The life of a mystery writer.

For a few more days, you can listen to episodes from the lively Three-a-Penny read by Diana Quick on BBC 4. It is the autobiography of Lucy Malleson, aka Anthony Gilbert and Anne Meredith. Mystery fans may be most interested in the episode "The Detection Club," in which Malleson describes her induction into that august British body with leading roles played by G. K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers,  and John Rhode.

The real-life Charlie Chan.

KHOU2 in Honolulu pays tribute to Apana Chang (1871–1933), the first Chinese police officer in Hawaii who was acknowledged by Earl Derr Biggers as the inspiration for Charlie Chan.

The Lady Confesses (1945).

In The Lady Confesses, a couple's marriage plans are derailed when the man's estranged wife appears and is murdered. His fiance sets out to solve the crime, nosing around the activities of a nightclub. Mary Beth Hughes and Hugh Beaumont costar.

Denise Mina on Scottish legal cases.

"The Trial of Madeleine Smith in the Scotch Court of Session."
1857. NYPL

Mystery novelist Denise Mina is hosting a series on BBC Radio 3 focusing on famous legal cases in Scottish history. The latest episode is on Madeleine Smith, accused of poisoning a former suitor and placed on trial in 1857.

10 great whodunnit films.

On BFI's website, Pamela Hutchinson selects and discusses 10 great whodunnit films such as The Last Warning (1928), which deals with the unsolved murder of an actor onstage, and Green for Danger (1946), which examines murder in a wartime hospital.

Ads for The Last Warning

Dementia 13 (1963).

Patrick Magee in Dementia 13 (1963)

In this early film written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola and produced by low-budget specialist Roger Corman, an ax murderer stalks a family that has plenty of secrets to conceal.

The Lost World and conmen.

Scenes from The Lost World (1925)

The latest episode of the American Heritage Center's Archives on the Air deals with conmen who attempted to extort Cathrine Curtis, a producer planning an adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World (ultimately released in 1925). The film is notable for its early use of stop-motion animation.

Cathrine Curtis, ca. 1925

ELT ends after 60 years.

Sad news: The journal English Literature in Transition, 1880–1920, is closing up shop in late 2020 after a run of more than 60 years. The journal was a friendly venue for scholarly articles on mystery and detective fiction of the period, and editor Robert Langenfeld and I once exchanged info on our respective journals for publication in ELT and Clues in collegial fashion.

For a history of ELT, go here.

ISO: Mystery companion proposals.

I have a wishlist for proposals for the McFarland Companions to Mystery Fiction series that I edit (see below), but I also am interested in hearing from those who would like to prepare a proposal on alternative subjects. Potential subjects must have a substantial body of work (roughly defined as a minimum of 25 books).

• Further details on the elements of a proposal.
• If interested, contact me.

"Somebody Loves You" (1960).

Screenwriter Liam O'Brien created the scenario for the 1960 TV series Johnny Midnight. It starred his brother, Edmond O'Brien, as an actor turned PI investigating crimes in the New York theatrical world, often drawing on his talent for disguise and usually involving some sort of fight sequence. In the episode "Somebody Loves You," Johnny looks into the suicide attempt of a celebrated Swedish actress. J. Pat O'Malley costars.

Matthew Surridge on The Best of Manhunt.

On Splice Today, Matthew Surridge reviews Stark House Press's The Best of Manhunt, an anthology of stories from an important crime fiction magazine that published authors such as Lawrence Block, David Goodis, Evan Hunter, John D. MacDonald, and Donald Westlake.

Find the Blackmailer (1943).

In Find the Blackmailer, private detective Jerome Cowan goes on the trail of a talking crow, which can implicate politician Gene Lockhart in blackmail and murder.

"The Missing Number" (1922).

Elisabeth Ellicott Poe, right,
1918. Library of Congress,
Prints & Photos Div.

