A Zebra Mystery Puzzler #32 - Murder at Willow Run

This thirty-second entry into the Zebra Mystery Puzzler series introduces yet another author and another new amateur sleuth.  The author is identified as "Michelle Collins," but it is uncertain whether this is the author's action name or just another in a long-line of pseudonyms used for this series.  Other than this one and book 51 in this series, I can find no other books by this author (although I find plenty of books out there written by various writers of the same name).  The copyright for the book simply belongs to Kensington Publishing Corp., which likely means this was a house psuedonym.  In any event, Collins only offers two books within this series, and this one gives readers their first taste of art director Megan Marshall.

 

Murder at Willow Run is set in a preppy little art community called "Willow Run" in the Catskills of New York.  Megan Marshall is an art gallery director who is putting together a show for artist Evan Townsend, a young man with whom she hopes to one day develop a real relationship.  The story opens with the exciting news that Marshall has managed to get a world famous art critic, Garrett Winters, to come to the show!  Winters happens to be a long-time friend of Alfred ("Alf") Barnard, who runs the Inn in which the art show will be displayed, and he has agreed to come at Alf's request.  Megan is thrilled, Evan is hesitant, and Alf is confident that everything will work out fine.  However, from the moment Winters arrives, everything goes downhill fast!

 

Collins crafts a horrifically vile person in the character of Garrett Winters. From the moment he arrives, he has nothing but nasty things to say about everyone and everything - from Evan's art (which, at this point, he has not even seen!), to the small town setting, the decor of the Inn, and the townspeople and guests at the Inn.  In fact, the man has nothing nice to say at all!  Clearly, this man deserves to die - or, at least, that's what plenty of people think.  After a rather loud confrontation with Evan in the dining room, with Evan threatening to get rid of him, to a fierce battle in the kitchen with the chef that results in his being fired, to some snide remarks to one of the local women in town, Winters finally takes his leave, going to his room upstairs.  Before long, however, he's back downstairs, demanding a different room, as the bed is too small.  Megan accommodates him, moving him from Room 4 to Room 7, making sure he's settled in and that he has locked his door from the inside before she walks away.  So, imagine her surprise, when she and Alf come up the next morning, find the door still locked with the chain, and after breaking their way, find the critic lying dead on his bed!  The door was locked, the windows are still locked - so how in the world was he murdered?

 

It's a fantastically well-written locked-room mystery that, quite frankly, had me stumped.  The first internal illustration gave me a first thought as to the identity of the killer, but as the story progressed, my thought changed time and time again.  The clues pointing to any number of people, and Collins herself even points this out with the gossip of the townspeople:  "the culprit was variously Evan Townsend, the moody and passionate painter; Claude Monteaux, the temperamental chef; Alfred Barnard for some inexplicable reason; Bertram Van Riper, the man of mystery... (p. 72) - and even this list does not account for all of the suspects.  There were also Grace and Adelaide Wimble, the aging sisters who seemed to have a history with Winters; Shelley Barnes, a local woman "far more enamored of the artist than she was of the art" (p. 23); Quentin Lacy, the rather flamboyant and dramatic director of the theater across from the Inn; Hilda Stanwick, a former watercolor artist whose career had ended quickly after a bad review; and even Garth Hendriks, the Inn's groundskeeper who lived in the upstairs of the barn just behind the Inn.  So many suspects, so many motives, but only one of them did it.  The questions for Megan is:  which one?

 

Honestly, I was wondering if Collins would go the same route as the writers of The Hardy Boys / Nancy Drew Mysteries television show did with their season two opener, which features a locked-room mystery that stumped the teen detectives and nearly made them believe in vampires!  That two-part season opener offered up a rather ingenious solution, and I thought perhaps Collins had taken a page from that show, which aired two years before this book was published.  It certainly would have provided a clever twist, making the killer one of the least likely suspects!  But Collins went an entirely different route, for which I applauded her, as it made it much more difficult to figure out (for the reader).  While the clue on the front cover is very subtle, the internal illustrations offer very little actual clues - one offers no clue at all, one offers a very clear misdirect, two offer a connected clue that you have to really pay attention to catch, and the last two offers the clues that clinch it!

 

The author does reference the use of "flurazepam," which is referred to as "a soporific marketed under the trade name of Dalmane" (p. 107).  This is an actual drug that is prescribed by doctors for short-term treatment of sever insomnia.  The brand name of "Dalmane" has been discontinued in the United States, but flurazepam, which is the generic version, is still prescribed.  Obviously, this book was written long before the brand name medicine was discontinued in 2017.

 

As with most books in this series, there is no identification of the cover artist, and none of the internal illustrations are signed and no credit given - leaving it a mystery as to who provided the art.  I think it bears repeating what a disservice these publishers did back in the day by failing to give credit to cover artists, as well as internal illustrators - particularly for a series like this, where the art plays (or is supposed to play) just as important of a role in helping the reader solve the mystery as the story itself.  With this day and age of information at the tips of our fingers on the internet, one would think the information would be easy to find; but, alas, it is not.  Thus, the identity of these artists remain a mystery unsolved...

 

This mystery was extremely enjoyable, very well written, and definitely kept me guessing.  I am glad to know I will get at least one more mystery by Collins before the end of this series!

 

RATING:  10 blood-stained hotel towels in the trunk of a car out of 10 for taking the "locked room mystery" to a whole new level and giving us a fantastic new sleuth who is up for the challenge! 

