Scandalize My Name by Fiona Sinclair

This Sunday, 3 August is the 105th anniversary of the birth of mystery writer, P.D. James. Her writing is known for being in the style of Golden Age mysteries, but with a darker tone, which I think is fitting to the 1960s when the early Adam Dalgliesh books were published. I love her books for exactly this reason. It’s like reading a novel from the first half of the 20th century with the gloss of nostalgia removed. So when I noticed the back cover of Scandalize My Name called the “high-quality mysteries” of Fiona Sinclair “similar in style and tone to those of P.D. James”, I was skeptical. “Fiona,” I thought, “is going to have a lot to live up to.”

Well! I cannot tell you how relieved I am to report that, in my option, Martin Edwards and British Library Publishing are spot on the money with their comparison. In defence of my skepticism, I find a lot of author comparisons on the back of books to be a bit of a disappointment. Many a time I felt that if I had not been expecting to be reading something akin to one of my favourite authors, I would have enjoyed the book more. But I digress… Let’s talk about Fiona Sinclair’s fabulous 1960 novel, Scandalize My Name.

In an almost 300-year-old house on a hill in north London, the Southey’s are holding a grand 21st birthday party for Elaine Southey. Little do the guests know that while they are enjoying the festivities, a corpse lies in the basement below. Although, the Southey’s are not close with him, their basement tenant, Ivan Sweet, has been invited to the party as well. When he fails to arrive, his brother, also in attendance at the party, goes looking for him. 

Known to be a charmer, a manipulator, a blackmailer, and worse, it’s no wonder Superintendent Paul Grainger finds himself wishing he was hunting Ivan Sweet, instead of the man’s murderer.

Grainger, who has bad posture and spectacles, looks more like a don than a police officer. The 39-year-old was widowed during the Second World War not long after he was married. We get to see him in his home, at his work, and at times we are privy to his inner thoughts. When Sergeant McGregor was first paired up with Grainger, he didn’t think much of Grainger, but in their ten years working together he has come to trust that Grainger’s seeming intuitions are based on careful thought and observation. The two make an interesting pair, and like the best partners they both contrast and complement each other. 

At the outset of the case, Grainger and McGregor travel to the scene of the crime, Magnolia House. Driving through London, Grainger vocalises his opinion about the start of the case being “‘the best part, just a nice clean sheet, no personalities mixed up in it yet, just an interesting puzzle that’s got to be solved’” (44). Meanwhile, McGregor is thinking about his partner.

[Sergeant McGregor] was remembering in a ruminative, amused sort of way, what a highfalutin’ fool he had considered the superior officer to whom he had been allotted ten years ago. Been up at Oxford, someone told him, taking a lot of exams in philosophy, of all unsuitable subjects for a member of the ‘Force’. He’d done his time as a ‘gentstable’ of course. McGregor suddenly smiled to himself, Sakes, but I’d like to ha’ seen him, he thought now, squinting sideways at the superintendent’s lean aristocratic figure with its scholar’s stoop and clever-looking eyes. Course he wouldna’ have had the gig-lamps then, he thought, but still! Man, though, he was a fine fellow to work for. Got right into the middle of a case while the rest were still sniffing round the edges. And methodical! Somehow he hadn't expected that; the case built up piece by piece like a jigsaw puzzle. Gave you a kick to listen to him doing it even if his lingo did take a bit of getting used to. Gave you plenty to do, too, and let you have your head. Sergeant McGregor had been won over a long time ago. (44-45)

There is a lot about the way Grainger is described, that calls to mind James’s detective Adam Dalgleish, not so much physically, but in personality. At the outset, I mentioned that James’ books harken back to Golden Age detective fiction, but are a bit darker, a bit grittier. There is no better example of this in Sinclair’s work as the scene in chapter three where an autopsy is described. Sinclair’s description is not gory, but methodical, and is unlike anything I have come across before. It comes as no surprise that Sinclair’s husband, Michael Peters, was a pathologist. I’m sure I’ve read books with autopsy’s being preformed previous to this, but the sheer matter of factness of it with specific details I have not read before made me pause to appreciate the scene. Clearly, I’m not particularly squeamish, but if you are, you may want to skip from the third paragraph on page 39 to the last paragraph on page 42. As I said, it’s not gory and Sinclair in no way glorifies what would naturally be a gruesome scene, but the writing is shocking in its plainness and may be a bit much for some. 

I think it bears mentioning that quite a few characters are introduced in the first chapter. All of the party-goers do come up again in the book, so it is worth paying attention. However! I did something I almost never do, and that is to start this reading book outside in a park. If I, who has the attention span of a new puppy out on its first walk, can manage to get through that first chapter and glean enough information to carry me through the rest of the book without confusion, and without turning back to refresh my memory, I feel sure you can too. With many characters, you had better believe there are a number with secrets they would rather keep hidden. A well-stocked larder of goodies for a blackmailer to root around in, for sure. And some of those secrets are real doozies, I can tell you!

