The Vintage Bookshelf: Madam, Will You Talk? by Mary Stewart

By Shari Randall

 

Welcome to another edition of The Vintage Bookshelf. Today we’re getting swept away by the remarkable Mary Stewart’s Madam, Will You Talk? 

 

“The whole affair began so very quietly.

 

When I asked my friend Louise if she would come with me on a car trip to Provence, I had no idea that I might be issuing an invitation to danger.”

 

Honestly, who could resist these opening lines?

 

British writer Mary Stewart is well-known as the author of 1970’s mega-selling Merlin trilogy that began with The Crystal Cave, but before that blockbuster she wrote novels that were a tasty gothic blend of mystery and romance. One of my favorites is Madam, Will You Talk (1955). I still find it difficult to believe that Madam was Stewart’s first book – her evocative opening lines, mastery of setting and characterization, gorgeous prose, and breathless plot are enough to make some writers (ahem) green with envy.

 

Let’s look at the book as writers, shall we?

 

Are there issues? A few teensy ones and one antiquated trope but …let’s start with the good stuff.

 

Her New York Times obituary quotes Melanie Reid of Glasgow’s Herald: “Mary Stewart sprinkled intelligence around like stardust,” and it’s true. The chapter headings in Madam, Will You Talk are from Chaucer. This fan felt smarter with every page turn of the book.

 

Stewart’s prose and descriptions of her setting are nonpareil. Yes, I’m throwing in some French terms. Reading Mary Stewart does that to you. (see above.) Her lavish prose does more than justice to her glamorous settings – it makes one long to visit. If there’s one word for her prose, it is seductive. You cannot resist. Don’t even try. Just sink in.

 

Here’s her description of Avignon (page 26):

The city is dominated from the north by the Roche des Doms, a steep mass of white rock, crowned by the cathedral of Notre Dame, and green with singing pines. Besides the cathedral, taking the light above the town, is the golden stone palace of the popes. The town itself is slashed into by one main street, the Republic, which leads from the main gate, straight up to the square. 

 

“Green with singing pines!” Magnifique!

 

Her characters and characterization are well done, and are definitely from the romance world. Here’s one character: 

 

His clothes, his air, no less than his voice, were unmistakably French, and he had that look of intense virility and yet sophistication – the sort of powerful, careless charm, which can be quite devastating.

 

Devastating indeed! Swipe right!

 

Madam’s main character, Charity Selborne, a young war widow, is bilingual and knowledgeable about architecture, art, literature, and fashion, plus she can handle a sports car, something her deceased war hero husband taught her. She manages all this without being “sympathetic,” “feisty” or irritatingly perfect. 

 

Is the plot irritatingly perfect?

 

One plot element, the enemies to lovers trope, had me tearing my hair out, but it is a staple of Vintage Bookshelf ™ romance novels. There were plenty of overheard conversations. Were there too many coincidences? Perhaps. All right, yes. However, the bold actions the heroine takes, which would make her TSTL (Too Stupid To Live) in lesser hands are the result of an admirable emotional motivation and clever plot.

 

No matter. The setting and characters are so finely drawn you won’t mind any bumps in the road to Avignon. Revel in the beauty of the prose. Resistance is futile. Few writers can cast a spell like Mary Stewart.

 

Have you read any books by Mary Stewart?

Shari Randall is the author of the Agatha Award-winning Lobster Shack Mystery series and, as Meri Allen, the Ice Cream Shop Mystery series. 

 

 

 

 

 

The Vintage Bookshelf: The Mrs. Pollifax Series

By Shari Randall

 

Welcome to another episode of the Vintage Bookshelf. My name is Shari Randall and I enjoy reading books published more than fifty years ago (the current definition of vintage). In this episode, I discuss a favorite series protagonist, one of the original “silver sleuths,” Dorothy Gilman's Mrs. Emily Pollifax.

 

As aa reader who falls into the “vintage” category, (not quite antique yet, thank you), I am especially pleased to have made the acquaintance of Mrs. Emily Pollifax of New Brunswick, New Jersey, a widow in her sixties who satisfied her longing for adventure by taking on the occasional undercover assignment for the CIA.

