Jonathan Stagge : Death, My Darling Daughters, 1945

Jonathan Stagge : Death, My Darling Daughters (aka Death and the Dear Girls), 1945

Jonathan Stagge as Patrick Quentin or Quentin Patrick, was not only pseudonym, but also firm, formed in turn by the union of four pairs of writers, which is signed otherwise: the most prolific was formed by Richard Wilson Webb (1901 - 1966) and Hugh Callingham Wheeler (1912 - 1987), who signed all novels with Jonathan Stagge, from their first novel, Murder Gone to Earth - 1936, Aka The Dogs Do Bark, until the last The Three Fears, 1949. Of the nine novels published under this pseudonym, Death, My Darling Daughters (also Death and the Dear Girls) is the seventh and dates back to 1945.
The war ends and Kenmore, the town where Dr. Westlake is doctor, comes back to life. Especially is reopened the historic residence, where a vice-president of the United States of the century, Benjamin Hilton was staying in the summer
Hilton's daughter, Emily, and her two daughters, Loss and Rosalind, are staying and so they have  invited other relatives and friends: the aim is that the residence of the deceased Benjamin comes back to being the symbol of Kenmore. Among them, the other two sons of Benjamin's: the Emily’s sister, Belle, with her husband, the famous toxicologist Kenton-Oakes, and especially his brother George, scientist, with his wife Janie and his daughter Helen . Then there are friends, including Dr. Stahl, Austrian woman refugee who is studying a series of cyanide-based poisons against mouses, who is working in the barn. the assistant of George Hilton, Vic Roberts, and Dr. Westlake with his daughter Dawn.
Between dinners and concerts, it would seem that life in the residence of Hilton ran placid and smiling, and instead in the ashes the hatred is hatching: the testament of the patriarch ruled by the testament legacies of the two sisters and favored only a son who became heir to the fortune by  Hilton. Only he is rich. If he died, the money would be divided between his wife and daughter, sister and nephews. But without that he would die, if he was a bit more generous, no one would feel hatred for him. But the fact is that George is in love only of his work, of his discoveries: he became famous for his study on the possibilities of synthetic penicillin and other antibiotics. Only no one knows the truth: he was not to make the discovery, but his assistant Vic Roberts, who takes only his crumbs.

George has many people who hate him and want him dead.
It must be said that before he gets in Kenmore, perhaps someone has already in the past tried to eliminate him, mixing crushed glass to starch administered to him after a gastric congestion: only the old Nanny, the housekeeper, realized who he/she was . And it seems she has alerted the subject not to make other attempts: it is no coincidence that the day after Nanny dies, drinking tea corrected with cyanide.
Who may have been? But it was really murder or accident? Yes, because was Nanny who was polishing the silverware in the house, and to do it, used products containing cyanide. It is possible that the teapot, especially on the edge has not been cleaned properly and the residue killed the poor Nanny? Everyone thinks.
But the death of Nanny did not happen by accident: she was murdered. This is proved by the fact that Nanny drinking tea with Belle,  if it was really so, both the women would have fatally intoxicated and the teapot to be an instrument of death of both;  instead Belle was no intoxicated. So the poisoning had been made after, not before: if it was the product to clean the silverware the cause of death of Nanny, the two women should have to die, because Nanny had cleaned the silverware before and no after. So someone, after, he had voluntarily sprinkled the poison on the edge of the teapot in order to kill her. Nanny knew the intentions of the murderer, she knew the starch mixed with glass, and the starch she had not thrown: she always kept it with her, the proof the bomber in the past had tried to suppress George, and it is clear that if Nanny had not told anyone about her suspicions it is because the alleged bomber was one of the family of George, and in that house, the house of the Hilton, the aristocratic house of the Hilton, the scandals were not allowed.

