The trouble with funerals

     "Lucky you took along Toby, the celebrated feline flatfoot. Love, Pat," he wired back three days later, by which time Mrs. Claribel Fabian Lake had been stowed in the Fabian vault in the Elm Hill cemetery.

    For a while the body had made news. There had been a private funeral, for one thing, the first ever held in Elm Hill. And before that people talked because the body had been taken to St. Louis for embalming, and when it was brought back the coffin stood in the parlor under a blanket of orchids and gardenias, and, so far as anyone heard, was not opened. Ernest went to some trouble to explain to people that his cousin had a horror of being looked at after death. Which was all right, except that she had done plenty of looking herself, having been a great one to go to funerals, and people didn't like it. Funerals are rather communal in Elm Hill. To be told not to send flowers and that the funeral would be private made us feel snubbed.

(from The Golden Box, by Frances Crane)

By women for women

 "She had on a powder-blue jersey shirt and brown jersey slacks."

This is a sentence taken from Frances Crane's novel, The Golden Box, published in 1942. 

It is interesting to me when writers reveal bald-facedly that they are willingly sacrificing half their market. This story is a murder mystery, and IF the sentence above had imbedded within it some sort of clue that would lead us down the path of discovering who done it, then I (speaking as a male) could see some purpose to it. But you will have to take my word for it that it does not. It is like the descriptions of wedding gowns that used to be published in the newspapers. Did any man EVER read those? Highly unlikely. Nor do any men who might read this novel care what Peg was wearing as she came into the room carrying a glass of orange juice. There is nothing wrong with it, it is just not something that would interest the typical male reader.

So, since this is a mystery, and we are murder mystery fans, what do we deduce from the sentence at the top of this page? It tells us that this was a story written by a woman for women. It is actually a fairly good yarn and the detective who solves the mystery is a man. But the person telling the story is a woman, and she tells us things that could only interest a woman. So, either the author was pointing this story strictly at a female market, or she was woefully ignorant of the differences between the sexes, which I doubt. OR she was making the teller of the tail realistic by having her focus on things that would interest a woman, which I suspect is the truth.

The parallel on the male side of the equation would be a Louis L'Amour novel in which the hero shoots three bad guys on the first page. He is not writing that book for women. Oh, sure, a good many women may read it, but he reveals his market by how he writes the book.

It's the nose that does it

Peg and I were the same age. Twenty-six. I hoped I was as well preserved as she was. We were said to look alike, and we both do have the yellow Holly eyes with black brows and lashes, but Peg was extra lucky in getting tawny hair and a perky nose to go with them. Nothing lightens a girl's path like a nose that invites a tweak, especially when it is backed by strong character like my cousin Peg's. My hair is black, my nose, alas, is quite conventional, and my character is definitely wavery.

(from The Golden Box, by Frances Crane)

His kind of woman

     He said, "Still she's hardly my ideal woman."

    "But really!" I said. With sarcasm.

    "I never have cared much for women who screech and yelp if they don't get everything they want when they want it. Other peoples' husbands, for instance. But I do like women who are easy to look at."

    "So I've noticed!" I snapped.

    "Still, I'm not partial to blondes. I like them slim, with white skin, black hair, amber eyes, long lashes, competent hands, minds of their own even though cockeyed, sympathetic even when it's not quite bright to be so, with a shop in which you love to sit around and prattle, lots of friends - "

    "You seem to have someone in mind."

    "I have. Definitely," Patrick Abbott said.

    I could feel my color coming up like a sunrise. I looked at him again. He was watching me. With an eyebrow up I must admit that he was putting me in a state of great mental confusion. But it was very agreeable.

(from The Turquoise Shop, by Frances Crane)

Should have stuck to art

     I sighed "I can't believe it. Michael was so nice."

    "Nice? Clever, you mean. Gifted. Ruthless. Sly. He took such pains to make people like him, simply because he understood you all so well. Better than you did yourselves sometimes. He flattered Mona Brandon, was candid with you, cool and businesslike with me. He should have done something constructive with such a talent. He certainly was a better artist than criminal, though. He walked right into our traps."

    "So you did work on the case?"

    "Oh, no. Just helped the sheriff out a bit."

    "You're modest."

    "Me? You ought to ee me strutting around on a case of my own!"

(from The Turquoise Shop, by Frances Crane)

A bad place to be a private eye

    "Pat," I said, and my voice sounded small, "do you think he did it?"

    

    "What?"

    

    "Murdered Arkwright and took that money?"

    

    Patrick slanted a glance at me. "I had rather gathered that you thought Mona had Luis Martinez do it."

    "That's really more like it, Pat. Gilbert honestly couldn't do such things."

    "I don't wonder you're all mixed up. I feel sorry for any investigator, no matter what the crime, in a place like this. What with people wanting to cover up for their friends or worrying about what will happen to their business if they antagonize Mona Brandon and with everybody knowing what everybody else will do before they do it, well - "

(from The Turquoise Shop, by Frances Crane)

Try a little kindness

 "How did you get the knife, Gilbert?" I asked.

"I went out there. Found it at the scene of the crime."

"Keeping it makes you an accessory after the fact."

"You're telling me?" he said, irritably.

"Of course I know you'll do what is wise, Gilbert," I purred. Gilbert flowered under this treatment. I wondered why I had never thought of it before.

(from The Turquoise Shop, by Frances Crane)