Weekly Reader: The Mammoth Book of Roaring Twenties Whodunnits Edited by Mike Ashley; Jazz Age Mysteries Shine In This Colorful Fascinating Anthology

Weekly Reader: The Mammoth Book of Roaring Twenties Whodunnits Edited by Mike Ashley; Jazz Age Mysteries Shine In This Colorful Fascinating Anthology

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

PopSugar Reading Challenge: A book set in the 1920's

Spoilers: The 1920's. The Jazz Age. The Bright Young Things. The Lost Generation. This fascinating wild decade conjurs up images of free spirited flappers, smooth, but violent gangsters, jazz music, Prohibition, the Charleston, and noted celebrities like Calvin Coolidge, Charles Lindbergh, Al Capone, Rudolf Valentino, Babe Ruth, Clara Bow, and Charlie Chaplin. Authors like Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, T.S. Eliot, Langston Hughes, and Dorothy Parker explored new frank ways of writing that captured the violence, sexuality, and free expression this time allowed. The world of murder mysteries also had its big names. British authors, Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, gave the world their genteel cultured sleuths Christie's Miss Jane Marple and Hercule Poirot and Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey. In America, The Black Mask literary magazine made its debut and introduced those hard boiled detective genre authors,  Dashiel Hammett and Raymond Chandler. The 1920's were a fascinating decade and one that demands to be explored. 

The Mammoth Books are a series of anthologies which explored various literary genres. They produced some of the best collections of historical mysteries, featuring mysteries set in different time periods. One of these anthologies explores the 1920's in depth with The Mammoth Book of Roaring Twenties Whodunnits. It is a fascinating collection of short stories featuring some of the most exciting murder mysteries, clever sleuths, and fascinating murderers set in this colorful time.

Among the best stories in this anthology are:

"Timor Mortis" by Annette Meyers

The 1920's saw a resurgence in women's independence. Women were granted the right to vote in 1920 and many young women celebrated their freedom in other ways. Many bobbed their hair, wore short A-line skirts, smoked in public, talked openly about sex, and finally got rid of the restraining corsets. They were able to live independently and earn their own money without worrying about marriage. 

Annette Meyers explores that freedom with her protagonist, Olivia "Oliver" Brown, a poet/private investigator who lives in Greenwich Village, among the other artists, writers, and activists. She lives a colorful life with some eccentric friends so when she encounters death, it is bound not to be in a conventional way. She is recruited to look for a friend's missing cousin at the same time as the local masquerade ball. During the ball, Death makes a guest appearance as one of the party goers is stabbed to death while the party goer is dressed in multi-colored feathers and rides on the back of a white stallion. 

Aside from the unique crime scene, the mystery itself is solid with enough clues to point to an obvious finish. What makes this story, however, is its lead character. Oliver is a free spirited independent woman who has an artistic outlook and a very observant eye. She is the embodiment of the 1920's New Woman who lives for herself and her own goals.

"Someone" by Michael Collins

Underneath all of the glitz and glamor, the 1920's had a dark side. It was the time of Prohibition and the gangsters. While many of them such as Al Capone, Bugsy Siegel, and Meyer Lansky achieved antiheroic status and many thought of them as smooth, charming, goodfellas, in truth they were a violent bloodthirsty bunch. 

Michael Collins explored the past of his regular protagonist, Dan Fortune in this short story. Fortune remembers his father, Casey, a police officer who tried to have an honest career. However, honesty means very little when he makes some dangerous acquaintances such as corrupt New York Mayor, Jimmie Walker, Bobby Astor, the so-called "black sheep" of the wealthy family, and mobsters, Owney Madden and Arnold Rothstein. (Rothstein is particularly infamous for being one of the men who fixed the 1919 World Series by bribing eight players in the Chicago White Sox to throw the series, hence the Black Sox Scandal.) 

Casey Fortune becomes mired in his acquaintances' duplicitous dealings and realizes that he can't keep his head above the crime around him. His allegiances and the brutal crimes in which he witnesses consume him and destroys his family forever.

While technically, there isn't a specific mystery, this story shows how a life of crime can affect a family for generations to come and how Innocents can fall because of the actions of the guilty.