The Chilling Deception - a Guinevere Jones novel (Book 2)

I hope this series does not make the same mistake Moonlighting and Remington Steele did back in the '80s.  Part of the attraction for both of those shows was the sexual tension between the two lead characters, with the constant question of "will they?" or "won't they?"  The moment the writers put the leads together in a relationship, the shows faltered and were ultimately cancelled (and while I'm sure there were other reasons for the cancellation as well, I believe a big part of it was removing that tension).  With the Guinevere Jones series, a large chunk of the enjoyment in the first book was how reminiscent it was of the early seasons of both Moonlighting and Remington Steele.  The female and male leads clearly had some attraction, but they were also always at odds with one another, having completely different styles for getting their jobs done.  This is exactly what author Jayne Castle has crafted here with Guinevere Jones and Zachariah Justis.  I just hope this book is not the beginning of the end for that relationship...

 

The Chilling Deception takes place some weeks after the events of the first book. Zac is between jobs in his security business, but Guinevere has a rather posh position as a temporary secretary for Edward Vandyke, the owner and founder of Vandyke Development.  But Gwen is concerned something is off with her boss.  He has been overly concerned about an upcoming business deal and trusts no one around him.  He has also been fighting with his wife, and he has shown signs of agitation and nervousness.  The final straw for Gwen is when she finds a gold-plated gun in Vandyke's personal executive restroom just off of his office.  Something is amiss, and she is concerned for the man.  So, when he asks her to go to the San Juan Islands for the final business meeting that will seal the deal with Washburn, she convinces him to hire Zac for his security, to protect the briefcase that contains all of his important papers for the deal.  Zac is hesitant at first, but the thought of a weekend on an island with Guinevere is too much temptation to say no.

 

Castle (also known as Jayne Ann Krentz) builds the mystery rather slowly.  Guinevere and Zac make the trip to the San Juan Islands with Vandyke, with Zac set up in a room next to Vandyke, and Gwen in a room further down the hall.  It's apparent from the get-go that Vandyke is concerned about more than just the papers in his briefcase, since he fairly well demands Zac remain close to him at all times.  They begin to suspect he fears someone may be targeting him.  Is the business deal really so important that someone would want to kill him?  Only one way to find out, Zac reasons, so he opens the briefcase - and inside, he and Gwen find a flight log for one of Vandyke's business planes from way back when he and his partner, Gannon, ran a courier service to the islands.  The only problem is, the last trip logged in by Gannon on the list was dated after Gannon died!  So, how does a dead man make a delivery flight?  It is at this point that the story starts to heat up.

 

Is a dead man coming after his former partner?  Is someone in this whole business deal not who they say they are?  And why would anyone want to go through Gwen's hotel room when she is ... ahem ... otherwise engaged in Zac's room?  The suspects are plentiful.  There is Washburn.  And Washburn's personal assistant, Springer.  And the local pilot named Cassidy, who has taken a liking to Gwen.  And then there is that mysterious person following Vandyke, who keeps to the shadows and disappears before Zac can get a bead on him.  The deal gets made, the weekend comes to a close, and everything appears to have gone off without a hitch.  Until the next morning, when Vandyke disappears.  And Zac finds out some startling information about the accident that supposedly took Gannon's life  And Vandyke's wife reveals something even more important to Gwen about her husband's past.  It all comes to an exciting climax as Gwen and Zac face off on an isolated, uninhabited against an unscrupulous man who is out for revenge and will stop at nothing to get it!

 

Castle, according to her bio at the back of the book, resides in Seattle, Washington, so it makes sense that her stories are set there - write what you know!  The San Juan Islands are, indeed, a real locality located about 70 - 90 miles northwest of Seattle, and, like in the story, you can get to the islands by ferry or plane.  There are plenty of uninhabited islands, ranging in size, so the one such as Castle uses in her story likely exists.  

 

The conclusion to this story takes place a couple of chapters before the book actually ends.  The last two chapters give readers an epilogue of sorts - first, an opportunity for Guinevere and Zachariah to come to terms with the scope and direction of their relationship; and the second, a scenario that appears to be a set up for the next book (at least, I hope, because I like the character this chapter introduces!).  The first book merely gave a previous of the first chapter of this book; but this one seems to have integrated the "preview" into the actual story - sort of like a television episode that wants to provide a lead-in to the next week's episode!

 

The cover art is gorgeous, even with Gwen's very '80s teased hairstyle.  The scene appears to meld some of the story elements together - from the all-important briefcase, to the wooded area of the island, to the fun in Zac's hand (which actually never takes place, since Zac does not carry a gun with him in the story, and when he's fighting the villain, he knocks the gun away and does not pick it up).  I love how the artist has the rays of sunlight streaming through the trees, which gives the scene a rather chilling effect.  The cover has the artist's signature:  CLIFF MILLER. This is a pleasant surprise, as Miller provided cover art for a number of the Nancy Drew Files back in the 1990s (and I actually own several of his paintings that were used for those covers!).  

 

RATING:  9 pairs of nylon panty hose with runs in them out of 10 for a tale filled with intrigue, mistaken identities, and a great soap-opera style return from the dead story! 