Elisabeth Ellicott Poe (1886–1947) and Vylla Poe Wilson (1883–1969) trained women for national service during World War I and were longtime society and culture reporters for the Washington Post. Dubbed "the Poe Sisters," they were related to Edgar Allan Poe (their great-grandfather was a brother of Poe's grandfather). They were steadfast champions of their relative's work, with Elisabeth writing at least 20 articles on Poe's life and work; Vylla reviewing Dorothy Dow's take on Poe, Dark Glory, for the Post in January 1932; and the sisters establishing a short-lived, Poe-related journal, The Stylus, and coauthoring Poe: A High Priest of the Beautiful (1930). Elisabeth also painted, with some critics stating that her imagery resembled Poe's.

Vylla Poe Wilson, left, 1918.
Library of Congress,
Prints & Photos Div.

From May to June 1922, the sisters published "The Missing Number," a serial in 18 parts, in the Post. This mystery about the disappearance of a diplomat's wife in Washington, DC, that involves a Poe-like number cipher was trumpeted by the Post as "the first Poe mystery story in 73 years!" (see below). It featured a sleuthing female reporter, a disreputable medium, an energetic policeman, and more than one distraught family member and sinister servant. Although "The Missing Number" provided an interesting look at Washington life of the time (remember streetcars?), it is a not very successful literary work. It has an unknown half-brother (cheating, for many mystery writers and readers), some cloying romance, and portrayals of African Americans and a deaf-mute that would likely be unpalatable to modern readers.

The Poe Sisters are buried in DC's Glenwood Cemetery. Read Elisabeth's "Poe, the Weird Genius" (Cosmopolitan, Feb. 1909).

Excerpt from "The Missing Number," Washington Post, 31 May 1922.

Ad for "The Missing Number"
Washington Post, 19 May 1922: 2

The return of Dorothy Bowers.

In the Shropshire Star Keri Trigg discusses the reprinting by Moonstone Press of the five detective novels of Dorothy Bowers (1902–48), a member of the Detection Club adept in the "fair play" mystery who died young from tuberculosis.

The books are:

• Postscript to Poison (Inspector Dan Pardoe, 1938)

• Shadows Before (Pardoe, 1939; Kirkus review)

• A Deed without a Name (Pardoe, 1940; Kirkus review)

• Fear for Miss Betony (Pardoe, 1941; Kirkus review)

• The Bells at Old Bailey (Detective Inspector Raikes, 1947. "a literate and entertaining excursion into murder"—Jack Glick, New York Times)

"Rebecca" (1962).

This April 1962 version of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca aired on Theatre '62 and featured James Mason as Maxim de Winter and Joan Hackett as the second Mrs. de Winter. Nina Foch took on the role of housekeeper Mrs. Danvers, and Lloyd Bochner was Rebecca's cousin Jack Favell.

The Chase (1946).

Based on The Black Path of Fear by Cornell Woolrich, The Chase features Robert Cummings as a troubled World War II veteran who becomes chauffeur to gangster Steve Cochran and entangled with Cochran's wife (Michele Morgan). Peter Lorre costars.

New exhibition on Rex Stout and his work.

The Burns Library at Boston College, the depository of Rex Stout's papers, has opened the exhibition "Golden Spiders and Black Orchids: A 'Satisfactory' Look into the Life and Mysteries of Rex Stout." The exhibition, which features Stout’s fiction and its adaptations, his activism, his pastimes, and his fandom, has interesting items such as a Nero Wolfe comic strip and Nero Wolfe postage stamps from San Marino and Nicaragua. The exhibition is on view until January 2020.

Mystery Junction (1951).

In Mystery Junction, a mystery writer encounters murder on a train.

Knopf and Cain tussle over The Postman Always Rings Twice.

James M. Cain with Lana Turner

On the Library of Congress blog, former Washington Post reporter Neely Tucker discusses the evolution of the title of James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice, based on the Cain papers in the LOC. The work began life with the unpromising title BAR-B-Que.

Yellow Canary (1943).

Richard Greene and Anna Neagle
in Yellow Canary (1943)

In Yellow Canary, a well-to-do Nazi sympathizer (Anna Neagle) traveling to Canada becomes a focus of both British and Nazi agents, with the fate of a British convoy in the balance. The film is based on a story by Pamela Bower (daughter of the film's director, Herbert Wilcox, and stepdaughter of Neagle) and a screenplay cowritten by actor-screenwriter Miles Malleson. Costars include Richard Greene, Margaret Rutherford, and Valentine Dyall.