Nanny died, it would seem that the murderess could try to kill George, because if he dies, the others become rich. And so ...
The toxicologist Austrian earns his paltry money by giving private music lessons to his two daughters Emily, and daughter of Westlake, Dawn, promising musician. One day, it organized a concert, a kind of essay in which the three can demonstrate improvements musical actually feel dissonance only to that concert. George, who plays the flute, he tries to give his personal contribution and then he just started to make sounds, that one more strong, distorted is lost in the air when he staggers and collapses on the floor. Dead. Poisoned. With cyanide. It turns out that the mouthpiece of the flute had been impregnated with cyanide. But also had not been cleaned it with the product for the silverware? Misfortune, for the murderer, Westlake realizes incongruity of the story of the poisoning of Nanny and as Belle should have died, if indeed the hypothesis of product for the silverware murderer was true. So when they are faced with the truth, also they understand a murderer, one by family, killed the two persons.
But where he/she get the cyanide? The fact is that there is one tide, available in the barn, to study the reactions in mouses, and then if someone took a bit no one can say, because precautions to ensure that the removal was prevented, were not put in place.
So Dr.Westlake will trap the evil murderer, not before he/she struck again, simulating a murder to suicide and blaming the suicide about the murder of his victims. The fact is that the murderer will die suicide, for cyanide, in a tragic and memorable ending.
A massacre, this!

The idea of ​​the family where they hatch hatred, jealousy and envy, when the brothers hate each other, where there is hatred behind the money, and a testament geezer by an equally quirky patriarch, are not new : S.S.Van Dine more than fifteen years before, he had sown well the seeds of hatred family in his masterpiece about the murders in the Greene family!
Stagge, however, takes the towel already developed by Van Dine and varies with great skill, playing on the psychology of the characters, highlighting the details that will be discovered, however, in their light left at the end, concealing and highlighting, in a proud of obviousness and subterfuge, more driving, along with loves lost and found, for lovers scoundrels: Vic has an extramarital relationship with Janie, he is loved by Helen and together by Dr. Stahl. George knew nothing until Helen refused had not told her: it turns out in the end that she had been the cause of the break between George and Vic. But the murderess is a man or woman? Was Vic who wanted to take revenge on George who had stolen the success, or Helen, who wanted to inherit his father's money, hating her stepmother? O Janie who would like to get rid of her husband and live with Vic? O Stahl who wants to avenge Vic? Or Emily and her two daughters?

It 'a pretty classic mystery novel, written with great skill: the reason lies in the plot, who is apparently based on a matter of course. He does everything to bring together the suspicions about certain subjects, then here and there, that's Stagge dangles other ideas, however, concealing the real rehearsal, the evidence of guilt to the end.
It is good to say: they are overwhelming rehearsals only if interpreted psychologically from Westlake, otherwise they would not be. Wetlake employs two flashes of genius to reverse the recent guilty suicide, in murder of an innocent: the clues are two disks on which the false killer suicide would affect his/her confession and an interview that there would have not been.
Even though the final twist, about the name, is a bit melodramatic and quite built: you do not understand why a person would have to call in a way, and his parents give that name, only in order to play with his destiny.
Mysteries of a novel in which, once again, Dawn makes her contribution to the success of his father, Dr. Westlake.

Pietro De Palma

My new essay on Blog Giallo Mondadori - 2

My essay in Italian about the novel by Van Dine, "The Canary Murder Case", focuses on aspects never examined before, or nearly so. In fact, I examine not so much the quality deductive system, but the importance of the artistic sensibility of Philo Vance in solving a puzzle: in other words I speak about the Philo Vance erudition.
Not by chance are cited multiple sources and it is argued on the basis of knowledge of music and literature.
Finally I apply "The Mimetic Desire Theory" by Renè Girard to 3 characters, into the novel with surprising results. 
It's possible the essay in the future will be translated by me in English, but for the moment it is only available in Italian.

