Talk Back

[edting]

In the last EQ novel (Calamity Town) I bemoaned the lack of over-the-top characters and situations. I can happily report that there is no such problem here.

Cornelia Potts is a batty old woman who owns the Potts Shoe Company and lives in a huge mansion in New York. She is an Old Woman, and yes, she Lives in a Shoe…sort of. She has six adult children, half of whom are sane, and half of whom are insane. These include Horatio, who has built himself a Disney-like fairy-house on the grounds and lives inside playing with action figures and who flies kites outdoors. Needless the say, someone dies, and it’s up to Ellery to untangle what happened. The clues include fourteen guns, two pistol duels at dawn, a mad chemist, a bowl of chicken soup, and a sycamore tree.

One thing that strikes me about these novels written in the 1930s and 1940s – people must have been much more literate back then. This isn’t Great Literature, yet it presumes you have a basic knowledge of literature, theater, music, opera, poetry, and assumes you can speak at least some French and Latin.

What happens has no resemblance to reality. I loved it.