Lucifer Cove, Book 6 - From Satan, With Love (Virginia Coffman's Thrilling Occult Gothic Series)

"Maeva Wells entered the Cove seeking help ... and found that the price was her soul!" (cover blurb)

 

And so we come to the sixth and final entry into the Lucifer Cove series, written by Virginia Coffman.  It is somewhat bittersweet, as I really hate it when a series that I enjoy reading comes to an end and I know I will no longer read about the characters I have grown to enjoy; but, at the same time, I believe it is better for a series to end while the stories are still well-written and fresh, rather than continue on and start telling stories that are stale and no longer readable.  The only drawback to this final visit to Lucifer Cove is that we do not get a final resolution as to Marc Meridon and Christine Deeth...

 

From Satan, With Love is clearly a title taken from the James Bond film of similar name (with "Satan" taking the place of "Russia"), and perhaps, in a way, it is used as a way to signify this book is a send-off to readers, an opportunity to say goodbye to the Cove forever.  While the previous books have provided a build up to the true nature of Marc Meridon, this book provides readers with definite confirmation as to Marc's evil nature and introduces an unexpected antithesis within the Cove that readers will not likely see coming (I certainly wasn't expecting it!).  It all stems from the arrival of Maeva Wells and her niece, Jenniver, who happen to be hiking up the Coast Range, when they stumble upon a break that reveals a hidden valley - the very valley where Lucifer Cover has made its home, hidden from the road and not appearing on any map.  Jenniver is only too excited to explore the quaint spa, but Maeva has her concerns.  The choice is taken out of her hands, though, when Jenniver slides down the inside slope, injuring her leg and ankle.  Fortunately, Marc Meridon is there to help!

 

With her typical flare for dramatics and building suspense, Coffman brings Maeva Wells into the world of temptation and desire, and while the Irish woman believes she is immune to such temptation, the sudden attraction she feels for Marc cannot be denied.  She soon finds herself doing things she would never imagine possible, such as attending a black mass in the Greek temple, overseen by Nadine Janos, self-proclaimed priestess of the devil himself.  She unwittingly makes a wish and signs a simple form to confirm that wish - not realizing that she has not only signed her life away, but her very soul as well!  The death of a young woman by apparent suicide (but which Maeva knows was not suicide) and a late night warning from one Christine Deeth (the woman who shares her niece's room at the Cove's medical facility) start to open Maeva's eyes as to what is really going on in the Cove.  But, as Marc so politely informs her as he leads her beneath the basement floors of the infirmary, to an area filled with intense heat and the horrific smell of sulfur (not to mention all of the cries and moans of those who sound like they are suffering beyond belief!), she did sign a contract, and once signed, there is no way to break it.  Or is there...

 

Those who have been reading all of the books in the series may recall Dr. Rossiter from prior books.  He is not the most cordial of men, nor is he very likable.  But, from the moment Maeve and Jenniver arrived in Lucifer Cove, he has tried to impress upon her the fact that she does not belong there, and that she and her niece must leave as soon as possible.  Well, appearances can be deceiving, and sometimes the truth we need is presented in the most unexpected ways.  It seems Dr. Rossiter is another character in Lucifer Cove who is much more than he seems, and his attempts to help Maeva escape the clutches of Marc Meridon goes beyond that of any other client at the posh spa - so far, in fact, as to jeopardize the life of the one woman Marc truly loves in exchange for Maeva's own freedom!  The book has quite the climatic confrontation in it, and it's thrilling to see the part that O'Flannery has to play in it all!   It's a race against time, and against the forces of the devil himself to escape this hidden den of vice and iniquity, and the question is - will all of them make it out alive?

 

While Coffman never comes out and says in uncertain terms that Marc Meridon is the personification of the devil, this book makes it unequivocally clear that he and his Cove are there to draw people into sign, sign their souls always, and ultimately make their way into the fiery depths of hell (the whole scene of Marc leading Maeva into the basement, with the description of the heat, the sulfer, and the cries of pain leave no doubt as to where he is leading her!).  He even admits to Maeva that her execution of that contract in Nadine's temple sealed her fate.  I rather liked the fact that Dr. Rossiter is revealed to be at the Cove to work against Marc's efforts to gain more soles; I just wish the series had had more books in which to develop his character, and perhaps even end with a battle between the two (the climax of this book certainly seemed to set up a potential battle between them).

 

Once again, this book offers three different cover choices.  My favorite version (top left) inverts the images from prior covers, with the water and mysterious fog-covered rock island on the right side rather than the left.  The woman on the cover, preparing to escape the Cove, is blond, while Maeva is described inside as having dark colored hair (which is properly represented on the other two covers).  It seems very few of the covers by this particular artist depicted the main character accurately on the cover.  Meanwhile, the Pinnacl Books edition (above right) is closer to how the author describes her.  This artist also offers up the wildcat heard, and ultimately seen, by Maeva in the book, as well as a man (assumed to be Marc Meridon) watching her from above/behind.   The third cover art, for the Lancer Gothic edition, is somewhat pain, compared to the others, with the dark-haried woman's face in the foreground, her hair windswept, and the tudor-style building from the Cove in the background, atop a not-so high cliff.  Again, these images of the Cove being near the water is inaccurate, as the book clearly describes the spa being located withing a mountainous region, completely surrounded by mountainside and no visible ocean anywhere (as that would obviously provide a means for the guests to escape!).  The only cover to feature a character that shows any fear whatsoever is the one I like best (top left).

