The History of Mystery

Another entry in the increasingly trite category of spy novels that also make points about the corruption of the spy game, where there are no good guys, only sides. Ben Leary works for Immigration and becomes involved in the case of a Soviet poet kidnapped off the streets of New York, ostensibly by the KGB. While Leary tries to figure out why, his chapters alternate with ones featuring Charlie Brewer, a retired CIA agent living in a place akin to a YMCA and reduced to hustling pool with dru...

1976 was not as strong a year for mysteries as 1975, but it wasn’t weak enough for me to endorse the award to the disappointing and overrated Promised Land. Other notable mysteries of 1975 include one of Agatha Christie’s very last novels, Sleeping Murder, and Dick Francis’ In the Frame. I read both and about all that I can remember is that Miss Marple was in one and a guy who painted horses was in the other. Neither would go in my Top 10 for that aut...

Promised Land, the 1977 Edgar winner, is one of the most baffling mysteries I have ever encountered. I don’t mean the events of the book itself, which almost entirely lacked mystery, suspense, or even interest. A man contacts a Boston detective who is so preoccupied with what he is going to eat and drink and what machines he is going to use on his next workout that he can barely pay attention to the case. When the detective follows up with the client at his house, he recognize...

So, I basically consider Hopscotch to be a fun and skillful read, but is it a worthy entry in the same gallery of masterpieces as The Light of Day and The Spy who came in from the Cold? I have never once recommended it to a friend, for example, as I do repetitively with An Instance of the Fingerpost and Polar Star. But a look at the field in its year of publication, 1975, shows a crowded field of solid mysteries with not quite a case to overturn the actual...

In Hopscotch by Brian Garfield, super spy Miles Kendig decides to chuck it all in disgust and to get his revenge on both sides of the intelligence Cold War at the same time. He writes a lengthy expose of everyone’s secrets, and then starts to release it to a curious world one chapter at a time. Meanwhile, he uses his extensive and successful espionage experience to evade the combined forces of the American and Soviet spy machines.

Brian Garfield, the author of Hopscotch, is most...

 

1974, the year that Peter’s Pence was published, was a bit of a slow year for mysteries, at least ones that I have some familiarity with. The finalists for Best Mystery Novel that year include exactly one that I know something about: Paul Erdman’s The Silver Bears. I can picture the cover of that book because my local library when I was a kid had a copy in the paperback rack. The Best First Novel that year was Fletch, by Gregory MacDonald...

Peter’s Pence by Jon Cleary is another thriller that attempts to present itself as outrageous and edgy but repeatedly undermines its edginess. It is told from the standpoint of a thief and a terrorist, Fergus MacBride, who works for the IRA (or a branch of it, anyway), and leads a colorful team in a caper to steal jewels from the Vatican to raise money for arms. The carefully-constructed plan hits an unexpected setback, and the thugs end up kidnapping the Pope instead. The cri...

What other fine mysteries should have been in contention in 1973, the same year as Dance Hall of the Dead? The Mystery Writers of America rated The First Deadly Sin by Lawrence Sanders as #53; I haven’t read that one myself and don’t have a strong sense of its influence. One which I did read and which did have an importance influence was The Rainbird Pattern by Vincent Canning – the source of Alfred Hitchcock’s final movie, Family Plot. I ...

1973’s Dance Hall of the Dead by Tony Hillerman is (so far) unique among Edgar winners. I tend not to go back to an author if the first work of theirs I have read didn’t work for me. There are too many great writers and there are even countless great mysteries that I would like to read again. If the first book I try by an author doesn’t hit for me, I rarely go back. Years ago I read The Thief of Time by Tony Hillerman, and found it lacking in suspense and o...

1972 was a pretty productive year for top-level mysteries and suspense. The Lingala Code won the Edgar, but the Edgar winners could have rewarded previous Edgar Winner Michael Crichton for The Terminal Man, or Frederick Forsyth again for The Odessa File. They could have recognized never-winner Agatha Christie for Elephants can Remember (not her best work or her tenth best work), or John D MacDonald for The Scarlet Ruse (which was a strong one, but I just n...