BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE:MYSTERIES

"To police is to maintain law and order, but
the word derives from polis - the Greek for
'city' or 'polity' -- by way of politia, the
latin for 'citizenship,' and it entered English
from the Middle French police, which meant not
constables but government."

Jill Lepore. "The Long Blue Line" in The New
Yorker (July 20,2020)

If you write well, you should not be writing a mystery.
Mysteries should only be written by people who can't
write. I regard this as vicious propaganda from the
Edmond Wilson crowd. Obviously you can't expect
detective fiction to be anything but sub-literary,
to use Edmund Wilson's word, if you insist on
weeding out from the field anyone who shows any
pretensions to skill or imagination.
.
Raymond Chandler, in a letter to Somerset Maugham
Gardner (4 May 1951). The Raymond Chandler 
Papers, edited by Tom Hiney and Frank
MacShane (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2000)

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WHAT SHOULD A  MYSTERY WRITER LOOK LIKE?

In 1944, H. Allen Smith published  his  best-selling Humor book

Lost in The Horse Latitudes and in one of the chapters he describes

meeting Raymond Chandler when they were writing screenplays for

Paramount. Here is Mr, Allen’s description of Chandler:

    

I wanted to meet Mr. Chandler right off.
I expected to find a hulking guy with a flat
 nose and football-shaped biceps. He turned 
 out to be the last man in the world I would
 have picked as the author of his books. He is
 a mild mannered guy of medium size with 
black wavy hair, horn-rimmed glasses, and
 a sensitive face. He looks like a poet is         
supposed to look.
**

GRACIE ALLEN & S.S. VAN DINE

"..in 1938 mystery writer S.S. Van Dine had
published The Gracie Allen Murder Case, featuring
his famed detective Philo Vance, as well as
Gracie and me. Gracie publicly claimed that
she could never understand why a man would
spend a year writing a novel when he could
buy one for only two dollars, but privately
she was very pleased by the compliment.When
Paramount decided to turn the book into a
movie. I suggested they eliminate my character.
Nobody argued."

George Burns.Gracie: A Love Story. (New York:
G.P.Putnam's Sons, 1988).

***

A PARADOX IN MYSTERY TITLES


PAPERBACK THRILLER is the title of a 
mystery by Lynn Meyer. The book, published in
the mid-1970’s by Random House, was issued
in hardcover.
**

HOMAGE TO WILLIE SUTTON

It is beautiful to be

In a bank at night –all alone,
Thus spoke Willie Sutton.
When he uttered those thoughtful words
He hit it right on the button.

O you can have your Irving Berlin
As sung by Betty Hutton.
I’d rather be in a bank at night,
Alone with Willie Sutton.

The rich may dine on crepes Suzette,
The poor may munch on mutton,
But, as for me, I’d rather dine
In a vault with Willie Sutton.

O novelists, keep your publishers,
Your Random House or Dutton.
I’d rather be in a bank at night,
Alone with Willie Sutton.

There are stacks of gilt-edged bonds
Stacked away in vaults.
The fact that money rules so many lives
Is not poor Willie’s fault.

Louis Phillips
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