 

When we meet Emily in her first adventure, The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax (1966), she’s sharing with her garden club the night-blooming cereus that she’s managed to grown in a box on her fire escape. Despite this impressive horticultural feat and her forays into yoga and karate, Emily longs for more and she decides to write to the CIA to ask for a job. Through a (less than believable) mix up (hang in there, it’s worth it), she’s hired. Her CIA handler, Carstairs, believes that her resourceful and improvisational personality, disguised by her ladylike gloves and hats, makes her the perfect spy. Her adventures take her to geopolitical hot spots like Hong Kong, Morocco, Sicily, Mexico, and more. She goes undercover in carnivals, souks, and sanitariums. She’s held at gunpoint, knocked out with chloroform, and kidnapped numerous times, but with sturdy common sense and gumption she vanquishes experienced foreign agents, art forgers, and a cast of other bad actors.

 

Keep in mind, Mrs. Pollifax operates in a time when the Cold War was hot. Yes, as with all books on the vintage bookshelf, one is very occasionally jolted by attitudes and language that were acceptable at the time the book was written, but no longer. Never fear, Mrs. Pollifax maintains an open-hearted and broad-minded attitude that has insured her welcome on our bookshelves today. 

 

Dorothy Gilman

It’s particularly pleasing to see how popular these books have remained. There are websites and social media groups devoted to the series. The name of a popular mystery review site run by Mark Baker, Carstairs Considers, pays homage to Mrs. Pollifax’s CIA handler.

 

If you think Mrs. Pollifax bears some resemblance to Riley Rhodes, the protagonist of my Ice Cream Shop Mysteries (written with my super-secret pen name of Meri Allen) you would be correct - and very perceptive. Riley’s background as a former CIA librarian/occasional asset was inspired by Mrs. Pollifax.

 

Here are the Mrs. Pollifax books in order:

The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax (AKA Mrs. Pollifax, Spy)

The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax

The Elusive Mrs. Pollifax

A Palm for Mrs. Pollifax

Mrs. Pollifax on Safari

Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station

Mrs. Pollifax and the Hong Kong Buddha

Mrs. Pollifax and the Golden Triangle

Mrs. Pollifax and the Whirling Dervish

Mrs. Pollifax and the Second Thief

Mrs. Pollifax Pursued

Mrs. Pollifax and the Lion Killer

Mrs. Pollifax, Innocent Tourist

Mrs. Pollifax Unveiled1990)))

 

Who’s your favorite “silver sleuth?” Let me know in the comments.

 

Shari Randall is the author of the beloved Lobster Shack Mystery series and, as Meri Allen, the Ice Cream Shop Mysteries. You can see what she’s up to on Facebook (@sharirandallauthor) and Instagram (@meriallenbooks).

 

 

From The Vintage Bookshelf: Thirty Years a Detective by Allan Pinkerton

By Shari Randall

Vintage Bookshelf is an occasional series in which I muse upon crime-related books I pick up in used bookshops and dusty antique stores. In this episode, I take a parasol-shaded stroll through Thirty Years A Detective: A Thorough and Comprehensive Exposé of Criminal Practices of All Grades and Classes, Containing Numerous Episodes of Personal Experience in the Detection of Criminals, and Covering a Period of Thirty Years’ Active Detective Life (whew) by Allan Pinkerton. Yes, that Pinkerton.

 

In the late 1800’s a series of books was published by Allan Pinkerton, the detective who gave his name to one of the world’s most famous security companies. There is some doubt as to the extent of Allan Pinkerton’s participation in the series of “Great Detective Books” but there is no doubt that Thirty Years a Detective is a lace-curtained look out the grimy window of morality and crime circa 1880.

 

The prose is purple, the detectives noble, the criminals (“knights of darkness”) detestable but well dressed and improbably well mannered. If you are writing a historical novel, this book is a gold mine.

