Espionage Target—You (1964).

Pete Duel in
Espionage Target—You

Wondering what to do if approached by communist agents? You can find out in this 1964 Defense Department film featuring Pete Duel (Alias Smith and Jones).

Conan Doyle speaks on Holmes and spiritualism.

Arthur Conan Doyle, from
Harper's Weekly, ca. 1893. NYPL

To mark Arthur Conan Doyle's 156th birthday today, listen to him talking about his inspirations for Sherlock Holmes (including Edgar Allan Poe and Dr. Joseph Bell) and his views on spiritualism. Sound files dated 14 May 1930 at the Centre for History and Analysis of Recorded Music, King's College London.

View the label from the original recording.

"The day a man's mind shuts is the day of his mental death."
• Conan Doyle, Part 1 (3.50 min)
• Conan Doyle, Part 2 (3.50 min)

Secret Mission (1942).

Michael Wilding
in Secret Mission

In Secret Mission, British and French agents seek information on German forces in France as they prepare for an Allied invasion. Hugh Williams, James Mason, Michael Wilding, and Herbert Lom star. The story is by Shaun Young, better known as director Terence Young (Dr No, Triple Cross, Wait Until Dark, The Valachi Papers).

Clues 33.1: Westlake, Leonard, Reichs, et al.

Clues 33.1 has been published; see below for abstracts. Contact McFarland for issue orders and subscriptions.

Update. The issue is now available on Nook and Kindle.

Introduction  JANICE M. ALLAN
Now You See Her—Now You Don’t: 
Household Spies in Aurora Floyd and Lady Audley’s Secret RACHEL SMILLIE (U Aberdeen) In Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s novels the female domestic servant enjoys a uniquely privileged position; she is granted admittance to the most intimate spaces of the home and given unfettered access to the family’s secrets. By focusing on the role of the female servant as household spy, this essay explores the control these women are able to exercise over their respective narratives.

“Something in a New Key”: Democratizing Poe’s Ratiocination in Psych and Elementary PATRICK KENT RUSSELL (U-Conn) Psych (2006–14) and Elementary (2013–) take steps to democratize Edgar Allan Poe’s ratiocination. Early seasons of Psych take a greater step by providing viewing audiences access to clues and lessons in what to observe. Seasons 1 and 2 of Elementary also show lessons, but as character development, rather than to redistribute necessary knowledge.

Far from Home and Near to Harm: Mazes, Rhizomes, and Illusory Domestic Spaces in Richard Stark’s Parker Novels GREGORY ALAN PHIPPS  This article considers the construction of Richard Stark’s Parker novels in relation to the symbolic models of the maze and the rhizome. These function in the Parker novels as frameworks that capture the structural forms of various spaces, social encounters, and modes of subjectivity.

Scarlet Fever: Communism, Crime, and Contagion in James Ellroy’s The Big Nowhere JOSHUA MEYER
 (U of Western Sydney) Throughout James Ellroy’s The Big Nowhere, the threat of communism and the institutional anxiety it engenders is played out through a series of symbolic associations among communism, crime, and contagion. Ellroy’s figuration of communism as a form of criminal contagion takes up underlying tensions involved with the discourse of typology that runs through the detective genre.

London Belongs to Me (aka Dulcimer Street, 1948).

Sketch by H. R. [Roy] Oxley for London Belongs to Me

Encountering gamblers and murder in London Belongs to Me are eccentric boarding house residents (such as car thief Richard Attenborough and dubious clairvoyant Alistair Sim). The film was adapted from the novel by Norman Collins (Dick Barton: Special Agent) and directed by Sidney Gilliat (well known for his screenplays for The Lady Vanishes and Green for Danger).

French exhibition on a forensic pioneer.

Class studying the Bertillon identification method, ca. 1910–15
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Div.

At the Musée de Vire in Normandy, France, until November is the exhibition "Alphonse Bertillon et L'Identification de Personnes 1880-1914" (Alphonse Bertillon and the Identification of Persons 1880-1914). The accomplishments of Bertillon (1853-1914) pertaining to the investigation of crime include devising a physical description system, inventing the mug shot, and developing an approach to crime scene photography, but his role in the Dreyfus case marred his career. Some items from the exhibition can be viewed on the museum's blog. (Thanks to the International Crime Fiction Group based at Queen's University Belfast)

"James Ellroy: VIsions of Noir" conference.

