Murder in the madhouse

This 1935 mystery is apparently supposed to be funny, in the manner that most of Craig Rice's novels were funny. It isn't. Characters we are apparently supposed to laugh at aren't funny, they're just stereotypes with no good lines. There's no witty repartee here, to speak of, just attempts that mostly or totally fail. The underlying plot of a detective being sent into a madhouse as a patient to find out what happened to a woman patient's strongbox with $400,000 worth of bonds, is just find, but the execution is just awful. The detective, Bill Crane, is by far the weakest point of the book. As part of his rationale for being at the madhouse, he claims he is Auguste Dupin, Poe's famous detective. But he acts nothing like Dupin except for show more a few Dupin-like (and Sherlock Holmes-like) observations he makes. The rest of the time he is just complaining about his assignment or drinking apple jack. And the drinking in this book isn't particularly entertaining as it is in Rice's books or other better writers of the era. Previously, I had only read Latimer's Solomon's Vineyard, which is pretty good. But this book, which somehow is the first in a series, is simply not worth reading. The case is wrapped up (and we knew where the strongbox was for a LONG time because it was so clearly telegraphed), but there's not much pleasure there. I can only hope the remaining books in the series are improvements, but I'm not sure I will ever want to spend time with Bill Crane again. show less

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