-known cases of John Paul Jones and Edgar Allan Poe, but also mentioning an attempt to steal Abraham Lincoln's remains.

Justice Crater: Disappeared today in 1930.

On August 6, 1930, New York Supreme Court justice Joseph Crater left a Times Square-area restaurant and was never seen again. On its blog, Overlook Press discusses Peter Quinn's new novel The Man Who Never Returned, which sets PI Fintan Dunne on the trail of Crater. This Web page features several stories by the New York Times regarding Crater's disappearance; the film The Judge Steps Out (1949; dir. Boris Ingster) and the CSI: New York episode "The Cost of Living" are both drawn from the case. Crater was declared dead in 1939.

About the image: Gary Sinise in "The Cost of Living," CSI: New York,  2008.

Anthony Horowitz on All Things Considered.

Foyle's War creator Anthony Horowitz talks to All Things Considered about his Alex Rider series and also writes about his recommended thriller: Goldfinger by Ian Fleming.

About the image: More Bloody Horowitz, by Anthony Horowitz, due out in September 2010 (note the portrait of the author in the background).

Radio New Zealand talks to the Kinkster.

Radio New Zealand chats with author, musician, and Texas gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman, who talks about some projects he is doing with Billy Bob Thornton, among other topics. Friedman is currently on tour in California.

On the trail of Sam Spade.

Staff members of the San Francisco Public Library go on the trail of Sam Spade in San Francisco.

P. D. James, John Meade Falkner this week on BBC Radio 7.

This week BBC Radio 7 airs John Meade Falkner's ghostly tale of possession, The Lost Stradivarius (1895), along with various P. D. James works (An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, A Taste for Death). Go here for the schedule or to listen; episodes can usually be heard for a week after broadcast

Happy birthday, Blanche Knopf.

Blanche Knopf, who cofounded the publishing firm named for her husband Alfred in 1915 and worked with writers such as Dashiell Hammett and James M. Cain, was born today in New York City in 1894. John Thornton, who is working on a biography of the Knopfs at UT-Austin, discusses his work here.

Philip K. Dick, neo-Nazis, and the FBI.

The blog Letters of Note features letters from science fiction author Philip K. Dick to the FBI regarding individuals approaching him to place coded messages in his books.

San Francisco mysteries.

The San Francisco History Center has guest edited the July/August issue of the NextReads San Francisco newsletter, listing mysteries set in the city by the bay. (Hat tip to What's on the 6th Floor, which promises future posts on mystery-related topics)

About the image: Scene from Vertigo (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)

An American Writers Museum?

BookTV talks to Malcolm O'Hagan, president of the proposed American Writers Museum that would honor the literary heritage of the United States (let's hope genre fiction authors would be equally recognized).

Bulldog Drummond this week on BBC Radio 7.

Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond, Sapper's adventurous ex-World War I captain, is featured this week on BBC Radio 7, read by Julian Rhind-Tutt (The Heat of the Sun, etc.). Go here for the schedule or to listen; episodes can usually be heard for a week after broadcast.

Rue Nicaise, 1800: The first modern police investigation?

On the Wonders and Marvels blog, Catherine Delors discusses the Rue Nicaise bombing of 1800 that attempted to end the life of Napoleon, stating that it is "considered the first modern police investigation." The case is the basis for Delors's new novel For the King.

About the image: Napoleon at Fontainebleu, ca. 1814. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

"Buchan and Modernity."

On the Great War blog, George Simmers reports on the "Buchan and the Idea of Modernity" conference held at University of London on July 10, which included discussions of the Richard Hannay novels Mr. Standfast (1919) and The Three Hostages (1924) and Buchan as a Scottish writer.  (Go here to see the conference program)

About the image: John Buchan, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Ian Fleming continues to sell well at auction.

The recent healthy prices for the works of Ian Fleming continued at the Sotheby's July 15th English literature auction when a copy of Diamonds Are Forever (1956) went for £1,875 (approximately $2,870).

Other items of interest:
• Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (1953): £4,000 (approximately $6,123)

• Deck plan of first-class accommodations on the RMS Titanic: £13,750 (approximately $21,050)

The celebrated, signed Beeton's Christmas Annual copy of A Study in Scarlet (1887) by Arthur Conan Doyle—estimated between £250,000 and £400,000 (approximately $383,000 to $612,000)—failed to sell.