James Ellroy
Photo by Marion Ettlinger

Scheduled for early July at the University of Liverpool, the conference "James Ellroy: Visions of Noir" plans to focus on "Ellroy’s influence on the genre, his inspirations as a writer and his achievements in forging an idiosyncratic and unique style." One of the organizers is Steven Powell (ed., Conversations with James Ellroy). 

All through the Night (1941).

In All through the Night, gamblers take on Nazi saboteurs. The film stars Humphrey Bogart, Conrad Veidt, Judith Anderson, Peter Lorre, Jane Darwell, Jackie Gleason, and Phil Silvers. The film is not one of those selected for October's Humphrey Bogart Film Festival (to be held, appropriately enough, in Key Largo), although there are plenty of other goodies offered, such as In a Lonely Place.

Van Dover receives 2015 Dove Award.

The latest recipient of the George N. Dove Award for contributions to the serious study of mystery, detective, and crime fiction is J. K. Van Dover (Lincoln University, PA), author of books such as The Judge Dee Novels of R. H. van Gulik: The Case of the Chinese Detective and the American Reader; Making the Detective Story American: Biggers, Van Dine, and Hammett and the Turning Point of the Genre, 1925-1930; and Centurions, Knights, and Other Cops: The Police Novels of Joseph Wambaugh. He also has edited works such as The Critical Response to Raymond Chandler. The award is presented by the Detective/Mystery Caucus of the Popular Culture Association; the chair of the Dove Award Committee is Rachel Schaffer (Montana State University Billings). Past Dove recipients include Frankie Y. Bailey (University at Albany, SUNY), Douglas G. Greene, P. D. James, H. R. F. Keating, Maureen Reddy (Rhode Island College), and yours truly.

Coming soon: Foxwell anthology on American women in WWI.

Anna Perit Rochester (later Kennedy) feeds
Sergeant W. B. Hyer, Company M, 166th Infantry,
42nd Div, American Red Cross
Souilly Evac Hospital No. 6 and No. 7
Souilly, Meuse, France, Oct. 14, 1918
Cover design by Karen Jackson

I've posted some preliminary information on my anthology In Their Own Words: American Women in World War I, which is due out from Oconee Spirit Press in September. This collection of first-person accounts with biographical information and photos attempts to shine a light on the neglected service of American women in the war. I hope to establish a separate blog in connection with the book to talk about some women who require more research or did not provide their own record of their experiences.

The Hitch-Hiker (dir. Ida Lupino, 1953).

In this film cowritten and directed by the enormously talented Ida Lupino, two men discover that they may be in serious trouble because of the unstable hitchhiker riding with them. The film stars Edmond O'Brien, Frank Lovejoy, and Perry Mason's William Talman.

Two O'Clock Courage (1945).

In Two O'Clock Courage, the passenger in Ann Rutherford's cab claims to have no memory of his identity, but she soon finds that he may be involved in murder. Tom Conway and Jane Greer co-star. The film is based on the novel by Gelett Burgess, poet of "Purple Cow" fame and coiner of the term blurb.

Coming in Dec: "Agatha Christie and Archaeology" exhibition.

Agatha Christie's
archaeological memoir
Come, Tell Me How You Live
(Morrow)

Starting December 9, Pointe-à-Callière, the Montreal Museum of Archaeology and History, will host the exhibition "Agatha Christie and Archaeology." It will feature the role of Christie on the expeditions of her second husband, Max Mallowan; the place of archaeology in Christie works such as Murder in Mesopotamia and Appointment with Death; and artifacts from Mallowan's digs.

BBC Radio 4: "The Buchan Tradition."

In "The Buchan Tradition," BBC Radio 4 talks to two writer grandchildren of John Buchan--James and Ursula Buchan--as well as Buchan companion author Kate Macdonald to discuss works such as The Thirty-Nine Steps, Greenmantle, and Mr. Standfast; Buchan heroes Richard Hannay and Edward Leithen; and the style of storytelling established by Buchan that can be seen in works by later authors such as Geoffrey Household (Rogue Male). The program includes a clip of Buchan speaking.

Murder Is News (UK, 1937; US, 1939).