 

With the series over, sadly, there are some answers that will forever remain unanswered.  What ultimately happened to Christine Deeth?  How much longer can Nadine Janos keep up the pretense of being an emissary of the devil, while unknowingly performing her cons on his very playground?  Exactly who is Dr. Rossiter, and what is his ultimately purpose / goal in Lucifer Cove?  Why did he really try and assist Maeva and Jenniver?  And will anyone every truly succeed in defeating Marc Meridon, or, if he truly is the devil himself, is Lucifer Cove simply an allegory for how the devil tempts us every day into giving in to our baser desires, while, at the same time, giving up our souls for eternity?  Alas, that is a question we each have to ask ourselves, and only we know the real answer...

 

RATING:  10 panels of old-fashioned wallpaper filled with green tendrils of ivy out of 10 for a suspenseful and nearly terrifying tale of what can happen if we allow our lustful desires get the better of us and how high the cost can be! 

A Ted Wilford Mystery, no. 15 - The Greenhouse Mystery

This series has been an unexpected joy to read.  While a few of the books have had less than stellar mysteries, overall, the series has been good, with unique mysteries and characters I have really grown to like.  But, alas, nothing was meant to last forever, and this fifteenth book in the Ted Wilford series is the last that was published, back in 1967.  According to the blog, Beneath the Stains of Time, the author of this series, Norvin Pallas, was a freelance writer who had "a high regard for children" and "their thinking abilities."  This comes across clearly in his writing, as none of the stories were "dumbed down" for younger readers; rather, they in many cases featured rather complicated mysteries that depended more on intellectual processes for deducing clues rather than coincidences and pure luck, as many series books do.  I applaud Pallas for treating his readers as equals, intellectually, and giving them some great stories!

 

The Greenhouse Mystery centers around an upcoming pageant of roses and the highly unlikely coincidence that two separate women have bloomed the same exact "unique" rose.  Pallas likely drew upon the Pageant of Roses Garden in Whittier, California and the Loki rose, which blooms in shades of pink and white, to name the pageant in the book, which is the "Loki Pageant of Roses" (p. 5).  Cub reporter, Ted Wilford, and his ever-faithful photographer/friend, Nelson Morgan, are off to interview various individuals who will be submitting roses to this year's pageant, including Mr. and Mrs. Bowden of the Lady Bee Floral Nursery, who are planning to enter a specifically designed rose, a bluish shade, that is to be named "Governor's Hope" after the state's current governor.  The mystery comes into play when Ted and Nelson are interviewing another rose hopeful in Forestdale, only to discover that she plans to enter a rose she calls "Blue Lady" - a rose that is identical to the one Mrs. Bowden has grown!

 

On the surface, it seems like a simple enough mystery - which woman truly developed the rose, and which one stole it (or received it stolen)?  The mystery, though, is much more complicated.  It seems there have been strange happenings as the Lady Bee Floral Nursery in recent weeks.  A shipment of Canadian rose bush clippings were delivered, but they disappeared before Mrs. Bowden saw them.  The office safe was opened up and rifled through, yet nothing was taken.  Someone gets passed locked doors and windows to get into a cottage on the property and steal food from the refrigerator.  Pages of the Bowdens' record-book as to the grafting of various rose plants are replaced with forgeries. A tank of deadly fumigant is taken out of a locked shed, then later returned unused.  And one of the nursery's employees claims to have seen a wolf come onto the property, jump behind a hedge, from which a man then appears, who walks right through the glass wall into the greenhouse!  That last story is too far-fetched to believe - until Ted and Nelson witness a similar event for themselves! 

 

The trail of clues seem completely disconnected - an employee with a criminal past; a red convertible seen at the nursery, a nearby chemical plant, a seemingly meaningless lie about a jail that does not exist in a nearby town, a competing greenhouse with similar roses, and a small shack found in the middle of the swampy woods just off the Lady Bee property.  Ted has to really put on his thinking cap to sift through these clues to find out which ones are important and which ones are red herrings (no pun intended).  Is it the nursery handyman, who is the only one with a key to the lock on the shed?  Is it the nursery's secretary, who has access to the safe and was supposed to be in the office when the stolen clippings arrived?  Is it the man who owns that red convertible?  Is it the employee with the criminal past (that includes an arrest for forgery)?  Is it the owner of the small, competing greenhouse?  Is it even one of the Bowdens, who are caught in their own lies and secrets?

 

I will admit, this mystery did leave me stumped.  Despite the number of viable suspects, they either seemed too obvious or without any motive, so it was hard to pinpoint it down to just one.  Ted, however, manages to chase down the real culprit, figuring it out after he and Nelson make their way through the woods to find out who it is that is living in that shack (and who has been sneaking into the greenhouses at night, and why!).  Part of the solution was actually rather surprising, as it takes a likely suspect and turns him into a hero, more or less.  It is not what you'd expect, but that is what makes it such a great read.  The ending, on the other hand, is a bit odd, as the governor makes an appearance at the rose pageant, and it ends with Ted and Nelson being asked to join Mrs. Bowden in a picture with the man.  A rather strange way to end a book that concludes a series (unless, of course, Pallas was not aware at the time he wrote the book that this one would be the final mystery Ted Wilford would solve).  One has to wonder if Pallas had any plans or outlines for future mysteries, or even if there is an unpublished manuscript out there somewhere that would have been book sixteen!

 

The cover art is not the greatest (although, looking back, none of the covers are really all that fantastic).  The one man on the cover (not sure if that is supposed to be Ted or Nelson), his face looks too much like "Butt-head" from that old MTV cartoon, Beavis and Butt-head.  As soon as my mind made that connection, I could no longer unsee it, and now I cannot look at this cover without laughing.  Not sure who provided the cover art (or even if the same artist provided covers for all 15 books), but it definitely could have stood with some refinement before publication.