Pietro De Palma

My new essay on Blog Giallo Mondadori

Published yesterday on the blog "Giallo Mondadori" , in Italian, my new essay, this time about "The Canary Murder Case" by S.S.Van Dine.
The link is:  http://blog.librimondadori.it/blogs/ilgiallomondadori/2013/04/22/la-canarina-assassinata-il-trionfo-della-deduzione-e-dellerudizione-di-philo-vance/

Bill Pronzini : Bones

Bill Pronzini : Bones, 1985 – Italian title : Ombre sul passato – translation Marcella Dallatorre - Il Giallo Mondadori No. 1966, 1986

Who does not know Bill Pronzini? And who does not know his famous detective, Nameless? A detective with a great humanity, that combines wisdom and action. However, his adventures differ from other detectives typical of the genre Hard-Boiled. Pronzini has always been sincere about it, rejecting the subsidiary of Chandler and instead recognizing as the only novelist to have played a key role in the creation of his character, was Dewey, with his "Mac". Pronzini, however, is not alone in this, unlike many authors Hard-Boiled. He also has solid foundations and cultural history of the genre: you known, from a mile away, as his readings have not only caught in the genre Pulp and Hard-Boiled, but also in that of the Mystery Classic. And his stories have an air of light, sparkling, with remarkable leaps and grand finals, and also possess a remarkable humorous vein, sometimes irreverent, even against his character, which is very rare.
Bones, who also has a nice Locked-Room, is a novel that also speaks about bones, but it is not a thriller by Kate Reichs. No. It’s a novel that sinks its own investigation into the past. And as happened before, the plot is intertwined with the traditional mystery.

Michael Kiskadon has recently discovered to be the son of the great writer of Mystery, Harmon Crane, who died thirty years before. A sad story: depression, alcohol and then suicide. So far nothing strange, especially since  had been found a farewell letter in the typewriter. And to validate the theory of suicide was the mode of discovery: the room was locked from the inside, was on the first floor, and it was not possible then exit from the windows: in short, a situation defined. The fact is that "Nameless" starts to investigate, but is faced what might be called a "conspiracy of silence". Before Crane's wife, Amanda, who talks about his lovely family life lived with Crane until the death of her husband, but does not really talks about suicide: that flaunts a glacial that "Nameless" initially misinterpretes, then understanding how the woman has suffered such a severe shock to be assisted by his granddaughter now for more than 35 years, the years since her husband's suicide.
Then the detectives went to interview the lawyer of Crane, such Yankowski, a bad guy, who along with teacher painting of the wife of Crane, Adam Potter, he broke down the door of the room, finding Harmon Crane died,: he seems that he had shot a few minutes after talking on the phone just with him, Yankowski. Ends thrown out of the house, when Nameless, accuses him of having paid his court to Amanda for a long time.

There is also the first wife of Crane, such Corneal Ellen, who was blackmailing him. He says it Russ Dancer, a writer of Pulp failed and chronic alcoholic. Russ Crane had known, and reveals himself to Nameless in the course of a drink (but how should this American detectives!) The most interesting things: Crane not had sex with his wife was being blackmailed by his first wife, drank a lot, but it was not all depressed. The investigations shows that the day of the suicide, he had been in his cottage that had been rented by a certain Bertolucci: the chalet now no longer exists in its place there was an oyster farm, then also went to the down the drain. Bertolucci makes the taxidermist (he stuffes with straw the animals) is strange and he evasively answers, so that Nameless suspects he has not said anything about behalf of Crane. One thing he understands: to Bertolucci, Crane was strongly disliked, even if the rent he had paid him forever. He will know that Bertolucci was married (at that time in which Crane had lived), with a beautiful redhead, who then disappeared, ran away they said.
And the brother of the artist Potter, tells him the depression of Crane was initiated the day after the earthquake of 35 years before, on arrival from his vacation in the chalet of his property.
One day a new earthquake devastates San Francisco and vicinity. The earthquake to Nameless is bearer of good feelings: his girlfriend, Kerry Wade, which makes sex so rewarding for both, feeling the shock, she hears a new irresistible urge to have sex, but it is only the desire to be protected , connected to someone. But then Nameless discovers the earthquake has also brought other news: when he goes to interview the new owner of the area where once stood the chalet, he locates by chance, an old unmarked grave, anonymous, that the earthquake has helped to discover: bones have surfaced and what looks like a purse, and a ring. You will find that she is the red dead, Bertolucci's wife, Kate.