(Hat tip to PhiloBiblos)

Noel Coward turns detective this week on BBC Radio 7.

Mad dogs and Englishman detect ... Actor-director-playwright-composer Noel Coward adds investigator to his long resume in Marcy Kahan's Design for Murder this week on BBC Radio 7. Go here for the schedule or to listen; episodes can usually be heard for a week after broadcast.

About the image: Noel Coward in Our Man in Havana (dir. Carol Reed, 1959)

Happy birthday, Joseph Hansen.

Joseph Hansen, creator of groundbreaking gay investigator Dave Brandstetter, was born today in Aberdeen, South Dakota, in 1923. He was nominated for Edgars for "The Anderson Boy" and "McIntyre's Donald," for a Shamus for Gravedigger (1982), and for a Shamus for "Merely Players." He also received the lifetime achievement award from the Private Eye Writers of America and Lambda Literary Awards for A Country of Old Men (1991) and Living Upstairs (1993). Four of his poems were set to music in a piece called Vocalese by composer Richard Rodney Bennett, best known for his scores for Murder on the Orient Express and Four Weddings and a Funeral. Hansen died in 2004.

"almost all the folksay about homosexuality is false. So I had some fun turning cliches and stereotypes on their heads."—Joseph Hansen, qtd. in Contemporary Authors.

The near-detonation of Doctor Doolittle.

Joseph Pugh of the UK's National Archives discusses entertaining aspects of the archives' records relating to film, including an attempt by explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes (a cousin of Ralph) to blow up the set of Doctor Doolittle.

About the image: Rex Harrison, apparently not a favorite of Sir Ranulph Fiennes. Doctor Doolittle, dir. Richard Fleischer, 1967.

Some of the Strand's rare mystery offerings.

Some of the Strand Bookstore's rare mystery-related offerings:

• Edward Gorey, 1st ed., Beastly Baby (1962): $750.

• Mickey Spillane, 1st ed., I, the Jury (1947):  $650.

• Rex Stout, limited ed., Corsage: A Bouquet of Rex Stout and Nero Wolfe (1977, includes article "Why Nero Wolfe Likes Orchids" by "Archie Goodwin" and last interview with Stout): $350.

• Black Mask "forgotten man" Raoul Whitfield, 1st ed., Silver Wings (1930):  $1100.

Graphic arts picks from the Seminary Co-op.

Staff from Chicago's Seminary Co-op Bookstore pick their favorite graphic works (listed here and here), such as Strange Suspense: The Steve Ditko Archives (vol. 1), The Cartoon Introduction to Economics (if only this had been published before I suffered through my micro-macro econ course),  and Donald Westlake's and Darwyn Cooke's Parker: The Hunter. My favorite is Action Philosophers ("Plato! Wrestling Superstar of Ancient Greece!").
(Thanks to UChiBLOGo)

Gorey book reissued.

Today New York Review of Books Classics reissues Three Ladies by the Sea, a collaboration between Edward Gorey and Rhoda Levine that has been out of print since the 1970s. As Goreyana notes, the book is dedicated to Emma Watson (daughter of Julie Andrews) and composer Sandy Wilson (best known for The Boy Friend). NYRB Classics offers a preview of Gorey's drawings for the book here.

Brother Cadfael this week on BBC Radio 7.

Ellis Peters's ex-soldier monk is featured this week on BBC Radio 7, in Light on the Road to Woodstock (drawn from Peters's A Rare Benedictine, 1988, which focuses on what led Brother Cadfael to join the Benedictines). Go here for the schedule or to listen; episodes can usually be heard for a week after broadcast.

Philadelphia bad boy gets his own literary society.

The crusading George Lippard (1822–54), a friend of Edgar Allan Poe and a member of the Philadelphia Gothic school with works such as the best-selling The Quaker City; or, the Monks of Monk Hall (1844), now has his own literary society, thanks to Edward Pettit. (Hat tip to PhiloBiblos. About the image: Author-journalist George Lippard, ca. 1850. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.)

Not much mystery action at June 23rd Bloomsbury auction.

