Quote of the Day (Martin Cruz Smith, on a World of ‘Money, Propaganda, and Terror’)

“It came back, Arkady knew, to three things: money, propaganda, and terror. They weren’t discrete entities but a triskelion, forever whirling around each other. This was the mindset of spies, the men whose formative years had been spent in the margins of the shadow world. The more rules you break, the more success you have. The game never pauses and never stops. There are no periods of war and peace, just active hostility and retrenchments. There are no threats other than those which can be talked up, or in many cases made up, the better to justify eliminating them. There are no social problems that would be solved if solving them would reduce people’s dependence on the state. There are no grand plans, no master strategies, just the lust for power, the insane addictive desire to accumulate more and more because too much is never enough.”— American mystery and suspense novelist Martin Cruz Smith (1942-2025), Independence Square: Arkady Renko in Ukraine (2023)

What Donald Trump has presented to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shouldn’t be dignified with the phrase “peace plan.” Even “surrender plan” has the diplomatic scent of perfume about it. Believe it or not, I don’t even think “appeasement” does it.

No, in its demands that Ukraine yield significant portions of its territory to Russia and cap the size of its security forces, along with an implied threat to curtail U.S. weapons deliveries if Zelenskyy doesn’t capitulate by Thanksgiving, the right word is "ultimatum"—something that Russian President Vladimir Putin (pictured) might make.

While reading this penultimate of 11 Arkady Renko mysteries by the late superb Martin Cruz Smith, I came across a succinct passage on Ukrainian history that I wish Trump could have read.

But what would have been the use? The President’s attention span is such that he’s lucky to digest a few bullets on a Powerpoint slide, let alone interconnected sentences.

Then I came across the quote above. Forget about Trump—I wish large portions of MAGA could read and ponder this. It explains so much about Putin, and, by the end, Trump himself (“There are no threats other than those which can be talked up, or in many cases made up”).

If the American President is not authoritarian, like the Russian leader, then he’s at least authoritarian-curious, and even more likely authoritarian-adjacent.

Quote of the Day (Laura Miller, on Mystery Stories)

“In a detective story, the mystery both propels the plot and gives the sleuth license to venture into places and milieus where she doesn't typically belong. Who done it, then, is the secret that strips all other secrets of their sanctity. In the better mysteries, the solution also turns the world of the story inside out, revealing how things actually work behind the façade. And, in the best mysteries, the detective herself is cracked open and remade, sometimes even destroyed, by the truth. This points to another shortcoming of series detectives: their fans find their familiar methods and quirks comforting and would be disappointed if each book didn’t serve up more of the same.”— American journalist and critic Laura Miller, “Walk the Line” (review of Dennis Lehane’s Small Mercies), The New Yorker, Apr. 24-May 1, 2023

This Day in Film History (‘Murder on the Orient Express’ Serves Up Prime Agatha Christie)

Nov. 24, 1974— Dame Agatha Christie couldn’t have been more pleased at the all-star screen adaptation of one of the most beloved of her 66 detective novels, Murder on the Orient Express, released in the United States on this date.

It’s remarkable how much the judgements of youth can stand the test of time. That, at least, was the case for me with how I felt about the production that director Sidney Lumet molded.

I should tell you that, though I’m a fan of Margaret Rutherford’s four Sixties films as Miss Jane Marple, Dame Christie didn’t appreciate how far these movies departed from her original plots. 

She had no such complaint with this latest adaptation, though: the screenplay by Paul Dehn (with an uncredited contribution by Sleuth playwright Anthony Shaffer) stuck closely to what she wrote, while adding touches of light humor that never descended into campiness.

Other Christie adaptations have come and gone, with some even being remade. But when I saw Murder on the Orient Express (hereinafter abbreviated as MOTOE) early in high school, I put it in the upper tier of Christie films with And Then There Were None (1945), another all-star vehicle.

Starting with the sumptuous soundtrack by Richard Rodney Bennett and the production and costume design by Tony Walton, this was a sumptuous, old-fashioned production—and that was before any of the actors said a word!

When I viewed MOTOE again several weeks ago on Turner Classic Movies a half century later, I was taken once again with the incredible gallery of actors assembled for Dame Christie’s “Grand Hotel” on the rails, including Martin Balsam, Richard Widmark, John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, Michael York, Lauren Bacall, Jacqueline Bisset, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave, and Rachel Roberts.

It was a conscious strategy on Lumet’s part, as he figured that the audience would find it easier to keep the multiple characters straight by casting well-known actors in the roles—and it worked.

Three actors stand out, for me, in this galaxy of stars:

* Sean Connery, as the first major one cast—whose luster, after a decade as James Bond, made him the most bankable;

* Albert Finney (pictured, with that amazing mustache); many in the cast, Bacall remembered, came to the project at least in part for the chance to work with this superb actor chosen to play Belgian detective Hercule Poirot;

* Ingrid Bergman, who rejected Lumet’s initial suggestion that she play the role of Princess Dragomiroff  for that of the Swedish maid because the Scandinavian actress felt a greater affinity for the character—an instinct that was rewarded with a Best Supporting Actress Oscar.