Why her bones are located close to the chalet rented to Crane? And Crane killed himself or was he killed? And if he was killed, as was rigged so that the door seemed locked from the inside? And who closed the door rigging it, was the murderer or an accomplice? Nameless will understand after that Bertolucci is killed, especially when he discovers the lifeless body of Michael Kiskadon, who died the same way of his father, found dead just from Nameless, who broke down the door of the room, alerted by the wife of Kiskadon, Lynn . Suicide or murder?
In a novel enjoyable as ever, in the midst of breathtaking descriptions of San Francisco, interspersed by quarrels with his friend investigator Eberhardt, by hilarious scuffles between Kerry and Wanda, the Eberhardt’s pupa, Nameless will find a disconcerting truth and the answer to many , too many questions left without no satisfaction by a hasty survey ended 35 years before. And the answer will own those bones, found by chance, buried in an old crevasse, opened after the earthquake 35 years ago and again revealed by the new one, and a carbon copy of a letter sent by Crane to his lawyer.
A vintage Pronzini, who does not forget the lessons of the greats of the past (Hake Talbot) and leads us, in a survey never dull, carefully constructed, with withering dialogues and well-aimed descriptions, to an ending that leaves you speechless. And knowing Pronzini, it takes also discouragement.

Because it isn’t said that all the guilties, in reality, pay the penalty for their actions. And seeking the truth takes, most of the time, sufferences. Luckily the epilogue save all, with a final reflection on the philosophy of life, which will riport attention to the things that save us every day: love, understanding, friendship.

A great Pronzini.

As always.

Pietro De Palma

Christianna Brand : The Gemminy Cricket Case (1968)

Christianna Brand : The Gemminy Cricket Case aka Murder Game, 1968 – translation Tina Honsel – Special Giallo Mondadori n.69, April 2013.

Released a few days, the Special 69 Il Giallo Mondadori, entitled The Detective of Impossible, as always cared by stainless and forward Mauro Boncompagni, presents on this occasion, The Four Just Men by Edgar Wallace, The Kennel Murder Case by S.S.Van Dine and, finally, The Cricket Gemminy Case by Christianna Brand
We must say, in all sincerity, that never before in this case, we are faced with three works of excellence, united by a common denominator: a Locked Room.
Wallace and S.S. Van Dine are known as their novels, of the milestones in the genre and very well known. However, if you ever want to somehow encourage the purchase of this volume, I would use as an example the legendary story by Brand (published in 1968), for the aura that surrounds it: surely one of the best such tales Locked Room ever.
Thomas Gemminy is a well-known criminal lawyer based in London, assured himself a great personal wealth from his law practice, he has dedicated himself to philanthropic activities in favor of children from highly disadvantaged family situations: in essence children relatives of known criminals who, remaining in the same bad environment family of origin, they could develop the same germs delinquent of their relatives. These children were from him and his wife, as long as it is lived, bred, educated and protected, starting them to be sure; sometimes he also made sure that those in possession of hereditary defects, migrated, so they lose the basic references and thus be freer to create a life without knowing anything of his past. We distinguish these individuals from having two surnames together: their surname associated to surname of their stepfather.

A three boys Gemminy was most fond of: Giles Gemminy Carberry, Rupert Gemminy Gemminy Chester and Helen Crane, the two males are both in love with Helen and work in the law firm of his stepfather. However there is one inconvenience: a third "cricket" (as they were called his boys by Thomas Gemminy), that the two men do not know, it seems too in love with Helen.
The story begins with Giles going to find, at a nursing home, an acquaintance of his, old age, particularly paid to the resolution of puzzles and give a very daunting subjects one: Thomas Gemminy was found strangled, bound and stabbed in the shoulder in his study, almost unadorned, with the desk on which it is collapsed, engulfed in flames and a broken window in the middle. The door was locked and bolted from the inside, through the broken window to the sidewalk below were no more than fifteen feet overhang, and the weapon with which he was stabbed (and still comes out of the blood when the cops burst), a letter opener , has disappeared from the desktop. The police, whose Central is located right in front of the house of the lawyer, were alerted by a phone call, came from the study of Gemminy, in which the lawyer in a desperate voice had spoken of "something that disappears into thin air." "Of" something strange to the window, "and" two long arms. " Arriving at the door of the studio after less than two minutes, found that Rupert is trying to kick down a locked door; manage to break two panels of the door, one of them put an arm and slide the 2 bolts horizontally and vertically, then everybody can to open the door and find yourself in front of the horrible sight: the dead lawyer, the corpse in the process of burning, the broken window that still vibrates, fragments of it on the sill and, of course, no one in the room, and the desk burned by the flames. In the smoke that chokes and burns the eyes, Rupert finds a message that speaks of Helen and runs away, a policeman comes running out to go and call the fire department, but all the others are there to look for evidence, non-existent.