Reporter Jerry Tracy (John Gallaudet) does a story on a businessman's affairs and divorce, only to find himself in danger when the businessman is murdered. The story is by Theodore Tinsley, one of the writers who used the pseudonym Maxwell Grant in The Shadow pulp magazines. Fans of the 1950s TV series The Adventures of Superman will spot John Hamilton ("Perry White") in the cast.

 

Amelia B. Edwards, collector.

Amelia B. Edwards, NYPL

The Museum and Collections blog of University College London discusses the collecting habits of Amelia B. Edwards (1831–92)—author, explorer, cofounder of the Egypt Exploration Fund that supported the expeditions of William Flinders Petrie, and model for Elizabeth Peters's Amelia Peabody Emerson. The photos include one of her study (complete with chandelier). Also mentioned is that English Heritage has placed one of its blue plaques on Edwards's former residence in Clerkenwell.

Remembering Stan Freberg (1926-2015).

Best known for "St. George and the Dragonet," comic and advertising master Stan Freberg died on April 7 in Santa Monica at age 88. Listen to his "Sam Splayed, Detective."

The National Radio Hall of Fame offers more audio goodies:
• Freberg, "Abe Snake for President" (1952)
• Freberg, Induction Speech into the National Radio Hall of Fame

Update. Pacifica Radio Archives' From the Vault pays tribute to Freberg with excerpts from The Stan Freberg Show of 1957, "Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America: The Early Years," and a 1999 interview with Freberg.

Zangwill's The Big Bow Mystery (1891), the press, and Scotland Yard.

Israel Zangwill, NYPL

Published in the spring 2015 Victorian Periodicals Review is Clare Clarke's "Something for the 'Silly Season': Policing and the Press in Israel Zangwill's The Big Bow Mystery." In this article, Clarke (Trinity College Dublin) focuses on Zangwill's critique of crime reportage and Scotland Yard in the locked-room Big Bow Mystery, a novel that she believes has been neglected despite its wild popularity when it was first serialized and its place on the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone List of essential mysteries. Zangwill (1864–1926) is best known as a poet and playwright, his works The Melting Pot and Children of the Ghetto, and his commentary on Zionist matters.

Clarke's article continues her interest in somewhat shady fictional detectives of the Victorian era, as she previously wrote for Clues on Arthur Morrison's criminal-detective Horace Dorrington. Her recent book is Late Victorian Crime Fiction in the Shadows of Sherlock.

Mystery in Swing (1940).

In this film with a somewhat stiff all-black cast and a lot of music, a philandering trumpet player is killed in Harlem, and a reporter finds a plethora of suspects. Thomas Cripps, a former professor of music at Morgan State University, is not fond of the film.

What records do you want to see?

Autobiography of John Paton
Davies Jr, U Penn P

The public can comment on the National Archives' plans for declassifying government documents before the April 10 forum of the National Declassification Center. The Master Backlog Index deals extensively with records pertaining to the armed services; the following are just a few of the files listed in the 280-page index:

• Translations of intercepted enemy radio traffic and miscellaneous World War II documentation, Navy, 1940–46 

• Loyalty security files relating to China expert and Medal of Freedom recipient John Paton Davies Jr., State Dept, 1942–56

• War diaries, Naval History and Heritage Command, 1946–53

• Individual defector case files, State Dept, 1949–63

• Files of Salk vaccine, State Dept, 1955–59 

• Criminal investigative records related to the seizure of the USS Pueblo and its aftermath, Navy

• Classified material related to United States of America
  v. John D. Erlichman et al, Justice Dept, 1974

The Mystery of the Leaping Fish (1916).

Douglas Fairbanks in The Mystery 
of the Leaping Fish (1916)

In this Sherlock Holmes parody, Douglas Fairbanks as "the world's greatest scientific detective, Coke Ennyday," seeks to uncover the mysterious source of a man's wealth. The treatment of drug addiction and Asians may raise a few contemporary eyebrows, but the resourceful heroine and the hapless police will be familiar tropes to mystery fans.

"Sorry, Wrong Number" added to LOC registry.

Lucille Fletcher's radio play "Sorry, Wrong Number" has been added to the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry. This 1943 episode of Suspense stars Agnes Moorehead as an invalid who overhears something she shouldn't on the telephone line.

Crossroads (1942).