This book struck a good balance of tension and atmosphere, which Sinclair captures by showing us how the events and the setting affects the characters. Set in August, this book has all the heat and intrigue of the summer season captured amid its last gasp before the autumn. Will the end of summer be the precursor to a literal death, as well? You’ll just have to read this one to find out! Let me warn you, the conclusion is tense. I recommend reading it without distractions, if possible.

In the introduction, Martin Edwards mentions that Fiona Sinclair published five novels in total, between 1960 and 1965, Scandalize My Name being the first among these to be published. I am very much hoping that the British Library plans to bring out the remaining four, because Scandalize My Name has been added to my top five favourite British Library Crime Classics. If her other books are anything like this first one, they are much deserving of being brought back to life. 

Thank you to British Library Publishing for republishing this truly wonderful title and for kindly sending me a copy of Scandalize My Name for review. As always, all opinions on the book are my own. 

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56 Week with Nancy Drew - The Bungalow Mystery

Week 3, Book 3

Welcome to the 56 Weeks with Nancy Drew series! If you are new here, welcome. You can find my introductory post to this series here. Please note I will be including plot spoilers in this review series. I explain my reasoning at the start of this post.

Edition pictured: Revised text (20 chapters, 180 pages)

Cover illustrated by: Rudy Nappi
Revised text publication date: 1960
Original text publication date: 1930
Ghostwriter: Mildred A. Wirt Benson
Editor: Edward Stratemeyer
Revised by: Patricia Doll
Setting: The Pinecrest Hotel on Twin Lakes, Melrose Lake (about 25 miles from Twin Lakes), & in and around River Heights

Originally published in 1930 and written by Mildred Wirt, I will be reviewing the revised text edition of The Bungalow Mystery, published in 1960 and pictured above.

This book gets off to an exciting start! A storm kicks up on Twin Lakes, where Nancy and her friend Helen Corning are out in a motor boat. Helen informs Nancy that Twin Lakes can get as rough as the ocean in a storm (1). (That description sounds to me a lot like Lake Erie, but it also happens to be one of those dramatic general statements that get made in these books, so they could be on any lake or it could simply be a fictitious one.) The next thing they know, their motor boat hits a log, leaving a jagged hole in the side of the boat (4). Then a wave washes over their boat taking the two girls with it, leaving the flooded boat to sink to the bottom of the lake. Thankfully, Nancy is a skilled swimmer (no surprise there!) because Helen has somehow lost the use of her arms in the accident and Nancy must get herself, and Helen, to shore (7).

What, you say? We’ve already reached page seven and still no sign of a mystery? Not to worry! It’s coming and with slightly more subtlety than we saw in The Hidden Staircase where the mystery was introduced on the first page.

Just as Nancy is having misgivings about her ability to tow Helen to shore in the treacherous waves, a boat appears being rowed by a “slender auburn-haired girl of about sixteen” (8). Would you exchange first and last names with a your would-be rescuer when you are still in the midst of a life or death situation? I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t, but never mind. Nancy introduces herself and Helen, and the young girl in the row boat follows her lead.

    “I’m Laura Pendleton,” she said. “I read in a newspaper about one of the mysteries you solved. I may need your help some day soon, Nancy.” (9)

It isn’t until chapter two that we find out why Laura might need Nancy’s help. (How Laura came to the conclusion that she may need Nancy's help at this point in the story is a mystery I am still trying to solve.) Laura’s father died in a boating accident six years ago, which is why she felt compelled to go out into the storm when she heard Nancy and Helen’s cries of distress. And just a month ago, Laura’s mother died, leaving her orphaned. Laura has been left in the care of a distant relative of her mother’s, Jacob Aborn, but she has not yet met him. After having some trouble contacting Mr. Aborn through her lawyer, Laura reached out to him directly at his Melrose Lake address about needing money to pay her boarding school tuition. Mr. Aborn replied back telling her to come to the area and him and his wife would meet her. Her main concern is that the letter “wasn’t cordial” (17). 

Well, Laura must be psychic or her skills of perception are as finely tuned as Nancy’s because — you guessed it — all is not right with Jacob Aborn and his wife, Marian. He has a certain charm, but it comes and goes and with his shifty eyes, you know he’s no good. Marian has bleached blond hair, and is incapable of changing her own flat tire, so she is obviously going to be a baddie too.

It isn’t until the end of chapter four that we first hear Carson Drew is working on an embezzlement case. Carson has been hired by Mr. Seward, the president of Monroe National Bank to find the securities that have been recently discovered missing from the bank’s vault and to discover the perpetrator. “Most of the securities were bonds which read ‘Payable to Bearer’” (53), so time is of the essence.