An hour later he was found dead a policeman on patrol, Dinkum Cross, in the same way lawyer: bound, strangled and stabbed. He, too, before he was killed and later found in the old cistern on a farm near there, had spoken from a phone booth where he had taken refuge, about "Long arms" and about “something that had vanished into thin air.”
The old man is the investigator, here.
Based on its own acumen and his own deduction, he reconstructs the stages of the murder, working for three types of crime, each for each of the three young men, who had been the murderer. Then draw a fourth hypothesis, borne by the fourth subject, assuming that he could be a policeman killed and in that case then he was killed by one of the three for some reason related to revenge for the death of the old criminal lawyer, who essentially was opposed that one of the protected males marry Helen:  could be to the detriment of hereditary taint of Rupert Giles or Dinkum, or be borne by the girl. The fact is that this is the motive, the love between Helen and one of the three males, since the track linked to the heritage is discarded immediately because it was entirely devoted to the Foundation for the benefit of underprivileged children. However alibis seem to exclude the three friends: Giles that he had an appointment with the lawyer has seen at 14.30, arriving at the house where he is living together with Rupert, he had watched his friend who was going away in advance (having him the appointment at 16 with Gemminy) his great-coat to the arm: in those moments the reconstruction of the police showed that the lawyer was dying, then the two young people are protected by alibi of being away from the scene of the murder; Helen would remain, but Giles says that there was a verbal misunderstanding with her, not having gone she to a place called Bell but Dell. Basically would be to examine the position of policeman.
But then the old man retraces his steps, taking into consideration Rupert with another hypothesis, and here the story ends. Indeed it would end, if it were not the real end, with two twists ending, one more overwhelming than the other, that indicates the true murderer and the identity of the old "detective".

The quality of the plot is very high. The voltage and intelligence in creating the situations is miraculous. By creating the plot, Christianna Brand elaborates the ideas of other writers to her earlier: thus, in essence, she is a mannerist, but a very high quality mannerist and very smart, since when she uses her ideas, creates completely new situations, which in some way to make them the new model to be imitated: I mean the reason why the policeman is killed. When I read the story years ago, venturing in solving the riddle (because essentially there is also this in this novel, a sort of challenge relates to Ellery Queen: the race that pits the reader to the writer to explain the performance of facts), I realized several things which were then covered later. And one of the solutions that I wanted to give, in part, coincided with the final solution by Brand: I realized I had figured out the trick. But if you see well, even the "great find" by Christianna Brand, despite being "original", is at the same time a variation of a "great revolutionary idea for the era in which it was conceived" by another author, French, of which I will not name, then widely exploited: who guesses the name of this great French author? The idea of ​​Brand and the idea of ​​this great author are essentially two sides of the same coin: the original author was based on the use of a distorted identity, Brand using the same procedure uses an object, which in a sense is its symbol. Found a really brilliant idea!
"Detective" lent to the story, the old man whom Giles goes to see , in what I call "a challenge with the reader", discards the various solutions one at a time, and in that Brand has historical references: The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Berkeley, where each of the participants in the meeting elaborates his own theory into something different from the previous ones, and The Greek Coffin Mystery by Ellery Queen, in which there aren’t several explanations associated with different subjects, but only one, Ellery, which processes 4 different solutions, and discarding three arrives at the final one: a little 'what happens here.
The story is called "warm white mist" in Italian, referring to mental confusion of the murderer: when will escape the hot white fog that invades his mind, he will able to remember how the facts are. This “warm white mist” reminded me "Red Mist" by Paul Halter who has close ties with our title: the murderer is insane, the beginning of the end finds its explanation in ours in the end, almost in the end in that by Halter, and Red Mist dims the mind of Jack The Ripper when he is taken from the murder rampage. In this case, of course, Halter could have taken something from the story of the Brand!
I would add that the story of Christianna Brand is linked to The Finishing Stroke by Queen. The writer, in a sense, the reference ranges, clobbing it. Who read the novel '58 by Ellery Queen understood me (but of course after reading this story), who is not, obtains the book and read it.

