Scarecrow time: Dark of the Moon by John Dickson Carr

 

Dark of the Moon by John Dickson Carr

published 1967

 

 

 

 

I don’t blog about all the books I read, and sometimes I am sure from the beginning ‘this one won’t be a post’. But then my mind can be changed – and in this case I don’t think anyone could have predicted the reason.

Tucked away in my files I had these two scarecrow photos: they are from the NYPL collection, and show a publicity/marketing exercise by the Continental Baking Co, tied in to the New York World’s Fair of 1939/40. And no, I haven’t the faintest idea how scarecrows in designer clothes (which is the NYPL designation) would be connected to a bakery. (**But see below for more).

When I came across the photos – I have used pics from that World’s Fair a few times on the blog – I had to save them, they were so weird, but I also thought ‘there is no way I will ever use those pictures, what possible book could they illustrate?’

But – there is a stolen scarecrow in this book, and although the timing is 25 years off, and the scarecrow in the book is male – well there were just enough threads to link with these pictures, which I think do deserve to be seen.

The book itself – oh it’s terrible, as everyone says. Very late on, and John Dickson Carr didn’t have the verve of his early years. There is an excellent and helpful blogpost on it over at Ben Randall's The Green Capsule

Dark of the Moon – John Dickson Carr (1968) – The Green Capsule (wordpress.com)

Which I strongly recommend for a rundown of the plot, such as it is.

Ben says: ‘you’re reading a 250 page book that feels like it should have been about 180’ but I think that is over-generous – at a 100-page novella it would have been a lot better. But he is correct to say that it has its moments.

It is set in Charleston in the USA, and contains pages of history and touristy information which, honestly, you could skim. Charleston IS very beautiful and full of history, but this is not the place for it.

Dr Gideon Fell is the protagonist, and no book containing his antics is a complete waste of time. There is a routine strange and aged house, home of all kinds of worrying things: his friend Alan is making the introduction, and Fell asks him what the problem is. Alan replies that he doesn’t know, ‘I’m merely horse to your Lady Godiva’, an image to boggle with, and nearly worth the whole book.

There’s quite a lot about baseball (too much) and some young men jostling with each other. As Ben says on the Green Capsule, there is one really good, big, surprise and the final pages of explanation are entertaining enough.

In line with my new #SpoilerNotSpoiler project, if you want a hint of something that will be of importance in the plot, you can look at this old post on another JDC book – this isn’t much of a spoiler, just an aspect…

There is a character who ‘struck a pose like the Goddess of Reason’ in the middle of a ridiculous evening gettogether. I liked this photo by Toni Frissell from the Library of Congress – this is actually Gloria Vanderbilt’s family in the same era as the book.

Is there ever any proper closure on the subject of the medical chap with the stay-at-home wife? Did I miss it with skimming?

And one extra disappointment – there is mention of a mysterious bigamist, a young woman who has been released from jail and could be anywhere.

‘The girl from Jersey City! Before they put her in jail she had thirty-four husbands in three years, or practically one a month… What’s happened to her since then?... Where is she now?’

This is a trope that JDC does exceptionally well in other books: the woman with the past, who may be present. But in this case it is just thrown away (again, unless I missed it in my skimming). What a lost opportunity – I’d have been a lot more interested in her than in the dreary Maynard forebears and their troublesome lives. (Perhaps someone can explain the significance of the bigamist to me, and the matter of Mark’s life choices, though I’m not sure enough people have read this book to have any hope of that.)

I can’t quite remember why I bought The Dark of the Moon – it was in December 2023, did someone blog on it, mention it, did they make it sound appealing? Or is it just completism on my part…? It’s just about worth reading for JDC fans I would say…

***I did find out that the Continental Bakery had a massive pavilion at the World’s Fair, and ‘An unusual feature is the wheat field on the outside of the structure--the only wheat field planted within the limits of New York City in sixty-eight years.’ So presumably that is where the scarecrows were. But designer clothes? And the fact that they are human? (They are human, right?)

Charleston has featured on the blog before - in a post on a very obscure book called The Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister. 

Back then (2014) I said:

 If you heard there was a light American romantic comedy of manners called The Lady Baltimore, you might make some assumptions: that it was set in Baltimore, and/or that Lady Baltimore was a key player. You couldn’t be more wrong – this book is set in post-Civil-War Charleston and The Lady Baltimore is a cake.

If you read my post you will find out about the major problem with the book.