There's more amnesia in store in Crossroads, as diplomat William Powell is blackmailed for crimes that occurred before he lost his memory. Hedy Lamarr, Claire Trevor, and Basil Rathbone co-star.

F. L. Green's Odd Man Out (1945) returns.

Valancourt Books has reprinted F.L. Green's noir novel Odd Man Out (1945). The 1947 film adaptation was directed by Carol Reed, featuring a screenplay by R.C. Sherriff (Journey's End) and James Mason as a wounded IRA gunman on the run.

A Wisconsin legal pioneer.

Juvenile bio of
Lavinia Goodell,
U of Wisconsin P

The radio program University of the Air discusses the case of Rhoda Lavinia Goodell, the first female lawyer in Wisconsin, and the new play based on her struggles to practice law that is on stage in Madison this month, Janesville on March 29, Wausau on April 11, and Superior on May 17.

"We know of no woman who has done so much to make woman respected as a legal practitioner"
—"A Female Lawyer's Career" [obit. for Lavinia Goodell], Woman's Journal, repr. The [Huntington, NY] Long-Islander, 15 Apr 1880: 3

Conan Doyle, Hammett items go at auction.

Yesterday's fine books and manuscripts auction at Bonham's offered the following mystery-related  items:

• 30 letters from Arthur Conan Doyle that pertain to the George Edalji case; related materials have revealed the fabrication of evidence and an attempt to blacken the author's reputation. The letters were valued at $30,000–60,000 and were sold for $20,453.

• Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894), along with an inscribed Conan Doyle visiting card and a letter from publisher George Newnes to the winner of a Sherlock Holmes competition, $1648

• The Works, Crowborough ed. (1930), signed by Conan Doyle, $8790

• Set of first-edition Dashiell Hammett novels, $6592

Somewhere in the Night (1946).

In Somewhere in the Night (with a screenplay cowritten by Joseph Mankiewicz) amnesiac WWII veteran John Hodiak fears that he may have committed murder.

Conference "Lippincott's Legacy" (May 2015).

(Photos: Arthur Conan Doyle, left, and Oscar Wilde, NYPL)

The Omaha conference "Lippincott's Legacy" on May 29–30 will celebrate the 125th anniversary of the publication of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Sign of Four and Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. Scheduled papers include:

• "Irene Adler, the Atypical Criminal" (Kelly Wieczorek and Tanushree Ghosh, U Nebraska)
• "Robert Koch, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the Quest to Cure Tuberculosis" (Thomas Goetz)
• "Doyle's The Sign of Four and Victorian Sensation Fiction" (Valerie Kolbinger, U South Dakota)
• "Sherlock Holmes, Entrepreneur" (Robert Bernier, U Nebraska)
• "The Sherlock Holmes Stories in American Newspapers" (Charles Johanningsmeier, U Nebraska)
• "Playing the Game and the Great Game" (Thomas E. Gouttierre, U Nebraska)

Routine Job (1946).

This film from Merlin Films shows investigators from New Scotland Yard on the trail of some stolen tea.

Further light on Midnight Express.

Brad Davis, NYPL

Just added to Harvard's Houghton Library collections are memorabilia and letters from Billy Hayes, coauthor of Midnight Express. Alan Parker's 1978 film earned Oscars for Oliver Stone (for screenplay) and Giorgio Moroder (for score). The late Brad Davis played Hayes, a convicted drug smuggler who escaped from a Turkish prison. Some Hayes letters appear in The Midnight Express Letters: From a Turkish Prison 1970–1975.

Remembering Leonard Nimoy: "The Project Strigass Affair" (with William Shatner, 1964).

Leonard Nimoy passed away at age 83 on February 27. Prior to Star Trek, Nimoy and William Shatner appeared together in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. episode "The Project Strigass Affair."

"Intl Exhibition of Sherlock Holmes," Dallas.

This blog post from the Dallas Morning News discusses the "International Exhibition of Sherlock Holmes" at the Dallas Perot Museum of Nature and Science, including footage that shows items from the exhibition. The post mentions that Arthur Conan Doyle biographer Daniel Stashower wrote the plot for the case solved by visitors. The exhibition is on view until May 10, 2015.

CFP for Craig Johnson/Longmire collection.