 One last observation seems relevant: the modus operandi of the murderer seems to me akin to that of the murderer in Death From a Top Hat by Clayton Rawson. In fact, in both works, the succession of events, the two murders, is not that effective, what appears at first sight.

Pietro De Palma

Happy Easter!

 

 Happy Easter!
More than 2000 years ago, God made man was charged buying a fake heads. And then with a false accusation, was killed by a cruel death.

He died for us.
Today was the victim of an murder of the past, once again, rises.
And with Him rises the good part of ourselves.
Happy Easter to all!

Pietro De Palma

Paul Halter : Death Invites You (La mort vous invite, 1988)

Before 2003, I did not know the works by Paul Halter. But in that year I met Igor Longo,  consultant of  “Giallo Mondadori”. It happened by chance: I asked the editor of those years, that could give me directions on how to find Mondadori novels who could contain Locked Rooms, because they were always my cue ball. He passed the word to Igor Longo, who answered me - I have to say enthusiastically - as he had found another type set about the Locked Rooms (Igor participated in the meeting a few years ago - directed by Roland Lacourbe which also participated John Pugmire - aims to choose the 99 best Locked Rooms in the history of the Mystery (novels of English-speaking and French-speaking novels). And so began a correspondence which became friendship correspondence: Igor among other authors, urged me to read Paul Halter (Igor Longo is his italian translator) which he said was the most important contemporary author of impossible crimes and locked rooms. I took him in word, and so .. I started to collect the Halter novels.
Death Invites You (La mort vous invite, 1988)  is a novel that has enjoyed until the beginning by a great success (especially in France) also on the basis of a television drama that was taken from it.
Harold Vickers is a successful writer of detective novels, but by bit of time the sales trend is declining, so he decides to write a novel with which plans to reverse the descent of likings: it will be a phenomenal Locked Room.
He lives alone in a villa in St. Richard's Wood, with his wife Dane, with brother-in-law Roger Sharpe illusionist a with his daughters Valerie and Henrietta; Valerie is engaged to a police sergeant, Simon Cunningham.

One evening Simon comes to Vickers home: he was invited to dinner by the landlord, but no one knows anything of the occurrence. Another was invited to dinner: Fred Springer, critic of detective novels. For more Valerie who had to go to the theater with Simon was angry because she thought that Simon would have preferred another woman.
They are going to call the landlord, but he does not answer: he said to at that day not to disturb him for no reason. Knocking on the door, screaming, both don’t get any response. They turn around  the house: through taxes, they see the room illuminated. The butler gets a key from another port, since the locks of the house are all equal, Simon uses it to open, but it idles. It means that Harold put the bolt, so .. they decide to break the door down, which gives after a shoulder. The scene which presented itself to the eyes of those present is horrifying: on a laid table, is placed a pan with hot oil in which the flesh is sizzling: in this plan are immersed the face and hands of the writer, burned to the point of prevent a formal recognition. The death was due to a gunshot wound to the head. To witness the immediacy of death is the fact that two chickens still sizzl and smoke on the table, at the center of which towers a triumph of pheasants, near the pulses passed through with the shallot and bacon.