 

And, with that, I have now finished the Ted Wilford series, and will have to move on to some other vintage mystery series (and I have plenty to choose from, so it's only a matter of figuring out which one to start next!).  If you like good mysteries that make you think, then I would recommend this series.

 

RATING:  9 salami-eating werewolves out of 10 for making a seemingly simple mystery into a much more worthwhile read with some surprising twists and turns! 

Lost City of Uranus - the Sixth Dig Allen Space Explorer Adventure

And with this sixth book, we've reached the final Space Explorer Adventure of our hero, Dig Allen.  Six books published over the span of four years (from 1959 to 1962), this series turned out to be considerably better than I had anticipated.  Author Joseph Lawrence Greene (1914 - 1990), who was a prolific writer who also created Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, has given young readers an exciting series of adventures of what the future could have been from a mid-century viewpoint.  The period in which these books were published was right at the end of the over-the-top, campy sci-fi films of the '50s, and so it should come as no surprise that these books are filled with what we now know to be scenarios that are simply impossible to have happen.  But, back when these were written, I have no doubt that young readers fantasized about life on other planets in our solar system and what it would be like to travel the stars.  Well, Greene offered them the chance to see it with this series.   (Special thanks to my good friend, Ray Lambert, who gifted me with a copy of this final book in the series, as I was having one heck of time trying to find a copy of it!)

 

Lost City of Uranus, published in 1962, takes a different direction from the other books.  Sure, we still get a space adventure involving Dig Allen and best friends, twin brothers Jim and Ken Barry; yes, we still follow them as they set off to yet another unexplored planet in our solar system.  But with this book, Greene opens the story differently, with readers being introduced to a ship that has just dropped off the latest settlers to the new colony on Ganymede, one of Jupiter's moons that was being settled by daring spacemen and women.  When two of the crew are sent outside to inspect the rocketubes, one of them - a man by the name of Dirk Danton, happens to spot on old-fashioned bottle floating through space. He retrieves it, and inside is a handwritten letter from a pilot who disappeared, along with his ship, decades okay.  According to the letter, the pilot (Steven McKay) was the sole survivor after a meteor struck their ship, and as he was about to crash on the planet Uranus, he decided to send out this message in a bottle in the off chance someone may find it and be aware - for McKay had spotted what appeared to be a shining city on the surface of the planet, a planet always believed to be lifeless!  The crew in the present (our future?!) laugh it off, except for Danton.  Danton believes there is something to it, and thus, his greed gets our story going.

 

And thus, with a bit of a jump, Dig, Ken and Jim are readying to head to Earth for a much needed vacation, only to be given a brief mission while they are on Earth - deliver the letter from Steven McKay to his family - his now elderly wife and their son, with his wife and two children.  There does not seem to be any problem with the delivery - but they are unaware Danton has been following them, determined to get his hands on that letter so he can head to Uranus and find that city.  Through a series of unexpected circumstances, the McKay grandchildren - Jamie and Judy - are tricked by Danton into a smuggler's ship; but when left by themselves for only a moment, it is sufficient time for the children to accidentally start the ship's engines and send it flying off into space!  After they are missing for a couple of days, McKay's son comes to where Dig and his friends are vacationing and begs for their help.  And, thus, it becomes a race against time for Dig to find the children before they crash on the same planet where their grandfather is believed to have died.  Dig enlists the help of the smuggler, whose ship the children are in, and unknowingly take Dirk Danton along with them - with ultimately proves disastrous!  

 

Although the idea of there being an underwater city thriving on Uranus, Greene does actually provide a fairly good tale of morality and the cost of greed.  Dig, Jim, Ken, and the smugglers do ultimately find the city, and even though Dig claims it for the Space Explorers, placing it under their jurisdiction, the smugglers, at Dirk's insistence, decide to sneak in and steal some things from the city for their own benefit.  Those actions have some pretty major consequences, not only for Dirk and the smugglers, but for the entire city and its inhabitants!  It is tragic in a number of ways, and provides a double meaning to the title of the book; yet, at the same time, it provides for a not-so-surprising reunion and some measure of hope for what they have learned to be applied to life on Earth.  As a final story for the series, it is a unique one, and definitely one that is heavy on the heart.

 

There is not a whole lot of science within this story, but Greene does have his characters mention that Uranus "is not as dense as the Earth" and the atmosphere "is mostly methane" (p. 78).  While the first part is true, as Uranus does not have a solid surface, but is more or less an ice giant made up of various "ice" type materials, the second part about the methane is not true.  The atmosphere of Uranus is 83% hydrogen, 15% helium, and only 2.3% methane - so it is definitely not "mostly methane."  Further, the references in the book to the gravity being heavier than that of Earth are also wrong, as Uranus' gravity is about 11% weaker than the Earth's gravity.  This is due to the fact that Uranus' mass is so large and spread out over a large volume, the surface is much farther from the planet's center, and therefore the gravitational pull is weaker.  Of course, this book was written and published in the early 1960s, before much of the in-depth study of the planet discovered a lot of these facts.  Besides, these books are science fiction, and therefore, the details do not need to be factual!

