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Banner Deadlines

Page history last edited by Pietro De Palma 7 years, 6 months ago

Commings, Joseph - Banner Deadlines (2004)

 

BANNER DEADLINES (2004) is a fine collection of impossible crime short stories by one of the largely neglected masters of the form. The back cover blurb explains further:

 

“Joseph Commings (1913-1992) created one of the greatest investigators of locked rooms, impossible disappearances and other impossible crimes--the gargantuan, harrumphing Senator Brooks U. Banner. During his long career (Banner first appeared in the pulps in 1947), he investigated such crimes as murder at a seance where everyone is straight-jacketed together and linked by touching feet, a strange spectre causing death in the middle of a lake, a killing in a sealed glass case, and a murder by a sword which must have been wielded by a giant. The most extraordinary story of all is ‘The X Street Murders,’ in which the victim is shot in a guarded room and the smoking-gun is delivered, a few seconds later, in a sealed envelope next door.

 

“This first collection of Senator Banner stories contains 14 cases solved by the buffalo-sized sleuth, including one co-written with Edward D. Hoch and another published for the first time.

 

BANNER DEADLINES is the 12th in the Crippen & Landru ‘Lost Classics’ series. The collection is edited by locked-room expert Robert Adey and includes a memoir of Joseph Commings by Edward D. Hoch.”

 

The bibliography lists thirty-two stories featuring B.U.B., so fewer than half are here (14/32 = 43.8 percent). One hopes that Crippen & Landru can get more published in the future.

 

This book lists for $19.00, and is well worth it.

 

(An aside here about character credibility: In the days before ubiquitous television coverage, it seems possible that a person with Banner’s eccentricities of speech, dress, and behavior--he does seem to spend an inordinate amount of time in pool halls handily defeating his opponents rather than accomplishing the nation’s business--might indeed have enjoyed a long political career; but, then again, we are talking New York, right?)

 

 

**********************************************

BANNER DEADLINES: THE IMPOSSIBLE FILES OF

SENATOR BROOKS U. BANNER (2004)

by Joseph Commings (1913-1992)

Edited and Introduced by Robert Adey (born 1941)

Memoir by Edward D. Hoch (born 1930)

Crippen & Landru: The Lost Classics Series

Short Story Collection: 14 Stories

Trade Paperback

226 pages

 

CONTENTS:

 

--Introduction: “The Writing Career of Joseph Commings” by Robert Adey (5 pages):

 

--“In the early Banner adventures the cases brought to him, or over which he often seemed to stumble with an almost audible crash, were of the classic impossible crime variety, stuffed to the gills with locked room lore and traditional golden age ambience.” (pages 7-8)

 

--Commings’s “middle period stories contain puzzles which are just as ingenious as those Joe wrote for the pulps, and Banner is as keen in the chase and as stunning in his solutions as ever he’d been.” (page 9)

 

--“If your tastes in detective fiction run to ingenious puzzles, locked room murders and atmospheric settings, then look no further. Allow us the pleasure of introducing a writer (one of the very few) whose flair and inventiveness in the construction of impossible crime problems place him fairly and squarely alongside those Golden Age maestros John Dickson Carr, Clayton Rawson and Hake Talbot, and a detective who, by virtue of his personality, eccentricity and ingenuity, stands comparison with Dr. Fell, Sir Henry Merrivale and the Great Merlini.” (page 11)

 

--“Detective Who’s Who: Senator Brooks U. Banner” (1 page)

 

1. “Murder Under Glass” (1947)

 

“‘I suppose you’ll tell me that you know a way that a murderer can go through solid glass without leaving a scratch on it.’

“‘I’m working on it,’ said Banner.” (page 19)

 

“I’m looking for something I don’t expect to find.” (page 21)

 

Comment: A rich man is murdered in a locked room made of glass (yes, you read that correctly); characters speak in forties-style slang; the story is flecked with many short but effective descriptive passages that limn the characters’ personalities.

 

2. “Fingerprint Ghost” (1947)

 

“But this murder has you outclassed. True, you’ve solved some unholy terrors in your day, but the solution of this one is for the occult.” (page 26)

 

“Mebbe something backfired and the ghost did it.” (page 32)

 

“You fainted. Nowadays gals don’t faint unless they’re gonna have babies. Nothing scares ‘em.” (page 35)

 

“If you wanna solve these murders, Archie, you gotta grab every opportunity.” (page 38)

 

Comment: Murder right in the middle of a seance; without wearing gloves, the killer uses the same knife that killed someone else and leaves no fingerprints; like “Murder Under Glass,” the motive for the second murder is deeply embedded in the first crime.

 

3. “The Spectre on the Lake” (1947)

 

“He had old-fashioned ideas about marriage, and today’s young marrieds had him up a tree.” (page 40)

 

“The way you tell it a phantom killer with a phantom gun crossed all that water without making a splash, got into the boat, shot both men dead, then went off the same way it came.” (page 43)

 

“You’ll be telling me next that a loaded pistol can float!” (page 45)

 

Comment: Banner is an eyewitness to murder, but even he can’t positively identify the killer--and where did the weapon go? Perception--and the speed of sound--are everything.

