Golden Age Whodunits

Starred review from May 6, 2024
Penzler follows up 2023’s Golden Age Bibliomysteries with another stellar anthology that places stories from the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Stephen Vincent Bénet beside works from the biggest names in 1920s and ’30s detective fiction. Bénet impresses with “The Amateur of Crime,” an ingenious closed-circle puzzle about a college student who uses his obsession with crime stories to help solve a murder. Impossible crime master Clayton Rawson makes a major impression in just four pages with “The Clue of the Tattooed Man,” in which the Great Merlini solves one of his trickiest cases. “The Dance”—one of only two mystery stories Fitzgerald wrote—is another highlight, blending his gift for social satire (the protagonist fears small towns because “there was a whole series of secret implications, significances and terrors, just below the surface, of which I knew nothing”) with a frisky crime plot. Other entries, from genre fiction maestros including Fredric Brown and Ellery Queen, are up to par; there’s not a weak link in the bunch. For classic mystery fans, this is a must.

June 1, 2024
Think British writers had a monopoly on the formal detective story between the wars? Penzler presents evidence that may change your mind. The single most appealing feature of this collection of 15 stories first published by American writers between 1925 and 1949 is, in fact, their varied sources. Ellery Queen is here, of course, with "Man Bites Dog," whose mystery and solution unfold in the stands during the 1939 World Series, and so are other genre stalwarts like Mary Roberts Rinehart, Melville Davisson Post, C. Daly King, Mignon G. Eberhart, Anthony Boucher, Helen Reilly (her only short story), and Vincent Starrett, whose novella Too Many Sleuths includes enough twists and detectives for a full-length novel. But it's revelatory to see the material supplied by Stephen Vincent Benet, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ring Lardner--even if, as Penzler notes, "it takes a while before the reader recognizes that [Lardner's often-anthologized "Haircut"] is a crime story," and nobody would call it a whodunit. The best stories here are among the shortest--"Haircut," along with Stuart Palmer's "Fingerprints Don't Lie," in which Hildegarde Withers stars in a tale that manages to be both lighthearted and ingenious, and Clayton Rawson's "The Clue of the Tattooed Man," in which the Great Merlini, basing his deductions entirely on Inspector Gavigan's description of a murder, solves the mystery so quickly it's over almost before it's begun. The most original entry is Fredric Brown's futuristic "Crisis, 1999," even though its title date has passed and it's not a whodunit either. And psychologist Henry Poggioli, who investigates the murder of a Trinidad servant's bride in "A Passage to Benares," provides the perfect punchline for the whole volume. Guaranteed to make Americans prouder of their country than any episode in its recent political history.

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