Ron K. (WhidbeyIslander) -
Originally published in 1935, this golden age mystery is too ponderous to really enjoy. The murder takes place on a transcontinental airline flight (which allows you to learn a bit about that mode of travel in the early 1930's, and is interesting.)
The detective who is on board but manages to allow the victim he is protecting to be killed anyway during a snowy rest stop in Wyoming, begins his investigation by compiling a timetable of where who was when; this section is pretty mind-numbing and certainly we aren't expected to remember everyone's whereabouts. Which means we are given a chart outlining this.
(There is also a diagram of the airplane and its ten passenger seats; but none is labeled since the passengers move about during the flight and change seats at rest stops, so unlike Christie's Death In The Clouds,it doesn't help to see where everyone sat.)
One of the passengers is a psychologist (and helped the detective in former cases) who claims that a man who -- does not respond to actively inducive women who captivate him--; is already so strongly captivated by someone else, is physically weak or out-of-kilter, is responding moralistically, or is actually responding but not showing it to the public. Seems it doesn't occur to this egghead that a man might not be attracted to women in the first place. (One plot device I find tiresome is having the detective falling in love with one of the suspects, to the point of trying to prove her innocence. But at least this goes to show he is -- normal--.) This quack also equates incest with homosexuality, which probably reflected the times, but, still. . .
There are also long passages of a philosophical nature (another passenger is a philosopher) that are pretty boring and can be skimmed.
The solution is clever unless you try to remember where each of the 9 passengers was during the 16 minutes the detective charts for us (twice.) The novel is an oddity, but probably could have been trimmed by a hundred pages (with fewer references to who was where when.)
P.S. You won't have much luck finding obelist in a dictionary, but an explanation of it (and more information about the author) can be found in Martin Edwards' excellent blog: http://doyouwriteunderyourownname.blogspot.com/2008/01/what-is-obelist.html
The detective who is on board but manages to allow the victim he is protecting to be killed anyway during a snowy rest stop in Wyoming, begins his investigation by compiling a timetable of where who was when; this section is pretty mind-numbing and certainly we aren't expected to remember everyone's whereabouts. Which means we are given a chart outlining this.
(There is also a diagram of the airplane and its ten passenger seats; but none is labeled since the passengers move about during the flight and change seats at rest stops, so unlike Christie's Death In The Clouds,it doesn't help to see where everyone sat.)
One of the passengers is a psychologist (and helped the detective in former cases) who claims that a man who -- does not respond to actively inducive women who captivate him--; is already so strongly captivated by someone else, is physically weak or out-of-kilter, is responding moralistically, or is actually responding but not showing it to the public. Seems it doesn't occur to this egghead that a man might not be attracted to women in the first place. (One plot device I find tiresome is having the detective falling in love with one of the suspects, to the point of trying to prove her innocence. But at least this goes to show he is -- normal--.) This quack also equates incest with homosexuality, which probably reflected the times, but, still. . .
There are also long passages of a philosophical nature (another passenger is a philosopher) that are pretty boring and can be skimmed.
The solution is clever unless you try to remember where each of the 9 passengers was during the 16 minutes the detective charts for us (twice.) The novel is an oddity, but probably could have been trimmed by a hundred pages (with fewer references to who was where when.)
P.S. You won't have much luck finding obelist in a dictionary, but an explanation of it (and more information about the author) can be found in Martin Edwards' excellent blog: http://doyouwriteunderyourownname.blogspot.com/2008/01/what-is-obelist.html