 

4. “The Black Friar Murders” (1948)

 

“....Are you still dabbling in the old gore? You know--detecting?"

“Detecting! Betcher bootees I am! Why, they use me for transfusions to bloodhounds.” (page 49)

 

“In that getup he looked like a low-budget movie director’s dream of the perfect sleuth.” (page 51)

 

“As a one-time front man for a carnival ghost-show, he thought he was well equipped to expose any mumbo jumbo. He went to work on the haunted cell.” (page 58)

 

“As a general rule, wimmin ain’t the stabbing kind; they prefer poison and other mild things that corrode a fella’s carcass by small degrees. That’s why we call ‘em the gentler sex.” (page 61)

 

Comment: Banner gets invited to Thanksgiving dinner and is embroiled in a double murder; quite atmospheric, and the story moves at a good clip.

 

5. “Ghost in the Gallery” (1949)

 

“The wild wind in the trees seemed to shout and to try to tell her things to warn her.” (page 67)

 

“He knew that to her he looked like a slovenly archangel who enjoyed consorting with blackguards....His string tie looked greasy, as if it had trailed in his soup. And it had.” (page 71)

 

“....Seeing the hanging corpse, Coyne crossed himself religiously and exclaimed, ‘ ‘Tis the divvil hisself!’

“Banner scowled. ‘No. Just a poor sap with buck teeth.’” (page 77)

 

Comment: How do you kill Satan? Asians devised a method long ago, and it’s employed here; Banner’s solution is, well, elementary: “Every schoolboy knows that the angle of reflection is equal to the angle of incidence.” (page 77)

 

6. “Death by Black Magic” (1948)

 

“Banner picked his teeth with his raccoon-bone toothpick. ‘Abracadabra is my meat.’” (page 85)

 

“‘He was strangled,’ repeated Banner grimly. ‘While I sat there watching....’” (page 85)

 

“Banner raised his eyes. A yellow human skull with a jagged crack in its cranium leered at him over the footlights from in front of the cabinet.

“‘Lawsy!’ he bellowed. ‘How’d that come there?’” (page 88)

 

Comment: Murder in a haunted theatre, but the “ghost” is real enough; this is a clever re-working of OTHELLO, right down to the motives; call it a “locked-theatre problem.”

 

7. “Murderer’s Progress” (1960)

 

“....Every human being is a potential murderer, but we’ll safeguard ourselves by committing murder on paper only.” (page 94)

 

“....Still wearing his loose raglan, the fat man was lying spread-eagled on the rug. His soft grey hat had rolled a few feet away. He was dead; shot between the eyes.

“‘Looks like somebody’s playing for keeps,’ said Banner.” (page 99)

 

“‘The bullet found in Wheaton’s head was fired from the gun....left behind at the club. Then Wheaton was murdered with the gun while it was in my pocket!’

“Lutz said wryly: ‘Have you got an aspirin?’” (page 100)

 

“....’It is possible there have been two murders. But what does that make the murderer?’

“‘One of the cleverest I’ve ever been up against,’ said Banner." (page 103)

 

Comment: A game that goes fatally wrong, but Banner is up to the task; envy and chess do not mix; as usual with Commings, two murders intertwine.

 

8. “Castanets, Canaries and Murder” (1962)

 

“Banner chuckled. ‘Smitty, you’re in the clutches of a female devil-fish. What interests me most about those poisoned canaries is the reason WHY they were killed.’” (page 107)

 

“....’She’s got a whole arsenal of dirks, poniards, stilletos, creeses, and machetes in her apartment. She admits this’s from her collection.’

“‘Isn’t she the sweet helpless li’l thing!’ said Banner with sarcasm.” (page 112)

 

“....Not as much as a fly could have crawled across that space without being seen! How did a normal-sized murderer do it?” (page 114)

 

“‘So we can believe what we’ve seen?’

“‘Pictures don’t lie,’ grinned the technician.” (page 115)

 

Comment: The Invisible Man commits a murder, and dead canaries, a volatile movie star, carrier pigeons, and a lens all figure in it; Banner’s simple technical solution reveals hidden motives.

 

9. “The X Street Murders” (1962)

 

“Gosling, a heavy-featured man with limp blond hair, was tilted sideways in his desk chair. Blood stained his white shirt front; Odell stared at the three bullet holes under the left lapel of the grey business suit....(he) tore the envelope wide open and out of it onto the desktop spilled a freshly fired automatic pistol.” (page 120)

 

“McKitrick sighed. ‘Times are getting brutal for us investigators when all a murderer has to do is send his victim a gun by mail and it does the killing for him.’” (page 127)

 

Comment: International espionage leads to two murders, the first one a marvel of intricacy and timing; an interesting variation on Christie’s “The Dream”; the author expands his catalogue of Banner descriptions, giving him “the physique of a performing bear” (page 120) and comparing Banner to “an overgrown Huck Finn. Physically he was more than one man--he was a gang.” (page 121)

 

10. “Hangman’s House” (1962)

 

“‘If it’s suicide,’ he said, ‘how did he cross thirty feet of floor without leaving any marks in the dust? How did he get the rope tied to that high chandelier when there’s nothing in the house to stand on? And if he jumped from the chandelier, he wouldn’t have been strangled--his neck would have been broken!’