In this one, Nancy investigates the Aborns, helps her father in his case, outsmarts the police, nearly drowns, nearly gets killed by a falling tree, gets hit in the head and knocked unconscious (as does her father), narrowly escapes a car explosion, and still has the energy to play a few games of tennis, go for a swim, nurse Hannah, make a date, add to her souvenir matchbook collection, break a date, diagnose car trouble, take a nap, work through the night, eat 10 meals, one cup of cocoa and two rounds of pancakes and sausages (though, not in one sitting). 

Time of year

At the start of this book, Nancy and her friend Helen on a vacation at the Pinecrest Hotel on Twin Lakes. Caught in a storm while they are out on the lake in a motor boat we find out that the girls lose their sandals when they are washed overboard (12). The next day, the girls spend part of the morning playing a few games of tennis. We can assume they are playing outside, because Nancy comments on the weather being particular lovely when they head to the courts at the back of the hotel (23-24). We also get descriptions of the surrounding area. 

    When the three girls stepped outside, Nancy took a deep breath of air. She loved the earthy smell of the forests surrounding the lake resort, particularly the scent of the tall pines. (23)

Later, we get descriptions of place Laura is staying, the Montewago Hotel, which is about twenty-five miles away from Twin Lakes. The outdoor swimming pool at the hotel is full of swimmers (24-25) and “[i]n front stretched a green lawn bordered by beds of multi-colored gladioli, dahlias, and giant asters” (24).

But the biggest clue we have for the time of year comes when Nancy runs into Don Cameron, a fellow former-student at River Heights High School. He was also Nancy’s date for the Spring Prom. 

    “What are you doing home? I thought you were working on your uncle’s farm this summer before going to college.”

    Don grinned engagingly. “I’ve been picking string beans and berries and hoeing potatoes for nearly a month,” he replied. “But I have a leave of absence to attend my sister’s wedding this Friday." (61)

If Don has been working on his uncle’s farm for nearly a month, then it must be the end of July. It is implied Don has just graduated and is heading off to college in the autumn. I could not find specific dates of the school year for public high schools in the USA in 1960, but I have assumed that it is the same 10-month schedule we have in Canada that starts on the Tuesday after Labour Day weekend in September and ending sometime in the last week in June. This book starts on a Monday and by this time it is Wednesday, so I suspect it is the last Wednesday in July when Nancy and Don are having this conversation.

Location

Since we spent a lot of time theorizing about the setting with The Hidden Staircase, I just wanted to have a quick chat about the setting of this one. 

When her father has to rush off on a business trip, Nancy comes home early from her vacation to look after their housekeeper, Hannah, who has twisted her ankle. Nancy asks Hannah where her father went and Hannah replies, “To the state capital” (44). So no clues there! All we know is that the state capital is far enough away that Carson has taken a flight there (50). Remember it’s the 1960s. I don’t imagine even well-known lawyers were hopping on flights unnecessarily at the time. 

I realize that all I have done here is to provoke more questions. A lovely comment I received on one of my earlier Nancy Drew posts (thank you Savvy Girl!), reminded me that one of the reasons I found reading Nancy Drew so exciting when I was little is that I believed I could grow up to be like Nancy. As an adult, I know how ridiculous that sounds. However, part of what made aspiring to be like Nancy feel attainable, is that these books are not tied to place. River Heights could be anywhere in the USA and as a Canadian reader, it rarely occurred to me that Nancy Drew wasn’t Canadian too. 

What I’m trying to articulate — and I fear I am doing a very poor job of — is that Nancy was someone I aspired to, and she also felt like someone it was reasonable to aspire to be like. Part of what creates that illusion in these books is that they are not definitively grounded in place.

Characterization

There were a number of things that really stood out for me in this book. Although it pains me to limit our discussion, we really just have the space to quickly discuss characterization, specifically description.

Physical description is used in such a way as to provide the reader with an indication of whether we are dealing with a goodie or a baddie. The guideline is pretty simple. If the person is slender, attractive, pretty, good-looking or distinguished-looking with alert or twinkling eyes, or are in any other way pleasant to look at, then they are bound to be a good person. You know a baddie straight off because they will be thin (not slender!) or stout, have shifty eyes, and a face that lacks a sense of humour. 

This description of Marian Aborn is particularly indicative of this.

    At that moment a short, thin woman swaggered into the office. Her print dress was mud-splattered and she had lost the heel to one shoe. Her wet, bleached hair clung to her head in an unbecoming fashion.