Near the window there’s a glass half full of water and two gloves. And of course no one is in the room: windows are closed and there’s no other passage to the outside, secret or not, and yet the chimney has a grating, small enough to allow the passage of only small animals. His wife fainted on the threshold, and immediately they call the police and so Archibald Hurst Inspector of Police, and Alan Twist criminologist, who are playing chess at home in the first, are thrown into another adventure absurd.
Right from the start you know that the death was not sudden, but it took some time before, at least 24 hours, and that the writer had a twin brother who lived in Australia. The question who begins to emerge little by little is that the burned face is intended to prevent the recognition: want to see that it is not Harold but Stephen Vickers, rich as much if not more than the brother writer?

The first thing to check is the teeth, but in this case it is useless: Vickers boasted of his healthy teeth and he never went to the dentist for this reason. At the morgue, before a show so painful, one of the daughters remembers something that happened the year before: his father was wounded in the leg and was left a little scar. She remembered because the wound initially had been slow to heal. So he is Harold..seems. 

Meanwhile, we learn about a curse: Harold's father had died by heart failure and its causes were to be found in the fact he did not appreciate the genre of fiction practiced by his son. One of the two daughters, Henrietta, who hated his father because, in turn, he didn’t appreciate her talent as a painter, evokes the presence of his grandfather. One night, Simon Cunningham sees a shadow in the cemetery: he says that seemed an old man, who wandered with on dirty rags in the direction of the old cemetery that is adjacent to the house: it is presence or hallucination?:
The fact is that just when you think that the identification has been well-founded, check out from autopsy that the deceased had two teeth implanted: then it is not Harold but Stephen? Where is Harold? Did he kill his brother?

Soon other unforeseen events occur. Twist realizes the pants of his friend are stained with the blood: where else may he to have soiled his pants?  Maybe when he kicked the rags in the street? When they find a piece of cloth stained with fresh blood, Twist has a premonition and they head home, where at her room they find Henriette slaughtered. At this point, they go to the cemetery, and they find the grave of his grandfather, although they can smell a strange odor, the smell of death. Hurst realizes that behind the tombstone, there is another corpse, old of few days: even if the features are distorted and he smells a lot,he  is undoubtedly the twin brother. They want to know why Vickers was so often to find Colin Hubbard, his neighbor? After the visit, and after having given a copy of the first detective novel by Gaston Leroux, they know about a crime took place fifty years ago, in which several of the details are the same as those found at the scene of Vickers: the cup half full of water and a pair of gloves on the ground, near the window, fact who had been witness Hubbard himself. 

Under the Dane Vickers mattress are found the tools used for the staging of the death of her husband, and among these two his hairs. This is enough (in addition to her severe psychiatric conditions, to converge on her the Inspector’s allegations.
But it is not over, because Alan Twist with a quick about-face turns over the cards and he nails the authentic murderer.
First and foremost, this novel is that of smells: the scent of fried chicken, vegetables, stench of corpses, pungent smell of fresh paint , the smell of fresh paint in the color of which the murderer has anointed the lock after having unscrewed and tampered. Many perfumes, too many of them so as not to remember other.
At first when I started reading the Halter, I noticed right away (and I said to Igor) of that long string of citations present in the novels by the Alsatian writer: Igor justified it with the love of Paul Halter to Agatha Christie and especially to John Dickson Carr.
To date I would say even more: while accepting that version, I would incline for another that does not necessarily eliminate the first but integrate her: the volume of citations is too important because it is made only by quotations. 

Quotations may be unconscious and conscious: I would say that too many times, in hindsight, seem aware of it. It’s as if the writer, having to write a new novel, resorted to the inventions of other writers. The point is that to understand the scope of the quotes, you have to be too a great reader as he is, and then automatically, there are many people who don’t understand the mechanism.
Of course, this does not mean that elsewhere, ie in other novels, the scope of the citations could not be less important or even not be there. For example, Red Mist (Le Brouillard Rouge 1988), which I still consider today if not the masterpiece by Halter, at least one of his masterpieces, reveals an evocative power of imagination and writing so addictive you do not need any gimmicks and quotes: if you will, in that novel, the least important thing is just the Locked Room, which then does not serve the novel, but it was just a gimmick!

