Jonathan Caws-Elwitt

unearths some literary gems.

From Falling Star, by Patricia Moyes:

***

[While the other books that I've read in this series use a third-person narrator who follows the point of view of the sympathetic police inspector whom the series is built around, this one has a somewhat Bertie Woosterish first-person narrator-protagonist (a character who may appear only in this book). He doesn't have B.'s narratorial flair (though he has his moments, as you will soon see!), nor is he played strongly for laughs, most of the time; but he is a well-intentioned, slightly pompous, wealthy gent who gets into a lot of trouble, primarily because his associates grossly manipulate and impose on him, but with the compounding factors of his ill-judged impulsiveness, his own "clever" sneaky actions that backfire, and his exaggerated sense of his own savoir faire. Like Bertie, he admits his intellectual limitations; but, like Bertie, he resents the fact that he gets no respect from the people around him, even when he's accommodating their outrageous requests. For the most part, all this was more serviceable than especially charming in this story, but of course I always like to show appreciation for a Wodehousian gambit!]

***

"I try very hard to be reasonable," I went on, trying very hard to be reasonable.

***

"I beg your pardon, sir," he said, in a voice that might have come frosted out of his own Martini jug. "That is a Bacardi."

***

[One of the choicest Bertiesque flourishes, imho.]

Biddy, in the inconsequential way she has, was reciting "Albert and the Lion" aloud to herself, and swearing when she couldn't remember the words. When I asked her why she did this, she replied that it helped her to think. I pass the information on for what it is worth. It certainly did not help me to think.

***

[A pet monkey has been thrust into the protagonist's arms.]

I realized that the wearing of a pink-bottomed monkey as a sort of feather boa did nothing to help my dignity, but that could not be helped.

[And some very Wodehousian dialogue soon follows!]

She did not take the monkey, which was now jumping up and down in my arms, chattering and begging to be swung again.

"Can't you stop playing with that animal?" Keith asked.

"Since you ask," I said, "no. It has taken a fancy to me and it is extremely adhesive."

"Oh, well then, keep it if you want to."

"I do not want to," I pointed out. "It is merely that..."

"Look," said Keith, "there are serious things I want to say to you, and you will keep on talking about monkeys."

***

[Doctor-Samuel-Johnson-But-Not-The-Doctor-Samuel-Johnson Dept.!]

"Of course I've heard of Doctor Sam. But his name wasn't..."

"He changed his name about once a week," said the Super. "Very confusing, it was. But his favorite alibis were nearly all some sort of variation on Samuel Johnson. I've known him arrested as Sir Samuel Johns, Colonel Samson Jobson, Doctor St. John Samuel, and so on. It wasn't until he died in Wormwood Scrubbs last March that we found out what his real name was. You'll never guess."

"Frederick Arbuthnot?"

"No, no, no. James Boswell."

[By the way, "Frederick Arbuthnot" is not the random, silly guess that it might sound like (unfortunately); it actually is another alias that "Doctor Sam" had used. I will note, however, that this is the second book I've read within a space of two weeks in which the name Arbuthnot appeared. (It was a first name in The Band Box, by Vance.)]

***

[And speaking of Anatole...]

At this, Anton broke into a protesting stream of mixed English and French.

***

She remained uncharmed, merely shaking her head so that the dusty black feathers in her hat quivered in the sunset.

[...]

She shot me a look brimful of malice, and directed her quivering hat out through the front door.

***

I felt exactly like the victim of a card trick, who is told, triumphantly and correctly, that the card he was thinking of was the five of spades.

***

I was aware of some sort of plot thickening like a béchamel sauce all around me.