The June 23rd Bloomsbury auction that received press for the lack of interest in some of the Steinbeck items also displayed tepid attention to the mystery-related offerings:

• James Grady signed works, including books from the Condor series (Six Days of the Condor, etc.): Unsold.

• M. R. James, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary: Unsold.

• Ross Macdonald, The Far Side of the Dollar, $300 (valued bet. $1000 and $1500); Sleeping Beauty, $150 (valued bet. $500 and $700) ; proof of The Instant Enemy, with "Boucher" written and circled in red pencil (probably critic-writer Anthony Boucher), $150; Self-Portrait, signed by Macdonald and Eudora Welty, $150.

• Horace McCoy, They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Copy owned by John Dos Passos, valued bet. $1200 and $1800: Unsold.

• Mary Roberts Rinehart, signed card: Unsold.

There was also a completely delightful inscribed copy of Christopher Morley's I Know a Secret for Dorothy Parker, in which Morley drew pixies (valued bet. $1200–1800, unsold).

TLS: Judith Flanders on authors of the first female detectives.

In the June 18 Times Literary Supplement, British novelist and journalist Judith Flanders discusses the first known female fictional detectives, particularly those pertaining to Experiences of a Lady Detective (aka Revelations of a Lady Detective, 1884; attributed to W. S. Hayward, but there is controversy about that); accounts based on the Constance Kent case (most recently the subject of Kate Summerscale's The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher); and a convincing unmasking of the pseudonymous Andrew Forrester Jr. (The Female Detective, ca. 1863). Unfortunately, Flanders's piece only appears to be available in the TLS print edition. Clues 25.1 (2006) and 26.3 (2008) featured articles that discussed Victorian female sleuths; the author of one, Dagni Bredesen of Eastern Illinois University, is working on scholarly editions of The Female Detective and Revelations of a Lady Detective.

Also of interest in the June 18th TLS: Michael Dirda's recollections as an assistant editor of the Washington Post Book World: "Elmore Leonard confessed that he was tired of being asked to review gritty crime novels, so I talked him into writing about the latest Anita Brookner" (16). Readers might also peruse Jonathan Barnes's June 23rd discussion (available online) of Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Creeping Man" (1923), in the context of a review for the 56-volume The Complete Works of Arthur Conan Doyle (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009).

Update: Bredesen's scholarly edition of The Female Detective and Revelations of a Lady Detective has been published under the title The First Female Detectives.

About the image: The Mutiny of the Thunder (1878) by W. S. Hayward, one of the authors discussed in Judith Flanders's June 18th TLS article.

Pamela Branch this week on BBC Radio 7.

On BBC Radio 7 this week, ex-Dr. Who David Tennant reads Pamela Branch's The Wooden Overcoat (1951, rpt. Rue Morgue P, 2006)—where inconvenient bodies litter the Asterisk Club, a home for wrongfully acquitted murderers. Go here for the schedule or to listen; episodes can usually be heard for a week after broadcast.

Hildegarde Withers returns.

Welcome reissues from Rue Morgue Press include The Puzzle of the Silver Persian (1934) by Stuart Palmer, in which Hildegarde Withers, the intrepid schoolteacher-sleuth, encounters murder on a passenger ship. Also out:  The Yellow Violet (1942) by Frances Crane and Corpse Diplomatique (1950) by Delano Ames, not to mention the sorely needed reissues of the works of Manning Coles, such as Drink to Yesterday (1940).

About the image: Edna May Oliver, who played Hildegarde Withers in three films, NYPL.

Philip MacDonald and Patrol; John Buchan and D. H. Lawrence.

On the Great War blog, George Simmers discusses Philip MacDonald's novel Patrol (1927; films 1929, 1934). The talented MacDonald is probably best known for The List of Adrian Messenger (1959, film 1963) and Warrant for X (aka The Nursemaid Who Disappeared, adapted as the film Twenty-Three Paces to Baker Street [dir Henry Hathaway, 1956]).

Simmers follows up this post with speculation on the identity of a character in John Buchan's Richard Hannay novel Mr. Standfast (1919): Could it be a thinly disguised D. H. Lawrence?

About the image: Victor McLaglen in The Lost Patrol (adapted from Philip MacDonald's Patrol, dir. John Ford, 1934)