"The White Cottage Mystery" by Margery Allingham

Margery Allingham (1904-1966) published her first novel in 1923, when she was all of 19 years old. Although the novel didn’t do well financially, she continued to write and publish plays, verse and stories. And then, in 1929, she struck gold with a new detective Albert Campion, and it was Campion that rocketed his creator into the front ranks of the Golden Age of Mystery writers.

Two years before Campion’s first appearance, Allingham wrote a serialized story for the Daily Express, entitled The White Cottage Mystery. It was published in book form in 1928. It’s a complete story, but it has the feel of a serialized narrative – dramatic, cliffhanging chapter endings and sudden narrative developments that keep the reader guessing.

Jerry Chaloner is a young man with a fast sports car. Driving through a small town, he gives a pretty girl a lift; she’s walking with a limp from a blister on her foot. She lives with her sister and brother-in-law at what’s called White Cottage. The girl goes inside, and Jerry begins to talk with a passing policeman, until they hear a gunshot. They rush inside the house and discover a body with a gunshot to the chest. The victim turns out to be Eric Crowther, the next-door neighbor.

As it turns out, just about everyone has a motive, and the opportunity, to have shot Crowther. The suspects include Norah Bayliss, the young woman with the blister; Eva Christenson, Norah’s sister and mistress of White Cottage; Eva’s husband Roger, confined to a wheelchair because of a war injury; several servants at White Cottage; and even several members of Crowther’s household next-door.

Margery Allingham

As it turns out, Jerry Chaloner’s father is Detective Chief Inspector W.T. Chaloner of Scotland Yard, which Jerry announces rather breathlessly and dramatically at the end of the first chapter. And DCI Chaloner is known for catching his villains. And in this case, he will chase suspects from rural England to the French Riviera and back again.

Except this time, he might not catch his villain. By choice.

The White Cottage Mystery is a fast-paced, fun read, occasionally verging on the melodramatic but stepping back before it becomes too unbelievable. It also offers a small window into how newspapers once serialized fiction.

Related:

Two by Allingham: An almost Gothic and a Campion

More Work for the Undertaker by Margery Allingham.

The Mind Readers by Margery Allingham.
The China Governess by Margery Allingham.

The Beckoning Lady by Margery Allingham.

The Allingham Casebook by Margery Allingham.

Margery Allingham’s The Case of the Late Pig.

Margery Allingham’s Flowers for the Judge.

Margery Allingham’s Death of a Ghost.

Margery Allingham’s Black Plumes.

Margery Allingham’s Look to the Lady.

Margery Allingham’s Police at the Funeral.

The Essential Margery Allingham Collection.

Margery Allingham Box Set #2.

Margery Allingham’s The Fashion in Shrouds.

The Margery Allingham Society.

Top photograph by Annie Spratt via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Remembering for Ruth: True Confessions

We’ve reached the conclusion in Sheila LaGrand’s Remembering for Ruth serial novel. And now it’s time for true confessions.

The story so far: Paul and Margot Goodharte live in Calfornia, and are caring for Paul's mother, who suffers from Alzherimer's disease. Paul is a pastor; his black sheep brother Matthew shows up and seems to have had something of a black-sheep shedding experience. He becomes interested in next-door neighbor Sue, and the family has a coincidental meeting with Matthew's estranged daughter Amelia. The dog of former neighbors of the Goodhartes is left to them to care for, and Ruth becomes attached to him, naming him Zorro. The dog turns out to be a specially trained schutzhund, and obeys numerous commands -- in German. Amelia is invited to spend some time with the family, and when she arrives, she runs into immediate conflict with Matthew.

Then the family discovers Ruth is missing. The police are called in; the news media arrive; and Mrs. Delsey, the church busybody, organizes young people at the church for to help in the search and provide refreshments (in case you ever wondered, churches can’t do anything with food). A reporter talks to Mrs. Delsey, who lets her disapproval of the pastor’s wife slip into something of an accusation as to why Ruth is missing.

In “True Confessions,” the final installment of the novel, the police arrive to question Margot. Zorro the dog, despite the best efforts of the humans in the story, seems to know where Ruth is. Without giving too much of the story away, let’s just say it ends well.

The serial novel originated in the 17^th century, when books were expensive; publishing in installments could help create a wider audience by bringing the cost down. It reached its height of popularity in the 19^th century; large novels were often written in installments (what Charles Dickens often referred to as “numbers”) and published monthly. The 19^th century witnessed an explosion in literacy; Dickens (for one) rode that wave and became famous as a result.  So did Alexandre Dumas with The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo. In the United States, the first novel to be serialized was Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1851, serialized in an abolitionist publication. Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov.  