 

This book gives us the fourth artist on the series, Phil Marini. I could not find much information about Marini, other than the fact that he did a number of paperback covers for Dell and other publishers back in the 1950s.  His cover for this book is a bit off, as one cannot really tell who the older characters are supposed to be.  This scene is taken from the moment when Dig, Jim, Ken, and the smuggler captain find the two children on the surface of Uranus, and after reviving them with oxygen, they discover the city under the icy surface (p. 91).  However, none of the men have Dig's red hair, and the man kneeling down and pointing does not look anything like the captain described in the story.  His appearance does not even match Marini's drawing of him in the story (p. 85)!  And speaking of that particular drawing - for some reason, that one is the only one printed in black.  All of the other internal illustrations are printed in a light blue ink.  Not sure why they difference, but it definitely stands out from the others.

 

As I've said before, it is a shame this series ended after only six books.  The stories were actually very engaging and filled with adventure, and the main characters were very likable.  I mean, the publisher could have at least given him two more books, so he could have finished the planets in our solar system - one wonders what Dig and his friends would have found out on Neptune and Pluto!

RATING:  9 English-speaking Uranians out of 10 for giving Dig and his friends a final farewell story that sticks with you in terms of story and impact!

Mary Perkins, On Stage - Volume Eight

Wow, I cannot believe it has been almost two years since I read the previous collection of this newspaper strip.  How in the world could I have put it off for so long?  This strip is perhaps the most well-written, superbly drawn newspaper strip that was ever published, and the stories are more engaging than any soap opera drama on radio or television.  Creator/Writer/Artist Leonard Starr truly outdid himself with this strip, which ran from 1957 to 1979.  While the premise of the series is simple enough - it follows the trials and tribulations of a young actress, Mary Perkins, as she breaks into the world of theater, and later film and television; but the stories themselves are far from simple!  The stories are filled with drama, humor, suspense, mystery, and adventure, and the characters are so well defined that they feel as real as any person we might meet in real life.  After the rather lengthy story of Pete Fletcher's dangerous assignment in Vietnam, it is rather nice to get back to Mary as she prepares for her next story...

 

Mary Perkins, On Stage Volume Eight starts with the very next strip, dated May 5, 1966, as Mary and her friend, Sarah Eggart, meet Simon DeJong, a famous producer who has just gone through a rather nasty divorce. This sets the stage for Mary and Pete to be invited to join Simon on Fire Island, along with Sarah (in whom Simon has taken an interest).  Taking the summer off, Mary and Pete rent a house close to Simon's, and all seems perfect - until Simon's ex-wife, Gogi, who shows up on the island to stir up trouble, which she does in spades!  The story is a fairly basic love triangle (Sarah - Simon - Gogi) that ends pretty tragically when Gogi takes out her revenge on Simon in a rather gruesome way (not gonna spoil that here, but suffice to say, a character does die!).   This story runs for two months, ending with the July 30th strip.  While the love story may not be overly exciting, I will say that Mary and Pete's marriage, and their love for one another, truly shines in this story, with panels like the middle panel of the June 20th strip (p. 35) and the very last panel of the July 30th strip (p. 56) epitomizing their love so perfectly!

 

The next story starts off with a huge unexpected splash as Captain Virtue comes crashing through the wall in the final panel of the Sunday, July 31st strip!  That's right, you heard me.  Mary Perkins meets a real life superhero when she agrees to be an acting coach for Bernie Kibble, a rather shy young man who happens to be the perfect fit as Captain Virtue - the next big television sensation! This is one of my two favorite stories from this collection, as it combines my love of of the theater with my love of comic books and superheroes!  Starr takes the story in some very unexpected directions, as this innocent and naive man who is thrust into the limelight takes betrayal by his best friend to heart and nearly turns into a villain - but there is redemption to be had, as he manages to restore not only his friendship with his former best friend and manager, but he also manages to win back the trust and love of the girl he had fallen head over heels for (who also happens to be his costar in the TV show!).  Mary pretty much took a backseat to this story, as she was more or less his acting coach, his counselor, and ultimately, his conscience.

 

From here, we traipse over to Hollywood, where a young woman named Catherine has just got the third female lead in a new motion picture.  It turns out, though, that Catherine has some ulterior motives, one of them being to convince Mary Perkins to visit an acting coach by the name of Franz Richter, who is an expert in the Stepanovsky Method!  This turns into a story of international proportions, where no one is who they seem!  We even see the return of Major Grisha Volkov, who appeared in the last collection of stories (Mary Perkins, On Stage - Volume Seven) - but is he really simply the Russian cultural attache, as he claims, or is he there for another reason?  Poor Mary gets stuck in the middle of all the chaos, as Russian agents attempt to bring a Russian artist back to their country.  The danger is high stakes, with a dramatic conclusion in the snow-capped mountains of the Sierras, where the movie is to be filmed.  Mary is never so glad to get back to her husband, just as he is given a new assignment...

 

This, of course, takes readers into the next tale, which is my other favorite story from this collection, as it is filled with juicy Gothic greatness!  The Beauchamps, a theatrical dynasty, have secluded themselves into a stately old mansion, with only Garrick Beauchamp having much contact with the outside world.  His mother, Mrs. Beauchamp, is blind, depending heavily on her companion Clara to be her eyes (and ears).  His wife, Melissa, the other Mrs. Beauchamp, is nothing short of a prisoner in the mansion, being manipulated by her controlling mother-in-law.  Garrick Beauchamp is a big name in the theater world, as was his father and grandfather before him.  And if Dame Margot (the mother) has her way, that legacy will continue - no matter the cost!  The Gothic mansion, the manipulations and lies, the shadowy figures lurking outside, the stormy night, the devastating secrets, the long-desired love - it all works so beautifully to create a tragic story of Gothic mystery and suspense.  And this one definitely does not have a happy ending.

