Forgotten Book - The Dream Walker aka Alibi for Murder

Charlotte Armstrong was a talented author capable of sharp psychological insight. She was also admirably ambitious, varying her approach to the task of telling a crime story with conspicuous regularity. Sometimes the result was extremely good, as in Mischief, sometimes more open to question. A case in point is The Dream Walker, first published in 1955. It's a novel with a very intriguing premise, but I must admit that I struggled with the use she made of her raw material.

It's one thing for a writer to have a good idea, quite another to make the best use of it. A conventional novel will often open with the discovery of a murder, but writers of psychological suspense often find a different and perhaps unorthodox starting point. In this book, I was surprised that the story (narrated by a young teacher called Olivia Hudson) began with a rather hurried account of a plot concocted by two men with a view to discrediting a saintly individual, Olivia's uncle, for the purpose of revenge. We don't identify with the bad guys, because they are not characterised in any depth, and more surprisingly we don't identify with the good guy, who is another cipher. I wondered if these characters would be more fully developed as the story progressed, but it's hardly a spoiler to say that they are not. And that did seem to me to be quite a defect.

The real meat of the story lies in the scheme hatched by the bad guys. From an early stage, we know that a woman called Cora, who seems to be in two places at one and the same time, is involved in the plot. Armstrong was aiming, I suppose, for the kind of suspense that you get - as in a Hitchcock thriller - where you know more than the people at the sharp end of the action. For me, however, it didn't work. And unfortunately I found Olivia irritating.

While battling rather wearily through the book, I checked to see what other people made of it. Interestingly, there is a positive review on an excellent blog, Mysteries Ahoy!. Aidan makes the point that Armstrong was indirectly referencing the McCarthy witch hunts, and he describes the book rather nicely as an 'inverted impossible mystery'. Aidan takes a more generous view of the characterisation and structure than I do. For once, though, I'm afraid I wasn't persuaded by his advocacy, skilful as it is. I felt that such a good premise deserved a more gripping presentation. Helen McCloy would, for example, probably have made much more effective use of it.

  

 

Forgotten Book - Mischief

One regrettable habit of mine is to get hold of a good book and then to fail to find time to read it, for ages and ages. Today's Forgotten Book is an extreme example. I obtained a copy of Charlotte Armstrong's novel of psychological suspense, Mischief, many years ago, but I only got round to reading it recently. My mistake. It's a very good book, and so short and snappy that lack of time really wasn't much of an excuse.

The book was first published in 1950, early in Armstrong's career. It was filmed two years later, as Don't Bother To Knock, with none other than Marilyn Monroe. As late as 1991, it was adapted for a TV movie called The Sitter, though I haven't seen either screen version of the story. Several of Armstrong's books were filmed over the years, notably by Claude Chabrol, and it's not hard to see why. She's a vivid, atmospheric writer, and adept at creating a sense of menace and suspense. Her portrayal of female characters is also particularly compelling.

The set-up is straightforward. Peter and Ruth Jones come to New York City because Peter has to deliver a speech at a banquet. They have a nine year old daughter, Bunny, and they are let down at a late stage by their baby sitter. Help is at hand. The elevator man has a niece, Nell, who will sit with Bunny. But the elevator man, likeable as he is, is naive. Nell really isn't the sort of young woman to whom you'd want to entrust your child.

Trust is a theme of this book, and all the action takes place during the course of a single evening. The principal setting is the hotel where the Joneses are staying, and this adds to the rather claustrophobic mood of the book. The Joneses feel twinges of unease when they are introduced to Nell, but overcome them. We can tell that Bad Things are likely to happen when Nell is around. And the suspense is built expertly. I was impressed, and not only would I like to read more Armstrong, I'd also be interested in seeing some of the films based on her books.