In this novel, quotes abound citations: to his novels (Red Mist, in fact: it is spoken in the beginning, but there is another more direct reference at a certain point in the novel: in both novels the murderer has to do with the paint, each of a different substance.

A characteristic of novels Halter is that some novels contain parts already used in other novels, so far I have distinguished at least three pairs (but could be more): the paint into Death Invites You and Red Mist, the bags with pieces of dismembered women in the Tiger's Head (La Tete du Tigre 1991) and the Bloody Match (the L'Allumette Sanglante, 2001), the cup full of water, in The Madman's Room (La Chambre du Fou, 1990) and Death Invites You, etc. etc.
The staging of the crime so imaginative and culinary (exclusive, I would say, among all the novels read so far) calls Arabian Nights Murder by John Dickson Carr: there the dead is dressed in a cylinder, a coat, has a false beard and nearby is a recipe book kitchen.
But at the same time, the fact that invokes a crime took place fifty years ago (mind you, fifty years, not forty or sixty!) calls a radio play by Ellery Queen, The Disappearance of Mr. James Phillimore, where an event happened fifty years first, occurs exactly fifty years later.
But there is also a reference to Gaston Leroux. 

And then .. the scar in his leg: what do we think? The strawberry-shaped birthmark on Brad’s thigh, in The Egyptian Cross Mystery by Ellery Queen: could also refer to the fact that the corpse as that of Brad Vickers and his brothers can not otherwise be identified: here the features are burned, as if he had no face, there just the head misses.
But there may be another meaning of citations, in addition to the one connected with the memory of the great writers of the past: it could also be a game, a challenge, whom the author throws to his readers . Ellery Queen did not behave in the same way in his first novels?
Ellery Queen left clues to the reader and they were ordered in the right way to come to rival the author: may Halter disseminate quotes, who properly interpreted can reveal the identity of the killer? The most direct quotes here are to Red Mist and to Le Mystère de la chambre jaune by Gaston Leroux. But there is also another significant quote: the cup full of water, is related to another novel Halter, The Madman's Room at which is just a glass full of water. This is another characteristic of the novels of Halter: being coupled two by two on the basis of specific clues.

Halter proposes two solutions: the first is given by Hurst who accuse a false killer, the second by Twist who instead identifies the murderer. But it should be said at once, Hurst identifies already half solution: he understands how the door could have been made ​​up to look like closed, but it was not entirely. In this case, the link is to The Hangman's Handyman by Hake Talbot: it is evident that he must have had considerable influence on Halter as many ideas of the original novel can be found not only in the novel that I'm analyzing but also in others, such as The Madman's Room. The difference between the two solutions is given by the name of killer, substantially; in addition to the solution given by Hurst, Twist will explain other things, including, for example, where the corpse of his brother might have been concealed without the stench of decomposition was felt by anyone.

However, the thing that I like most of Halter is its tendency to describe situations or descriptions macabre: the "macabre" which is one of the peculiar characteristics of the French writer, is taken to the extreme in some novels: for example in which there is a lot of “macabre”, The Madman's Room or 139 Steps from Death.

Connected to this trend macabre Halterian narratives, is the last quote I found: the rotting corpse of his twin brother, reminds us again The Hangman's Handyman by Hake Talbot. Not only. There is another quote I do not know whether conscious or unconscious: the corpse hidden and then revealed, here is designed to make impossible the recognition of the corpse. In fact if the corpse is decomposing it will be problematic. In the first novel by Abbott, About the Murder of Geraldine Foster, the corpse is hidden, then later revealed, intact, so that the time of death may be delayed. The effect is the opposite, the medium is the same: the body is concealed, and in both cases the odors are doing their part: in the case of Abbott,  the smell of pine shall turn to the identification of the substance in which it was immersed body, ie the tannic acid; in the case of Halter,  the pungent smell of the paint he has sniffed at certain point in the novel, Twist will understand how and where the body may have been concealed. In both cases the smell of the substance leads to locate the murderer. 

In conclusion, Death Invites You is a good novel, replete with quotations, who has a great atmosphere (Halter is a master of atmosphere, as Carr), and grips the novel from beginning to end.  

Pietro De Palma