 

As one story ends, another begins - one that definitely proves Mary Perkins has what it takes to be a true theatrical powerhouse!  Vanna Croy shows up at a theater in New York, mistaking the assistant stage manager for the producer (more on that assistant stage manager in a moment - as far as the mistake goes, was it really?) and throwing Mary Perkins' name around in order to get her foot in the door.  From there, she meets the director, Josh Price, working her way into a walk-on role with only one line.  Then, when confronted with Mary herself, Vanna convinces her that Mike O'Hare had intended to talk to her about Vanna (with Mike being in Europe, of course, Mary has no way to verify).  You can see where this is going.  Vanna works her way up the food chain, all the way up to the major backer for this production, one Cyrus Deering.  Even when Mary finds out about the lies Vanna has been telling to wiggle her way into the pay, Vanna manages to not only move up from a walk-on role to a supporting role, but she convinces Deering to get her Mary's part!  Deering, in turn, forces Price to get Mary to walk out on her contract or he will pull all funding for any future play, leaving Price no choice but to turn on his star performer.  But Mary is not one to quit, and the Sunday, July 30, 1967 strip shows readers just how strong Mary Perkins is - an actress who knows exactly what to do when she needs to!  The last panel of that day's strip proves what an excellent storyteller Starr is - no words at all are needed, as the facial expressions on both Mary and Vanna say it all!  Oh, how I absolutely LOVED reading the next week or so worth of strips, as Mary shows Vanna exactly who she is dealing with - putting Vanna in her place and showing Price and Deering that she is not one with whom you should mess!

 

Now, about that assistant stage manager, whose name is Edward.  When he first appears (p. 177 - Sunday, May 7th strip), I had to take a double-take.  I mean, quite frankly, it was like looking in the mirror.  Which is impossible, since this particular strip ran in 1967, years before I was even born!  Yet, there can be no doubt about it.  The glasses.  The haircut.  The nose.  The expressions.  The stance.  Everything about Edward screamed "Todd"!  To be sure I wasn't imaging things, I showed my father the panels.  I showed my friends the panels.  And every one of them, the first thing they said was, "What are you doing in that comic strip?"   The panel shown above (left) is Edward's very first appearance, and even the shirt he is wearing is the exact style of shirts I wear.  The panel shown here to the right is a later panel from the May 7th strip, and the the hair style, the downward tilt of the chin as he talks, the thin neck - it is simply uncanny.  I know the saying goes that everyone has a double out there, but I never expected my double to appear in a comic strip, particularly one that I read and love as much as I do Mary Perkins, On Stage! 

 

With that out of the way, let's discuss that final story, which sees the return of the dangerous, yet fun-loving Johnny Q.  He shows up at the theater to see his favorite young actress, but his appearance coincides with Mary's dressing room being ransacked. Fortunately, nothing was taken - not even her wedding and engagement rings.  So, what was the culprit after?  Starr gives readers a major clue by focusing in panel after panel on Mary's purse.  Of course, there is no time to wonder about that, because before you know it, a car is trying to run down Johnny and Mary.  They escape unharmed (of course), and Johnny leads Mary to the Hickey Psycho-Deli, a discotheque run by - who else? -  long-haired, sunglasses wearing hippie named Hickey!  Hickey agrees to hide Johnny and see Mary home safely, and it's only after Mary gets home we learn the secret of the purse.  It seems the lining has been torn, and a small envelope was stuffed inside - an envelope containing a very suspicious looking white powder!  Talk about a story for a newspaper strip.  Somehow I doubt many strips, no matter how serious they were, broached the topic of drugs in their stories.  But Starr did not shy away from it.  Poor Mary is left to wonder just what Johnny has gotten her into this time.  Edward (the assistant stage manager from the previous tale) comes back into the story, and Mary ends up in a very dangerous situation, where she is nearly left to die in a burning building!  There is redemption of two characters by the end of the drama, and the readers are left to wonder if Johnny's "good-bye" is truly final this time...

 

And the last two panels set up our next saga, as Mary receives a call from the movie director, Renzo Di Saba, who wants Mary to be a part of his next production.  Thus, it's off to Rome for Mary, where she will be reunited with her husband and decide whether she wants to take a part in Di Saba's newest epic!

 

Starr's story and art definitely reign supreme in this collection.  The man knows how to move stories at the perfect pace, and his habit of reusing the last Sunday panel as one of his Monday strip panels makes me think of how soap operas do the same thing, pretty much, with their episodes - re-airing portions of the last moments of the previous episodes to keep viewers who may have missed an episode informed on what is happening. His attention to minor details in the art (such as the way in which Mary's scarf is tied in the November 18th panels) and the use of outside visuals (such as the panels showing snow coming down on the mountainside from January 4th to January 8th).  There's even a moment where Mary has her fingers crossed behind her back (January 16th), showing, rather than telling, readers tat she is holding out hope for good luck in what is about to happen!  Starr even uses his visuals to provide clues for the reader that the characters in the story miss, such as the footprints outside of the Beauchamp mansion on that dark rainy night (p. 156). Today's comic artists could truly learn a lot from this master storyteller!

 

RATING:  10 anonymous notes in large print out of 10 for keeping the stories fresh, full of fast-paced drama and adventure, while keeping the characters grounded and relatable! 

