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Strawstack

Page history last edited by Jon 12 years, 5 months ago

Disney, Dorothy Cameron -  Strawstack aka The Strawstack Murders (1938-1939) 

 

Disney's Strawstacks (known in paperback as The Strawstack Murders) (1938 - 1939) seems to be less a member of the HIBK school per se, and more like a direct imitation of Rinehart herself.

 

  • It takes place at an isolated country mansion presided over by a middle aged spinster narrator, just like Rinehart's The Circular Staircase.
  • Many of the events take place at night, and involve someone trying to penetrate the house, also as in Rinehart's novel.
  • Other similarities to The Circular Staircase: the family from whom the heroine recently obtained the house also plays a role in the book, and the heroine's young independent minded niece is hiding mysterious secrets, adding complexity and romance to the plot.
  • The novel also recalls many of Rinehart's later books, in that many members of the family seem to be concealing secrets, and that sinister plots seem to be afoot. These plots are long term conspiracies of the characters, that start before the murders, lead to all sorts of mysterious events, and persist throughout the whole murder investigation.
  • Disney's novel is full of domestic detail, describing household routines in the kitchen and home repair. This detail is integrated as much as possible into the detective plot. This is part of the Rinehart tradition: see The Album (1933), for instance.
  • Also Rinehart like are the presence of doctor and nurse characters, and some medical background.
  • The friendly relation that builds up between the narrator and the police inspector also seems Rinehart like.

 

It seems to me that Rinehart fans should enjoy this well done work of a Rinehart student.

 

Mystery Technique

 

Disney's storytelling is vigorous throughout. Each chapter leads to some new, interesting plot revelation. The murders in the book are related to such fundamental elements as fire and water. Disney uses a variety of techniques to keep her plot moving. There are a large number of subsidiary mysteries. These are small, individual mysteries - why did someone withdraw money from a bank, what happened to the garden shears - that eventually get worked up into larger patterns in the book, and get solved. Such subsidiary mysteries are a Golden Age staple, one that delights the reader. The narrator sometimes sums these up in lists, a technique labeled by Carolyn Wells as tabulation.

 

Another technique in the book is that a sequence of events that looked one way to the reader, and to the narrator, at the time they were happening, eventually get a different interpretation. Both this approach, and the subsidiary mysteries, take considerable ingenuity.

 

Unlike Rinehart, Strawstacks does not include maps or floor plans. While the action corresponds to carefully thought through time tables, there are no Rinehart style movements through space. The house as a whole is of less interest to Disney than to Rinehart. Instead, Disney concentrates on describing bedrooms. These include the narrator's room, and the personal quarters of the three murder victims. Much of the novel's action actually takes place in these four rooms. Anxiety about one's home base is a key motif of the novel; the book starts out with the narrator trying to build a home for herself and her family, and the killer's motive turns out to be an attempt to preserve the killer's home. Several other key events in the book relate to preserving a home or family, or people obtaining entrance to a household.

 

Mike Grost

 

See also: http://moonlight-detective.blogspot.com/2011/10/will-o-wisp.html

 

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