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| The Early McCloy |
| Helen McCloy |
| Published by Gollancz Detection 1973, ISBN 0 575 01675 2 |
Review by Marian Hussenbux  |
| "Poor girl! What a rotten life it must have been - selling her face and figure and seeing them blazoned on every magazine and billboard. But doubtless she had no choice..." If anything illustrates so vividly how far we've travelled from those innocent, halcyon days of 1938, it must be this extract from Dance of Death, the first of three of Helen McCloy's stories published in one volume in 1973. It is also crucial to the mystery. To connoisseurs of vintage crime, this is the golden age. Dance of Death, which like the other two books features McCloy's psychologist and criminologist, Dr. Basil Willing, charts investigations into the appearance of the mysteriously over-heated corpse of a young debutante, found by street-cleaners in the snowy streets of New York. Who is the girl and what is the motive for a murder that seems, if anything, to disadvantage the victim's relatives and friends? McCloy is not merely an ingenious plotter. She also displays a dry wit. Kitty, the murder victim, had been preparing for her coming out since she was born. "Looking out for her complexion and figure and learning just enough French and dancing and music to make her civilized without the taint of intellect." The gate-crasher at her party had to hide to wait for an appropriate time to make his appearance. "The time passed quickly because I had a bar of chocolate in my pocket, an' a pamphlet on the derivation of the levirate from fraternal polyandry among the Kuki-Lushai tribes of North East India." The principal charm of these novels is the meticulously observed 1930's setting and the upper middle-class characters whose unquestioning assumptions seem, in these modern times, quite outlandish. Dr. Willing, talking of hysteria and neurasthenia, is developing state-of-the-art diagnostic science. He maintains: "There are four, simple, outward signs of serious mental illness... excitement, depression, enfeeblement and confusion." He specializes in identifying the "psychic clues" which will help to elucidate matters. Inspector Foyle says, however: "It all sounds pretty psycho - well, screwy to me, doc." Dance of Death is a marvellously complex and satisfying mystery with a motive for murder that might well strike a chord these days. The usual array of glamorous women, dressed to the nines and immaculately made-up, forms part of the cast of The Deadly Truth (1941). The story is slightly less complex and technical than Dance of Death; in fact, it is a classic whodunnit. Here there are far too many likely suspects for the murder of wealthy socialite Claudia Bethune and Dr. Basil Willing skilfully solves the mystery by a combination of elimination and scientific knowhow. Life is not all detection, however. He appreciates a fast car and is stopped for speeding. "Hi, Bill!" The first policeman shouted to his companion... "We've arrested a psychologist!"... ...The other policeman came over to stare at Basil. "We arrested a bio-chemist a little while ago," he confided. Peggy, a young house-guest, drinks "with the air of one who habitually drank brandy laced with gun-powder." The reader must, however, be prepared to see the world through the eyes of one living in the period, bearing in mind that a glaring absence of political correctness was correct for the time. Juniper, Willing's servant, places orange candles in black candlesticks "with a negro's eye for colour." He and Clarissa, an elderly servant in Who's Calling?, speak in a stereotypically "Negro" style. "Dat's what Ah calls good news!" cried Clarissa enthusiastically. "'Cose Ah knowed it wuz comin'..." Who's Calling? first appeared in 1942. Frieda Frey, a beautiful night-club singer on the make, is disturbed by anonymous, threatening phone-calls. If she knows what's good for her, she won't go down to Willow Springs, Maryland, to meet her fiancˇ's family. She is too mercenary and too tough to be bullied, so, equipped with a stylish wardrobe, off she goes. A narcissistic female, she knows her beautiful figure will stay in shape "as long as she does not abuse it by overeating, lack of exercise, or the wrong kind of exercise, such as housework and childbearing." The inevitable happens; but it is not quite what the reader expects. The identity of the murderer in this story is truly well-concealed and the events and explanations leading up to the unmasking make compelling reading. If you appreciate a well-crafted story, where science, psychology and old-fashioned common-sense all play their parts and where the characters and settings are vividly evoked, these books are for you. They will transport you to the States of the 30s and 40s - or how we imagine them to have been. |
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To read too many books is harmful. Mao Tse Tung |
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