The rise of broadcasting in the 20^th century led to a decline in serialized fiction; stories were serialized on radio and later on television (ever wonder where the term “TV series” came from?). But radio largely abandoned serialized stories after the 1950s, leaving the concept to television. In 1984, Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities was serialized in Rolling Stone before being published in book-length form, but it was something of an outlier – until the internet. Web sites, online publications and eventually ebooks (of which Remembering for Ruth is one) have revived the serial form of published fiction.

So Sheila LaGrand’s Remembering for Ruth finds itself in good historical company. The print version of the entire book is scheduled to be published this fall.

Photograph by Peter Griffin via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Sheila Lagrand’s “Remembering for Ruth: Something in the Water”

I could get used to the serial format of publication.

Part 5 of Sheila Lagrand’s Remembering for Ruth serialized novel has now been published. Entitled Something in the Water, it continues the story of the Goodharte family.

The story so far: Paul and Margot Goodharte live in California, and are caring for Paul’s mother, suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Paul is a pastor; his black sheep brother Matthew shows up and seems to have had something of a black-sheep shedding experience. He becomes interested in next-door neighbor Sue, and the family has a coincidental meeting with Matthew’s estranged daughter Amelia. The dog of former neighbors of the Goodhartes is left to them to care for, and Ruth becomes closely attached to him, naming him Zorro. The dog turns out to be a specially trained schutzhund. And Amelia is invited to spend some time with the family she never knew.

In Something in the Water, everyone manages to have a bad day except for the dog. Matthew gets too overbearing with daughter Amelia, and Sue has to tell him to ease up. Best friends Margot and Sue have a fight. Brothers Paul and Matthew have an argument, and Matthew storms out. An elderly church member is upset with the flower arrangements for worship services. Alzheimer’s patient Ruth has good moments and bad moments. The dog, Zorro, however, shows some of what he’s been trained for.

And then the family discovers Ruth is missing.

At the end of each installment, Lagrand usually includes a recipe or two from the story. And I was expecting to see recipes for overnight waffle batter and something called “glom.” But something must have been in the water.

Photograph by Maliz Ong via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Sheila Lagrand’s “Remembering for Ruth: A Room for Amelia”

We’ve reached part four in Sheila Lagrand’s Remembering for Ruth: A Room for Amelia.

To recap the story so far:

Paul and Margot Goodharte live in California, and are caring for Paul’s mother, suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Paul is a pastor; his black sheep brother Matthew shows up and seems to have had something of a black-sheep shedding experience (or maybe that’s shearing instead of shedding). Matthew becomes interested in next-door neighbor Sue, and the family has a coincidental meeting with Matthew’s estranged daughter Amelia. The dog of former neighbors of the Goodhartes is left to them to care for, and Ruth becomes closely attached to him, naming him Zorro.

In A Room for Amelia, a dog trainer to help the family with Zorro. Actually, the trainer is there to help Margot overcome of fear of dogs, a result of being threatened by a dog when she was a child. The trainer discovers that Zorro is a specially trained dog, known as a schutzhund. Originally designed for German shepherds, the schutzhund program is what we associate today with dogs trained for police work, and includes many other breeds (Zorro in the story is an Airedale).

Lagrand also uses this installment of the serial to show part of the range of experiences an Alzheimer’s patient can have. Ruth moves quickly from normal lucidity to almost complete forgetfulness and back again. She’s talking normally with her family at the kitchen table one moment and then walks out of the shower dripping wet and into the hallway the next, forgetting she’s dripping wet and naked.

Also developing is the relationship between Matthew and Sue. Matthew’s daughter is coming to visit and will stay at Sue’s house, and Matthew helps Sue clean and paint the room. During the painting Sue tells Matthew of her difficult childhood and failed first marriage, and the accidental death of her second husband.

The next installment is coming in July, and I’m waiting to see what will happen when Amelia arrives, what role Zorro’s police training is going to play (I suspect there is one), and how Sue will overcome her fears about marriage to continue what is obviously becoming a love story with Matthew.

Photograph of an Airedale terrier by Charles Rondeau via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Sheila Seiler Lagrand’s “Remembering for Ruth: The Bark of Zorro”

We’ve come to the third installment of Sheila Seiler Lagrand’s Remembering for Ruth serialized novel, and this one is entitled The Bark of Zorro.

The story so far: Paul and Margot Goodharte live in California, and are caring for Paul’s mother Ruth, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Paul’s something-of-a-black-sheep brother Matthew turns up, becomes interested in next-door neighbor Sue, and explains his intention to help care for Ruth. In The Bark of Zorro, Matthew and Sue take Ruth to visit a friend in the town where Matthew lives, and Matthew’s estranged daughter Amelia visits at the same time. Confrontation and tears follow, with lots of unanswered questions. In the meantime, after a welcome day of eating out and generally goofing off, Paul and Margot return home to find Zorro, the dog belonging to former neighbors, tied to their front porch.