 

It’s also a ripping read. Thirty Years a Detective is an unintentional how-to for criminals, replete with stories of justice served, spiced with a surprisingly sultry chapter on a scamming seductress for good measure.

 

If you didn’t know how to run a confidence scheme, rob a steamboat, bilk society worthies, or break into hotel rooms, you will after reading this book. “Pinkerton” helpfully delineates each stage of the criminal’s work. With diagrams.

 

Each chapter introduces us to different flavors of criminal - The Society Thief, The Pickpocket, Store Robbers, The “Boodle Game” (“cupidity greater than judgment”), Sneak Thieving, Palace Car Thieves (“Mr. Potter Loses some Diamonds”) Steamboat Operators, Confidence and Blackmail (“The Confidence Man About Town”), The Burglar (“Burglars and Dynamite”) Forgers and Forging, Counterfeiting and Counterfeiters, and the Express Robber.

 

The great detective invariably praises the intelligence, wiles, and ability of what we would call the perp, the better to showcase the intelligence, wiles, and ability of the Pinkerton Operatives who take them down.

 

The author, an émigré from Scotland, often mentions the superiority of the American criminal, American criminals being more apt to fashion their own burglar tools to break into tough-to-crack bank vaults and homes. Even then, Americans were leveraging technology to get the job done.

 

He also includes what we’d call an episode from the Dumb Criminal file (“The Biter Bitten”), a tale of two of New York’s most brazen confidence men being fleeced by one of their own.

 

The chapter on the seductive scammer, titled “A Social Leper,” inspires all Fifty Shades of “Pinkerton’s” violet verbiage. He begins on this somber note: “Crime, I regret to say, is not entirely confined to the male portion of humanity…. I am reluctant to confess it, but her fair fingers have more than once been bathed in blood.” We breathlessly set aside our porcelain tea cup for a delicious wallow in the account of Helen Graham, a tale of “genuine romantic deviltry.” The pages turn themselves.

 

“Pinkerton” describes Graham as “truly beautiful, her eyes beamed with a bright softness that owns the hearts of those around her.” Graham’s scam was answering help wanted ads and then accusing the respectable businessmen she visited of “accosting her with most vile and degrading proposals.” She flung cayenne pepper into the eyes of the businessman to ensure he’d call the police to the scene. Yes, accosting ladies with vile proposals got you arrested in 1884. One of her marks, Mr. Ingalls, did not give in to her blackmail and hired “trusty detectives.”

 

Thank goodness Ingalls’ trusty detectives – “Pinkerton’s” modesty and restraint do not permit him to spell out whose detectives - revealed Graham as a “beautiful fiend whose seductive wiles had been the ruin of many who had been led by the witching spell of her charms into the abyss of moral destruction.” Whew! Bring me my fan!

 

These operatives discovered that Helen Graham was actually Mary Freeland, a barmaid who left a trail of dozens of duped men from a dockside London bar to the palatial homes of Manhattan. “Pinkerton” devotes several spicy but disapproving pages to the tale of her depraved descent into “genuine romantic deviltry.” Take that, E. L. James!

 

As you can see from the above excerpts, one also wonders if the writer, er, “Pinkerton,” was paid by the word. 

 

The inside cover advertisement for the other books in the series Allan Pinkerton’s Great Detective Books contains this blurb: “The interest which the reader feels from the outset is intense and resistless; he is swept along by the narrative, held by it, whether he will or no.”

Translation: “An un-putdownable thrill ride!”

 

If you’d like to own this priceless window into the past, an original Thirty Years a Detective is selling on abebooks.com for $98.42 — but thanks to expired copyright, you can enjoy “Pinkerton’s” adventures online free through many digital libraries such as Projectgutenberg.org.

Happy reading! Do you enjoy used bookstores? Share any great finds in the comments.

Shari Randall is the author of the Agatha Award-winning Lobster Shack Mystery series. She also writes the Ice Cream Shop Mysteries under her pen name Meri Allen. You can find her haunting her local used bookshop.