The Bat

The Bat
by Mary Roberts Rinehart
Rating: ★★★
isbn: Dell #0465
Publication Date: August 23, 1969
Pages: 224
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Dell

For months, the city has lived in fear of the Bat. A master criminal hindered by neither scruple nor fear, he has stolen over one million dollars and left at least six men dead. The police are helpless, the newspapers know nothing—even the key figures of the city's underworld have no clue as to the identity of the Bat. He is a living embodiment of death itself, and he is coming to the countryside. There, he will encounter the only person who can stop him: adventurous sixty-five-year-old spinster Cornelia Van Gorder. Last in a long line of New York society royalty, Cornelia has found old age to be a bore, and is hungry for a bit of adventure. She's going to find it—in a lonely old country house where every shadow could be the Bat.

Way back when I read The Circular Staircase, people told me about The Bat; that it was a re-novelisation of a play based on The Circular Staircase and widely considered to be an improvement on the original. So, I bought a copy of The Bat when I found one.

Alas, this was not, in my opinion, an improvement on the original. It was definitely funny – it seemed to go for the outright humor, playing to the audience for laughs. The blatant switch of targets for the racism was incredibly disappointing, although the dichotomy of respect and thoughtless remarks remains the same as the original. There was an added bonus of outright misogyny here too that irritated me to no end; and I really wanted to drown Dale for being so weak and vapid.

I don’t know if it’s because I read TCS, or because The Bat was simplified for stage production, but the plot failed to please me as much as the original – it’s a bare bones version of the one that gave me such welcome surprises in TCS.

All in all in was a fun read but not at all as good as the original in my opinion.

I read this for the Gothic square on my Halloween Bingo 2022 card and as a buddy read with Moonlight Reader, Peregrinations, and BrokenTune.

Northanger Abbey

Northanger Abbey
by Jane Austen
Rating: ★★★
Publication Date: January 1, 1975
Pages: 222
Genre: Fiction, Literature
Publisher: Folio Society

During an eventful season at Bath, young, naove Catherine Morland experiences fashionable society for the first time. She is delighted with her new acquaintances: flirtatious Isabella, who introduces Catherine to the joys of Gothic romances, and sophisticated Henry and Eleanor Tilney, who invite her to their father's house, Northanger Abbey. There, influenced by novels of horror and intrigue, Catherine comes to imagine terrible crimes committed by General Tilney, risking the loss of Henry's affection, and must learn the difference between fiction and reality, false friends and true. With its broad comedy and irrepressible heroine, Northanger Abbey is the most youthful and optimistic of Jane Austen's work.

My thoughts about this book are about as uneven as the book’s narrative, but I’m … 90% sure I like this one even less than I like Emma.

This re-reading was done in parallel to Robert Rodi’s analysis of the same in his book Bitch in a Bonnet, in the hopes that he could show me this book from a more appealing direction. He didn’t, but that’s because he doesn’t think much of this book as a whole either.

As a story, there’s no there there in Northanger Abbey, and our ‘heroine’ Catherine is naive to the point of imbecility. The hero is an ass, charming and witty though he may be, and even Austen knew it:

…I must confess that his affection originated in nothing better than gratitude, or, in other words, that a persuasion of her partiality for him had been the only cause of giving her a serious thought. It is a new circumstance in romance, I acknowledge, and dreadfully derogatory of an heroine’s dignity; but if it be as new in common life, the credit of a wild imagination will at least be all my own.

The narrative structure is meandering, at best.

But the satire is delicious and I lived for the moments, like in the above quote, that Austen breaks the fourth wall and talks to the reader as herself. Because this book was originally written and completed before all her other books (but published posthumously), her humor is much more in-line with her juvenile works. In other words, her wit is rawly scathing, and lacks the subtleties she developed in her adult works. When she has a go at someone, you know it. It’s a lot of fun.

I’m definitely not sorry I re-read it; Austen’s worst is still miles better than almost everybody else’s best. But I can now confidently put Northanger Abbey and Emma at the end of the shelf, and save my indulgent re-reads for the other 4 novels.

The Red Lamp

The Red Lamp
by Mary Roberts Rinehart
Rating: ★★★★½
Publication Date: June 18, 2019
Pages: 289
Genre: Mystery
Publisher: Penzler Publishing

William Porter has just inherited Twin Hollows, an isolated lakeside estate shrouded in mystery and doom. But William and his wife aren't easily swayed by ghost stories and whispered rumors. Until a shadowy apparition beckons to them from the undying glow of a red lamp. Is a stranger with a deadly purpose trying to frighten them away? Or are they being haunted by a chilling warning from the grave?

I knew this was a ghost story, of sorts, so I started it bright and early yesterday morning, and became so engrossed in the story that I almost, almost, finished it last night. leaving nothing but 3 of the last 4 conclusion chapters for me to read today.

Mary Roberts Rinehart was an excellent writer; that her genius has been so far forgotten today is a tragedy. The Red Lamp was originally written in 1925, and putting aside the lack of technology and the beautifully elegant writing that today might be considered a tad verbose, the story holds up perfectly; it would take very little to make this story ‘modern’.

The Red Lamp is complex to the point of labyrinthine though. Like the main character, I stumbled through the story in ignorance. Some of this was by design, as the mc is meant to be a spectator not an active participant in solving the crimes, but some of it was because there was just so much going on and that beautifully elegant writing of Rinehart’s made for easy camouflage of any clues.

The book is, with the exception of the introductory and final 4 chapters, purely epistemological, with no chapters, just journal entries. This style doesn’t always lend itself to a submersive experience for the reader, but these journal entries are detailed enough that it makes almost no difference from a first person narrative.

The ghostly part of the story, in spite of the enormous potential for scarring the spit out of me, were subdued enough that they never raised so much as a hair. This was a wee bit disappointing, I admit, but it didn’t adversely affect the story; they were never the point of the book, it was always about the mysterious killings and there was never doubt that those killings were done by a very corporeal being.

All in all, this was an excellent mystery. I’d recommend this to anyone curious about Golden Age Mysteries who might be hesitant fearing dry or dated story-telling. While not perfect, The Red Lamp is most assuredly neither dry nor dated.

I read this for the Gothic square on my Halloween Bingo 2020 card.

Window on the Square

Window on the Square
by Phyllis A. Whitney
Rating: ★★★★½
Publication Date: January 1, 1962
Pages: 297
Genre: Fiction, Mystery, Romance, Suspense
Publisher: Appleton-Century-Crofts

This was one of the first ‘adult’ books I’d ever read, one of my mothers favorites. I love the story, even though it’s not my usual fare.

Ms. Whitney does a brilliant job of writing characters that come alive – from the prim and proper Megan, to the mercurial Brandon, and the dark and forbidding Garth. I’ve read this story again and again over the years, wearing out the paperback until it is in pieces and held together with a rubber band. I upgraded to the hardcover version so I can keep on re-reading this book – it stands up very well over time.

If you like a ‘dark’ (kind of gothic) cozy, I think you’ll enjoy reading this oldie but goodie.