Like the previous two installments, this one includes recipes at the end: chicken in lovely sauce, egg noodles, cranberry buttermilk coffee cake, cheater peanut butter kiss cookies, and mom’s meatloaf. (Lagrand likes sharing her recipes; I’m sure these are all non-fat and low-cal.)

If you’re interested in serial fiction, Wikipedia has a good article about it, and points out the following:

It became popular in 19^th century Victorian Britain, and The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens (1837) tremendously popularized the form.

It was equally popular in 19^th France, and The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas ran to 139 installments (if Sheila’s runs this long, that means she will finish in January of 2024).

The form stayed popular until the mid-20^th century, likely done in by radio (which also did serial broadcasts) and then television.

Tom Wolfe published The Bonfire of the Vanities in serial form in Rolling Stone (27 installments) starting in 1984, and then revised it substantially when it was published a a formal novel. Other contemporary authors who have tried serial publication include Stephen King, Michael Chabon, Michael Faber, and Orson Scott Card.

No surprise: the rise of ebook publishing and the internet is renewing interest in serial publication, like Remembering for Ruth.

Related:

Remembering for Ruth, Part 1: Mitchell Meets Matthew

Remember for Ruth, Part 2: Paul Loves Snickerdoodles

What I’m Learning about Book Publishing

Since June, I’ve been working with a personal trainer on core conditioning and general physical strengthening,  with a nice leavening of cardio work thrown in for good measure. On Monday, while I’m grunting and groaning with routines like “dead bugs” and “bear crawls,” He told me his grandmother was reading Dancing Priest, and couldn’t put it down. “She’s raving about what a great story it is,” he said.

Of course, I agreed.

Yesterday, as I’m staggering around trying to recover from TRX hamstring curls, “mountain climbing,” and more bear crawls with an eight-pound ball on my back, he told me his grandmother had finished it and was telling all her friends about it.

“When’s the next one coming out?” he asked.

“The day after Thanksgiving,” I said. “It’s out.” I told him he could get A Light Shining at Amazon or Barnes & Noble, or could even call Barnes & Noble or small bookstores locally and order it. “If enough people call asking for it,” I said, “bookstores are much more likely to stock it in the stores, that is, if they’re still around next week.”

I’m learning about the book publishing, book marketing, and the book retail business. The industry is going through convulsions, and there’s no sign of settling down any time soon. Two local bookstores closed recently in St. Louis; the fact is that a small bookstore, the kind so many of us grew up with, simply can’t compete with an Amazon. The ones who are still trying to be general bookstores are going out of business; the ones finding specific niches are hanging on, at least for now. (One of the ones going out of business in St. Louis actually stocked Dancing Priest for a time.)

None of us likes change. When it comes to books, we like to think it’s still the era of Maxwell Perkins editing the likes of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe at Scribner’s. Perkins died in 1947. The industry he knew continued on for another 25 years or so, and then disappeared forever. (If you want to read an excellent biography of Perkins, try Max Perkins: Editor of Genius by A. Scott Berg. It was originally published in 1979 and reissued in 2008.)

A statement of the obvious: Amazon is blowing the industry wide open. Not only has it upended the retail industry, it’s now moving into publishing in a major way. Want to guess why so many traditional publishers tried to establish prices of e-books with Apple? (And got into trouble with the Justice Department as a result?) The answer is a six-letter word that’s the name of a river in South America.

Amazon is a huge factor, but it’s not the only agent for change. Technology is upending the book industry, too. Print-on-demand printers essentially mean anyone can publish, for any length of time, a paperback book. E-books are starting to dominate adult fiction. Self-publishing is exploding. Did you know that even blockbuster bestselling author Jackie Collins is experimenting with self-publishing? Old forms of publication are new again, like serial publication – it worked for Dickens in the 19^th century and it looks like it might be working again today. All kinds of digital magazines are promoting fiction, short stories, poetry, and “creative non-fiction.”

There are even publishers like Diversion Books that work like a traditional publisher with one exception – they handle only digital books.

The single most overused word in the book industry now is “platform,” as in, an author has to have one. Experts point to social media – go ye therefore and subdue Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube. Millions of writers are chasing millions of potential readers on social media to prove to publishers they have what it takes to sell books and make money.

If you’re a new writer, no matter who you’re publisher is, you’re going to be largely on your own. It’s a fact of life today in the book business. Yes, I know, I want to spend all my time writing, too, but that simply won’t work any more if you expect to be published and read. You’re going to be largely responsible for your own marketing and promotion, even if you have a traditional publisher.

One thing to always remember: It’s all coming apart, yes. But that is often the absolute best time to throw yourself into something and see what opportunities are there. And the opportunities are there.