Le Cafe Singe Bleu Serving generous portions of history and mystery from our monthly menu Volume 1, Issue 2: February 1, 2003

BOOK REVIEWS

Charlie Chan in The Pawns of Death Bill Pronzini 1974 Detective: Charlie Chan Location: Paris, France Time: Indeterminate Should you read this book? Oui, once your local library acquires it.

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Reviewed by Dot Emm The Characters Character Role Claude DeBevre Prefect of Parisian police, and a friend of Chan's Lord Roger Mountbatten A craggy, outspoken Englishman of middle-age. The reigning Transcontintal Chess Champion Grant Powell An unorthodox and equally outspoken American, who was half Mountbatten's age and whose rise in the chess world had been meteoric. Laura Powell Grant's wife, she wishes he wouldn't make so many scenes. Raymond Balfour American, Grant Powell's friend and adviser Clive Kittredge Roger Mountbatten's wealthy backer Jennifer Kittredge Clive's only daughter Tony Sprague Reporter, he scents a story Melvin Randolph A chess player, Pwell had defeated him for the right to meet Mountbatten Hans Dorner the Swiss referree Opening lines Charlie Chan and Prefect Claude DeBevre returned to the Hotel Frontenac from their sightseeing tour of Paris late in the afternoon. They were pleasantly tired and in high spirits, for they had visited the Eiffel Tower, Sacre Coeur, Napoleon's Tomb, Les Invalides and that compelling mosaic of great art, the Louvre. The quaintness, the color, the contrasts, the great ambiance of Paris had touched Chan deeply; and DeBevre had enjoyed revisiting the attractions of his city as much as his guest. The portly detective was in the French capital on a rare pleasure trip, having been one of those privileged individuals personally invited to attend the Transcontinental Chess Tournament. His interest in, and love of, the intricate game was well known throughout the chess world; and yet, typically, he was both surprised and honored to receive the invitation. Chan had not had a vacation in some time, and since he was not involved in a case, he was delighted to accept. Through Prefect DeBevre, whom he had met during a crime conference in San Francisco, he had made reservations weeks earlier at the Frontenac - he was, in fact, quartered on the same floor as the contenders for the chess championship, Lord Roger Mountbatten and Grant Powell and their parties, though not by any personal choice. Dennis Lynds, in his novel and novella about Charlie Chan, doesn't really seem to know anything about the character except that he spoke in stilted English, used aphorisms, and was fat. He provides Chan in both cases with a bird cage containing two Peking nightingales, and endows him with a knowledge of Tai Chi Ch'uan. Bill Pronzini, on the other hand, author of the final Charlie Chan novella in the short-lived Charlie Chan's Mystery Magazine which ended publication in 1974, seems to have at least read The House Without A Key, for he knows of Chan's love of chess. (Chan is playing chess with his eldest son, Henry, when John Quincy Winterslip pays a visit to his humble house on Punchbowl Hill). And so his setting for The Pawns of Death is at the Hotel Frontenac, in Paris, France, where is taking place the Transcontinental Chess Tournament Championship between Lord Roger Mountbatten and Grant Powell. All is not well there. (In scenes reminiscent of the Bobby Fischer/Boris Spassky clashes). The English camp accuses the Americans of cheating, and American Grant Powell is the most arrogant chess grandmaster in his age group. But when murder occurs, it is not one of the two chessplayers who meet their end, but Raymond Balfour. And he is killed, shot to death, in a locked room! Fans of locked room mysteries will enjoy this puzzle. As will fans of the game of chess, if they can suspend their disbelief long enough (when grandmasters play a chess tournament they are surrounded by 'seconds' who assist them in analyzing every move, and usually a chess match of this kind would have at least one Russian opponent.) This is an intellectual puzzle, and there are no really sympathetic characters to engage one's interest. One reads merely to see how Charlie Chan solves the crime. It's a novella, with a fixed number of pages, and rather rushed, with no character development. Of its writing style alone, one almost prefers Dennis Lynds...There are few aphorisms, and Chan speaks better English than he's spoken in a long while, which is explained in Pronzini's introduction to this work. In 1974, Charlie Chan's Detective Magazine had a brief run of four issues. For each issue a Chan novella was written under the house pseudonym Robert Hart Davis. The first, Walk Softly, Strangler, and the second, The Silent Corpse have et to be reprinted. The third, Charlie Chan and the Golden Horde will be published in hardback by Wildside Press in March, 2003. Michael Collins (aka Dennis Lynds) is the author. The final story was The Pawns of Death. It's a pity that authors Lynds and Pronzini could not have been prevailed upon to expand these works into 'real' novels, for page counts of 123 and 108 hardly justify the price tage of $29.95. In fact, it's a pity that Wildside Press didn't just issue the four novellas themselves in an oversized omnibus edition, to give the public its money's worth. The books are worth reading, but let the buying be done by your local library. Read A Proverb For Every Occasion Visit Charlie Chan's Hawaii This review uploaded January 25, 2003.

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