“‘Brother,’ said Banner, scowling, ‘you said a mouthful.’” (page 138)

 

“'You think it can’t be done?' he said.

“'You know how?'

“‘Yass. And who-dun-it.’” (page 142)

 

“‘Swing?’ echoed the sheriff.

“‘As they say,’ said Banner, ‘it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got the swing!’” (page 144)

 

Comment: Death, wearing a mask, vows revenge, and eleven years later exacts it; Banner is trapped with several others, one of them a murderer, who “will never forget the battering rain, the broken Mississippi levee, the thousand dancing candles, and the fifteen feet of rope” (page 133).

 

11. “The Giant’s Sword” (1963)

 

“....How much do you know about art?"

“I can’t draw a cow and put all four legs on it.” (page 146)

 

“Banner understood her. He understood people and he understood murder. Those were tears of frustration and anger. Whatever the reason for her grief, she wasn’t sorry to find Mark dead.” (page 148)

 

“Banner made a wry face....’Y’see what I’m aiming at, doc? It would take a GIANT to PUSH this sword into Mark the way we found it!’” (page 150)

 

Comment: A most unusual murder method; one might say the victim was involved up to the hilt; and who knew that how much mileage a Volkswagen gets could prove so crucial to the solution?

 

12. “Stairway to Nowhere” (1979)

(with Edward D. Hoch)

 

“He came to a dead stop.

“She was not on the stairs!

“She had gone up only six of the twenty-one steps--and yet she was not there!” (page 156)

 

“Banner drew himself up augustly. ‘I dabble in crime.’

“‘You’d better watch out,’ said Jim wryly. ‘Some day the police’ll catch you.’” (page 157)

 

“‘Whuzzat? Oh, you mean a letter laying out in plain sight is overlooked.’ Banner made clucking noises. ‘Nope. I never believed that theory. It’s a lotta bunk. If you’re hunting for a letter, you’ll examine every one you see. As for hidden bodies....’” (page 167)

 

“....No sir! This ain’t the PERILS OF PAULINE!” (page 167)

 

Comment: A young woman disappears, as does a precious stone, and of course the two events dovetail; the crime here is something of a departure for Commings, as is the narrative viewpoint (the point-of-view character is not Banner but a young man emotionally involved with the missing lady; we are privy to his thoughts, not the senator’s).

 

13. “The Vampire in the Iron Mask” (1984)

 

“I am prepared to open a locked door. It appears that a murdering vampire walked right through it.” (page 179)

 

“Seven was thinking that too many locked rooms--or too many aperitifs--had finally made Banner as crazy as a bedbug.” (page 180)

 

“‘Good God!’ groaned Seven. The thought of Banner in the White House jolted him out of his own petty complaints.” (page 184)

 

“It was night.

“A night full of grand-guignolesque revelations, when the unreal became the real, and the real became the unreal.” (page 191)

 

“‘Yass,’ said Banner slowly and carefully. ‘All these child-murders’ve been committed by one and the same person.’” (page 192)

 

“The vampire turned its iron face upon them, but it was too late. The curse no longer worked, the evil spell was broken.” (page 197)

 

“Banner paused....’I’ll confess that this’s the first time I’ve found the solution to a murder by reading it in a magazine. Hah!’” (page 199)

 

Comment: This one, with its sepulchral atmosphere and intricate jiggery-pokery, is ALMOST as good as John Dickson Carr on one of his off days; nevertheless, the plotting is first-rate and the setting, essential to character motivations, is well employed.

 

14. “The Whispering Gallery” (2004)

 

“Banner scoffed. ‘The Great Zeno! Gives himself top billing! He’s the kind of a guy who takes skunks outta his hat instead of rabbits!’” (page 201)

 

“This house is supposed to be haunted. It has twenty rooms. This is the whispering gallery."

“Yeah? What’s it saying?” (page 204)

 

“The weapon wasn’t held in the normal position at all. The guy with the gun must have been nine feet off the floor--and upside-down!” (page 209)

 

“Police headquarters!....Send some boys over to Cagliostro Court to hunt for a man who’s missing in his own house.” (page 210)

 

Comment: When a spiritualist debunker vanishes, a few people hovering around are highly motivated to see him stay vanished; a 3,000-year-old papyrus, a portrait with a bullet hole, a pack of tarot cards, a suave magician, an under-age bride, an albino policeman, and a body frozen in ice all figure in the mix; Banner sorts it all out while practicing his own peculiar brand of magic; BANNER DEADLINES includes “the first publication--ever--of ‘The Whispering Gallery,’ one of only two previously unpublished Banner short stories of impossible crime” (page 11).

 

--Bibliography: “The Senator Brooks U. Banner Stories” (2 pages)

 

--“Joe Commings: A Memoir” by Edward D. Hoch (2 pages)

 

--List of Crippen & Landru Lost Classics (2 pages)

 

***********

--Michael

 

See also : http://deathcanread.blogspot.it/2016/09/joseph-commings-ghost-in-gallery-1949.html 

 

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