Clues Editorial Board members Rachel Schaffer (MSU Billings) and John Scaggs (Southwestern College [KS] and author, Crime Fiction) are coediting the McFarland essay collection Wanted, Read or Alive on Craig Johnson's novels with Wyoming sheriff Walt Longmire and the Longmire TV series. Submission deadline is June 1, 2015. Read further details about the Call for Papers.

The Master Key (1945).

Nazis, G-Men, and "laboratories of diabolic science." Hot diggity.

Ursula Le Guin on Lovecraft.

I really enjoy the Times Literary Supplement's "Then and Now" feature. One of the recent ones is Ursula Le Guin's 1976 review of Lyon Sprague de Camp's Lovecraft: "Lovecraft dangles like a rabbit from the jaws of his unconscious."

Of related interest: Brown Daily Herald on the real-life setting for Lovecraft's The Shunned House.

"The Machine Calls It Murder" (May 1960).

Long before sophisticated number crunching, this Sunday Mystery Hour episode produced by Himan Brown (CBS Radio Mystery Theatre), directed by Marc Daniels (Star Trek), and hosted by Walter Slezak featured a mild-mannered insurance analyst who sees a disturbing pattern in computer-generated data on the deaths of women. Starring are Everett Sloane, Larry Blyden, David White, Lee Patrick, actor-screenwriter-director Paul Mazursky, and a Univac computer.

Online "Literary Landscapes" exhibition, BPL.

Illustration by W. W. Denslow for
The Wizard of Oz, 1901. NYPL.

The "Literary Landscapes" online exhibition at the Boston Public Library includes the "Sherlock Holmes Mystery Map," "A Map of Narnia and the Surrounding Countries," a map from The Phantom Tollbooth, and "A Map of the Countries Near to the Land of Oz."

Remembering Lizabeth Scott: Stolen Face (1952).

Femme fatale Lizabeth Scott died on January 31 at age 92. In Stolen Face, Paul Henreid—a doctor with Pygmalion tendencies—gets more than he bargained for when he performs plastic surgery on the face of disfigured prisoner Scott.

The singing safety policeman?

Barbershop quartet competition, NY World's Fair, 1939-40. NYPL

On the blog of NYPR Archives and Preservation, Andy Lancet, director of archives for New York Public Radio, recalls the role of WNYC in New York law enforcement, including the "singing safety policeman" of The Police Safety Program (1949–50).

Listen to some police safety songs below from the program.

Mary Roberts Rinehart's poem "The Detective Story" (1904).

Mary Roberts Rinehart, ca. 1915
Library of Congress,
Prints & Photographs Div.

A few years before Mary Roberts Rinehart published her first mystery novel The Circular Staircase (1908, sent to American servicemen during World War I), she wrote an engaging poem, "The Detective Story," which appeared in the May 1904 Munsey's Magazine. A tearsheet of this can be found in her papers at the University of Pittsburgh.

The Detective Story
by Mary Roberts Rinehart

A murder is committed, and that page is full of gore,
Of smashed and broken furniture, and blood-stains on the floor.
A livid, ghastly corpse is quite essential to the tale,
And people standing round with trembling knees and faces pale.

Now introduce the town police, and ridicule their chief;
The way they miss the plainest clues is almost past belief.
Then, when they give the mystery up and start to leave the place,
Bring in the great detective with the shrewd and kindly face.

Now arm him with a camera, tape-measure, microscope;
At once he sees a thumb-print on a nearby cake of soap.
A speck of human cuticle is found upon the towel;
And now the great detective knows who did that murder foul!

Upon the floor he spies a pile of white tobacco ash—
With microscope in hand he's on his knees there in a flash.
"Aha!" he says at length. "The villain smoked a Henry Clay!
This is no common scoundrel, and he isn't far away."

He works with ready camera and piles up evidence,
While all the local force stand by and feel like thirty cents.
He pulls out secret drawers that no one ever dreamed were there,
And probes with needles fine and long the cushions of each chair.

With measure in hand he crawls along the hard-wood floor,
And measures all the scratches from the chimney to the door.
At last he rises, smiling. "Well, his shoes are B, size eight,
And by the length of stride he's five feet nine when standing straight.

"He wore a black and white checked suit; see, here I find a thread.
A soft slouch hat he had, crushed down upon his curly head.
How can I tell? Why, see this mark upon the dusty stand,
And on the chandelier I found this single curly strand.