Ignoring Nancy and Helen, who were still conversing with Mr. Franklin, the woman said bluntly, "Is there anyone here who can change a tire for me? I just had a flat half a mile away." (18)

Heaven forbid you look less than perfect after having car trouble in a storm! The “wet, bleached hair” clinging to the woman’s head tells the reader just what kind of person we are dealing with. If you insist on having car trouble and stumbling into a hotel looking disheveled at least have the decency not to dye your hair! Coming from someone with dyed blond hair, I found this description particularly hilarious. Even before she opens her mouth, we know this woman is bad news. I couldn’t help but wonder if the reader is also meant to draw a comparison between Nancy who has taken a course in automobile mechanics and knows the possible sources of trouble on a vehicle (143) and this woman who cannot even change a flat tire.

Jacob Aborn is described with slightly more dignity. 

    He was a well-built somewhat stocky man in his early fifties. His face was square, and his small brown eyes were shifty. (29)

Shifty eyes are always a red flag!

***Up until this point I’ve managed to keep this review relatively plot spoiler-free. If you don’t want to read any spoilers, skip ahead to the next section heading.***

But the emphasis on a person’s appearance being an indication of goodness, is particularly stark when Nancy discovers the real Jacob Aborn.

    “As she gazed anxiously into his face, Nancy wondered how she could have mistaken him for Jacob Aborn. Although the two men were of the same age, and had similar facial characteristics, the prisoner was gaunt and thin. His features, contrary to Mr. Aborn's, were gentle and relaxed.” (119)

I don’t care what a person’s face looks like normally, most people look fairly gentle and relaxed when they are… unconscious! 

It is clear when reading this as an adult that the suggestion that goodness somehow comes hand-in-hand with beauty is nonsense. Of course, Nancy Drew books were not the first time this dichotomy was imposed. We see the same thing in fairytales and the old Disney cartoons represent baddies as being physically unattractive in some way. Still, it boggles my mind how this became the standard for children’s stories. Luckily, changes are starting to be made in children’s literature. Now, children don’t have to grow up believing that if they do not fall within the restricted realm of stereotypical beauty they cannot aspire to be like the heroine of their favourite story.

The comparison extends to a person’s vehicle too. When the fake Jacob Aborn is confessing to his crimes, he admits to selling his victim’s blue sedan. 

    “The money helped to pay for my new foreign car.” (127)

Apparently, baddies sell perfectly good vehicles in order to overpay for foreign models. The term “foreign car” gets used so frequently to describe the vehicles of bad guys in these books that it quickly becomes a joke. 

In this book, the police quickly show up after a nearby farmer calls into the station to report a car accident. The police officer that shows up on the scene might just have the funniest and most ludicrous line of the book.

    “When we heard it was a black foreign car, we were suspicious immediately.” (169)

I mean… It is in the late 1950’s that the first cars were imported into America. Were the Big Three funding the publisher? I think we had better leave that theory alone, though it is a funny thought!

Thoughts on the 56 Weeks with Nancy Drew project

When the idea of 56 Weeks with Nancy Drew first occurred to me, I had planned to post one standard book review a week. I imagined it including a spoiler-free synopsis, my opinion of the book, a favourite quote or one that captured the feel of the book, and leave it at that. I had planned to read ahead of my posts, so I would always have at least four weeks of reviews banked. Beyond my being a life-long procrastinator, this project has grown from what I had initially imagined. Here we are at three weeks in and I’m struggling to choose what to include in my reviews, because the notes I am taking as I read are nothing short of madness. 

Beyond keeping a timeline, noting references to the time of year, and locations and place names, the meals referenced and all of the foods described, I’ve also been cataloging clothing references, character descriptions, Nancy’s skills, and so much more. With each book I read I’m adding more things to these lists and adding more lists! I’m having so much fun geeking out on all things Nancy and reading these books critically for the first time. But there isn’t the time to discuss all of the things I want to in one post. Last week, I wrote two posts for The Hidden Staircase and at the end of it I still felt frustrated because I didn’t get to half of the things I wanted to discuss. 

What I’m trying to say, is that I’m having a great time. But I’m also finding this project challenging in a way I hadn’t imagined. Despite the fact that I cannot discuss all of my thoughts on each of these books within the confines of one post per book, I am going to continue to take copious notes, mark all the beautiful, fun, and hilarious passages, as well as the problematic ones in the hopes that I will be able to eventually share that information in the future.

Favourite quotation

I’m going to share a longer quotation than I have for the other two books because I think you need a bit of context for this one, and there is a humorous bit at the end of it. 

    As the car reached a smooth, straight piece of road, Nancy put it to a faster and faster pace.

    "We're gaining on them!" Don said exuberantly.

    Little by little the Drew sedan crept up on the car ahead. Soon its headlights spotlighted the rear of the other vehicle a black foreign car! Three figures were silhouetted inside it! (164)

After reading this book when I was little, I was obsessed with car chases. With my dad driving, I would often pretend we were being followed by the car behind us and say excitedly, “They’re gaining on us!” It was great fun!