Quote of the Day (G.K. Chesterton, on ‘The First Essential Value of the Detective Story’)

“The first essential value of the detective story lies in this, that it is the earliest and only form of popular literature in which is expressed some sense of the poetry of modern life. Men lived among mighty mountains and eternal forests for ages before they realized that they were poetical; it may reasonably be inferred that some of our descendants may see the chimney-pots as rich a purple as the mountain-peaks, and find the lamp-posts as old and natural as the trees. Of this realization of a great city itself as something wild and obvious the detective story is certainly the ‘Iliad.’ No one can have failed to notice that in these stories the hero or the investigator crosses London with something of the loneliness and liberty of a prince in a tale of elfland, that in the course of that incalculable journey the casual omnibus assumes the primal colours of a fairy ship. The lights of the city begin to glow like innumerable goblin eyes, since they are the guardians of some secret, however crude, which the writer knows and the reader does not. Every twist of the road is like a finger pointing to it; every fantastic skyline of chimney-pots seems wildly and derisively signalling the meaning of the mystery.” —English man of letters G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), “A Defence of Detective Stories” in The Defendant (1901)

It wasn’t until I read assorted essays and biographies by Garry Wills that I discovered why he so deeply admired G.K. Chesterton, born 150 years ago today in London.

Those who have read this blog over time know how often I have quoted from Chesterton’s poems, literary studies, essays, and Christian apologetics.

But years before that, as a child, I had become enthralled by his “Father Brown” detective tales, as seen in this post from 15 years ago.

The late novelist P.D. James (herself a sterling detective novelist) pretty much sums up what drew me years ago to Chesterton’s work in this often-unappreciated genre:

“We read the Father Brown stories for a variety pleasures, including their ingenuity, their wit and intelligence, and for the brilliance of the writing. But they provide more. Chesterton was concerned with the greatest of all problems, the vagaries of the human heart.”

(By the way: If you watch the recent BBC series Father Brown, based loosely on Chesterton’s stories on the mild-mannered, mystery-solving cleric, I’m afraid that I must agree with Steven D. Greydanus, who writes, on his “Decent Films” blog, that this “cozy, nostalgic British crime series…,while not without merit, has little in common with either the letter or the spirit of Chesterton’s yarns.”)

Quote of the Day (John Dickson Carr, on Clues and ‘The Fine Detective Story’)

“The fine detective story…does not consist of ‘a’ clue. It is a ladder of clues, a pattern of evidence, joined together with such cunning that even the experienced reader may be deceived: until, in the blaze of the surprise ending, he suddenly sees the whole design.”—American mystery writer John Dickson Carr (1906-1977), “The Grandest Game in the World,” originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, March 1963, reprinted in The Door to Doom and Other Detections, edited by Douglas G. Greene (1991)

Quote of the Day (Umberto Eco, on How ‘A Book is a Fragile Creature’)

“A book is a fragile creature, it suffers the wear of time, it fears rodents, the elements, clumsy hands…. So the librarian protects them not only against mankind but also against nature, and devotes his life to this war with the forces of oblivion, the enemy of truth.”—Italian novelist, essayist and semiotician Umberto Eco (1932-2016), The Name of the Rose, translated by William Weaver (1980)

Quote of the Day (Raymond Chandler, on His Deliberate Use of Slang)

“I had to learn American just like a foreign language. To use it I had to study it and analyze it. I’m an intellectual snob who happens to have a fondness for the American vernacular largely because I grew up on Latin and Greek. As a result, when I use slang, solecisms, colloquialisms, snide talk or any kind of off-beat language, I do it deliberately. The literary use of slang is a study in itself. I've found that there are only two kinds that are any good: slang that has established itself in the language and slang that you make up yourself. Everything else is apt to be passe before it gets into print.” — Mystery novelist, short-story writer, and screenwriter Raymond Chandler (1888–1959), letter to Alex Burris, Mar. 18, 1949, in Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler, edited by Frank MacShane (1981)

TV Quote of the Day (‘Ellery Queen,’ In Which a Lady of Burlesque Reveals Her Level of Culture)

Stripper Veronica Vale / Ronnie (played by Barbara Rhoades): “He [rich lawyer Gregory Layton] likes me for my talents. He reads to me all the time from O’Neill and Ebsen.”

Ellery Queen (played by Jim Hutton) (puzzled): “Ebsen?”

Ronnie: “Yeah. I didn’t know Buddy wrote plays. But there are a lot of things that I don’t know. But Gregory’s teaching them to me. Of course, I’m teaching him a lot of things, too.”— Ellery Queen, Season 1, Episode 9, “The Adventure of Veronica's Veils,” original air date Nov. 13, 1975, teleplay by Robert Pirosh, directed by Seymour Robbie

This past winter, I went back years—sometimes decades—in viewing DVDs, indulging to the hilt my fascination with a genre I call “retro-detection”—i.e., mysteries set back in the past. I don’t mean mysteries filmed long ago with plots contemporary to when they were first aired, but which now look like something out of a time capsule, like Naked City. Rather, I mean series set in periods a good deal earlier than their original telecasts. 