"Now, then, we have a picture of the murderer complete,
His hat, his hair, his clothes, his height, and even size of feet.
Now just go to the window and look out—no need to hide—
For there's the man we're hunting walking down the other side!"

ENVOY
Oh, thanks to British Conan Doyle, to French Gaboriau.
And also many thanks to our own Edgar Allan Poe.
To them we owe a debt of gratitude that's hard to pay.
For teaching us to frustrate crime in such an easy way!

Barry Day speaks on Raymond Chandler.

On Gary Shapiro's radio program From the Bookshelf, Barry Day (known for his works on Noel Coward) discusses his new book The World of Raymond Chandler: In His Own Words, in which he endeavors to show what Chandler thought of his own work. Day highlights Chandler's emphasis on language rather than plot or character, his admiration for the writing of F. Scott Fitzgerald, and his dislike of the work of Ernest Hemingway.

RIP, Helen Eustis (1916–2015).

Helen Eustis, Edgar winner for The Horizontal Man (1946) and the last living author on the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone list of essential mysteries, died on January 11 at age 98. She was also known for The Fool Killer (1954, adapted for a 1965 film with Anthony Perkins). Eustis was a member of the Yaddo arts colony, a friend of Carson McCullers and Truman Capote, and a noted translator and short story writer. Her son, Adam Genkaku Fisher, has posted on her passing here. (Thanks to Sarah Weinman for the tip.)

The Court of Last Resort: "The George Zaccho Case" (1957).

Erle Stanley Gardner

The Court of Last Resort TV series (1957–58) was inspired by a project of Perry Mason creator Erle Stanley Gardner, in which experts examined cases where the defendant appeared to have been wrongfully convicted. This episode involves a Greek immigrant accused of poisoning his wife. Gardner weighs in toward the end.

Emulating Holmes.

Ad for The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)

The blog of Harvard's Houghton Library features the board game "Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective," part of its Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection.

Ellroy companion garners Edgar nomination.

Jim Mancall's James Ellroy: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction has been nominated in the Best Critical/Biographical category of the Edgar Awards. This is vol. 6 in the series that I edit for McFarland.

• Guardian review
• Mystery Scene review

Exhibition: "Poisonous Nature."

A less than cuddly cobra.
Colored engraving, ca. 1792.
Wellcome Library, London

Mystery writers may find the "Poisonous Nature" online exhibition of the Biodiversity Heritage Library for Europe to be useful in research, with its facts and images on poisonous plants such as deadly nightshade and other lethal agents such as the Indian cobra and the black widow spider. There is a timeline of publications on poisons and materials in several languages.

Model Murder Case (aka Girl in the Headlines, 1963).

Laurence Payne,
in the British TV series
The Sandbaggers (1978)

A model is shot, and Inspector Birkett (Ian Hendry) and Sergeant Saunders (Ronald Fraser) are on the case. Jeremy Brett and Jane Asher co-star. The film is based on The Nose on My Face (aka The First Body, 1961), the mystery debut of actor-writer Laurence Payne (whose credits include Ben-Hur, Ill Met by Moonlight, and a long-time role as detective Sexton Blake).

 

Remembering Rod Taylor: 36 Hours (1964).

Among the film work of the dashing Rod Taylor, who died on January 7 at age 84, is 36 Hours, in which the Nazis try to gaslight American major James Garner into believing that World War II is over so he will reveal top-secret information. The film is based on the Roald Dahl story "Beware of the Dog."

Top ms-related auction prices for 2014.

Americana Exchange has posted the top 500 auctions for 2014, which include the following:

Ad for The Big Sleep, 1946

• Signed ms of Arthur Conan Doyle's  "The Adventure of Black Peter," Christie's, $317,000.

• Original drawing for the Strand by Sidney Paget for Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of Silver Blaze," Christie's, $112,500.

• Screenplay by William Faulkner and Leigh Brackett of The Big Sleep (dir. Howard Hawks), Bonhams, $81,250.

(Thanks to PhiloBiblos)

St. Benny the Dip (1951).

Oh, the wackiness that ensues when con artists masquerade as priests in an effort to evade the police. Roland Young, Nina Foch, Dick Haymes, Lionel Stander, and Freddie Bartholomew star.

