Forgotten Book - Burn This

Helen McCloy (1904-1994) was one of the most talented of American crime writers. I've enjoyed a number of her clever and often off-beat mysteries, both those featuring her regular amateur sleuth Dr Basil Willing, and those in which he doesn't appear. Burn This (1980) marked Willing's final appearance, as well as being his first for twelve years. It also proved to be McCloy's last novel

The story is set in Boston and although the critical consensus is that it's not one of her masterpieces (a view which I share) it is still full of pleasing elements, especially given that McCloy seizes the chance to crack a few jokes about the writing business, and offer a few insights into it. A widow, Harriet Sutton, consults her lawyer about making a fresh start in life. Encouraged by him, she buys a house for herself in a historic neighbourhood, and funds the cost by taking tenants. Because she's a writer, she decides that her tenants should be writers too.

However, the tranquillity of her new existence is disturbed when she comes across an anonymous note marked "Burn this". It appears to be a message from one person living in the house to another saying that a fellow tenant is "Nemesis", a critic of legendary virulence, and that "Nemesis" should be given his - or her - final come-uppance. But who wrote the note, who was to receive it, and who is "Nemesis".

Harriet mistakenly reveals the existence of the note to her tenants, and chaos ensues, but when murder duly occurs, the victim is unexpected - Harriet's lawyer. Is the death connected with the note? In the second half of the book, the victim's heir introduces Harriet to Basil Willing, who lends the  police a hand. I wasn't altogether blown away by the solution to the mystery, which seemed to me to be less interesting that such a tantalising set-up deserved. So it's not vintage McCloy. But it is still decent entertainment, a quick and easy read, though not the best introduction to a fine writer.

Forgotten Book - Through a Glass, Darkly

I've mentioned Helen McCloy a number of times in recent months, and I was delighted to read another of her excellent mysteries, Through a Glass, Darkly, now reprinted as an Arcturus Crime Classic, which is my Forgotten Book for today. Again it features her amateur sleuth Basil Willing, a likeable psychologist, whose girlfriend introduces him to a strange puzzle.

Faustina (great name!) Coyle is a young teacher in her first term at an exclusive girls' school, Brereton. As the book opens, the head teacher, Mrs Lightfoot, is giving her the sack - but  not giving her a reason. Something very strange is clearly going on - but what? Faustina briefly contemplates taking legal advice (the employment lawyer in me was naturally enthralled!) but decides against it. Instead, she confides in her friend and colleague Gisela, who in turn consults Basil.

There is a creepy atmosphere about this story which adds to its power. What on earth is going on? Can it be that Faustina really has a mysterious double, and is she - or rather, the double - in some way responsible when another colleague dies? The power of McCloy's stories derives from the fact that not only was she very clever in the way she plotted, she also wrote lucid and compelling prose. Every now and then, she digresses into delivering a chunk of information that may not always help the pace of the scene, but it's usually interesting information. Clearly, she was a highly intelligent person and I imagine her as an interesting woman to talk to.

An intriguing feature of this novel is that it is, in fact, an expanded version of a short story that appeared twelve years before the book's publication in 1950. I read the story a long time ago, but had forgotten the solution. And although there is only a restricted pool of suspects,and you may think that the culprit is over-reliant on chance, McCloy writes so engagingly that reservations are quite easy to put aside. A genuine crime classic..