"Thoroughly Modern Millinery" by Marilyn Todd

One of the things that I like the most about The Mammoth Historical Whodunnits is that I discover new authors and characters. Many like Peter Tremayne's Sister Fidelma, Steven Saylor's Gordianus The Finder, and Margaret Frazier's Dame Frevysse have become favorite detectives of mine. Another favorite is Claudia Serferus, the saucy Roman noblewoman/amateur detective of Marilyn Todd's I Claudia mystery series. 

In this story, Todd creates another interesting female detective this time for the Jazz Age: Phyllis "Fizzy" Potter, a freelance magazine illustrator with a sense of justice. While names like Fizzy, Bubbles, Squiffy, and Catspaw suggests a lighthearted P.G. Wodehouse-esque comedy, this story can be as dark and grim as the rest. The plot focuses on blackmail, drug addiction, and the lengths people will go to protect family members and keep secrets. There is also a theme of Abstract Art, the popular art trend in the 1920's which allowed artists to express themselves in more outlandish and emotional ways than the concrete clear examples of the past.

"The Hope of the World" by Mat Coward

The 1920's was also a time of great revolt. After the Russian Revolution began in 1917, many in the United States and Great Britain were terrified that the same thing would happen in their countries. Labor Unions went on strike and many activists embraced Socialistic principles. This is the milieu of the story, " The Hope of the World" by Mat Coward.

This story plays on the familiar mystery trope of the dinner party murder in which a party, usually in Britain, is rudely interrupted by the death of one of its members. Of course, anyone could be a suspect. In this case, most of the party guests are Communists and Socialists. While the constant addresses of "Comrade This" and "Comrade That" can be confusing, the story reveals why many of these people looked to these philosophies. Many were disillusioned after WWI. Others saw income inequality and sought to change it. Others saw better opportunities for women. This was a group that may have had a common goal but were also suspicious and mistrustful and with good reason. They were often held under suspicion by authorities. This revolutionary zeal and mistrust is the perfect brew for violence and sure enough in this story, it happens.

"The Broadcast Murder" by Grenville Robbins

Technology saw a massive upswing in the 1920's. Automobiles became mass produced. While airplanes had been in use since before WWI, Charles Lindbergh's trip across the Atlantic Ocean showed what those flying machines were really capable of. Another popular technological source was the radio.

In Greenville Robbins' "The Broadcast Murder" (one of the few short stories in this anthology that was published in the 1920's), the radio becomes not only a source of news, shows, and music, it is also a source for murder. In a play on the locked room mystery, Charles Tremayne, radio announcer, is murdered live on air in his broadcasting booth with hundreds of listeners hearing his final words. The premise is intriguing as the narrator wades through the potential leads. The solution is also pretty clever as it plays on what people think they hear and don't hear as well as what goes on behind the scenes when the radio is on.

"For The Benefit of Mr. Means" by Christine Matthews

One of the most infamous Hollywood scandals was the 1921 murder of actress, Virginia Rappe. The prime suspect was movie comedian, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. Arbuckle was found not guilty, but the court of public opinion ruined his career forever. 

In this reimagining of Arbuckle's post movie career, he teams up with another scandal maker, Gaston Bullock Means, an author who wrote an expose called The President's Daughter. Arbuckle and Means solve a murder at a party attended by some very familiar faces.

While the mystery is excellent and Means and Arbuckle make a great detective duo redeeming their names in pursuit of justice, the real highlights are the dizzying array of real person cameos. Matthews fills her story with such notables as F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, W.C. Fields, Bing Crosby, and Ramon Navarro. These characters bicker, chatter, and  bounce off each other cleverly and the notable names put Jay Gatsby's parties to shame.

"I'll Never Play Detective Again" by Cornell Woolrich

One of the darkest real life crimes in the 1920's was the murder of 14 year old Bobby Frank by two young men, Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold. What was most disturbing about this case was the motive behind the murder. The two men killed the boy simply to prove that they could do it, to show people that they thought that they were above such concepts as legality and morality.

The Leopold-Loeb Case was certainly the inspiration for this disturbing tale. At an engagement party for his friends, Dick Walsh, a wealthy young New Yorker investigates the death of the bride's kid sister when the girl succumbs to a poisoned flower. Dick finds himself discovering some troubling things about the bride and groom, people he thought that he knew for years.

The resolution is terrifying as Dick is forced to confront someone with a truly evil heart and intent that goes beyond cold blooded murder. The ending to this story makes this not only the most disturbing story in Roaring Twenties Whodunnits, but among the darkest and most disturbing short stories of the entire Mammoth Book Anthologies.