Detective fiction and religious issues.

Alec Guinness as
G. K. Chesterton's
Father Brown

Former English instructor Chris Willerton is proposing the panel "Remapping Culture with Detective Fiction" for the 2015 Christian Scholars Conference at Abilene Christian University in Texas in June. Asks Willerton, "Does a given detective story have something to say about sin, eschatology, redemption, and other religious issues in the culture it represents?" Those interested in serving on the panel should take a look at proposed paper topics (including clerical sleuths) and submit a proposal to Willerton by January 15.

Below: The preview for Granchester, based on the mysteries by James Runcie (son of Robert Runcie, the former archbishop of Canterbury)

Pimpernel Smith (1941).

This wartime update of Baroness Orczy's The Scarlet Pimpernel features Leslie Howard (who also produces and directs) as a mild-mannered professor and champion of those opposed to the Nazis; he was the elusive Pimpernel in the 1934 film.

Bookplate collections.

Bookplate, LAPL

The Library of Congress has created a Flickr album of bookplates from one of its collections, which includes those of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Charlie Chaplin, Jack London, spy and mystery fan Woodrow Wilson, artist Francis Millet (who died on the Titanic), and "the doctor for weak railroads" Newman Erb (which includes an illustration of Edgar Allan Poe, left).

Harvard's Houghton Library has a nifty collection, featuring items such as the Alice in Wonderland bookplate of Harcourt Amory. Another bookplate collection is housed at the Los Angeles Public Library.

The Underworld Story (1949).

Small-town and city newspapers square off when a maid is accused of murder. Dan Duryea, Herbert Marshall, Gale Storm, and Howard Da Silva star. The film is based on a story by Craig Rice (Home Sweet Homicide, Having Wonderful Crime, etc.).

The many sides of Susan Fenimore Cooper.

The online Smithsonian exhibition "Early Women in Science" includes Susan Fenimore Cooper, the daughter of James Fenimore Cooper recognized as an early naturalist via her work Rural Hours (1850). The younger Cooper's novel Elinor Wyllys; or, The Young Folk of Longbridge (1846) features a mystery, although she warned in "The Talent of Reading Wisely" (Feb. 1892) of the dangers to youth of crime novels. She also did not support women's suffrage (see "Female Suffrage: A Letter to the Christian Women of America," 1870).

The exhibition also features noted garden designer Gertrude Jekyll, whose surname is so prominently featured in Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (her brother, Rev. Walter Jekyll, was a friend of Stevenson).

Related posts: Constance Fenimore Woolson
(great-niece of James Fenimore Cooper)

Bad Blonde (aka The Flanagan Boy, 1953).

The Bad Blonde of the title, Barbara Payton, wants to be rid of her husband and uses her wiles to get a prizefighter to do the deed. The film was adapted from the novel The Flanagan Boy by British writer Max Catto.

The darker side of the mind.

Ad for Svengali (1954)

The Wellcome Trust's online presentation Mindcraft: A Century of Madness, Murder, and Mental Healing includes the evil power of mesmerism such as that exhibited by Svengali in George du Maurier's Trilby (1894) and the 1889 trial of Gabrielle Bompard, who asserted that her male associate had hypnotized her and that she had no memory of committing murder.

Grand Central Murder (1942).

Patricia Dane and Mark 
Daniels in Grand Central
Murder (1942)

There is no shortage of suspects when a showgirl with a fondness for money is murdered. On hand are Van Heflin (as PI Rocky Custer), Tom Conway (a producer), and Virginia Grey (Custer's wife and fellow investigator). The film is based on the novel by Sue MacVeigh (pseudonym of journalist Elizabeth Custer Nearing, a relative of George Armstrong Custer who wrote four mysteries).

The mayor, the gangster, the waterfront boss.

William O'Dwyer, ca. Oct. 1949
Truman Library

The New York Public Radio Archives looks at the checkered career of New York mayor William O'Dwyer, who as district attorney convicted several men involved in "Murder Incorporated" but had some shady associations. The tale involves mafioso Frank Costello.

Private Detective 62 (w/William Powell, 1933).

Ad for Private Detective 62 (1933)

In Private Detective 62 (dir. Michael Curtiz), private investigator William Powell tries to protect a socialite from a blackmail plot.