“What a model of fine scholarly writing is hers, yet what excitement, what mounting apprehension she arouses in her reader. Those brownstone mansions in New York. Enfin, what is a brownstone mansion—I have never known? Those exclusive apartments, and soulful snobberies, and underneath, deep unsuspected seams of crime run their uncharted course.”
It’s generally believed that this praise of a fictional writer named Louisa O’Malley, uttered by Hercule Poirot in Agatha Christie’s The Clocks, is meant to describe American mystery author Elizabeth Daly. I’d known this and been aware of Daly’s books for years, but somehow never got around to reading them—probably because my library system didn’t have any of them. (Even now, a system of 30+ branches only has one of the sixteen books!) But it’s a nice thing, at any given time, to know you have a whole new series of good mysteries waiting to be read, right? Now they are all available on Kindle, and last summer I finally began reading them. I’ve read ten of the sixteen so far, and found them all solidly enjoyable, though of course as with any series, some stand out above the others.
Henry Gamadge, the central character and amateur detective of the series, is an unassuming, mild-mannered, but keenly intelligent man just under thirty when the series begins in the year 1939. He makes his living as a rare books and handwriting expert, but has a side interest in criminology, and has written some books on crime himself. He’s not officially a private detective, although he does accept compensation for his services—he’s particularly valuable in discreetly handling delicate problems that his clients don’t want to take to the police or get into the newspapers, like the eccentric behavior of a wealthy relative, or the disappearance of a family heirloom. He’s also extremely useful when he just happens to be on the scene of a murder, as happens to all good fictional detectives once in a while (though Daly doesn’t overplay this trope).
This series is a delight for book lovers—strewn with literary references and conversations about books, plays, poetry, and art. Often the clues or the key to the mystery is found in a quotation or a literary reference, and many of the plots are overtly bookish. In one, a young woman turns up claiming to be a governess who mysteriously disappeared a hundred years before—and carrying the book that vanished with her. Another investigation stems from odd notes found scribbled in the margin of a borrowed volume of Shakespeare after its owner’s death. Gamadge is the man to call to analyze a cryptic letter dropped from a window—or the bizarre typed messages being added overnight to an unfinished novel manuscript. Highly original plots in general are one of Daly’s greatest strengths—there’s almost always a murder at some point, but the reason for it, or the path to that point, is often complex and ingenious.
The first two books are set around a rural Maine vacation resort, but the rest mainly in New York City, with occasional jaunts upstate or into Connecticut. Unlike some detective series, it’s grounded firmly in the present time, with each book set in a specific year and Henry Gamadge and his friends and family allowed to grow older as the series goes on. There’s a nice authentic flavor of the period that sets apart books written in a given period from even the best historical fiction set there. Realities of 1940s life such as gas rationing, blackouts, and housing shortages form a subtle background to the plots; escapes from war-torn Europe or the effect of the war on business and industry sometimes play into murder motives or backstory. But there’s also frequently an atmosphere of even older times, as Gamadge’s investigations take him into stately mansions from New York’s earlier eras, to interview the survivors of old established families, and unravel motives stemming from long-buried secrets.
Another thing I like about the series is the use of recurring characters. Gamadge doesn’t have one official sidekick, but over the course of the first half-dozen books he collects a nice circle of assistants and friends who reappear periodically throughout the series, not always all together but first one and then another, to help with the legwork of research and detection. There’s Harold, his outwardly gloomy but endearingly loyal young assistant of unknown antecedents; Schenck, the sharp young insurance investigator; Robert Macloud, the blunt-spoken lawyer friend who provides legal information when called on; and various others who make their first appearance as suspects and recur as sidekicks of a sort. Daly even pulls off that rarest of accomplishments in any genre of fiction: having her protagonist marry and successfully incorporating his wife into subsequent books!
I tend to divide mystery novels into two categories: mysteries that are mere lightweight puzzles, and mysteries that are also good literature. My main criteria for the latter category is whether the author is capable of creating characters who are three-dimensional human beings, and Daly definitely qualifies. She may not be as thematically or philosophically deep as Sayers or Tey, but she’s every bit the equal of Ellis Peters or of Margery Allingham on a good day. It’s a fairly rare quality, to be honest—and when you add in old New York, old books, and brilliant mystery plots, that’s a winning combination for a mystery series!
photo credits: Berenice Abbott // NYPL
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Visit the We Love Detectives blogathon link-up at Hamlette’s Soliloquy for more posts celebrating fictional detectives!