One example—very fine indeed—is the British series Foyle’s War, broadcast from 2002 to 2015 but set during WWII. The other two, taking place in New York City in the early postwar period, are Nero Wolfe, starring Timothy Hutton, and Ellery Queen, featuring his late father, Jim Hutton.

The above snatch of dialogue from the latter demonstrates, in concentrated form, why I developed an affection for the latter series. It also makes me rue the fact that I never caught it when it first aired in the 1975-76 season. 

Maybe I was too young to appreciate it at the time, with vintage guest stars (e.g., Donald O’Connor, Don Ameche, Ida Lupino, and Eddie Bracken) it would take me years to discover, and winks toward New York, theater and screen history that would have completely escaped me back then. 

“The Adventure of Veronica's Veils” episode, set in 1947—and especially the above quote—is a great example of the latter:

*”Ebsen,” for younger readers, refers not to a playwright (that would be Ibsen), but to actor Buddy Ebsen. In 1947, he still would have been known as an affable song-and-dance man who had missed his chance at wider fame when his aluminum makeup as the Tin Man sent him to the hospital during production on The Wizard of Oz. But 1977 audiences would have known him from a couple of  major roles on long-running TV series in the years since: as the lucky paterfamilias in The Beverly Hillbillies and, even as the rival private eye show Ellery Queen was airing, on CBS as Barnaby Jones. 

*This episode revolved around the revival of burlesque in New York City, 10 years after Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia had banned it. Three decades later, when this episode ran, America was obsessed with new excesses of obscenity and censorship, in which the likes of burlesque looked distinctly quaint.

*The “Veronica Vale” character, with her interest in intellectual improvement, is a knowing nod toward stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, whose own attempts in this direction in the 1930s and 1940s (e.g., writing a novel, The G-String Murders) led Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart to satirize her in their “Zip!” number from the musical Pal Joey. (Sample lyrics: “Zip! My intelligence is guiding my hand./ Zip! Who the hell is Sally Rand?”)

*Veronica’s curiosity, such as it is, is not to be taken seriously. But series creators Richard Levinson and William Link allow her a G-string of humanity. "Out there I'm an actress, here I'm a person," she says as, in an act of becoming modesty, she changes clothes behind a screen while Queen questions her. 

This was by no means the end of the screen allusions in the series. For instance, from “The Adventure of the Mad Tea Party,” blond ingenue Elly (played by Julie Sommars) scoffs at a suggestion that her screen career has suffered from missed opportunities, noting that a role she turned down the prior month was “a dreadful part, with no lines. Some deaf and dumb farm girl who gets forcibly compromised. Well, they gave it to Jane Wyman. I didn't want to play it anyway.” (Ms. Wyman, of course, won a Best Actress Oscar for playing the same role in Johnny Belinda.)

Sadly, Ellery Queen lasted only one season. It did not match the brilliance of Levinson and Link’s earlier series, Columbo, but it was far more clever than their later, far more commercial fare, Murder, She Wrote. 

 
The show was a loving tribute to mysteries published between 1929 and 1971 by cousins Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee, who used the name “Ellery Queen” not only as the name of their sleuth but as their own joint pseudonym. 

Levinson and Link borrowed for the small screen a device that Dannay and Lee had used on the printed page: i.e., not long before the conclusion, with all the clues available, Ellery stops and asks the viewer if he can identify the killer, thus breaking the “fourth wall”—i.e., the conceptual space between a performer and an audience.

Look for the DVD set where you can. Rent it if you can (from a decent library system, as I did), or pay if you must (if you can find it). In any case, sit back and enjoy a series with far more to it than the simple whodunit aspects.

Quote of the Day (Ross Macdonald, on a Dangerous Youthful Passion)

"There was some kind of passion between them. It gave off a faint wrong smoky odor, like something burning where it shouldn't be, arson committed by children playing with matches." ― American mystery novelist Ross Macdonald (1915-1983), The Instant Enemy (1968)

Quote of the Day (Harley Jane Kozak, Imagining a Reality Show Star’s Nightmare Hair Job)

“There are worse fates than a fluorescent orange head. Wars and natural disasters and world hunger. This is what I told myself, looking in the mirror at the damp strands. 

“ ‘Change it,’ Jen said. 

‘I can't,’ Gloria said. ‘Her hair barely survived the stripping process. Anything I do now, she goes to brush it, she'll destroy it.’

‘My God, she looks like she's on break from clown college.’”—American mystery novelist (and former TV and film actress) Harley Jane Kozak, Dead Ex (2007)

This post is for a friend of mine (AND HE KNOWS WHO HE IS!!!) who is quite an admirer of Ms. Kozak—certainly of her film appearances, in the likes of Parenthood and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, anyway. But I suspect that he’d be pleasantly surprised at her additional talent for breezy mysteries, in the form of detective Wollie Shelley, like this particular title.