House of Dark Laughter - an Avon Gothic Original

Any fan of the Gothic novels from the 1960s and '70s knows that the plots to these books all follow a similar formula - a young woman goes to a mansion/house/castle for whatever reason, and she faces multiple dangers from unknown sources, all while fending off two men, one of whom is good and one of whom is bad - but which is which?  Sure, the settings change, the characters change, and some plot elements same, but they all basically boil down to the same story when you get down to it.  This particular book, published by Avon Books in July 1972 under their "Avon Gothic Original" line, not only follows that pattern, but it shares a lot of story elements with other Gothic novels that I have read in recent years.  Two are The Dornstein Icon and The Ravens of Rockhurst (in which the main character goes to a house to evaluate antiques, like our young heroine in this book does); and the other is ... well, if I said which book it was, it would definitely spoil the big surprise in this one!

 

House of Dark Laughter was written by Melissa Napier.   I was unable to find any information about the author online, so it is uncertain whether "Melissa Napier" is the author's real name or simply another pseudonym.  The copyright page for this book does not offer any aid, as the copyright is to Script Associates, and not the author.  (And as a side note, the copyright page indicates this book was "Published by arrangement with Script Associates," which was a book packaging agency back in the day.)  This might tend one to believe the author's name is merely a house pseudonym for this agency.  In any event, the story itself is not half-bad, although the main character is certainly put through the wringer!  Betsy Vaughn is a young woman who is about to start a new job.  Hired by Carter Willard, Betsy heads off to a remote town in Pennsylvania where she will be cataloguing antiques in the stately Dalton Mansion.  Old Man Dalton has been ill for some time, and he wants all of his possessions catalogued and valued before he dies.  Carter, as the man's secretary, has brought Betsy to the great house, as she is an expert in her field.  The only problem is, the members of Dalton's family do not want her there (big shock)!

 

Dalton's wife, Alice, is a nasty piece of work who makes it clear from the moment Betsy arrives that she runs the household and Betsy had better not be snooping and better stay out of her way!  Dalton's nephew, Derek, and his niece, Lorna, are spoiled and want nothing more than to see their uncle die so they can get their hands on his money.  Even Edith Austin, the Daltons' housekeeper, runs hot and cold - one minute she is friendly, and the next she is spewing nothing but hatred.  Betsy quickly learns no one can be trusted in the house - not even Carter, for whom she is beginning to develop feelings.  Everyone seems to simply be biding their time until Mr. Dalton dies.  But the mystery lies in the question - why is everyone so dead set on getting rid of Betsy?  She is simply there to catalogue, evaluate, and value all of the contents of the house.  Wouldn't they want to know the value, so that when they do get their grubby little hands on the countless antiques, they will be able to sell them for what they are really worth?  What possible reason could they have for trying to get Betsy to leave?  And who is so dead-set against her being there that they would be willing to kill her?

 

Yes, poor Betsy suffers more in this book than even Nancy Drew did in any of her mysteries.  Betsy gets conked on the head not once, not twice, not even three times - but on four separate occasions over the span of just a week or so, the woman is knocked unconscious by the cruel culprit determined to rid the house of her presence!  She is also attacked in the basement, nearly electrocuted, and near the end, she is almost buried alive!  All of this because of a secret of which she has absolutely no knowledge.  Oh, the reader surely will begin to suspect about half-way through the story when there is a passing mention of a certain incident from the Dalton family's past; but Betsy does not make the connection, as it is so far-fetched and not within her realm of knowledge that she would never even suspect the key that she holds.  Overall, the mystery and suspense are built at a pretty rapid pace, which makes the story much more engaging than it might otherwise be.

 

The title is somewhat misleading, as there is only one very brief moment in the book where there is any "dark laughter."  With that title, I was expecting Betsy to hear laughter reverberating through the house and the hallways late at night or when no one else was around, but that is not the case.  Rather, the only time the laughter is heard is for a brief second before Betsy falls unconscious after being struck on the head (twice, to make sure she goes out!) when she is about to enter a dark room where she was lured by the villain.  The woman's laughter, combined with the smell of perfume that Betsy remembers lingering in the air just before she was knocked out, is what helps our young heroine figure out who is trying so desperately to get her out of there. 

 

As with so many of these books, there is no credit given for the cover art, and the art itself shows no signature.  However, a quick online research reveals the artist is Robert McGinnis (1926 - 2025), who only recently passed away last year.  McGinnis was quite the busy artist, painting covers for countless paperback novels - including men's adventure series, romance books, historicals, westerns, and Gothic novels - as well as a large number of movie posters and art for magazines.  You can check out his work at the official Robert McGinnis Artwork website.  The one thing I should note about the cover for this book is that the woman running away from the house is definitely NOT our heroine, Betsy Vaughn.  The cover depicts a young blonde beauty running fearfully from that mansion in the background; yet, in the story, Betsy is described as having hair that is "thick and as luxuriantly black as a raven's wing" (p. 6).  Thus, either the artist was not given any description of the characters from the book when commissioned to do the cover, or the publisher simply chose an already completed painting and slapped it on as the cover for the book without any regard as to whether it matched the story or not (which, as we all know, happened quite often during this period).  Despite this discrepancy, the cover art is beautiful in its own right and can be appreciated for the gorgeous work that it is.

 

While not necessarily one of the best written Gothics of the period, it is a fairly enjoyable read.

 

RATING:  7 original manuscripts of Samuel Clemens out of 10 for crafting a wickedly fun tale filled with absolutely vile people, a determined young heroine, and a house filled with more danger than you can shake a stick at!