Patrick Quentin: 2 x Puzzles and a Stage Door

Puzzle for Players by Patrick Quentin

published 1938

Puzzle for Fools  by Patrick Quentin

published 1936

 

I’ve read a few books by this author, but never really kept track of reading in order or working out the story of the writers hidden behind the pen-name, which eg might change to Q Patrick.

Luckily for all of us, crime fiction expert (and friend) Curtis Evans does keep track of everything, and helpfully has a recent post on this author, full of information and links:

The Passing Tramp: 5 million views and the Hugh Wheeler/Richard Webb (Patrick Quentin) Critical Biography

In a recent discussion of theatrical mysteries, Puzzle for Players was mentioned, so here we go. A chance to use my new special logo for one of my favourite genres:

 

It has some of the best elements – a Broadway theatre, a play in rehearsal, the demanding older actress with a young man fluttering round her, weird guys at the stage door, a sinister ex-husband hanging round.

And all kinds of things are going wrong: a possible ghost, a broken mirror, a creepy cat -  just your usual everyday items. It is a very complex plot, with some separate strands working together, and everyone being open about their loves and problems and secrets, which prevents a lot of time-wasting. There is a coffin on stage, so we kind of know where that’s going: the question being, who is going to be in it?

Two distinguished European gents meet up with each other;

Wesler gripped Dr Lenz’ hand. I shall never forget that titanic moment when beard met beard. It was like Jupiter and Wotan getting together at some celestial convention.

There is also a charming British character actress, Theo, who wears tweeds and falls in love all too easily.

women of the theatre company

Peter, our hero and sleuth and director of the play, has to visit her in the early hours of the morning:

She was sitting up in bed, wearing very severe white pajamas. She looked rather wonderful, like Lady Gwendolne Marchbanks, the haughty British heroine of a pre-war romance.

[Editorial note: where was her bedjacket?]

She was earlier able to understand an overheard conversation because luckily

‘I picked up some German when I played Shaw in Vienna.’

I was particularly reminded me of Helen McCloy’s

Cue for Murder by Helen McCloy

 &  Trial in Three Acts by Guy Morpuss

And also a great favourite story, and a treasured entry from the past:

Eurovision, Saki, and the Big Borzoi: 'everyone singing like mad'

Mirabelle Rue, the grand dame actress, is very like Cousin Teresa, and has a big borzoi. (that sounds like a risque euphemism, but isn’t)

Everyone seems to be either blackmailing, being blackmailed, or having pressure put on them. There are some good secrets to be revealed. The play they are rehearsing sounds entertainingly fabulously dreadful, and also has some echoes of the offstage plot.

What more could you want from a theatrical mystery?

John Norris has done an excellent review of this book here

Pretty Sinister Books: Puzzle for Players - Patrick Quentin

all-purpose pajama picture

 

The narrator, Peter Duluth, a Quentin regular, keeps mentioning that his wife burned to death in a theatre while playing Juliet, so I assumed that the previous book

Puzzle for Fools

would be the story of that death, crime etc, and thus another theatrical mystery, so I read that one next.

But not at all – as far as I know, the Juliet incident is never explained. In fact Peter has fallen into alcoholic despair about the death, and is in a sanitarium recovering.

And before we know where we are, there are a huge range of staff and patients all being threatened, hearing voices, and suffering massive meltdowns in the middle of the night. Peter most certainly not excluded.

There is an intrinsic creepiness in the setting, or as Peter puts it, ‘there is something about an empty passage in a sanitarium – something bleak and forbidding.’

There are a lot of incidents, a lot going on, and there is also a young woman whom Peter is very interested in. I don’t think it is a #spoiler to say she is not going to be culprit or victim because she appears in Puzzle for Players.

Peter will get her a part in the play. He can tell she will be a swell actress by the way she mops the floor. We, the readers, just have to take it on trust.

Peter has some good lines: ‘Apparently there’s no-one who inspires more gratuitous confidences than an alcoholic in a  mental home.’

When someone is found dead:

“Do you think it’s murder?”

“My stage training has taught me that people who are found trussed up in grotesque positions are always the victims of some dastardly crime.”

He also acts like a complete idiot in trying to try out  a word association trick on suspects. This is something Clothes in Books wholly disapproves of, as explained, with examples, in this post

The Man in the Moonlight by Helen McCloy

 

The whole thing was like a less terrifying version of Dennis Lehane’s fabulous Shutter Island (book and film): Quentin made excellent use of the atmosphere and there was nifty/nasty use of straitjackets.

Iris tips up in a purple evening dress at the sanitarium party: that’s not a common colour to find, and I had just used one up in this post, where the point was its revealing cut, so have nicked it from there

Undertakers from London to Broadway

She also gets a go at white silk pajamas, in which ‘ she looked like a particularly health angel, a sort of celestial hockey captain’.

I enjoyed the books, and will eventually move on to the later Puzzle books.

Picture of a 1930s NY rehearsal

Script reading at rehearsal of Elizabeth the Queen. Philip Moeller (director, seated), Lynn Fontanne & Alfred Lunt. - NYPL Digital Collections

Three women in daywear

Daywear and sportswear ensembles - NYPL Digital Collections

All purpose pajama picture – actually Ginger Rogers.

Other Quentin books on the blog:

The Wife of Ronald Sheldon by Patrick Quentin

Murder at Cambridge by Q Patrick