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The Shudders

Page history last edited by PBworks 17 years, 11 months ago

Abbot, Anthony - The Shudders (1943) aka Deadly Secret

 

Abbot's The Shuddersseems more like a horror novel than a mystery book. It has some plot twists, but they are not imaginative enough to make the book fascinate the average mystery fan. The book does show plot complexity. Many of the scenes display considerable mise-en-scène as well. Images of ruination recur throughout the novel, including malaria on a tropical expedition, and a visit to the fleabags of 42nd Street. Most remarkable is the ruined greenhouse at the end of Chapter 3 and in Chapter 4.

 

The Shudders repeats imagery from Abbot's About the Murder of the Circus Queen (1932). There is the death that results from a drop from a high place. There are the explorers who travel in the tropics, looking for rare chemical knowledge: here it is New Guinea, in Circus, Equatorial Africa. Both encounter an extremely colorful group of aboriginal people: the Dyaks in Shudders, the Ubangi in Circus. Both books deal with the possibility of killing someone at a distance, without leaving any traces. Both contain home movies, that are projected in a private dwelling. Both have scenes of men dressed up in white tie and tails. Both open on a rainy night of Friday the Thirteenth, and both contain much horror imagery. Both describe Colt's army of police recurring characters in detail, making them part of the plot. These recurring police characters are part of the Van Dine tradition. Both contain life histories of the suspects, exploring their professional and romantic lives in great detail. Both have a background of the chemical industry. Both contain references to Germany's involvement with the same. Both contain an apartment, which people enter and leave through a high window. Both contain a romantic triangle of sorts, with a younger couple, and an older man of considerable wealth, and dubious morals. Images of death are often linked to those of rebirth, both in the body in the trunk in the opening of Chapter 10 of Circus, and in the solution of Shudders. Many of the male characters seem to be in trouble in Abbot's books; this emotional mood probably subconsciously reflects the real life general vulnerability of men during the Depression, who were often unemployed and lacking in prospects.

 

One villain in The Shudders is a Uriah Heep type. He worms his way into a position as confidential secretary to a millionaire banker, takes over his life, and promptly murders him for his money. Although the author does not point this out, this seems to exaggerate and parody the relationship between Thatcher Colt and his secretary, the Watson-like narrator of the Colt novels. The narrator is a born number two, who owes his entire existence to being Colt's secretary.

 

Why does Abbot include scenes of home movies in his books? This is hard to say. He is certainly not sneaking clues into the stories with them, as John Dickson Carr would be. One reason is that Abbot is a writer interested in high technology and scientific detection, and during the 1930's such movies partook of high tech. Also, it allows him to show highlights of his characters' past lives, always an Abbot interest. Most importantly, however, is the structural role these scenes play in Abbot's architecture. Abbot's books are marked off into distinct episodes, like movements in a piece of classical music. Introducing an episode narrated in a distinct fashion, through film, allows Abbot to build a fence around one part of the narrative. Each episode plays its own unique role in the design of the book. They add to the beauty of the overall pattern. Similarly, in Circus, there is a stretch in Chapter 16 in which Colt reports on the results of his officer Inspector Flynn's investigations into the characters' backgrounds. This forms a deeply satisfying extension of the book's plot to date, offering a formal conclusion to several plot threads in the book. Its position in the story seems like a sort of coda in music, or other part of a formal pattern.

 

Mike Grost

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